Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. (Galatians 5:1, KJV)

Watching The Leaven of CSM Rise Before Your Eyes

If you don’t think this Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) is a growing menace in the “Protestant” evangelical community then consider SpiritLines Newsletter (SLN), which is written by Wendy Minton Edwards, “Spiritual Formation Coach” from the Office of Prayer for Evangelization & Spiritual Awakening of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (SBC).

Men and women, this is the official SBC state convention of affiliated churches in North Carolina. The Southern Baptist Convention itself is the largest Protestant (well, allegedly anyway) denomination in America. However, this spurious Spiritual Formation straight out of The Cult of Guru Richard Foster and his twisted twin Dallas Willard literally dominates the SLN Archive—for example we have:

• December 2007 Spiritual Formation
• November 2007 Christian Meditation
• September 2007 Spiritual Retreat Part 1
• May 2007 Spiritual Reading
• March 2007 Silence (Online source)

This kind of blether has absolutely nothing to do with the historic orthodox Christian faith; but rather, it has been actually been gleaned from the unbiblical monastic traditions of apostate Roman Catholicism. Yet in the June 2008 SLN issue called THE PRACTICE OF PRAYER, which is actually Part Three of a series continued from the past two months, just about halfway down the page under “The Writers Speak” we read the following from Thomas Merton, unquestionably one of the most highly regarded Golden Buddhas in all of CSM:

It can therefore be said that the aim of mental prayer is to awaken the Holy Spirit within us, and to bring our hearts into harmony with His voice, so that we allow the Holy Spirit to speak and pray within us, and come, as far as possible, conscious of His prayer in our hearts.
Spiritual Direction & Meditation. Thomas Merton. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1960, p. 88. (Online source)

For more information concerning the mythical mystic musings of Merton the interested reader is referred to the Apprising Ministries article Who Is Thomas Merton? Here I’ll just tell you that Merton was an apostate Roman Catholic Trappist monk, who gives zero indication that he was ever regenerated and by the time he was electrocuted in 1968 Merton had all but become a Buddhist. If you really want to know the truth you can see for yourself in Thomas Merton and the Buddhas. No true born again Christian could have written the blasphemy and idolatry contained within.

In The Last Days Men Will Be Lovers Of…Self

In addition Merton so loved mankind (self) that he even denied the doctrine of original sin, which is crystal clear in the following from his book Conjectures Of A Guilty Bystander:

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God,…This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to speak His name written is us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our sonship. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody,… (158, emphasis mine)

You need to understand that in his mystic musings above Merton is speaking of mankind in general. Please also note what I have highlighted concerning Merton’s conjecture about some “point or spark” allegedly “of God in us.” This itself is classic mysticism and is often referred to as “a spark of the divine” or “a divine spark” supposedly within all of mankind. This is refuted in the AM article The New Spirituality: God Indwells Mankind. As you study CSM you’ll see that those who practice so-called “Christian” meditation are trying to rid themselves of a fictitious “false self” in order to try and find their “true self.”

And this is what Merton meant when he speaks of “the center of our being”; as supposedly here we find what mystics like Merton call the true self. For more information I refer you to The Real Truth About Your Evil “True Self” . Men and women, think it through: If there was such a true self, and if it is in everyone, then all mankind has a place within them “untouched by sin,” and therefore we have just eradicated the need to be born again. This would then mean that Jesus Christ was the stupidest man who ever lived because He ended up sacrificing Himself for absolutely nothing. Now can you see why the Devil raised up the Emerging Church to try and get us to stop thinking rationally?

As we get set to close this for now I’ll point out that SBC Spiritual Guru Wendy Minton Edwards has also added Merton’s book Spiritual Direction & Meditation to her “Prayer Resources,” which are *wink* not recommended, see—Learn Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) the SBC Way With Baptist State Convention of North Carolina and Spiritual Director Jan Johnson. Well, I happen to have this book and since SBC Roshi Edwards has introduced it into evidence why don’t we let Roman Catholic monk Thomas Merton himself tell you exactly where all of this spiritual direction and CSM actually came from.

You’ll now see from someone who was within it that this spiritual skubalon was really just “a monastic” invention and it was not taught by Jesus Christ, nor was it taught by His Apostles:

original, primitive meaning of spiritual direction suggests a particular need connected with a special ascetic task, a peculiar vocation for which a professional formation is required. In other words, spiritual direction is a monastic concept. It is a practice which was unnecessary until men withdrew from the Christian community in order to live as solitaries in the desert.

For the ordinary member in the primitive Christian community there was no particular need of personal direction in the professional sense. The bishop, the living and visible representative of the apostle who had founded the local Church, spoke for Christ and the apostles, and, helped by the presbyters, took care of all the spiritual needs of his flock.
(11, emphasis mine).

In reading the above one must take into account that as a Roman Catholic monk Merton’s view of Church history is badly skewed. However, even with that we can see the whole of this so-called “Christian” mysticism, with its “spiritual formation” and “spiritual directors” teaching their CSM began as a rebellion against Biblical authority and the outline for Church leadership in the pastoral epistles. The proper concept is discipleship not spiritual formation and this has been with the historic orthodox Christian faith from its inception.

In John 20:21 the Master said to his disciples — “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” You’ll scour the Gospels in vain to try and find Jesus leaving society in order to go and live life isolated in the desert “seeking God.” While He obviously spent time alone with the Father Jesus did not withdraw into a monastery, nor did His Apostles, and neither should we. Even Merton told you where this spurious CSM originally came from. You need to understand that as CSM slithered throughout the Roman Catholic Church it would eventually so saturate the theology of the Church of Rome it would lead to God Himself rejecting this Romish shrine to self love and raised up His Reformers.

So the critical question now becomes: Why then is the SBC, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, right now entangling us again with the yoke of bondage in the CSM of apostate Romanism?