It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1, NASB)

Circle Up The Evangelical Wagons And Head Into The New Dark Ages

Recently Apprising Ministries brought to your attention that the Managing Editor for Biola Magazine Confirms Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism at Biola. In that post, and particularly in the comments section, there’s the usual denial that their kind of Spiritual Formation isn’t Eastern spirituality. The problem with that reasoning is that they eventually trace their teachings back to apostate monks and monkettes now referred to as “the Desert Fathers and Mothers” who lived in the deserts of Egypt.

For example we take Dr. J.P. Moreland, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy for Biola, and his 2007 book Kingdom Triangle. Moreland tells us that since the Church began among the “greatest contributions and achievements” she’s had would be “people at the core of Christian spiritual formation.” And among those making these great “contributions and achievements” were/are “the Desert Fathers to Henry Nouwen and Richard Foster.” All involved in the decidedly eastern practice of the “wordless prayer” of so-called “Christian” meditation.

Yet Moreland tells us through highly ecumenical [read: non-Protestant] people hostile to the Reformation:

we have available to a treasure of deep, rich knowledge of the soul and its proper functioning before God. Of central concern to this literature is the development of sensitivity to the inner affective movements of the soul, and now more than ever we need to acquaint ourselves with the literature and the sensitivity it engenders. (155)

Well, I agree the Body of Christ needs to “acquaint ourselves with the literature” produced by these people; otherwise the revisionist history simply continues unabated. The desert dwellers were in violation of Christ’s command in John 20:21 (look it up); Richard Foster is not an evangelical Christian at all, but rather a Quaker mystic whose message is so convoluted he’s a Living Spiritual Teacher along with the Dali Lama, and Henry Nouwen was a Roman Catholic monk who became so deluded by his Contemplative/Centering Prayer, which originated with those desert hermits, that he became a universalist:

Today I personally believe that Jesus came to open the door to God’s house, all human beings can walk through that door, whether they know about Jesus or not. Today I see it as my call to help every person claim his or her way to God. (Sabbatical Journey, 51)

This is the truth concerning what Moreland calls “deep, rich knowledge”; a deceptive knowledge that would lead to the antibiblical monastic traditions of apostate Roman Catholicism and eventually so disgust God that He raised up His Protestant Reformers to call His Body of Christ away from these highly subjective experiences and back to the all-sufficiency of His Word in Holy Scripture. But today we are so “wise” we’re following these piped pipers of perverted spirituality right back into the religious slavery of the Dark Ages.

Think I’m kidding; here’s Moreland singing the praises of the apostate (at best) Roman Catholic monk Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, who were essentially the spiritual Gestapo of the Counter Reformation:

Similarly, the writings of Lignatius Loyola (1491-1556), especially “Rules for the Discernment of Spirits” contained in his Spiritual Exercises, exhibit a care, a depth of insight, and a profundity of guidance about the inner life that is completely off the radar screen among contemporary Evangelicals. We neglect this literature at the cost of our own impoverishment. (156)

No, Dr. Moreland; we neglect the following from Martin Luther, who knew a whole lot more about what was going on with men like Ignatius of Loyola than you ever will, at the cost of our own spiritual imprisonment:

Idolatry is all manner of seeming holiness and worshipping, let these counterfeit spiritualities shine outwardly as glorious and fair as they may; in a word, all manner of devotion in those that we would serve God without Christ the Mediator, his Word and command. In popedom it was held a work of the greatest sanctity for the monks to sit in their cells and meditate of God, [solitude] and of his wonderful works; to be kindled with zeal, kneeling on their knees, praying, and having their imaginary contemplations of celestial objects, with such supposed devotion, that they wept for joy. In these their conceits, they banished all desires and thoughts of women, and what else is temporal and evanescent. They seemed to meditate only of God, and of his wonderful works.

Yet all these seeming holy actions of devotion, which the wit and wisdom of man holds to be angelical sanctity, are nothing else but works of the flesh. All manner of religion, where people serve God without his Word and command, is simply idolatry, and the more holy and spiritual such a religion seems, the more hurtful and venomous it is; for it leads people away from the faith of Christ, and makes them rely and depend upon their own strength, works, and righteousness. In like manner, all kinds of orders of monks, fasts, prayers, hairy shirts, the austerities of the Capuchins, who in popedome are held to be the most holy of all, are mere works of the flesh; for the monks hold they are holy, and shall be saved, not through Christ, whom they view as a severe and angry judge, but through the rules of their order. (Tabletalk, 1626 AD)

See also:

ABOUT RICHARD FOSTER

“CELEBRATION OF DISCIPLINE” BY RICHARD FOSTER AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THEOLOGICAL ERROR

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

DALLAS WILLARD: “WHICH SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES?”

TONY CAMPOLO: COUNTER-REFORMATION SAINTS LIKE IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA IMPORTANT SOURCES OF HELP

SPIRITUAL FORMATION IS PIETISM REIMAGINED