Can The Emerging Church Raise Your Spirituality?

Tom: You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him.

In this first segment of our program today, we’ll be discussing some of the mystical practices that are being promoted within evangelical Christianity, and that are attracting many of our young people. These are prevalent among fellowships that call themselves, “emerging churches,” a movement which we are very concerned about and which has been an ongoing topic of ours for a number of weeks.

The interest in mystical practices among evangelicals has certainly gotten a recent boost from the emerging church movement. But the contemporary groundwork was started—we could point to many situations, Dave, but one you will know, really comes out of Campus Crusade. There were some leaders—this was back in the late ’60s or early ’70s—leaders of Campus Crusade: Jack Sparks, Jon Braun, Peter Gillquist. And they left, really, evangelical Christianity and started their own church, which was called the Evangelical Orthodox Church, and they became priests.

And also, we could mention Richard Foster and his organization Renovaré. They’ve had much to do to attract evangelicals to mystical practices.

So, Dave, what do we want to talk about today? Because these things are out there, they are supported by recognized names within evangelical Christianity, but we want to talk about what mystical practices are.

Well, in some cases, they are attempts to enrich one’s spirituality through various techniques and methods. Mysticism is described as the ways and means of gaining contact or communion with the ultimate reality or God. And the goal, the ultimate goal of mysticism among those who profess to be Christians is union with God.

Now, Dave, I mentioned Gillquist and Foster, but there have been some other professing evangelicals who have gotten involved in mysticism. I mean, we could go back farther than these guys, Jessie Penn-Lewis, Norman Grubb, others. What’s your understanding of this, either within Christianity or without mysticism? Is there mysticism in the Bible?

Dave: Mysticism, as you defined it, involves techniques, of course—finding union with God, for getting in touch with God, for making contact with God. This is not taught in the Bible. In fact, it’s called divination. We’ve discussed it before. If you went to Jeremiah 42, for example, when the Israelites who have not been taken to Babylon yet, and they’re debating on whether to go to Egypt. They don’t want to be there when Nebuchadnezzar and his gang come back again, but they say, “Well, we really want to do God’s will.” So they come to Jeremiah and they say, “Go to your God [that’s interesting] and ask Him what He wants us to do, and we will do it.” They have no intention…it’s like Balaam. He doesn’t get the right answer from God, and so he says, “Well, let me go back, and I’ll talk to Him again and see what else He might say.” So, these people are wanting to get the answer that they want.

But anyway, what does Jeremiah do? He doesn’t do like Edgar Cayce—he doesn’t go into a trance, he doesn’t put his hand over the third eye in the center of his forehead, he doesn’t engage in visualization or any burning candles or any mystical practices. He doesn’t consult some great oracle or whatever it is.

Tom: Or tea leaves.

Dave: Right. Yeah, there are all kinds of ways—crystal ball, Ouija board, and so forth. These are all parts of the occult, but they are part of mysticism. He just says, “I will ask God what He wants, and I will wait and see.” I think it says, “After 10 days [if I’m not mistaken] the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying….” Jeremiah had no technique. God spoke to him, and He didn’t do it immediately. There was no way that he could get God to talk to him immediately. “And the Word of the Lord came unto me,” Jeremiah says.

Now, you find that expression more than 50 times in Ezekiel: “The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, prophesy,” or whatever.

So, we have no objection if God—of course, we have the Word of God now, but we have no objection if God wants to speak to you. He does speak to us in our hearts. He speaks to us through His Word. But we don’t search for a technique to get a message from God.

Tom: Right, which is contrary to His Word.

Dave: Absolutely.

Tom: That’s how we know.

Dave: So that would be the heart of mysticism.

Tom: Dave, last week we discussed the growing interest among evangelicals in using icons to deepen one’s spiritual relationship, or at least that was the idea. And icons—for those who don’t know, they could check last week’s program, which we have archived. But icons are usually paintings of images of Christ, Mary, or other biblical characters, and the whole idea is that you meditate upon this image and, supposedly, it’s going to open the “gates of heaven,” as they would say. And thereby a person gains entrance into the spiritual realm, which is what we’re told.

But there are many other techniques, and that’s why I’d like to go over it, Dave, because whether it be through the emerging church, or through the other individuals—Richard Foster—the other individuals that we’ve mentioned, there is a growing interest in mysticism among evangelicals.

I’ve got a book right here, which was given to me by the author—his name is Tony Jones. The book is titled The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life. This is just one example. There are many other books.

We mentioned how influential the Catholic mystic Henry Nouwen, the priest Henri Nouwen, who is now deceased, but what an amazing influence he has had among conservatives, so-called evangelicals.

Well, anyway, I met Tony Jones when he came to Bend, Oregon. This was back in August. I was stunned to hear him say that there were, here in Bend, which is not a large community, there were about a dozen emerging churches right here in our town, and six of them were independent fellowships, and the other six were connected with larger churches. Well, what about The Sacred Way? Well, in it he defines spiritual practices that most of the emerging churches are dabbling in, and many are committed to.

So, you know, as we’ve said in past programs, if somebody is involved in an emerging church, they may not be into all the things that we are talking about, but I would say the greater percentage are definitely into mysticism.

Dave: Now, you know, Tom, the more I read the Bible, the more I understand it, the more amazed I am. Of course, this is God’s Word, and you can just finish that book with one verse: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Me.” Okay?

So, where does that figure in here? Jesus said nothing about techniques. In fact, in His prayer, the true Lord’s prayer (John 17), He said, “This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” Now, how are we going to know Him? Not through icons, not through candles, not through mystical practices, but through His Word, and through the Holy Spirit who enlightens us and speaks to us through His Word.

Tom: Well, Dave, as you know, what we are seeing is many of those who are in the emerging church, the leaders, they have evangelical backgrounds, some very conservative. And what they’re doing is taking, you would hope, a foundation that they believed in, you know, the gospel, the Word of God, and so on. But now they are adding extra things as though these are going to draw us closer to God, or we are going to commune or experience God in a deeper way. But as you pointed out, they have no biblical basis for this.

Well, Dave, this is what Tony Jones says in The Sacred Way, his book: “The Bible brings us closer to God, guides us in prayer, and it’s considered a gift from God even though it was written and translated by human hands.” We could go along with that, and then he says, “Similarly, an icon painted by human hands leads us into God’s presence.” He’s just jumped off the dock! He had us on the boat, but he leapt out of the boat, right?

Dave: Right, he is equating icons with the Bible! What! He has taken a leap out into space.

Tom: Well, Dave, this is one I am really concerned about because it’s not just Tony Jones, and I’m going to give you some more quotes from other individuals. But in doing that, I think his book helps us, because he does lay out the practices that we're finding that have come into the evangelical church, many of them through youth movements. Youth Specialties, which would be an organization which is now owned by Zondervan, but was started by the Yaconellis, and they were very influential among evangelical youth pastors, and so on.

But there are many other ways that this has entered into the evangelical church. The Passion of the Christ had a definite influence among evangelicals. I find—that was about the stations of the cross, a very Roman Catholic devotion and ritual, and now there are stations of the cross in evangelical churches. So this is unbelievable in terms of its influence.

Well, in addition to icons, the use of icons, which we talked about, he mentions practices that include “promoting silence and solitude, lectio divina, which is Latin for ‘sacred reading,’ centering prayer….”

Now, I hope our listeners are recognizing some of these, or maybe they don’t know quite what they are, which, hopefully, we can explain, but these are out there.

“The Ignatian [that’s St. Ignatius] Examen prayer labyrinth.” They are all over the place.

What I would like to do, Dave, I want to briefly identify some of the primary mystical practices for those in our audience who aren’t familiar with them, and then I would like to get your comments. Now, I am just going to enumerate what we will be going through. We won’t get through all of them on this program, but the Lord willing we will pick it up next week.

In addition to icons, the use of icons, the practices include “promoting silence and solitude, lectio divina, which means ‘sacred reading’ [we’ll talk about that], centering prayer, the Ignatian—that is, St Ignatius, his technique of visualization, which is called the Ignatian Examen prayer labyrinth. Maybe people have seen them, but they don’t quite know what they are all about. We’re going to talk about that.

Stations of the cross, as I mentioned, now not just a Catholic technique, but we find them in evangelical churches. The sign of the cross, again, being promoted among evangelicals. spiritual direction, and of course, meditation, which we will explain.

But let’s start with silence and solitude. Tony Jones in his book The Sacred Way says—this is foundational to the many practices of mysticism, and here’s what he says: “God will personally meet us in the midst of these disciplines, all the ones I just enumerated.” Wow! He begins his chapter on silence and solitude with a quote from Thomas à Kempis—not exactly an evangelical, right, Dave? Anyway, this is Kempis: “In silence and quietness the devout soul makes progress and learns the hidden mysteries of the Scriptures.” What do you think?

Dave: Well, Tom, by silence, we need to explain. What they mean is not just “keep it quiet in here, I’m trying to think.” But you’re going to get an inner silence, which means you are going to still your thoughts so that your thoughts do not interfere, and then you open yourself up to supposed inspiration, to oneness with God, contact with God. It’s not only a mystical practice, it’s an occult technique, and it’s never talked about in the Bible. They would use verses like, “Be still and know that I am God.” Well, that’s not what it’s talking about. “Shut up, you guys, and your complaining,” and so forth, “and just wait and see what God is going to do.” That was a specific instance in the Bible.

So, Tom, unfortunately, people are latching onto this, and they are emptying their minds. And that bring us back—we’ve talked about it a number of times, Tom, the difference between Eastern meditation and Western meditation. Western meditation was always contemplation. When it says, Psalm 1…

Tom: Well, they have even abused that word, so we have to use another term here.

Dave: They call it “contemplation,” okay? But Psalm 1, when it says, “In His law [that’s God’s Law] doth he [that is, the fruitful man] meditate day and night,” it doesn’t mean, “Oh, he’s filling his mind. He’s reaching a state of quiet.” Well, then how can you meditate on the Law of God if you’re trying to reach a state where you are not thinking, and your mind is not really meditating? You’re not meditating; you’re not pondering deeply the truth of God and of His Word and of His will.

For example: this morning coming in, talking to my wife, Ruth, in the car—I’ve been listening to a number of debates, because I have some debates coming up, God willing, in February. Atheists and Christians, some of them; other debates as well. And one of the things that the atheists say to escape God—you see, we used to believe in the first cause. That was an old foundational truth in philosophy. There has to be a first cause. I mean, there has to be a cause for everything, but you can’t just keep going eternally in an infinite regression; but that’s what the atheists want to do. “Well, yeah, you say God made everything, but who made God?”

Okay, now, if we’re going to meditate on God, we would think about something like that. And we would think about the Bible says—well, I think we quoted this Psalm a week or two ago—“The gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord, He made the heavens and the earth.” The Bible starts out: “In the beginning, God….” Are we going to think about God? Well, where did He come from? That’s part of what you would think about, because you would have to—there are certain questions that would immediately arise. The atheists are not going to allow you to say, “Oh, yeah, but God, He is the explanation for everything.” “Oh, that’s a cop out.” No, it’s not.

Tom: That’s the reality, that’s the truth.

Dave: Otherwise, you have an infinite regression, and you have no explanation for anything. Therefore, what is the point of even having a discussion? What’s the point of going to university? Well, yeah, but they tell us about the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and so forth, and they tell us about Newton’s Law of Gravity. The attraction between two masses—two bodies, let’s say—is directly proportional to their mass, inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers. “Well, yeah, but God caused this to be this way? How do you have a universe that is so rational, that has these laws?” Well, it had to have a law giver. “Well, yeah, okay, that’s what you say, but who gave the laws to the law giver?” So, these would be some of the things you would think about when you’re thinking deeply about God. You’re not going to get that by silencing every thought in your mind.

Tom: Well, not only that, Dave, but basically, it’s an impossibility. And at least on a consistent basis, which is what these guys are trying to promote and develop. Jones quotes Richard Foster—he says, “The fruit of solitude is increased sensitivity and compassion for others.” Yeah, I mean, this is ridiculous.

I came out of a Roman Catholic background, as you know, and we had cloistered nuns, we had monks. The whole idea was to get away from people, and that that’s really within the history of the Desert Fathers, and Catholic mysticism. But he goes on to say, “There comes a new freedom to be with people. There is a new attentiveness to their needs, a new responsiveness to their hurt.”

Dave, do you remember when we interviewed a young woman who was an instructor in TM, and she said she would go into meditation to get away from her kids. This became like, you know, an addiction to her, and she would force everything out. It’s the antithesis in practice of what Foster is saying here.

But let me just add this quote. Jones then adds to that quote—he says, “In other words, being quiet and being alone makes us better, more spiritual, more Christ-centered human beings.”

Dave: Well, he’s making this up.

Tom: Of course.

Dave: The Bible doesn’t say that. That’s the problem. We’ve left the Bible, and now—well, you’re going to get the spiritual direction. “We’re following our director now who is going to give us all these ideas that are not biblical, and, somehow, it’s going to make us better people.” And it simply isn’t true!

Tom: Right, and next week, the Lord willing, we’re going to cover centering prayer, prayer labyrinth, and all these other meditation techniques.