“These are the statutes and rules that you shall be careful to do in the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth.”

“You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree.”

“You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way.” (Deuteronomy 12:1-4)

Ah, But These New Gnostics Of The Emerging Church  Know Better Than The Lord

Unfortunately the spiritually obtuse seem to think the sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church is dead. However, what Apprising Ministries has been documenting for you is we’re now witnessing an upgrade to the Emerging Church 2.0, which claims its “big tent” Progressive Christianity aka Emergence Christianity is the historic Gospel of Jesus Christ bringing His kingdom to the earth now. This becomes possible when we consider that the flawed philosophy of postmodernism is known for paradoxes and its irrational philosophy.

So essentially we end up in a whacked Wonderland of Humpty Dumpty language, which is why corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) is so appealing to these neo-Gnostics in the Emerging Church. Since I covered these subjects in more depth elsewhere, e.g. in Mysticism And Postmodernism, The Emerging Church, And Evangelicalism, here I’ll just remind you that mysticism is perfectly suited to the philosophy of postmoderism that now dominates much of this caprious culture in which we find ourselves.

You see, as with neo-orthodoxy ala Karl Barth, postmodernism is “anti-logical” and “embraces Paradox”[1] while its deconstructionists viciously attack rational thought with what’s commonly known as irrational philosophy:

Irrational philosophies accordingly stress the will at the expense of reason, as exemplified in the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre or Karl Jaspers. (Online source)

Roughly put, its influence upon our culture is why you’ll so often hear people say things like: “With all my heart I feel that’s a good thing”; in other words, truth is being decided by how someone feels as opposed to what is objectively known. Dr. Gene Veith, Culture Editor of World Magazine and former Associate Professor of English at Concordia University-Wisconsin, tells us that this all results in “postmodernism assum[ing] that there is no objective truth, that moral values are relative, and that reality is socially constructed” by various “communities.” Veith then explains:

Whereas modernism sought to rid the world of religion, postmodernism spawns new ones. Unconstrained by objectivity, tradition, reason, or morality, these new faiths differ radically from Christianity. They draw on strains of the most ancient and primitive paganism. Even the deconstructionists speak in mystical terms…

The deconstructionists dissolve every positive statement, every rational argument, every truth claim—destroying form, they say, so as to open up what lies beyond the possibilities of representation… The inadequacies of language will be left behind,… Postmodernism, in its rejection of objective truth, have clear affinities with Hinduism and Buddhism, which teach that the external world is only an illusion spun by the human mind.[2]

This is all also consistent with the Gnosticism being battled by the Apostles themselves in the New Testament, which is why I’ve labeled people like Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster neo-Gnostics, along with his spiritual twin and Southern Baptist minister Dallas Willard—as well as those who follow these deceivers like EC guru Brian McLaren and EC rock star pastor Rob Bell. It’s important for you to realize such as these are supposedly the “initiated” and “enlightened” ones who’re just a little bit better than the average Christian because of their practicing so-called spiritual disciplines of spurious CSM under the guise of Spiritual Formation. The most important of which would be the practice of Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP) while in an altered state of consciousness, i.e. transcendental meditation-lite; and this they have in common with these other religons.

Meditation In Altered States Of Consciousness As Transformation For A Global Family

I’ve told you before that these neo-Gnostics are pushing their TM-lite CCP because they know that there’s a “transformation” which occurs after its prolonged practice. Two years ago I began warning you about letting the warped and toxic teachings of these people into your Young Adult and Youth ministries, but now this has slithered right into mainstream evangelicalism, which is why more and more Protestants now consider apostate Roman Catholicism as a viable form of Christianity. A perfect example of this compromise is Peter Scazzero Recommending Contemplative/Centering Prayer and his sending his followers via Twitter the link to Contemplative Outreach which has Living Spiritual Teacher and apostate Roman Catholic monk Thomas Keating as its cofounder and spiritual guide.

Keating is a superstar teacher in the world of CCP and as hardcore a contemplative as they come; for Peter Scazzero, who is partnered with Willow Creek Association (WCA) and has been promoted by Purpose Driven Pope Rick Warren as well, to send his followers to an apostate Roman Catholic mystic should immediately arrest your attention. Scazzero’s shtick is Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, an organization used by WCA and Warren to have Scazzero teach evangelical pastors his psycho-babble version of CSM; in other words, he is infecting churches from the top down. CSM negates sola Scriptura in favor of squishy subjective experiences, when married to centered on the self postmodernism and then injected into evangelicalism you have the recipe for spiritual disaster.

This is how the genuine Gospel of repentance and forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ Name has been replaced by the man-centered gospel of the changed life in order to make this world a better place for all.[5] Now I’ll show you what the goal of CSM is, which will explain to you why you hear s much rhetoric about our supposed need to “awaken” and be “transformed.” I first covered this a couple of years ago in Thomas Keating On Contemplative/Centering Prayer;  in his teachings guru Keating tells us openly this CCP, the crown jewel of CSM:

is a process of inner transformation, a conversation initiated by God and leading, if we consent, to divine union. One’s way of seeing reality changes in the process. A restructuring of consciousness takes place which empowers one to perceive, relate and respond with increasing sensitivity to the divine presence in, through, and beyond everything that exists.[3]

By definition CCP, a form of transcendental meditation, absolutely does involve us in some kind of a “transcending” or i.e. an alleged awakening ; a going beyond perceived reality. This is unquestionably an altered state of consciousness and is itself quite close to Gnosticism; where the material world—the physical—is thought to be illusionary. And no matter how hard Keating, or any other Emergingurch leader, tries to verbally tap-dance this away, what this superstar level teacher of CCP has just described is, indeed, a form of transcendental meditation. But what these so-called Christian mystics will then try and do is to convince us that this “inner transformation,” which is actually quite real, is somehow Christian because it supposedly has a different focus (or intent) than that of the type of meditation we find in Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, or Sufi Islam.

However, if there are in fact “changes” in someone’s acuity, then this type of meditation has indeed caused them to “transcend” their prior perception of reality; as CCP guru Keating has just explained, in contemplative spirituality there is a “restructuring of consciousness [which] takes place.” In closing this, for now I’ll show you what the deceiving/seducing spirits behind this are aiming these men at; study this out for yourself and you will quickly see that the gurus of mediation in altered states of consciousness personally believe if more people practiced transcendental meditation this resultant “inner transformation,” would then lead to a Global Family and world peace. In fact Keating’s late friend, supposed Spiritual Master, M. Basil Pennington has written:

In the course of the years, sitting in silent prayer, beyond where words can interfere, men and women of many diverse traditions have come together. In that deeper place a oneness is experienced that gives assurance and heart to our feeble ecumenical efforts and interreligious dialogues. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has said that if one percent of the people would meditate we will have peace. Jesus spoke of the leaven that will leaven the whole.[4]

Interesting to note that Pennington manages to get the intent of what Jesus meant when He spoke of the leaven of the teachings of false religious leaders exactly backward; now I’ve told you that the EC is not simply rehashing old liberal theology, this is a new form of liberal/progressive theology—Liberalism 2.0—complete with an upgrade which allows for more of the spiritual dimension than did the old modern form of liberal theology. Essentially this “big tent” Christianity incorporates emergence theory of evolutionary science because many in the EC believe that, right now, mankind is evolving upward into a higher state of consciousness; and in their delusions (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12) these neo-Gnostics feel their contemplative spirituality—and particularly this transcendental meditation for the Christian they call Contemplative/Centering Prayer—plays a huge role in this alleged evolution.

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Endnotes:

[1] Gordon Clark, In Defense of Theology [Milford: Mott Media, 1984], 58, 61.

[2] Gene Veith, Jr., Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture [Wheaton: Crossway, 1994] , 193, 198, 199.

[3] Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart [New York: Continuum, 2006], 4, emphasis mine.

[4] M. Basil Pennington, Thomas Keating, Thomas E. Clarke,  Finding Grace at the Center: The Beginning of Centering Prayer [Woodstock: Skylight Paths Publishing, 2002], 10,11, emphasis mine.

[5] see The Emerging Church: Kingdom Of God Here Now

See also:

CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY/MYSTICISM UNITES THE GLOBAL FAMILY

BRIAN MCLAREN AND THEOSIS

SADDLEBACK CHURCH, RICK WARREN, AND SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES

THE EMERGING CHURCH AND EVOLUTIONARY CHRISTIANITY

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

FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PROFESSOR TONY JONES AND CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY COHORT

SPREAD OF CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY/MYSTICISM: LECTIO DIVINA