And the Lord said to me: “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds.”
(Jeremiah 14:14)

One River That Is God But Many Streams Back To Him?

Tony Jones is one third of the unholy trinity of apostates around the Emerging Church along with Living Spiritual Teacher and EC guru Brian McLaren as well as universalist Doug Pagitt, pastor of Solomon’s Porch where his friend Jones is the progressive “theologian in residence.” In hs 2005 book The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life (SW) wherein he teaches youth pastors and youth ministers about Counter Reformation spirituality i.e. Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism—also called spiritual disciplines— and about how to incorporate them into their “worship.”

As we look in SW, one of the recommended “Christian Spiritual Classics” for further study turns out to be Collected Works by the well known mystic Meister Eckhart. Jones tells us it is “a mystical treatise on the intersection between Greek philosophy and Christian theology with an emphasis on God’s indwelling of humanity[1]. So now we should be able to see that we’re already dealing with anitbiblical teachings because Scripture is crystal clear that one needs to be regenerated in Christ for God to indwell them.

Modern day mystic Matthew Fox discusses Eckhart’s theology indepth within his 1983 book The Coming Of The Cosmic Christ (CoCC). While Fox is definitely a wolf in sheep’ clothing, he is also an authority concerning the New Spirituality. He explains that through mysticism we will supposedly come to understand what it is to “reach what Eckhart calls the ‘great underground river’ of divinity”[2] said to be within each of us. That we are dealing with blatant heresy here is crystal clear because earlier in CoCC Fox himself refers to all of humanity as “other Christs.”[3]

Another time we’ll also be returning to this panentheistic world-view which eventually emerges from all those who practice this neo-Gnostic and Roman Catholic CSM long enough to receive the delusion whereby they plunge into that “great underground river” of deception. But for our purposes in this article I remind you that through e.g. Romans 8:8-11 we know that the Bible teaches us God only indwells the believer, who by His grace, is regenerated and places their personal faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross.

Yet in CoCC Matthew Fox, one who is very well experienced in Contemplative/Centering Prayer–the main vehicle for CCM, a transcendental meditation in an altered state of consciousness for the Christian–explains that the:

first meaning of mysticism is experience itself. As Kabir, the great creation mystic of India, put it in the fifteenth century, “I say only what I have seen with my own eyes–and you keep quoting the Scriptures!” He goes on, “Experience, O seeker, is the essence of all things.” The mystic is keen on the experience of the Divine and will not settle for theory alone or knowing about the Divine.[4]

Now you have just read where all of this CSM of the New Spirituality will always lead one who persists in it; and we’ve seen it in words which are eerily similar to those currently coming from guru McLaren and others among the spiritually corrupt leadership of the sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church aka the Emerging Church with its quasi-universalism in a new version of Progressive Christian theology under their spiritual circus “big tent” Emergence Christianity.

You’ll even hear this mystic-speak coming from people in the EC considered to be “safe” like Rob Bell as well. The following is from his October 2009 sermon I will say it again, and again, and again:

It’s interesting how many traditions (pause) When you read the great enlightened ones; meditation, centering prayer, reflection—in every tradition you can find the mystics—and what’s always at the heart of the spiritual lives, the everyday lives of the great ones was always a period of time.

Whether it’s prayers, chanting, meditation, reflection, study—whatever you call it—what is it essentially; it’s taking time to breathe. Because when you’ve been breathing, (slight pause) in a proper sort of way, you’re far better equipped to handle what life throws your way. (5:41-6:23)

If one doesn’t recognize here that Bell is praising “the mystics” for their supposedly superior spiritual understanding, which is but a reimagined Gnosticism, I personally believe it’s simply because they just do not wish to see. And a classic symptom of the deception one receives as they continue on in this unbiblical practice of meditation in altered states of consciousness is a distorted view of the actual nature of unregenerate mankind.

Then as we recall above how Matthew Fox, one who feels that he has personally reached what mystic Meister Eckhart called “the ‘great underground river’ of divinity” within each of us, now refers to all of humanity as “other Christs”, there comes emerging a very real source of serious concern for the spiritual direction of Foster’s Quaker “Christian” mysticism that long ago penetrated evangelicalism. And this all makes the following information from Ray Yungen in his book A Time of Departing even more startling:

It is not surprising to find those in the contemplative prayer camp who also subscribe to this view. Contemplative author John R. Yungblut, former Dean of Studies at the Quaker Meditation Center at Pendle Hill in Pennsylvania, echoed a similar notion:

But we cannot confine the existence of the divine to this one man [Jesus] among men. Therefore we are not to worship the man Jesus, though we cannot refrain from worshipping the source of this Holy Spirit or Christ-life, which for many of us has been revealed primarily in this historical figure. (114,115, emphasis mine)

Did you catch the denial of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ; this is exactly where the practice of CSM eventually leads everyone who persists in it. Note that even Rob Bell now acknowledges that “mystics” are experiencing God, which is patently false according to the Bible that he’s supposed to be so good at teaching. Jesus Himself tells us:

“You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins… I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 8:23-24;  14:6)

And it should shock you out of your compliant complacency with heresy in the mainstream evangelical community when the words above from more and more of these pretending to be Protestant teachers of CSM now so closely mirror those of Deepak Chopra, one of the leading Gurus of this antichrist New Spirituality, in his piece Why We Need a Jesus:

it occurred to me that Jesus can be taken as a savior without being the savior… What this implies is that there was a third Jesus, a teacher of higher consciousness. He wanted to raise his followers to the same level of God consciousness that he was in… He quotes Psalms 82 to argue that if scripture makes everyone a god, he cannot be blaspheming to make the same claim for himself…

However, your personal vision must come from a deeper value structure — call it myth, archetype, or the wisdom tradition — and Jesus stands as one of the high peaks of that invisible structure. God-consciousness will never perish. Since Jesus once embodied God-consciousness, he is keeping it alive at this moment, offering to teach the way to anyone who wants to find it. (Online source)

You’d best make the time to listen closely because with CSM you’re being sold a new Gnosticism where we go beyond words i.e. Scripture into spiritual deception and the unity of an antichrist Global Family.

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Endnotes:

[1] Tony Jones, The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life [Grand Rapids: Zondervan/Youth Specialties, 2005], 221.

[2] Matthew Fox, The Coming Of The Cosmic Christ [New York: HarperOne], 230.

[3] Ibid., 130.

[4] Ibid., 48, emphasis mine.

[5] Ray Yungen, A Time of Departing [Eureka: Lighthouse Trails Publishing, 2006], 114-115, emphasis mine.

See also:

THROUGH ROB BELL “THE GREAT ENLIGHTENED ONES” TELL US MAN HAS DIVINE GREATNESS

PETER SCAZZERO RECOMMENDING CONTEMPLATIVE/CENTERING PRAYER

FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PROFESSOR TONY JONES AND CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY COHORT

CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY OF RICHARD FOSTER ROOTED IN THE EASTERN DESERT AND THOMAS MERTON

SO YOU WANT TO BE LIKE CHRIST… DITCH THE DISCIPLINES OF DALLAS WILLARD

MOVE OVER PASTORS FOR SPIRITUAL DIRECTORS/GURUS

DONALD WHITNEY AND EVANGELICAL CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY/MYSTICISM