Why on earth are Roman Catholic Mysticism and practices developed in monasteries by men who rejected the gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone by Christ’s work alone being promoted in supposedly Protestant churches?
Two friends went to hear a lecture by Father Thomas Keating, and this is what they heard…
After instructing everyone on choosing a “sacred symbol,” which, he told us, could be any word we like (Jesus, peace, stillness, calm, etc.), Keating told us that if a thought came into our minds, we were to return to this word. The goal was to get to a state of no-thinking and to get beyond any perceptions, bodily sensations, or purposes. He also said this should be done at least 20 minutes twice each day, and one should gradually do it for longer periods of time.3
The instructions given by Keating for doing this CP (CP is for Centering or Contemplative Prayer) are almost identical to what I was taught for Buddhist meditation, minus the “sacred symbol” or “sacred word.” However, the idea that one has a word to return to in order to get away from thinking is part of most forms of Hindu meditation, including Transcendental Meditation….
by Ray Yungen
See Part I of this paper: “What Exactly is the New Age?”
What exactly is meditation? The meditation many of us are familiar with involves a deep, continuous thinking about something. But New Age meditation does just the opposite. It involves ridding oneself of all thoughts in order to “still” the mind by putting it in pause or neutral. An analogy would be turning a fast-moving stream into a still pond by damming the free flow of water. This is the purpose of New Age meditation. It holds back active thought and causes a shift in consciousness. The following explanation makes this process very clear:
Benjamin Crème’s Maitreya? American Hindu man worshipped as god
From The New York Times:
Raj Patel’s desk sits in a dusty, cement-floored nook in his garage, just beyond a parked gray Prius, near the washer and dryer. They are humble surroundings for a god.
“It is absurd to be put in this position, when I’m just some bloke,” Mr. Patel said.
A native of London now living on Potrero Hill in San Francisco, Mr. Patel suddenly finds himself an unlikely object of worship, proclaimed the messiah Maitreya by followers of the New Age religious sect Share International.
He was raised as a Hindu and had never heard of the group. He has no desire for deification. But he may not have a choice.
Promoters of the emergent conversation say we are on the verge of a new spiritual awareness. New “spiritual disciplines” are being touted as the avenue to spiritual formation that will take Christianity to a new and higher level. Where is this concept in the Bible?
RADICAL APOSTATES, RICK WARREN AND PETER SCAZZERO from Apprising Ministries:
In Rick Warren And Peter Scazzero Up To Monk-ee Business earlier at Apprising Ministries I told you Leadership Network’s propped up Purpose Driven Pope Rick Warren has conference called Radicalis that’s set to begin next Tuesday February 9 at Saddleback Church.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. John 14:6
According to the president of the Russia Ecumenical Center, there are many ways that lead to God, but the path of beauty is a special one. The center aims to illustrate that “path of beauty” in an eight-conference series on the “Epiphany of Beauty.”
The series is being held in Rome every Thursday of this month and next, starting this week. “It is exactly 33 years that the Russia Ecumenical Center has been spreading in so many ways knowledge of the riches and beauty of the Christian East,” the director, Father Sergio Mercanzin, explained. “This year it is doing so with a series of eight meetings.
“Five authoritative scholars and three of the best masters of iconography present in Italy will speak about the liturgy, symbols, hymns and icons.”
Witches, Druids and pagans rejoice! The Air Force Academy in Colorado is about to recognize its first Wiccan prayer circle, a Stonehenge on the Rockies that will serve as an outdoor place of worship for the academy’s neo-pagans.
Wiccan cadets and officers on the Colorado Springs base have been convening for over a decade, but the school will officially dedicate a newly built circle of stones on about March 10, putting the outdoor sanctuary on an equal footing with the Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Buddhist chapels on the base.
I’m doing what I can as a former Roman Catholic, whom the Lord graciously delivered from its religious bondage into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, to expose the rise in popularity within Protestant evangelicalism of practicing the neo-pietistic “spiritual disciplines”…
Take the Test: Are You a New Ager?
by Mike Oppenheimer
Let Us Reason Ministries
This may seem like an inconsequential question, even a silly question to ask, but many people may not know how involved they are in the new age movement that has permeated our society.
Christians, Muslims, Jews Worship at Evangelical Megachurch
It was an unusual Sunday morning worship at Northwood Church in Keller, Texas. Christians, Muslims and Jews sat together in the megachurch to hear an evangelical pastor preach about Jesus.
The three faith groups had already visited the Islamic Center of Irving the previous day and the Temple Shalom of North Dallas on Friday before congregating inside the Christian house of worship. And they don’t plan to make this a one-time event.
As Northwood Senior Pastor Bob Roberts said Sunday, the three groups are making an attempt to get to know one another, understand the different teachings and worldviews, and become friends.
While such multifaith worship gatherings have raised eyebrows, Roberts said they are not trying to minimize differences or compromise their beliefs. In fact, the evangelical pastor discourages it. He wants all three faith groups to be honest about their differences and hold to their core convictions.
Why are Rick Warren and a growing gaggle of Purpose-Driven and Seeker-Driven pastors embracing and promoting Roman Catholic Monastic Mysticism? In a previous post, I said that I would answer this question. It’s now time to do so.
There is one reason and one reason only why innovative market-driven pastors are promoting Roman Catholic Monastic Mysticism. The simple answer is MARKETING.
Since the mid-90’s market survey’s and data have been pointing market-driven pastors to the fact that the spiritual market in America was undergoing a change and would soon be embracing spirituality and expect mystical spiritual experiences from their church.
Will praying the Daily Office unite a church in the Spirit, as this Leadership Journal article says, or will it bring them back to the mother church of Rome and her monastic practices and contemplative spirituality?
Finding Myself in Fixed-Hour Prayer
How praying the Daily Offices is uniting a church in the Spirit.
Ken Wilson | posted 1/11/2010
I stumbled on fixed-hour prayer about eight years ago. After my father passed away, I found my energy levels really low, and I couldn’t sustain my usual devotional life. I did all the regular things: the ACTS acrostic and extemporaneous prayer. I replicated prayer meetings on a one-on-one basis. But nothing seemed to work. I had heard a priest talk about the Daily Office, so, even though it sounded like cheating to me, I thought I would try reading other people’s prayers.
I couldn’t find that particular prayer book, but I came across The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle. Her adaptation of the Benedictine prayer format included readings every three hours of the day, plus one for bedtime. I started with once a day, then twice, and soon I was up to four times a day. Fixed-hour prayer transformed my prayer life…
We believe this is a case of a university president who does not appear to understand the nature of the current spiritual deception sweeping through the church, and very much so the Nazarene denomination.
See the response of this university president to these concerns here:
See how they are making Roman Catholicism cool for teens with Eucharist/Mary centered spirituality…
“After watching the following video it seems that Rome is trying to model the same seeker-sensitive, feely-touchy, charismatic, man-made methodology that has left so many evangelicals disenfranchised with Christianity and is the impetus behind why so many are running into the arms of the Romish organization.”
Many people are finally turning inward to search for the truth within their own beings, instead of relying on and trusting outside sources.
-http://www.new-age-spirituality.com
The Transcendental Meditation technique allows your mind to settle inward beyond thought to experience the source of thought — pure awareness, also known as transcendental consciousness. This is the most silent and peaceful level of consciousness — your innermost Self.
-The Transcendental Meditation Program [http://www.maharishi.ca/]
It’s not only the New Age practitioners of TM who are saying to go inward and downward, but also those teaching Christian contemplative spiritual formation. Take centering prayer for example:
Centering Prayer is a Contemplative Prayer Method which helps in the opening of our hearts to the Spirit dwelling within us. In this prayer we spiral down into the deepest centre of ourselves.
-http://www.jesuits.ca/orientations/praydict.html
Contemplative mysticism is always described as an inward journey…
Contemplation is a spiritual knowledge, communicated spirit-to-spirit. It is an authentic, mysterious knowledge, a sacredness of self and of God, a pure, serene light inward…. continue the journey inward. This is called the interior silence. Not just the absence of sound, but a delicate sense of inner tranquility.
-Contemplation–A Treatise on Mysticism
by Jacqueline Galloway [http://www.ecatholic2000.com/pray/prayer2.shtml]
The contemplatives are all calling those who choose their pathway to a journey that is downward…
But is this true Biblical meditation, as they claim? Are Christians really to look inward and back, or are we to look to Jesus Christ?
…Scazzero makes the most fundamental errors. Instead of directing the readers to Christ, his word, and the Work of the Holy Spirit to bring “maturity”, he in fact down plays the impact of these vital means of grace and tells the reader to look inside himself and to look back to his past.
“Most leaders shipwreck or live inconsistent lives because of forces and motivations beneath the surface of their lives, which they have never even considered…. The longest journey of any person is the inward journey…pioneering new parts of my self – the good, the bad and the ugly (72, 75).”
Scazzero here advocates a form of introspection as a means to maturity (though he denies he is doing this). “I spend much time in a quiet place alone with my feelings, wrestling with the ‘why’ questions, in an open, contemplative way before God and listening to him” (80)
What does the Bible say about taking an inward journey downward?
The Bible nowhere describes an inward journey to explore the realm of the spirit. God chose to reveal the truth about spiritual reality through His ordained, Spirit-inspired, biblical writers. What is spiritual and not revealed by God is of the occult and, therefore, forbidden.
-Bob DeWaay
“INWARD JOURNEY” ESPOUSED BY RICHARD FOSTER IS A FORM OF DIVINATION http://apprising.org/2009/06/20/inward-journey-espoused-by-richard-foster-is-a-form-of-divination/
This is what true biblical meditation is:
True Biblical Meditation is not an inward, subjective descent into yourself as T.M. promotes, but an outward objective ascent to the personal Creator who “so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life!”
Dr. Ron Carlson http://www.christianministriesintl.org/articles/18.html
It’s shocking to see how many leaders within evangelical Christianity are leaving the truth while forgetting to look upwards, and are taking many others with them on their downward spiral into the muddy waters of the ‘new’ spirituality.
“Transcendental Meditation was introduced to the world by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It is called transcendental because it brings you to a state of meditation wherein you think ‘beyond the material world’ and focus on ‘nothingness’…. Transcendental Meditation is neither a belief nor a religion but it is a discipline that needs to be practiced for results.”
There are countless videos and websites on yoga and TM that teach breathing techniques not much different than those taught by Rob Bell (see here). For example:
However, this is all based on a spirituality that is in opposition to, and in denial of, the loving God of the Bible.
The bottom line is that Maharishi and Transcendental Meditation promote the ultimate rebellion against the Creator. They deny the infinite personal Creator/God and replace Him with an impersonal All or Brahman/Atman of Hinduism. They also deny the physical personal creation and replace it with an impersonal spiritual cosmos. The sad reality of T.M. is that an impersonal universe never loved or cared about anyone. Only a personal Creator loves and cares for His creation. True Biblical Meditation is not an inward, subjective descent into yourself as T.M. promotes, but an outward objective ascent to the personal Creator who “so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life!”
-Transcendental Meditation and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
By Dr. Ron Carlson http://www.christianministriesintl.org/articles/18.html
