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republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Warning: This article shows blasphemous images.
November 24, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – In sending out a tweet about the Gospel reading from Friday’s Mass, Fr. James Martin, SJ chose to share a painting drawn from a series of blasphemous homoerotic works depicting the life of Jesus as if he were a gay man.
“Gospel: Today Jesus drives the money-changers from the Temple (Lk 19). NT scholars say this was one of the main events that precipitated his execution,” tweeted the Jesuit. “Yet Jesus is not cowed by opponents. Another Gospel says ‘zeal’ for his Father's house ‘consumes him.’”
Gospel: Today Jesus drives the money-changers from the Temple (Lk 19). NT scholars say this was one of the main events that precipitated his execution. Yet Jesus is not cowed by opponents. Another Gospel says "zeal" for his Father's house "consumes him." Also notice that Jesus... pic.twitter.com/MRGpHLBcle
And Fr. Martin knew exactly what he was doing, because in a later tweet he credited the artist: “Image, Douglas Blanchard.”
While this painting is jarring because an effeminate Jesus is depicted turning over the money changers’ tables in a contemporary setting, other paintings in the series show an overtly sexualized version of Jesus in various Gospel stories.
The painting is one of a set of 24 by homosexual artist Douglas Blanchard, used to illustrate a book titled, “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision.”
While the Amazon description of the book is appallingly offensive not just to all Christians, but to the Person of Jesus Christ and God the Father, Fr. Martin nonetheless chose to use one of the Blanchard paintings to illustrate the Gospel.
Amazon describes the book by author Kittredge Cherry and illustrated by Blanchard:
Meet Jesus as a gay man of today in a contemporary city with The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision. In stunning new images, the modern Christ figure is jeered by fundamentalists, tortured by Marine look-alikes, and rises again to enjoy homoerotic moments with God.
The “fundamentalists” who jeer Christ are no doubt meant to be those who abide by Church teaching and reject the normalization of homosexuality within the Church.
But far more appalling is the suggestion that Jesus rose again “to enjoy homoerotic moments with God,” a notion to which Fr. Martin lends tacit approval by drawing from the Blanchard series of paintings. The homoeroticizing of the passion of the Christ is blasphemous.
The 24 paintings in the gay Passion cover Jesus' final days, including his arrest, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection. A queer Passion is important now because Christianity is being used to justify hate and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Each image is accompanied by insightful commentary, plus a short prayer and scripture. If Jesus came back today, would he be crucified all over again? Would we even recognize him? See for yourself in the gay vision of the Passion.
The tweet is perhaps an admission by Fr. Martin of his ultimate intent as well as an admission of the anti-Christian and anti-Christ intent underlying the LGBT cultural movement: To co-opt the message of the Gospel, to dethrone Jesus Christ in the hearts and minds of Christians, and to install homosexuality and transgenderism in His place.
Twitter users respond: ‘You would be the first one that Our Lord would drive out of His house’
Many challenged Fr. Martin’s tweet.
“What would St. Faustina say about this when her own artist couldn’t do justice to the image of Jesus? What would our MOTHER say to this depiction of Her precious Son who was beaten mocked starved of water & crucified the most painful death by our sins?” asked Lizzy. “What does she think of this?”
“Father, please, you're breaking my heart,” pleaded Lizzy in a separate Tweet. “Jesus did NOT want to have sex with men. He was ALL GOOD ALL HOLY ALL GOD. He would NEVER approve of this.”
“Which figure represents Jesus in this picture? The one with oh so cute haircut?” asked Eugenio. “Have you no sense of reverence for our Precious Lord?”
“You would be the first one that Our Lord would drive out of His house,” asserted T Mac. “Promoting immorality isn’t exactly pleasing to the Lord.”
While all of Blanchard’s illustrations are disturbing, portraying the main theme of the Gospel message as homoerotic, perhaps the final three paintings in the series are the most troubling.
The Ascension, by Douglas Blanchardpassionofchristbook.comPentecost, by Douglas Blanchardpassionofchristbook.com
In “the Ascension,” Jesus is shown as a shirtless male in the embrace of a male angel who grasps Jesus’ buttocks. Same-sex attraction and homosexual sex acts are shown to be the primary purpose of the incarnation, passion, resurrection, and ascension of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.
In Blanchard’s depiction of the Day of Pentecost, The Holy Spirit descends on an urban group in the form of a woman.
Jesus ‘comes out of the closet’
Author Kittredge Cherry explains the dark meaning of the final painting, which depicts the Trinity. Cherry’s explanation veers far from the immutable Truth about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is a “Holy gay wedding.”
The Trinity, by Douglas Blanchardpassionofchristbook.com
An angelic figure blesses a gay couple in “The Trinity,” the final, climactic image in Blanchard’s Passion of Christ. The painting can stand alone to affirm the holiness of gay couples, but it also serves as a meditation on the Christian Trinity.
She continues:
The couple holds hands before a table set with milk, honey, and fruit — references to the Promised Land. The man draped in red reaches toward out, coaxing the viewer to join them in the sunny garden. The winged woman in the golden robe is the same Holy Spirit who arrived in the previous painting. An arch in the background hints at the gate of heaven. Indeed viewers are welcome to imagine themselves seated in paradise with Christ as their bridegroom.
“The Trinity” shows how Jesus has been transformed by his experience of the Passion. He moved from the dark prison of the first painting to a bright land of promise, out of the closet, into the streets, and on to holy bliss. He completed the mythic hero’s journey: martyred and reborn with power to redeem the world.
Heaven: The holy gay wedding feast?
Kittredge said the final painting depicts the “holy gay wedding.”
What is the gay vision of heaven? The Holy Spirit inspires each person to see visions of God in his or her own way. Look, the Holy Spirit celebrates two men who love each other! She looks like an angel as She protects the male couple. Are the men Jesus and God? No names can fully express the omnigendered Trinity of Love, Lover, and Beloved… or Mind, Body, and Spirit. God is madly in love with everybody. God promises to lead people out of injustice and into a good land flowing with milk and honey. We can travel in the same paths where Jesus journeyed. Opening to the joy and pain of the world, we can experience all of creation as our body — the body of Christ. As queer as it sounds, we can create our own land of milk and honey. As Jesus often said, heaven is among us and within us. Now that we have seen a gay vision of Christ’s Passion, we are free to move forward with passion.
The LGBT movement is not benign. It is now brazenly revealing itself to be the most grave satanic threat to the Church today, and Fr. James Martin, SJ is leading the coup attempt within the Roman Catholic Church.
Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia was right to publicly correct Fr. Martin a few weeks ago, and Bishop Strickland of Tyler, Texas has called attention to Martin’s troubling “ministry.” Only a few of their brother bishops have rushed to support these brave prelates who sense the danger that Martin’s actions present to the Church, while the majority remain silent, allowing the Jesuit to carry on with his advocacy unchecked.
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse in the Catholic Church, Father Hermann Backhaus, a priest of the Diocese of Münster, Germany, proves you wrong. In a recent interview, Backhaus said that consuming pornography “can have a relieving effect” on celibate clergy.
Does a priest recommend pornography to fellow priests? It sounds strange at first—even a bit queer. But if you read below the headlines, you discover that Fr. Backhaus is also a psychologist. And, of course, psychologists speak with authority—even on moral issues.
At least, that’s what Fr. Backhaus seems to believe. He is quite proud of being a psychologist and mentions the fact several times during the interview. For example: “I not only have a degree in psychology, but also a graduate degree in moral theology. But in our institution, I work as a psychologist who is also a priest—and not the other way around.”
In other words, for Fr. Backhaus, a degree in psychology trumps a degree in moral theology. “As a psychologist,” he said, “I do not judge or condemn porn consumption.”
Being a psychologist, however, does not prevent him from judging those who do judge porn consumption as wrong. Even Pope Francis comes in for criticism for having recently warned that porn provides the devil an entry point into the soul. “To bring the devil in connection with pornography,” says Backhaus, “is a very strong statement. I don’t know if Francis is not rather working against his intention than promoting it.”
As Fr. Backhaus correctly discerns, Francis’s main intention all along has been to promote a permissive attitude toward sexual activity. He may from time to time say something to pacify traditional Catholics, but his real intentions are revealed in his hirings and firings. LGBT-supportive prelates are invariably promoted, while traditional clergy are regularly demoted.
If Francis really believed that pornography was a danger to the soul, he would immediately prohibit Backhaus from counseling priests, and send him off to a remote monastery for a few years of prayer and contemplation– sans cell phone.
What’s much more likely, however, is that like other activists for sexual permissiveness such as Fr. James Martin, Fr. Backhaus will be invited to meet with Francis in a private audience. Shortly after, we can expect to see him given an influential post—perhaps in the Dicastery for Culture and Education. That institution is now headed by Francis appointee Cardinal Jose Tolentino de Mendonca, who, according to Rorate Caeli, “was well known in the Portuguese Church for being the absolutely most fabulous fabuloso of the whole fabulousness.”
One of Fr. Backhaus’s chief concerns is that priests are often lonely and overstressed. His solution to the problem is more pornography and more masturbation for their “relieving effect.” At the Dicastery of Education, he would have the time and resources for further research in the area. Perhaps the final result would be a patented product available on Amazon. It could be called “Father Backhaus’s fast relief technique for overstressed clergy.”
Meanwhile, despite what Fr. Backhaus may think, other psychologists are doubtful about the beneficial effects of pornography. For many people in our society, pornography has become a serious addiction and one of the leading causes of divorce as well. As with other forms of addiction—such as drug addiction—repeated use leads to a higher tolerance. Just as drug users eventually seek higher doses or more powerful substances, porn addicts also seek stronger stimulation–often in depictions of multiple-partner sex acts, and/or sadomasochistic sex.
In the real world, moreover, pornography leads not to stress relief but to dissatisfaction with one’s spouse, increased marital tension, and an increased incidence of marital infidelity. In fact, even in marriages where there is no actual infidelity, pornography use is experienced by both spouses—the guilty one and the aggrieved one—as an act of infidelity.
One supposes that clergy who consume pornography would also experience it as an act of infidelity. Catholic clergy take vows of chastity, and Catholic teaching explicitly condemns pornography and masturbation as sins against chastity. If a priest has a healthy conscience, we would expect him to be bothered by these infidelities, and try harder to overcome them.
On the other hand, Fr. Backhaus wants priests to deaden their consciences and give in to their temptations. After all, he says, pornography is “something that is normal in our society.” And he notes that “about 95 percent of men and 90 percent of women admit during counseling that they have had experiences with masturbation.”
Fr. Backhaus ought to ask for a tuition refund for his program in moral theology. That’s because he’s making very basic mistakes in moral reasoning. He confuses “normality” with morality. He reasons that if everybody’s doing it, it must be okay. But, as every parent knows, following the crowd is not always good advice. About 100 percent of men and women have told lies at one time or another in their lives. I guess that makes lying “normal” in our society but it certainly doesn’t make it okay.
The “everybody’s doing it” argument usually goes along with the “let’s be realistic” argument. And sure enough, Fr. Backhaus uses that argument too. Citing his authority as a psychologist, he says “we start from real life, that is reality.” He then proceeds to cite the data on the prevalence of masturbation.
What Backhaus forgets, however, is that owning slaves once seemed perfectly normal, natural, and acceptable. Meanwhile, those who thought that slavery should be abolished were told that they had to be realistic.
But being realistic about human nature is to recognize that humans are not purely natural creatures who can safely follow whatever impulses “come naturally.” Rather, according to Christian tradition and teaching, people are meant to live on both the natural and supernatural levels. And the proper order of things is for the supernatural to take precedence over the natural.
But through their sin, Adam and Eve upset the proper order of things. According to the Catholic Catechism, their sin was “an abuse of the freedom” (387) given by God, by which they fell from their original state of holiness into a state of sin.
Prior to the Fall, man exercised a “mastery of self” (377). After the Fall, however, “the control of the soul’s spiritual faculties over the body is shattered” (400), and man becomes a slave to sin.
One can dismiss all of this as nothing more than an ancient myth, but it’s difficult to deny that the ancient “myth” fits the facts of human nature more closely than the vast majority of philosophical and psychological explanations.
After forgiving the woman caught in adultery, Jesus tells the Jews who had believed in him, “Truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin” (Jn 8.34). And this is exactly the way many repeat sinners experience their sins. The alcoholic knows that he shouldn’t take another drink, but he can’t help himself. The porn addict knows that his habit is damaging his marriage, but he can’t resist the temptation. The verbally abusive husband knows he shouldn’t shout at his wife, but he can’t control his impulses.
In short, habitual sin takes away our freedom not to sin, and we truly become slaves to sin.
Herr Father Backhaus thinks that by encouraging priests to watch porn (or in some cases, more porn), he is freeing them both from stress and guilt. But in reality, he is setting them on a road that may lead them into spiritual slavery. At that point, other, more mature priests and psychologists will need to be called in to see if they can undo the damage.
The bad news is that priests like Fr. Backhaus are no longer rare exceptions in the Church. As anyone who pays attention can now see, the Catholic establishment is getting wackier by the day.
The good news is that the nuttiness has become so extreme and so visible that more and more Catholics are noticing. And that includes more of those who can actually do something about the situation.
In my next piece, I plan to detail some of the good news. Stay tuned.
William Kilpatrick is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. His books include Christianity, Islam, and Atheism: The Struggle for the Soul of the West, What Catholics Need to Know About Islam, and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Jihad.
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
Most practicing Catholics will have noticed by now that the Church under Francis has changed. And many are not happy with the changes.
For example, Andrea Cianci, author of a new book that questions the validity of Francis’s election, says that Francis’s objective is to “demolish Catholicism.” But it’s not only Francis that traditional Catholics worry about. His plans for the dismantling of the Church are being implemented by a small army of prelates who are, in essence, Francis clones.
Right now, Francis and his supporters are utilizing the Synod on Synodality as the main engine for transforming the Church into something new and strange. Conservative critics of the synod claim that it is a “hostile takeover of the Church,” an “exercise in self-destructive behavior,” and an “open revolution.” This may seem extreme, but many of Francis’s words and actions reveal a man who is deeply hostile to the Catholic Church—a Church that he considers “rigid,” “fundamentalist,” “exclusivist,” and very much in need of opening up. Moreover, those who are running the Synod share his sentiments.
In reality, the Church has been opening up ever since the pontificate of John XXIII, but much of what the Church of Francis is engaged in is not simply an opening up of the Church, but a rejection of it. Church leaders are already in the process of rejecting the Church’s teaching on marriage, adultery, abortion, homosexuality, gender, divorce, polygamy, clerical celibacy, and women’s ordination. To the extent that they are opening the Church, they are opening it to people who dissent from Church teaching on these and other matters.
Perhaps because they realize they are already firmly in control, the “woke” prelates have become quite open about what they plan to do. For example, the Vatican has just released a new document for the Synod on Synodality which calls for “a Church capable of radical inclusion.”
The 44-page document is entitled “Enlarge the space of your tent,” but the tent doesn’t seem to have much space for traditional Catholic beliefs and practices. Rather it encourages dialogue with “those who, for various reasons, feel a tension between belonging to the Church and their own loving relationship, such as remarried divorcees, single parents, people living in a polygamous marriage, LGBTQ people, etc.”
“Polygamous marriage?” One wonders what’s included in “etc.” In any event, this new inclusive model is being suggested as the model the Church should embrace. But don’t assume that the plan is to help the “marginalized” (i.e., adulterers, LGBTQ, etc.) to conform their lives to Church teaching. Rather, the plan is to conform the Church’s teachings to the “lived experience” of the marginalized.
“Radical inclusion” sounds vaguely Christian, but it is actually a plan for demolishing the Church—as the word “radical” implies. The word brings to mind images of the radical French Revolution, the radical Russian Revolution, and the radical Sexual Revolution. All three resulted in enormous damage to the societies involved, yet the Synod documents often speak the language of revolutionary change. Moreover, the Synod fathers seem anxious to bless the Sexual Revolution and bring it fully into the Church. “Radical” is not usually thought of as a term of praise, but that’s the way it was used by Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the Relator General of the Synod, in a recent interview with L’Osservatore Romano. Hollerich praised Pope Francis for being “not a liberal” but a “radical.”
Most Catholics don’t keep up with recent issues of L’Osservatore Romano or with the latest Vatican document. So, relatively few are aware of the radical nature of the changes being proposed in the synods. Perhaps the most prominent synodal theme is “inclusion,” and the promise that no one is excluded. But when the Synod fathers say “no one is excluded,” it should give us pause. Do they also mean “no sins are excluded?” Do they mean that no repentance is required? The numerous synod documents suggest that what progressive Catholics want is an inclusive community without rules—a place where each follows his or her own inner guidance.
But workable communities that last do have rules and, in order to survive, they tend to exclude those who won’t follow the rules. One supposes, for example, that a good number of bishops belong to a golf club. And it’s a good bet they know and observe the rules of the club. If a bishop drives his golf cart in a reckless way after several drinks and several warnings, he can expect to be excluded from the club. He can claim that the club has “marginalized” him, but in reality, he has marginalized himself.
One might counter by observing that the Church is not a golf club. It follows a different—more merciful– set of rules. Cardinal Hollerich has said as much: “[The] Kingdom of God is not an exclusive club.” Rather, he says, its doors are open “to everyone without discrimination.” “This,” said Hollerich, “is simply about affirming that Christ’s message is for everyone.”
All Christians can agree that Christ’s message is for everyone. But most would want “everyone” to hear the full message of Christ, not a highly redacted version. If you read the full message of Christ on the subject of entrance into the Kingdom of God, you would not, contra Hollerich, get the impression that it’s open “to everyone without discrimination.” Not by a long shot.
Take Matthew 25:31-46—the parable about the sheep and the goats. On Judgment Day, “[The King] will separate the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left.” He then invites the sheep to inherit the kingdom, but the goats are sent away “into eternal punishment.”
I don’t know about you, but that sounds discriminatory to me. And frightening as well. Thank Heaven for purgatory.
Christ also discriminates on several occasions in favor of wheat over weeds (or chaff): “Let both grow together until the harvest and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn’” (Mt.13:30).
In another parable, he tells his disciples: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a net which was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind; when it was full, men…sorted the good into vessels but threw away the bad” (Mt. 13:47-48).
Lest there be any misunderstanding, Jesus then explains: “So it will be at the end of the age, the angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous, and throw them into the furnace of fire” (Mt. 13 49-50).
The meaning of these parables seems clear, yet Christ tells several other parables with the same message. In one parable, he tells of five wise maidens who, having made proper preparations, are admitted to a wedding feast; and of five foolish maidens who, having failed to make sufficient preparations, are excluded from the feast.
In another parable about a wedding feast, a guest without a wedding garment is cast out the door: “Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness…For many are called, but few are chosen” (Mt. 22: 13-14).
Hollerich may say that the Kingdom of God is open “to everyone without discrimination,” but the Gospels seem to be saying something different. Hollerich says, in effect, “come as you are,” but Jesus advises us to come wearing a wedding suit (i.e., in a state of grace.) Although well-acquainted with the merciful sayings of Jesus, Hollerich, and Francis seem to ignore his more judgmental warnings.
Quite obviously, the words of Jesus are an obstacle to the synodal plans of Hollerich, Francis, and others in the hierarchy. Quite obviously, Jesus will have to go if the synodalists hope to achieve their goals. Expect him to gradually disappear from the new radically inclusive Church. Either that or expect him to be transformed to better fit the jolly theology of Cardinal Hollerich who tells us that “living in the footsteps of Christ means living well, it means enjoying life.”
In short, expect Jesus to be transformed into some kind of happy genderless hippie who utters woke platitudes and announces the good news that your sins aren’t really sins at all. He just wants you to be happy doing whatever makes you feel good.
It is, of course, a formula for disaster. Canon Lawyer Rev. Gerald F. Murray calls it “a self-destructive Synod.” He notes some of the signs of decline in the Church we have already seen under Francis: “lack of priestly vocations in the developed world; the steep decline in Mass attendance, baptisms, and Church weddings…the collapse of religious orders and the rejection of doctrinal fidelity.”
One doesn’t have to look far to find signs of doctrinal infidelity. Here in the U.S., LGBTQ activist priest Fr. James Martin has asserted that LGBT Christians are not bound by the rule of chastity. And in formerly Catholic Ireland, an elderly priest was recently suspended by his bishop for speaking of the sinfulness of certain sexual activities.
The priest, Fr. Sean Sheehy, said he was simply stating what was in the Gospel. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Fr. Murray says the Synod is “self-destructive.” But it’s only self-destructive if the intention of the Synod is to preserve and strengthen the Church founded by Christ and revealed to Christians in the gospels. If the intention of the Synod fathers (along with Pope Francis) is to replace the Church of Christ with a humanistic/modernist Church with all the supernatural elements purged out, then the Synod has thus far been a roaring success for them—if not for the rest of us.
It’s possible that the Synod organizers are genuinely well-intentioned. Perhaps they think that by downplaying immorality and by convincing Catholics to “take it easy on yourself,” Catholics will shake off their burden of guilt and lead happier healthier lives. But previous attempts at relaxing the rules while ignoring the supernatural dimension of life—such as the Sexual Revolution—eventually resulted in making life harder not easier.
Should the Synod fathers succeed in convincing Catholics that sin is not sinful, the destructive, addictive, and family-wrecking effects of sin will still be at work—both in individual lives and throughout society. The Synod leaders may succeed in bringing about a radical change in the Church, but because of their naivete about human nature, the changes will inexorably lead to widespread unhappiness and despair.
William Kilpatrick is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. His books include Christianity, Islam, and Atheism: The Struggle for the Soul of the West, What Catholics Need to Know About Islam, and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Jihad.
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
Pope Francis recently called for a “Church open to everyone.” Nothing new here. The Church has always been open to everyone—including sinners. The Church has always acknowledged that it is “a Church of sinners.”
But when Francis says “open to everyone” he seems to have something else in mind. Traditionally, when Catholics spoke of a “Church of sinners” it was understood to mean repentant sinners: people who were sorry for their sins and were trying their best to sin no more.
By contrast, what Francis and other woke/progressive Catholics seem to mean is “proud sinners:” people who are proud of their lifestyle choices and see nothing sinful about them.
Two Catholics that immediately come to mind are Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi. Both seem proud of their pro-abortion stance and if challenged both simply double down on their position. And both can point to gestures by Francis indicating that he considers them Catholics in good standing.
Francis has praised other prominent abortion advocates including Emma Bonino whom Life Site News refers to as the “notorious Italian abortionist.” Although Bonino had not only promoted abortion but had also personally performed numerous abortions, Francis referred to her as one of Italy’s “forgotten greats.”
In a recent piece for Front Page, journalist Joseph Hippolito makes the case that Francis has chosen to abandon Catholicism’s historic opposition to abortion in all but name…” Hippolito argues that abortion is largely “irrelevant” to Francis.
I bring this up because many Catholics—perhaps a majority—have a different view of Francis. Because of some statements he has made about abortionists being like a “hit man,” they assume he is strongly opposed to abortion. He is, after all the pope; so, they reason that he is automatically opposed to abortion, same-sex unions, and the LGBT agenda; and is automatically in favor of Church teaching on chastity, marriage, contraception, and so on.
But it just isn’t so, and the best evidence can be found by looking at a list of his appointments over the years.
It’s often said that “personnel is policy.” In other words, a leader’s policies can best be discerned not by what he says, but by who he hires. If, for example, the president’s appointments for secretary of Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff were all pacifists, we could safely conclude that the president was also a pacifist. We could further assume that he would probably pursue a policy of appeasement.
Let’s look at some of Francis’ key appointments. Hippolito explains that the clearest evidence of Francis’ relative indifference to abortion comes from Cardinal Vincenzo Paglia, the President of the Pontifical Academy for Life. During a recent television interview, Paglia said the Church had no interest in opposing Italy’s Law 194 which legalizes abortion in the first trimester. Paglia said that the law represented “a pillar of our social life.”
So, here’s the head of the Pontifical Academy for Life which, as Hippolito points out, was founded by John Paul II “specifically to oppose abortion,” and he thinks Italy’s abortion law is “a pillar of our social life.”
Did Francis know Paglia’s views before he appointed him to the post? Well, of course, he knew. Paglia was already notorious for having a billboard-size homoerotic mural painted on the wall of his cathedral. What’s more, Paglia himself appears in the painting—nude, embracing another man, and surrounded by entangled bodies of both sexes. One would not need to be very astute to assume that Paglia might not embrace the Church’s stance on abortion—nor the traditional Catholic view of same-sex unions.
Although Francis says he wants a Church that is “open to everyone,” the highest and most influential posts in the Church are not open to everyone. Increasingly, they seem to be open mainly to prelates who are sympathetic to the LGBT ideology.
This is not to say that LGBT-friendly prelates are themselves involved in sexual activities, but that they are strongly supportive of the LGBT agenda. With that in mind, here are some of the more prominent LGBT-friendly prelates in the U.S. who Francis has promoted to high positions.
Most recently, Francis elevated San Diego Bishop Robert Mc Elroy to the office of cardinal. McElroy was the only North American among the 21 churchmen who Francis made cardinals during an August 27 consistory in Rome. Normally, the office conferred on McElroy would be given to a higher-ranking bishop in a larger diocese. In this case, that would be Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco. But Francis passed over Cordileone—most likely as punishment for Cordileone’s having barred Nancy Pelosi from receiving Communion because of her strident pro-abortion stance.
Like Francis, however, McElroy has no problem with pro-abortion politicians receiving Communion. So, Francis gave him the nod. Another plus for McElroy was his strong support and encouragement of the LGBT community.
Along with his auxiliary bishop John Dolan, Mc Elroy once celebrated a mass for “families of the LGBT community.” After Holy Communion “Nicole” Murray-Ramirez, a nationally-known drag queen activist was allowed to speak to the congregation from the lectern. Afterward, Murray-Ramirez presented McElroy and Dolan with a humanitarian award on behalf of an international drag queen organization.
An interesting footnote to all this is that after the LGBT-ing of the Church in San Diego, and shortly after making Mc Elroy a Cardinal, Francis promoted auxiliary bishop Dolan to be the new bishop of Phoenix—one of the largest and fastest-growing dioceses in America.
Indeed, prelates with a record of supporting the LGBT movement tend to end up overseeing some of the nation’s most influential dioceses: Blaise Cupich became the Cardinal/Archbishop of Chicago, Bishop Joseph Tobin was named Archbishop of Newark (he is now a Cardinal). And LGBT-friendly Wilton Gregory was given the archdiocese of Washington, D.C.
The Washington, D.C. Archdiocese, by the way, seems to be reserved exclusively for LGBT-friendly bishops. First, there was the notorious Theodore McCarrick, next was Donald Wuerl, and now Wilton Gregory (it is rumored that Joseph Tobin was also being considered).
Moreover, bishops with the proper LGBT credentials are also often tapped for important international appointments. For example, in 2019 Blaise Cupich was put in charge of the Vatican summit on clerical sex abuse, despite the fact that Cupich himself has been credibly accused of covering up cases of priestly abuse.
But that sort of thing is no bar to upward mobility in the Francis papacy. Despite everything that was known about Cardinal Mc Carrick, Francis, upon becoming pope, lifted all restrictions on Mc Carrick and sent him off to China, Iran, and other places as a kind of roving Vatican ambassador.
Speaking of Mc Carrick, mention should be made here of Bishop Kevin Farrell who shared an apartment with Mc Carrick for six years in Washington. In 2016, Francis put the LGBT-friendly prelate in charge of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family, and Life. In 2018, Farrell was appointed head of the World Meeting of Families Conference in Dublin, and he promptly invited LGBT activist Fr. James Martin as a featured speaker. Most recently, Farrell was named by Francis as papal Camerlengo—a position which puts him in charge of the Vatican should Francis die or resign, and also gives him considerable influence over the cardinals’ choice of the next pope.
The next pope? Would it be rash to assume that he will have a strong sympathy for the LGBT agenda? At this point, it seems rash to assume otherwise
One of Francis's most recent appointments is Portuguese Cardinal Jose Tolentino de Mendonca. Mendonca was appointed as Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education. According to Life Site News, “commentators have suggested that de Mendonca’s meteoric rise is due to his alignment with Francis’s ideology, particularly on the subject of LGBT matters.” Among other things, de Mendonca wrote the introduction to the Portuguese translation of a book by radical Spanish nun, Teresa Forcades, who campaigned for the legalization of abortion and the recognition of same-sex “marriage.”
In a 2016 interview, Mendonca, echoing Francis, said that the Church must be “a place of welcome and mercy.” And he specifically mentions “homosexual persons” and the “remarried.” But how about the unborn? Are they also to be welcomed? And, if so, why does Mendonca praise a radical nun who campaigned for the legalization of abortion?
Francis says he wants the Church to be open to everyone, but his appointments show otherwise. They are not drawn from a broad spectrum of individuals who are representative of the views of a majority of practicing Catholics. Rather, they seem to represent mostly fringe elements in the Church.
How many ordinary Catholics would want a print of Cardinal Paglia’s mural hanging in their living room? How many would want to celebrate a prominent abortionist as one of the country’s “greats”? How many would want to be lectured to during Mass by a nationally-known drag queen activist?
Francis may want everyone to feel welcome in the Church, but he seems oblivious to the fact that a great many Catholics are feeling mighty uncomfortable with the Church he is shaping by his “in-your-face” appointments. According to Rorate Caeli, Cardinal Mendonca “was well known in the Portuguese Church for being the absolutely most fabulous fabuloso of the whole fabulousness.” The Catholic Church is supposed to be “The Church Universal,” but Francis seems intent on turning it into a club for the “fabulosa” and their friends.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the avant-garde in the Church experimented with kitchen table Masses, balloon Masses, clown Masses, and various theological innovations in the hope of bringing more bodies into the Church. Yet, between 1970 and 2021, the number of priests fell from 59,192 to 34,923. Meanwhile, weekly Mass attendance fell from 54.9 percent to 17.3 percent; and infant baptism from 1.089 million to 411,482. Francis has been pope now for 10 years and there is no evidence that his attempt to revive sixties-style openness has done anything to stanch the flow. The doors to the Church may be open wide, but an alarming number of Catholics are choosing to walk out.
William Kilpatrick is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. His books include Christianity, Islam, and Atheism: The Struggle for the Soul of the West, What Catholics Need to Know About Islam, and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Jihad.
That’s a bit reminiscent of the scene in Casablanca when Captain Renault professes that he is “shocked, shocked “to discover gambling in Rick’s Café--moments before the croupier hands him his winnings.
I say this because Bishop Napolioni is not a strait-laced defender of the Church’s teachings, but an LGBTQ+ advocate who oversees a group for the “pastoral accompaniment of homosexuals.” If Bishop Napolioni is so well-acquainted with the LGBTQ+ movement how come he doesn’t know that blasphemy and mockery of Christian beliefs are a regular feature of pride marches.
Moreover, over-the-top religious parodies are not a new development in the LGBTQ+ movement. Has the bishop never heard of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence—a group of gay men in San Francisco who dressed in nun’s clothing and entertained crowds with bawdy behavior? The “sisters” introduced their act more than 40 years ago and have become an international organization with chapters all over the world.
Perhaps we can give Bishop Napolioni the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he’s one of those super-naïve individuals who can’t see what’s right in front of his face because he believes the propaganda about the gay lifestyle is only slightly different from the straight variety.
But how about Fr. James Martin, S.J? He’s the foremost Catholic advocate for the LGBTQ+ movement. Yet his ministry is not to reconcile gay, lesbian, and trans people to the teachings of the Catholic Church, but to reconcile the Catholic Church to the LGBTQ+ ideology
In a recent article, Martin argued that Catholics can and should celebrate “Pride Month.” Many Catholics, writes Martin, misunderstand LGBT pride to be about vanity, but it’s really about dignity—“a consciousness of one’s own dignity.” I had to smile when I read this because it reminded me of a scene from another old movie—the opening scene from Singing in the Rain in which a reporter asks Gene Kelly if he has any advice for aspiring actors, and is met with the answer, “dignity—always dignity.” Meanwhile, while Kelly goes on about his dignity, we see scenes from his career which show that Kelly and his partner sacrifice their dignity at every turn in order to get ahead.
I’m sure that Fr. Martin is no stranger to pride parades, drag queen entertainments, and so forth. To the naked eye (if you’ll pardon the expression) these displays do look like vanity or, more accurately, like narcissistic exhibitionism. Yet Fr, Martin would have us believe that Pride Month is really about a “consciousness of one’s own dignity”—as though the tattooed, half-naked exhibitionists should be compared to civil rights marchers in Selma.
In fact, the gay rights movement which later morphed into the LGBTQ/Pride movement has often been compared by its advocates to the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties. But that claim won’t wash. The Civil Rights Movement actually was about human dignity—a dignity that derives from the fact that we are all made in the image of God.
Consequently, the civil rights marches were conducted with great dignity. When blacks marched through the streets of Southern cities, they wore their Sunday best and they held their heads high. Though they were jeered and spat on by bigots and bludgeoned by police, they did not respond in kind. They were conscious of their God-given dignity and acted accordingly.
By contrast, Pride events often seem like mockeries of human dignity—attempts to blot out the image of God. This is evident not only in the blasphemous use of religious objects and symbols, but in the entertainments—bawdy drag queens in exaggerated costumes, marchers in skimpy costumes, and nearly naked exhibitionists performing pantomimes of sex acts.
Like Gene Kelly’s character, Fr. Martin tells us it’s all about “dignity,” but these Mardi Gras-like displays concentrate on what is debased in human nature rather than what is noble. More often than not, they mock notions of nobility, virtue, and fidelity. Beyond that, they are also self-mocking. “Yes,” they seem to be saying, “this is only shallow entertainment, but it makes me the center of attention and that’s what I crave.”
The comparison to the Civil Rights marches is, in short, a stretch. It’s as though the Civil Rights marchers had decided that the best way to gain respect was to put on minstrel clothes and sing “Mammy” while tap-dancing down the street.
Fr. Martin urges Catholics to celebrate Pride Month, but judging by the usual celebrations—exhibitionist pride parades, drag queen shows targeted at children, and lots of sexually explicit content—Catholics would have to jettison much of their faith in order to join in the celebration.
The meaning of life according to Christian teaching is to be found in a relationship with God. According to LGBTQ ideology, however, the meaning of life has to do with experiencing and expressing one’s sexuality. At least, that is the impression conveyed by the narcissistic entertainments favored by the LGBTQ crowd. All in all, it’s a very shallow and self-obsessed vision of life. If that’s all that the LGBTQ movement has to offer, why should we celebrate it? And why should we pay any attention to a pied-piper priest who seems more committed to the latest lifestyles than to the truths of his faith?
Unfortunately, one of the reasons we can’t entirely ignore Fr. Martin is that he has the full backing of Pope Francis. Francis has encouraged Fr. Martin’s LGBTQ ministry both by writing to him and by receiving him in a private audience—a significant public gesture of support. In the letter, which Martin made public, Francis writes, “I pray for you to continue in this way, being close, compassionate and with great tenderness.”
Does this mean that Francis is just another starry-eyed idealist who is not aware of the excesses of the LGBTQ “community,” and would be “shocked, shocked” to find out about those excesses?
It’s difficult to know for sure, but there is plenty of evidence that Francis is not only aware of the LGBTQ demi-monde, but is unconcerned by it. He seems to have spent a good part of his papacy trying to extricate homosexualist friends from awkward and even criminal situations. When, for example, Vatican police discovered Cardinal Francesco Cocopalmerio presiding over a drug-fueled homosexual orgy in a Vatican apartment, the Cardinal was allowed to leave before the arrests began.
Aside from the various scandals, however, the clearest indication that Francis is in “the know” can be deduced from his appointments to high office. His appointments are almost exclusively pro-LGBT, and Francis, who has a reputation for being canny and crafty, would almost certainly know that about them.
I know some traditional Catholics who think that Francis is naïve and not too bright—that his advisors deceive and manipulate him. The increasing permissiveness in the Church, they say, is due to others, not to Francis. From this perspective, Francis would be shocked to discover what goes on in Pride events and in bawdy drag queens' story hours for children.
But I doubt that he would be either surprised or shocked. Francis himself uses bawdy and scatological language. And according to one biographer, Francis delighted in teaching dirty words to his young nephew. On Easter Sunday, Francis gave a sermon to 80,000 young people in St. Peter’s Square. Was he unaware that the “warmup” for his appearance was a performance by “Blanco,” a soft-porn singer who is a favorite of LGBT fans?
The only thing that seems to shock Francis is that traditional Catholics are still hindering the forward movement of Church “progressives.”. In a recent talk at an educational conference, he scolded traditionalists for guarding “dead traditions.” On other occasions, he has castigated traditional Catholics for their “rigid fundamentalism” and “scrupulosity.”
No one, of course, could accuse Francis of being scrupulous. He is notoriously non-judgmental except when it comes to sins against the earth and the climate. Under Francis, the Church is in no danger of encouraging scrupulosity. It is, however, in danger of encouraging a novel view of life that is shallow, self-absorbed, and reproductive-adverse.
It's strange and ironic that Church leaders would fall for this sideshow when they should be passing on the message that they were commissioned to pass on—namely, the most profound, most powerful, and most meaningful vision of life ever set before the world.
Contrary to Fr. Martin, giving support to an LGBT person does not, from a Christian perspective, mean celebrating his lifestyle, but helping him instead to lift himself out of it.
Since many people have been asking, yes, Outreach 2020, the #LGBTQ Catholic Ministry Conference, is still on track. It will be held at Fordham University’s Rose Hill Campus from June 18-20. We should have registration information up within a few days. Stay tuned!
Founded in 1841, Fordham is the Jesuit University of New York, offering exceptional education distinguished by the Jesuit tradition across nine schools. Fordham awards baccalaureate, graduate, and professional degrees to approximately 16,000 students from Fordham College at Rose Hill, Fordham College at Lincoln Center, the Gabelli School of Business (undergraduate and graduate), the School of Professional and Continuing Studies, the Graduate Schools of Arts and Sciences, Education, Religion and Religious Education, and Social Service, and the School of Law. The University has residential campuses in the Bronx and Manhattan, a campus in West Harrison, N.Y., the Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station in Armonk, N.Y., and the London Centre, Clerkenwell, in the United Kingdom.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
The Roman Catholic Church is on the fast track to a new identity when it comes to homosexual inclusion. Under the current pope, the church has made significant strides toward apostasy — and I use that term loosely since the Roman Catholic Church is not a true Church — in the realm of social doctrine.
One outspoken pro-gay Jesuit priest, James Martin, recently announced and confirmed a major pro-gay Catholic conference which is to be held at Fordham University in June 2020.
Since many people have been asking, yes, Outreach 2020, the #LGBTQ Catholic Ministry Conference, is still on track. It will be held at Fordham University's Rose Hill Campus from June 18-20. We should have registration information up within a few days. Stay tuned! pic.twitter.com/fW8SoXBw4W
According to the event’s website, the gathering of sodomites will be hosted by the school’s department of Theology along with St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church and will be a “Global Conversation” in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots and World Pride 2019.”
“The Catholic Church is undergoing a period of revolutionary change in its relationship to the LGBTQ+ community,” the website reads, “Parishes and dioceses around the world are discerning and implementing new forms of pastoral ministry and advocacy on behalf of the LGBTQ+ Catholic community. What does this movement look like outside of the U.S.? How can members of the LGBTQ+ community in the U.S. support activists around the world?”
While the vast majority of the professing Church is abandoning the faith altogether to remain culturally relevant, rest assured that God has a remnant that will not cave. That remnant, however, is a very small minority. Tough times are ahead for true believers. _______________________________________________________
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
On November 13, 2019, Fr. James Martin, S.J., "was delighted to announce" a 2020 outreach conference for LGBT at the Jesuit Fordham University in New York City.
Speakers will include Bishop John Stowe, O.F.M. of Lexington, Kentucky; Sr. Jeannine Gramick, S.L. of New Ways Ministry; Father Bryan Massingale of Fordham; Siva Subburaman of Georgetown University; and Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., former master general of the Dominican Order.
We see that in the wake of Pope Francis, the Conciliar Church in the United States and, principally, the Jesuits are going full-steam into the pro-homosexual agenda.
In France also, last row below, the ex-Catholic Hierarchy is not far behind. On November 18, the Diocese of Poitiers officially promoted a gathering for homosexuals and transsexuals. The poster reads:
After Eight
Friday, October 18, 2019, at 19:00hs
Saint Porchaire Room (behind the church)
47, Gambetta Street, dowtown Poitiers
You have a homosexual or transsexual orientation
You live alone or as a couple...
You believe in heaven or not. You search for a place of sharing, of hope.
Christians will join you for a Happy Hour to build together.
Invite your friends.
Each one brings an idea, a project, a question, a longing...
Pope Francis and the Thomas Merton Connection by Ray Yungen is our newest Lighthouse Trails BookletTract. The Booklet Tract is 14 pages long and sells for $1.95 for single copies. Quantity discounts are as much as 50% off retail. Our Booklet Tracts are designed to give away to others or for your own personal use. Below is the content of the booklet. To order copies of Pope Francis and the Thomas Merton Connection, click here.
After writing this booklet at my publisher’s headquarters in Montana, I learned that the Parliament of the World Religions was taking place in Salt Lake City, Utah that same week. I decided to head down there, and with a media pass, was able to enter the conference. What I experienced at the conference has confirmed to me that Pope Francis is without question an ardent interspiritualist on the same page as Thomas Merton.—Ray Yungen
Pope Francis and the Thomas Merton Connection By Ray Yungen In 2013, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was elected Pope Francis the First. This new pope immediately began causing ripples in the Catholic Church with his statements on certain issues. He also caused many to take notice of his unpapal lifestyle such as living in a guesthouse with twelve others rather than living in the papal apartments like previous popes. He projects a down-to-earth image that denotes compassion and trust. He has been called the people’s pope, someone who is your friend, someone you can trust. But there are certain things about Pope Francis’ coming on the scene that are being ignored by the media and most people. The first of these are the unusual circumstances that surrounded his election to the papacy. Pope Benedict resigned from his position as Pope. He is the first Catholic pope to do this since the 1400s. Popes do not resign but rather continue to be popes until they die. There was no obvious reason for Pope Benedict to resign. There was no scandal, nor no immediate health issue. (Two years into Pope Francis’ reign, Benedict is still alive.) The second is the number of books about Pope Francis that have been released since he came on the scene. Previous popes had perhaps one or two books about them or by them. But books by or about Pope Francis are extremely prolific. You see them everywhere. Many of these books use descriptions such as revolution and hope. The cover story in Christianity Today’s December 2014 issue proclaims: “Why Everyone is Flocking to Francis.” CT has its own idea of why “everyone” is drawn to the Pope. But if I am correct in my conclusions about contemplative spirituality and its outcome, then what is happening here is an occurrence that will affect the lives of millions of people, both Catholic and non-Catholic. In his speech to the U.S. Congress on September 24th, 2015, Pope Francis praised four Americans he admired.1 One in particular stood out from the perspective of the spiritual future of the world—the Catholic monk, Thomas Merton. If you have been reading Lighthouse Trails literature for any length of time, you will know this reference by the pope is quite sobering and very significant. It is this situation that this booklet will be discussing. Who is Thomas Merton? (1915-1968) What Martin Luther King was to the civil rights movement and what Henry Ford was to the automobile, Thomas Merton is to contemplative prayer. Although this prayer movement existed centuries before he came along, Merton, a Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, took it out of its monastic setting and made it available to, and popular with, the masses. I personally have been researching Thomas Merton and the contemplative prayer movement for over 20 years, and for me, hands down, Thomas Merton has influenced the Christian mystical movement more than any person of recent decades. Merton penned one of the most classic descriptions of contemplative spirituality I have ever come across. He explained:
It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race . . . now I realize what we all are. . . . If only they [people] could all see themselves as they really are . . . I suppose the big problem would be thatwe would fall down and worship each other. . . . At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusions, a point of pure truth. . . . This little point . . . is the pureglory of God in us. It is in everybody. 2 (emphasis mine)
This panentheistic (i.e., God in everyone) view is similar to the occultic definition of the higher self. In order to understand Merton’s connection to mystical occultism, we need first to understand a sect of the Muslim world—the Sufis, who are the mystics of Islam. They chant the name of Allah as a mantra, go into meditative trances, and experience God in everything. A prominent Catholic audiotape company promotes a series of cassettes Merton did on Sufism. It explains:
Merton loved and shared a deep spiritual kinship with the Sufis, the spiritual teachers and mystics of Islam. Here he shares their profound spirituality.3
To further show Merton’s “spiritual kinship” with Sufism, in a letter to a Sufi Master, Merton disclosed, “My prayer tends very much to what you call fana.”4 So what is fana? The Dictionary of Mysticism and the Occult defines it as “the act of merging with the Divine Oneness”5 (meaning all is one and all is God). Merton saw the Sufi concept of fana as being a catalyst for Muslim unity with Christianity despite the obvious doctrinal differences. In a dialogue with a Sufi leader, Merton asked about the Muslim concept of salvation. The master wrote back stating:
Islam inculcates individual responsibility for one’s actions and does not subscribe to the doctrine of atonement or the theory of redemption.6 (emphasis added)
To Merton, of course, this meant little because he believed that fana and contemplation were the same thing. He responded:
Personally, in matters where dogmatic beliefs [the atonement]differ, I think that controversy is of little value because it takes us away from the spiritual realities into the realm of words and ideas . . . in words there are apt to be infinite complexities and subtleties which are beyond resolution. . . . But much more important is the sharing of the experience of divine light . . . It is here that the area of fruitful dialogue exists between Christianity and Islam.7 (emphasis mine)
Merton himself underlined that point when he told a group of contemplative women:
I’m deeply impregnated with Sufism.8
And he elaborated elsewhere:
Asia, Zen, Islam, etc., all these things come together in my life. It would be madness for me to attempt to create a monastic life for myself by excluding all these. I would be less a monk.9 (emphasis mine)
When we evaluate Merton’s mystical worldview, it clearly resonates with what technically would be considered traditional New Age thought. This is an inescapable fact! Merton’s mystical experiences ultimately made him a kindred spirit and co-mystic with those in Eastern religions because his insights were identical to their insights. At an interfaith conference in Thailand, he stated:
I believe that by openness to Buddhism, to Hinduism, and to these great Asian [mystical] traditions, we stand a wonderful chance of learning more about the potentiality of our own Christian traditions.10
Please understand that contemplative prayer alone was the catalyst for such theological views. One of Merton’s biographers made this very clear when he explained:
If one wants to understand Merton’s going to the East it is important to understand that it was his rootedness in his own faith tradition [Catholicism] that gave him the spiritual equipment [contemplative prayer] he needed to grasp the way of wisdom that is proper to the East.11
This was the ripe fruit of the Desert Fathers, the ancient monks who borrowed mystical methods from Eastern religion, which altered their understanding of God. This is what one gets from contemplative prayer. There is no other way to put it. It does not take being a scholar to see the logic in this. Contemplative Prayer and The Expansion of the Catholic Church The most obvious integration of this movement can be found in Roman Catholicism. Michael Leach, former president of the Catholic Book Publishers Association, made this incredibly candid assertion:
[M]any people also believe that the spiritual principles underlying the New Age movement will soon be incorporated—or rather reincorporated—into the mainstream of Catholic belief. In fact, it’s happening in the United States right now.12
Incorporating it is! And it is assimilating primarily through the contemplative prayer movement. Contemplative leader Basil Pennington, openly acknowledging its growing size, said, “We are part of an immensely large community … ‘We are Legion.’”13 Backing him up, a major Catholic resource company stated, “Contemplative prayer has once again become commonplace in the Christian community.”14 William Shannon (a mysticism proponent and a sympathetic biographer of Thomas Merton) went so far as to say “contemplative spirituality has now widely replaced old-style Catholicism.”15 This is not to say the Mass or any of the sacraments have been abandoned, but the underlying spiritual ideology of many in the Catholic church is now contemplative in its orientation. One of my personal experiences with the saturation of mysticism in the Catholic church was in a phone conversation I had with the head nun at a local retreat center who told me the same message Shannon conveys. She made it clear The Cloud of Unknowing (an ancient primer on contemplative prayer) is now the basis for nearly all Catholic spirituality, and contemplative prayer is now becoming widespread all over the world. I had always been confused as to the real nature of this advance in the Catholic church. Was this just the work of a few mavericks and renegades, or did the church hierarchy sanction this practice? My concerns were affirmed when I read in an interview that the mystical prayer movement not only had the approval of the highest echelons of Catholicism but also was, in fact, the source of its expansion. Speaking of a meeting between the late Pope Paul VI and members of the Catholic Trappist Monastic Order in the 1970s, Thomas Keating, disclosed the following:
The Pontiff declared that unless the Church rediscovered the contemplative tradition, renewal couldn’t take place. He specifically called upon the monastics, because they lived the contemplative life, to help the laity and those in other religious orders bring that dimension into their lives as well.16
Just look at the official catechism of the Catholic church to see contemplative prayer officially endorsed and promoted to the faithful by the powers that be. The catechism firmly states: “Contemplative prayer is hearing the word of God … Contemplative prayer is silence.”17 The Merton Paradigm A 2013 article from the UK news source The Telegraph states:
[Pope] Francis is a Jesuit and his long, arduous formation as a priest was founded on the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius.18
The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) reaffirmed the pope’s “Ignatian spirituality,” stating that:
All Jesuits share the experience of a rigorous spiritual formation process marked by a transformative experience with the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. To think that the leader of the Catholic Church is one who follows in the tradition of Ignatius, whose life has been devoted to finding God in all things, and who is committed to the service of faith and the promotion of justice, fills me with great hope. This is a great day for the Jesuits and the worldwide Church.19
Harvey D. Egan, S.J., Professor Emeritus of Systematic and Mystical Theology at Boston College explains the following about St. Ignatius of Loyola:
Ignatius of Loyola . . . is one of the Christian tradition’s profoundest mystics and perhaps its greatest mystagogue [one who teaches mystical doctrines].20
Today, the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius incorporate contemplative prayer practices. Considering that Ignatian spirituality compliments much of Thomas Merton’s spiritual outlook, it is not surprising that a Jesuit pope would say the following words to the U.S. Congress:
[Thomas Merton] remains a source of spiritual inspiration and a guide for many people. . . . Merton was above all a man of prayer, a thinker who challenged the certitudes of his time and opened new horizonsfor souls and for the Church.21 (emphasis added)
The problem is that Merton did indeed open new horizons, but not in a good way. The horizons he opened were to “spiritual realities” that were at odds with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Rather, it reflected an interspiritual perception and even beyond that into the realm of the occult. In the book The Aquarian Conspiracy, the following information shows just how far Merton had crossed the line into realms that were spiritually dangerous.
In 1967, Barbara Marx Hubbard, a futurist moved by Teilhard’s vision evolving human consciousness, invited a thousand people from around the world . . . to form “a human front” to those who shared a belief in the possibility of transcendent consciousness. Hundreds responded, including . . . Thomas Merton.22
Even though Marx Hubbard was an outright occultist, Merton still was on board with her. There didn’t seem to be any hesitancy on his part to embrace what she referred to as transcendent consciousness. In a nutshell,transcendent consciousness is the very essence of the teaching of all the world’s mystical traditions that God is inall that exists. But consider the implications of such a belief: If God were in everything, including all people, as Merton and Hubbard believed, then there would be no need for Jesus to die for the sins of the world to reconcile man to God because man would already be divine. The account that best illustrates what outcome this could have for Christianity is the story of Sue Monk Kidd who was a Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher in a small town in South Carolina. She would have been seen as an average Christian wife and mother. She gives a revealing description of her spiritual transformation in her book God’s Joyful Surprise: Finding Yourself Loved sharing how she suffered a deep hollowness and spiritual hunger for many years even though she was very active in her church. She sums up her feelings: Maybe we sense we’re disconnected from God somehow. He becomes superfluous to the business at hand. He lives on the periphery so long we begin to think that is where He belongs. Anything else seems unsophisticated or fanatical.23 Ironically, a Sunday school co-worker handed her a book by Thomas Merton, telling her she needed to read it. Once Monk Kidd read it, her life changed dramatically. In her third book, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, not too many years after she wrote her first two books (which by the way were widely accepted in Christian circles, including a back cover endorsement by Moody Monthly magazine), there had been a dramatic change in her spiritual life as you can see in this narrative she wrote:
The minister was preaching. He was holding up a Bible. It was open, perched atop his raised hand as if a blackbird had landed there. He was saying that the Bible was the sole and ultimate authority of the Christian’s life. The sole and ultimate authority. I remember a feeling rising up from a place about two inches below my navel. It was a passionate, determined feeling, and it spread out from the core of me like a current so that my skin vibrated with it. If feelings could be translated into English, this feeling would have roughly been the word no! It was the purest inner knowing I had experienced, and it was shouting in me no, no, no! The ultimate authority of my life is not the Bible; it is not confined between the covers of a book. It is not something written by men and frozen in time. It is not from a source outside myself. My ultimate authority is the divine voice in my own soul. Period.24
Now Sue Monk Kidd worships the “Goddess Sophia” rather than Jesus Christ:
We also need Goddess consciousness to reveal earth’s holiness. . . . Matter becomes inspirited; it breathes divinity. Earth becomes alive and sacred. . . . Goddess offers us the holiness of everything.25
During his speech to the US Congress, Pope Francis said that Thomas Merton sowed peace in the “contemplative style.” But actually, Merton did something far different than sow peace; he sowed the actual belief systems of other religions as these two quotes below illustrate:
The God [Merton] knew in prayer was the same experience that Buddhists describe in their enlightenment.26
In other words, Merton found Buddhist enlightenment in contemplative prayer. Merton’s view that God is in every person is summed up in this statement:
During a conference on contemplative prayer, the question was put to Thomas Merton: “How can we best help people to attain union with God?” His answer was very clear: “We must tell them that they are already united with God. Contemplative prayer is nothing other than ‘coming into consciousness’ of what is already there.”27
Even influential Catholic leaders recognize this and refer to Merton as being a “lapsed monk” who “went ‘wandering in the East, seeking consolation, apparently, of non-Christian, Eastern spirituality.’”28 These new horizons by Thomas Merton that Pope Francis has found to be exemplar are going to lead to an even greater slide into interspirituality within Catholicism and even evangelical Christianity. In essence, those who are flocking to Pope Francis, as Christianity Today stated, are inadvertently flocking to Thomas Merton. After writing this booklet at my publisher’s headquarters in Montana, I learned that the Parliament of the World Religions was taking place in Salt Lake City, Utah that same week. I decided to head down there, and with a media pass, was able to enter the conference. What I experienced at the conference has confirmed to me that Pope Francis is without question an ardent interspiritualist and on the same page as Thomas Merton. In one document I read (a letter written to all the conference participants by Archbishop Carlo Maria Bigano Vatican Ambassador to the U.S.), the Archbishop stated:
United to all of you in a bond of spiritual communion and in hope of increasing unity among all people of faith, the Holy Father offers his blessing and prayers as a pledge of strength and God.29 (emphasis added)
“Spiritual communion” is not referring to human kindness and respect to all people. This “spiritual communion” is where doctrines and beliefs are set aside, and a unity is established just as Thomas Merton suggested to the Sufi master (see page 5). At the conference, I heard terms (in connection with the Pope, the Catholic Church, and all the world’s religions) such as “oneness,” “dialogue of fraternity,” and “he [Pope Francis] is a buddha” (said by a Buddhist monk); and the general consensus was that anyone who was not in favor of such a unity was spiritually wayward. When Thomas Merton told the Sufi master that doctrine takes us away from the “spiritual realities” (a mystical state of oneness), he said “much more important is the sharing of the experience of divine light.” In other words, beliefs must be set aside, and in their place is a unity that can be reached through mysticism. All of the world’s major religions have a practice that offers this mystical state. Just as Merton saw “fana” (Islamic mystical state) as one of the paths to spiritual unity, Pope Francis sees the various religions as one family. He is bringing Thomas Merton’s ideas of unity to the table of global unity among all humanity. Thomas Merton’s “contemplative style” (that Pope Francis referenced to Congress) saw no contradiction between Christianity and Buddhism; and Merton said he wanted to be the best Buddhist he could possibly be.30 When Pope Francis praised Thomas Merton (knowing full well the implications of this), he gave a green light for everyone to embrace interspirituality. And where there is interspirituality, there is no place for the Cross of Jesus Christ. To order copies of Pope Francis and the Thomas Merton Connection, click here. Endnotes: 1. Pope Francis’ speech to the U.S. Congress in September 2015: http://time.com/4048176/pope-francis-us-visit-congress-transcript. 2. Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Publishers, 1989), pp. 157-158. 3. Credence Cassettes magazine, Winter/Lent, 1998, p. 24. 4. M. Basil Pennington, Thomas Merton, My Brother (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1996), p. 115, citing from The Hidden Ground of Love), pp. 63-64. 5. Nevill Drury, The Dictionary of Mysticism and the Occult (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1985), p. 85. 6. Rob Baker and Gray Henry, Editors, Merton and Sufism (Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 1999), p. 109. 7. Ibid., p. 110. 8. Ibid., p. 69. 9. Ibid., p. 41. 10. William Shannon, Silent Lamp, The Thomas Merton Story (New York, NY: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1992), p. 276. 11. Ibid., p. 281. 12. Michael Leach (America, May 2, 1992), p. 384. 13. M. Basil Pennington, Centered Living: The Way of Centering Prayer (New York, NY: Doubleday Publishing, Image Book edition, September 1988), p. 10. 14. Sheed & Ward Catalog, Winter/Lent, 1978, p. 12. 15. William Shannon, Seeds of Peace (New York, NY: Crossroad Publishing, 1996), p. 25. 16. Anne A. Simpson, “Resting in God” (Common Boundary magazine, Sept./Oct. 1997, http://www.livingrosaries.org/interview.htm), p. 25. 17. Catechism of the Catholic Church (Urbi et Orbi Communications, 1994), p. 652. 18. Charles More, “A New Pope, a New Primate and a New Life for Christianity” (The Telegraph, March 15, 2013, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9932996/A-new-Pope-a-new-Primate-anda-new-life-for-Christianity.html). 19. From the AJCU website stated by John Hurley, JD (president Canisius College), “Statements on Pope Francis’ Election from Presidents of AJCU and Jesuit Institutions” (March 14, 2013 http://web.archive.org/web/20150325025014/http://www.ajcunet.edu/news-detail?TN=NEWS-20130314084452). 20. Harvey D. Egan, Soundings in the Christian Mystical Tradition (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2010), p. 227. 21. Pope Francis’ speech to the U.S. Congress in September 2015: http://time.com/4048176/pope-francis-us-visit-congress-transcript. 22. Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy (Los Angeles, CA: J.P. Archer, 1980), p. 57. 23. Sue Monk Kidd, God’s Joyful Surprise (San Francisco, CA: Harper, 1987), p. 56. 24. Sue Monk Kidd, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter (San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins, 1996), p. 76. 25. Ibid., pp. 162-163. 26. Brian C. Taylor, Setting the Gospel Free (New York, NY: Continuum Publishing, 1996), p. 76. 27. Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 1996, Revised Edition), p. 211. 28. Deborah Halter, “Whose Orthodoxy Is It? (National Catholic Reporter, March 11, 2005, http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2005a/031105/031105a.php). 29. Can be read at: https://cadeioparliament.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/message-to-pwr.pdf. 30. David Steindl-Rast, “Recollection of Thomas Merton’s Last Days in the West” (Monastic Studies, 7:10, 1969). To order copies of Pope Francis and the Thomas Merton Connection, click here. _______________________________________________
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
As we prepare to discuss the Contemplative Mystic Thomas Merton we will be entering the very Temple of the Contemplative Spirituality Movement (CSM) itself to touch one of its most “anointed” Buddhas. Those who teach Contemplative Spirituality Mysticism such as Richard Foster, the Quaker mystic who is listed among the “living spiritual teachers” at the Spirituality & Practice website, hold the late Merton in extremely high regard. Regardless, in this article I will show you that Merton taught a “social conversion,” which was a clear rejection of the historic orthodox Christian theology and the absolute necessity for mankind to be born again/regenerated. Merton’s teachings about Contemplative/Centering Prayer (i.e. transcendental meditation) for the inward conversion of man was right in line with the same foolish social gospel preached in liberal theology. And now through so-called “Christian” mysticism this falsehood has been reimagined by Guru Brian McLaren and others in the Emergent Church as their own warped and toxic myth of the Kingdom of God.
Spiritual Director Thomas Merton
A wise man attacks the city of the mighty and pulls down the stronghold in which they trust
(Proverbs 21:20).
In the CSM you will much talk about Spiritual Formation (SF) from men like Richard Foster, the Guru of Contemplation, and his faithful sidekick Dallas Willard. One of the main ideas they promote is the need for a Spiritual Director in one’s life. First we turn to a book called Spiritual Direction & Meditationby Thomas Merton, the man Foster says shared “priceless wisdom for all Christians who long to go deeper in the spiritual life.” In it Merton explains the origin for this supposed requirement of “spiritual direction.” As he does you will see where this whole messed up mysticism immediately went off-track. Merton tells us the:
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 wasunnecessary 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 contemplative spirituality began as a rebellion against Biblical authority and the outline for Church leadership in the pastoral epistles. We’ll return to this “monastic concept” later but for now we can see Merton admits that “men withdrew from the Christian community in order to live as solitaries in the desert.” This is where mysticism would enter into their religious life as the eastern “Desert Fathers” began seeking “common ground” with Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus in their worship. There they turned their back on their brothers and sisters in local churches in favor of seeking individual religious experience apart from the prescribed method of worshipping God in this Age of Grace laid out in the New Testament.
As we return to begin looking more specifically at Thomas Merton I want to mention that in his excellent series Mysticism Gary Gilley points out just how deeply Guru Richard Foster is influenced by the mystic monk Thomas Merton. Just a quick aside for those who wonder why I use the title Guru so often with these “spiritual directors” in the Emergent Church like Foster and McLaren; if you are going to assign each other titles from apostate Rome and involve yourselves in trying to teach practices of Eastern mysticism, then a Guru is what you are. Gilley is right when he says of Foster:
Foster cites and/or quotes Merton on at least nine separate occasions in Celebration of Discipline, yet Merton was not a Christian as far as we can tell. He was a twentieth-century Roman Catholic who had so immersed himself in Buddhism that he claimed he saw no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity and intended to become as good a Buddhist as he could.
But despite his doctrinal views and New Age leanings Foster considers Merton’sContemplative Prayer, “A must book,” and says of Merton, “[He] has perhaps done more than any other twentieth-century figure to make the life of prayer widely known and understood.” Merton wrote, “If only [people] could see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed…. I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other.”
Merton’s Message
The above quote from Merton comes from his Conjectures Of A Guilty Bystander (CGB) which was first published in 1966 and is a good representation of where his contemplative spirituality ultimately led him. On the back cover we’re told that as he neared “the end of his life” the Mystic Monk “played a significant role in introducing Eastern religions to the West.” Now let’s look at the above quote once again, but this time in its broader context. Beginning on page 156 of CGB Merton is describing an experience he has one day while watching people “in the center of the shopping district.” Merton tells the reader he “was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people,…even though we were total strangers.” As he continues on describing this epiphany Merton says he comes to understand that the solitary life of a monk creates “the illusion that by making vows we become a different species of being” as it were.
In the following we will catch a glimpse of the universalism which underlies the more liberal vein of theology within apostate Roman Catholicism as Merton says of the monastic life that:
though “out of the world” we are in the same world as everybody else, the world of the bomb, the world of race hatred, the world of technology, the world of mass media, big business, revolution, and all the rest. We take a different attitude to all these things, for we belong to God. Yet so does everybody else belong to God. We just happen to make a profession out of this consciousness (157, emphasis mine).
As one continues to read there is no question Merton is writing in praise of his fellow mankind and downplaying our sinful nature. In fact he even says it “is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race,” even though it “makes many terrible mistakes.” This love of man is a common theme in the writings I’ve studied by those who are longtime practitioners of Contemplative/Centering Prayer. And with this misapplied love comes an anthropocentric understanding of God. Rather than focusing on how we’ve caused God such grief by these “terrible mistakes,” which are the results of a fallen nature that can only be cured by the Cross of Christ, instead Merton turns things backward when he says:
yet, with all that, God Himself gloried in becoming a member of the human race. A member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake. I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, and now I realize we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people they are all walking around shining like the sun (157).
Now we have the context for the earlier quote and it is beyond question that Merton is literally gushing about what he sees as mankind’s innate goodness. This becomes even clearer as the late mystic comes to believe that his “solitude” really “is not just my own.” This says Merton “is because I am one with them…and when I am alone they are not ‘they’ but my own self.” And what follows is an unmistakable denial of the doctrine of original sin:
Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed….I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other. But this cannot be seen, only believed and “understood” by a peculiar gift.
Again, that expression, le point vierge, (I cannot translate it) comes in here. 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, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our mind or the brutalities of our own will. 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, and if we could see it we would see these billion points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely….I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere (158).
Clear Contextual Evidence Of The Human Potential Movement
I’ve purposely chosen to include this much of the text of Merton’s book to annihilate the argument that my conclusions have been formed by taking the Mystic Monk out of context. It is beyond question that he is talking about an inner quality of goodness at “the center of our being.” Further he tells us this “point of nothingness” is itself “untouched by sin,” and in line with ancient Gnosticism this divine spark “belongs to God,” and this “point” of deity within mankind “is the pure glory of God in us.” And finally doctrine in agreement with the “Inner Light” of the Quakers comes emerging as Merton tells us this “little point of nothingness” is “in everybody” and is “blazing with the invisible light of heaven.” Men and women, this is a uniform testimony from those I have read who practice contemplative spirituality. So it’s little wonder that in the back of his own booklet Meditative Prayer under “Further Study In Meditation” Guru Foster would call Merton the Mystic Monk’s book Contemplative Prayer, “A powerful analysis of the central nature of contemplative prayer. A must book.”
On Slice Of Laodicea I once posted the abbreviated quote from Merton’s CGB as an example of an anthropocentric denial of original sin and an improper view of mankind’s true nature. And then underneath I placed the following from Christ Jesus the Lord:
What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person (Mark 7:20-23).
While this would certainly appear to be a flat contradiction by mankind’s Creator Himself of Merton’s mystic teachings above there were quite a few who were unable see that these statements are mutually exclusive and therefore diametrically opposed. Whatever equivocation we’d like to use about Merton his statement stands in its context. He is unquestionably talking about an innate goodness in mankind. Whereas Jesus says in no uncertain terms there is not. This is as old as Genesis 8:21 where He had already said: “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” And we also consider this from the inspired Apostle Paul – ”I know thatnothing good lives in me (Romans 7:18). So the sad story is that sin proceeds out of the heart of man, and every intention of man’s heart is evil, and nothing good is inherent in mankind that would make him worthy of God’s saving him despite what Norman Vincent Peale and his clone Robert Schueller and one of his disciples smilin’ Joel Osteen say to the contrary.
For Men Shall Be Lovers Of Their Own Selves
If you actually read what myself and others have written on Thomas Merton you would know that by the time his life was over he was for all intents and purposes a Buddhist and his theology ended up as panentheistic as the other mystics before him. I documented Merton’s disgusting recounting of his spiritual experience at Polonnaruwa in Thomas Merton And The Buddhas. The information that follows now is from my article Contemplative Prayer And Meditation and was itself literally taken from Merton’s Message at The Thomas Merton Foundation. They are in a much better position to know what this heretic taught than any of us. For the Lord’s sake isn’t it time we finally see what is so blatantly obvious? This simply has no place in Christian theology:
He takes people into deep places within themselves… At the core of Thomas Merton’s spiritual writings is the search for the “true self” and our need for relationship withGod, other people and all of creation… He concludes that we must discover God as the center of our beingto which all things tend…
Merton’s interests were prophetic,…he foresaw…the source of the problem [we face] is that man “has become alienated from his inner self which is the image of God.” [The solution] requires a social conversion,… The first step in this turning is atransformationof consciousness and Thomas Merton is a preeminent guide to us in this first step…[and] a spiritual master whose influence crosses generations and religious affiliations.
And as I have previously pointed out, of course it would cross “religious affiliations” because there is no mention of the inherent sin nature of man, or the need for being regenerated, or of the Cross of Christ as the only real solution for sin. What we have just read from a Site sympathetic to Merton could be agreed to by virtually anyone from any spiritual background, and this is precisely my point. It is exactly this same message of New Age spirituality that comes through the “transformation of consciousness” to all those who practice this transcendental meditation long enough to anger God until He finally abandons them to their reprobate mind. (see–Romans 1:18-32)
Men and women, God is not the center of mankind’s being and His image in man was shattered at the Fall. The absolute Truth is that apart from Christ one cannot even begin to restore this imago Dei. This is an appeal for you to see these things taught by demons for what they actually are…the worship of mankind and a major step toward the fulfillment of Satan’s blasphemous boast frozen in time for us by God the Holy Spirit in Isaiah 14:14 – “I will make myself like the Most High.”
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God. (Exodus 20:4-5, KJV)
In his book A Time of Departing Ray Yungen offers this bit of personal testimony in an encounter with Guru Foster: “I attended a local seminar where Richard Foster was speaking. At the end of the meeting, I approached him. Wanting to know more about Foster’s beliefs, I asked, ‘What do you think about the current contemplative prayer movement?’ Foster emphatically told me, ‘Thomas Merton tried to awaken God’s people!’ ”
The Unholy Ground Of Idolatry
What you are about to see is an account from Thomas Merton’s own journal concerning his “total integration” as he observed the huge Buddha statues at Polonnaruwa. This event happened during the tour of Asia he was on in 1968 when he was accidentally electrocuted. As a matter of fact, in the series “Merton Center Occasional Papers” from Merton.org, the website of “The Thomas Merton Center [which] is the official repository of Merton’s artistic estate,” ITMS President Dr. Paul M. Pearson tells us:
In his Asian Journal Merton refered to himself as a pilgrim – “I have left my monastery to come here not just as a research scholar or even as an author. I come as a pilgrim…to drink from ancient sources of monastic vision and experience.” (3)
I now take the following section from the book Thomas Merton: My Brother by the late Spiritual Master M. Basil Pennington who was a fellow Trappist monk and a close friend of Merton’s. It will be presented without comment, but as you read I ask you to consider that Merton’s own account of awe while he stood before these pagan idols is coming from someone many evangelicals today consider to be a Christian.”
Pennington writes: “At Polonnaruwa,…Merton was able to enter into the sanctuary with the solitariness he wanted. The pilgrim took off his shoes and let the dampness of the living earth speak to him. At this point it is not only best but necessary to let Merton speak for himself”:
I am able to approach the Buddhas barefoot and undisturbed, my feet in wet grass, wet sand. Then the silence of the extraordinary faces. The great smiles. Huge and yet subtle. Filled with every possibility, questioning nothing, knowing everything, rejecting nothing, the peace not of emotional resignation but of Madhyamika [the “Middle Path” school of Buddhism], of sunyata [“emptiness, the Void” – a basic concept in Buddhism], that has seen through every question without trying to discredit anyone or anything – without refutation – without establishing some argument. For the doctrinaire, the mind that needs well established positions, such peace, such silence, can be frightening.
I was knocked over with a rush of relief and thankfulness at the obvious clarity of the figures, the clarity and fluidity of shape and line, the design of the monumental bodies composed into the rock shape and landscape, figure rock and tree. And the sweep of bare rock slopping away on the other side of the hollow, where you can go back and see different aspects of the figures. Looking at these figures I was suddenly, almost forcibly, jerked clean out of the habitual, half-tied vision of things, and an inner clearness, clarity, as if exploding from the rocks themselves, became evident and obvious. The queer evidence of the reclining figure, the smile, the sad smile of Ananda standing with arms folded (much more “imperitive” than Da Vinchi’s Mona Lisa because completely simple and straightforward).
The thing about all this is that there is no puzzle, no problem and really no “mystery.” All problems are resolved and everything is clear, simply because what matters is clear. The rock, all matter, all life is charged with dharmakaya… everything is emptiness and everything is compassion. I don’t know when in my life I have ever had such a sense of beauty and spiritual validity running together in one aesthetic illumination. Surely, with Mahabalipuram and Polonnaruwa my Asian pilgrimage had become clear and had purified itself. I mean, I know and have seen what I was obscurely looking for. I don’t know what else remains, but I have now seen and have pierced through the surface and have got beyond the shadow and the disguise.
Basil Pennington then adds, “here through the aesthetic experience that Merton entered into and sought to express the mystical experience…quiet, isolation, simplicity and freshness. There is a wholeness. Merton said he could not express it adequately. He might have added, as did his Cistercian Fathers in speaking of such moments of total integration, that those who have experienced it know what he was talking about, and those who have not should seek the experience so that they will know.”
“Merton did not return to this experience in the few journal entries that would follow. As I have said, a week later he would be dead.” (171,172,173).
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
In “Francis Forgives Everyone,” I suggested that the main thrust of the Francis papacy is to de-emphasize sin.
But if Francis wants to forgive everyone, he’d better hurry up before some European bishops beat him to the punch. Just recently, the Flemish bishops of Belgium published a document for the pastoral care of homosexuals, which included a liturgical blessing for same-sex couples.
As several Catholic theologians were quick to point out, however, the blessing is problematic because, unlike the general blessing at the end of Mass, it is intended to bless a specific arrangement—namely, a same-sex union.
Some fear that the proposed blessing (the Flemish-speaking bishops plan to present it to Francis later this year) could tear the Catholic Church apart. That may seem like an exaggeration, but there is good reason to believe that the Belgian bishop’s proposal is meant to bring things to a head by forcing Francis’s hand on the issue of same-sex “marriage.”
One reason to think so is that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF)—the ultimate authority on doctrinal definitions—has already made clear that “the Church does not, have and cannot have, the power to bless unions of persons of the same sex.” The document was published in March of 2021 with the express approval of Francis.
The CDF isn’t saying that a priest can’t give his blessing to a homosexual individual, only that he can’t bless a same-sex union. By the same token, the Church can’t bless the union between a man and a woman living in adultery. The problem with the “Belgian blessing” is that it is intended to bless same-sex unions—the very thing that the CDF says the Church has no power to do.
To a non-Catholic, this may seem like a tempest in a teapot, but it is, in fact, a very big deal because it constitutes a challenge to the Church’s teaching authority. The Belgian bishops are saying, in effect, that the Church has been in error to teach that homosexual acts are sinful. This puts the CDF on the spot, it puts Francis on the spot, and it puts the Church in danger of schism.
It could also prompt Francis’s resignation. Although Francis is quite obviously a friend of the LGBT movement in the Church (just look at his appointments), he seems also to have reservations about going too far too fast. Despite what some conservative Catholics may think, Francis does appear to have some fear of God—and also of the Devil. Perhaps, he would prefer to leave the decision to his successor.
Coincidentally, one of the prelates who is often mentioned as a possible successor to Francis just happens to be the top bishop in Luxembourg—the small country which borders Belgium. As president of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conference of the European Union (COMECE) Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich is also the top bishop in Europe. As an additional sign of his faith in Hollerich, Francis recently appointed him as the realtor general of the much-heralded Synod on Synodality.
Should Hollerich be elected pope and should he continue to insist that the Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexuality is erroneous, it will likely set off a firestorm of controversy both inside and outside the Church.
Another key player in this drama is Father James Martin, SJ. who is currently the most prominent Catholic advocate of the LGBT movement. Martin says that chastity is not required of homosexuals because the teaching (to remain chaste) has not been “received” by the Catholic LGBT community. Martin also states that Catholics must “reverence homosexual unions.” In short, like Cardinal Hollerich, Martin seems to be saying that existing Church teaching about homosexuality is in error.
It’s not as though Francis is firmly opposed to the position taken by Hollerich and Martin. Hollerich has said that he is “in full agreement with Pope Francis.” Moreover, Francis has showered praise on Fr. Martin, encouraged him in his work, admitted him to a private audience, and appointed him as a consultant to the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications.
If the debate about homosexual unions does lead to some kind of schism it will most likely result in a schism between orthodox (traditional) Catholics and “progressive” Catholics like Francis, Hollerich, and Martin. The blessing of same-sex unions may well be the final straw for those Catholics who not only object to Francis’s “progressive” reforms but also doubt whether he is really the legitimate pope.
As I have suggested elsewhere, the ultimate aim of Francis and other progressives is not to reform the Church but to transform it into a humanistic rather than a supernatural faith.
Although the Church has always been in some sense a humanitarian faith, there are some crucial areas in which a purely humanistic philosophy is opposed to Christian teaching.
The main point of division is sin. Although the Church affirms that we are made in the image of God, it also maintains that we are sinners in need of a Savior. Although Christ mingled with prostitutes and tax collectors, he did not bless their sins. Rather, he told them to sin no more, and to follow him.
By contrast, humanists tend to think that people are fine the way they are. Like Francis, they may be concerned with corporate sins and sins against the environment, but not so much with personal sins.
But from an orthodox Christian perspective, minimizing sin is self-destructive. That’s because salvation from sin is the essence of the Christian story. When you take away sin, you take away the whole rationale for Christianity. If I’m okay the way I am, why do I need the “transformation in Christ” that Paul speaks of in his epistles?
The current humanist movement in the Church is not a brand-new phenomenon. It owes a lot to the modernist movement in the Church at the turn of the 20th century, and also to the human potential movement of the late 20th century. The latter merged with the popular self-esteem movement and became a powerful force in both Church and society.
The main argument of the self-esteem gurus and of their counterparts within the Church was that people who feel good about themselves aren’t tempted to do bad things. As a result, examination of conscience and frequent confession gave way to an emphasis on self-acceptance—on learning to love yourself just the way you are and on having confidence that God loves you just the way you are.
Fr. Martin is, of course, a product of this 60’s-style “follow-your-feelings” approach to morality. His fuzzy argument about the LGBT community not being bound by the rule of chastity because they haven’t “received” it is evidence of this. For Fr. Martin, the only thing that matters is that you feel good about yourself and your relationship with partner X. Nothing else is required and you can be sure that God will smile on your union.
One hitch in the self-esteem hypothesis that was apparently overlooked by Martin is that further research revealed that psychopaths and prison inmates tend to have exceptionally high self-esteem scores. Feeding one’s self-esteem doesn’t necessarily result in better behavior, and it can result in worse. Consider the recent experiments with reducing or eliminating bail, defunding the police, and giving their jobs to idealistic social workers. Such experiments often feed the sense of law-breakers that they are special, that the rules don’t apply to them, and that there should be no consequences for their behavior.
And that should give us second thoughts about the current eruption of self-acceptance theory among progressive Catholics. Certain regard for one’s self—self-respect—is good up to a point. But beyond that point, it can lead to self-absorption and self-centeredness. Catholics and other Christians are called to avoid this temptation and to examine their conscience in light of scripture and tradition. But progressives think it’s enough for people to simply celebrate themselves as they are. But “celebrate yourself” is a very slippery slope and it can lead to some dark places. Currently, for example, some elements of the pro-choice movement have been calling on women to celebrate their abortions.
Cardinal Hollerich approaches the matter from a somewhat different angle than Martin, but not one that inspires confidence in his ability to lead the Church. What’s missing in the theology of Hollerich (and also Martin) is any sense of objective morality—what Cardinal Francis Arinze refers to as “the order established by God the Creator.” According to Church teaching and tradition, the nature of marriage is revealed to us both by scriptural revelation and by natural law— “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” referred to in the Declaration of Independence. In place of the order of marriage established by God, Cardinal Hollerich offers thinly disguised relativism. Hollerich seems to think that criticism of same-sex unions is founded on outmoded biology and anthropology and must now be revised in light of recent advances in sociology and science. But he fails to explain how morality can be deduced from either sociology or science. Perhaps by polling a sufficient number of people? By consulting Kinsey? By capturing the elusive pregnant man? The effectiveness of sociologically and scientifically “correct” sex education can be gauged by the wreckage of the sexual revolution.
The damage we have already seen suggests that we can’t afford any more experiments with readjusting the order established by God to suit our own inclinations. If the Belgian bishops don’t accept natural law (which is based on biological and anatomical facts) or revealed law, then what is to be the standard? Is each person to be a law unto himself or herself?
If European bishops continue to mislead Catholics about the nature of marriage, their efforts will turn out to be much more of a curse than a blessing.
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
The declaration of the Flemish Belgian bishops with their ad hoc liturgy for gay couples contradicts the Church’s teaching on homosexuality and a recent Vatican declaration. It’s necessary for the competent authorities to intervene now so the document is withdrawn and the Belgian bishops to obey. Cardinal Eijk Archbishop of Utrecht speaks out.
The Belgian Flemish bishops surprised many inside and outside the Church with the statement published on 20 September 2022 entitled: Being pastorally close to a homosexual person - For a welcoming Church that excludes no one. For Catholics who accept the Church's teaching, this was not at all a pleasant surprise. Indeed, in the aforementioned declaration, the Flemish bishops offer the possibility of blessing same-sex couples in a lasting, monogamous relationship.
In a statement, they also provide a model for a celebration of the Word and prayer in which the blessing of same-sex couples can take shape. Its outline is as follows:
- Opening Word; - Opening prayer; - Scripture reading; - Expressing the commitment of both parties to each other, manifesting before God their mutual bond; this can be done, for example, in the following terms:
God of love and faithfulness, today we stand before You surrounded by family and friends. We thank You that we have been able to find each other. We want to be there for each other in all circumstances of life. We confidently express that we want to work for each other's happiness, day by day. We pray: grant us the strength to remain faithful to one another and to deepen our commitment. In your closeness we trust, by your Word, we want to live, given to each other for good.
- Then follows the community prayer; the community prays that God's grace may work in them to care for each other and the community in which they live; an example of this prayer is also given:
God and Father, today we surround N. and N. with our prayers. You know their hearts and the path they will take together from now on. Make their commitment to each other strong and faithful. May their home be filled with understanding, tolerance, and care. Let there be room for reconciliation and peace. May the love they share be for them joy and service to our community. Give us the strength to walk with them, together in the footsteps of your Son and strengthened by the Spirit.
- Intercessions; - Our Father; - Final Prayer; - Benediction.
This is the first time that a Bishops' Conference (or part of it) has issued a statement giving the example of a celebration of the Word and prayer to pronounce a blessing on a same-sex couple. The Flemish bishops took the remarkable step of allowing the blessing of same-sex couples based on their interpretation of certain passages from Amoris Laetitia (AL), the post-synodal exhortation issued by Pope Francis after both synods on the family in 2014 and 2015 respectively. In it, Pope Francis states, among other things, "that every person, regardless of his or her sexual orientation, is to be respected in his or her dignity and welcomed with respect" (AL 250).
Distinguish, accompany, and integrate remain the main keywords of Amoris Laetitia(chapter VIII), according to the Flemish bishops. It goes without saying that people with a homosexual orientation must also be treated with respect and have a right to pastoral care and guidance (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 2358-2359). By discernment, however, it is meant in Amoris Laetitia that people in an irregular relationship are brought to understand what the truth is about their relationship (AL 300). In short, they come to understand that their relationship goes against God's order of creation and is therefore morally unacceptable. Integration means giving people in an irregular relationship - as far as possible - a place in the life of the church. Of course, people in a sexual relationship with a person of the same sex are welcome in church celebrations, even if they cannot receive communion or actively participate in the celebration.
The Flemish bishops' statement on the blessing of same-sex couples meets with several inherent objections:
1. Blessings are sacramentals, not sacraments. The Flemish bishops also explicitly state that the blessing of same-sex couples is not a marriage. Sacramentals, on the other hand, are sacred signs that resemble the sacraments in a certain sense and that produce particularly spiritual fruits for the persons receiving the blessing, preparing them to receive the main effect of the sacraments. The sacramentals also sanctify particular situations in life (cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Responsum of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to a dubium regarding the blessing of same-sex unions, 22 February 2021). The sacramentals are to some extent analogous to the sacraments. The declaration prayer in which same-sex couples commit to each other shows an unequivocal analogy with the 'I do' that a man and a woman say to each other during the marriage ceremony. In it, in fact, the same-sex couple prays: “We want to be there for each other in all the circumstances of life ... grant us the strength to remain faithful to one another and to deepen our commitment". We also find this analogy with the Yes of husband and wife at the marriage ceremony in the community prayer: "Make strong and faithful their commitment to each other." The fear, therefore, is not unfounded: the transition from this blessing to same-sex marriage is not a big step and will be possible in the near future.
2. Blessing does not only presuppose a good intention on the part of the recipient. What is blessed must also correspond to God's order of creation. God created marriage as a total and mutual gift of man and woman to each other, culminating in procreation (Gaudium et spes, no. 48; cf. no. 50). Sexual relations between persons of the same sex cannot in themselves lead to procreation. They cannot, therefore, be an authentic expression at the bodily level of the total mutual self-giving of man and woman, in which marriage is essential. Situations that are objectively wrong from a moral point of view cannot be blessed. God's grace does not shine on the path of sin. One cannot cultivate spiritual fruit by blessing relationships that go against God's order of creation (ibid.). This, of course, does not prevent homosexual individuals from receiving a blessing. However, it is not morally permissible to bless the homosexual relationship as such.
3. The arguments in points 1 and 2 are cited in the answer given by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on 22 February 2021 to a question on the blessing of homosexual relationships. However, with their statement allowing the blessing of same-sex couples, the Flemish bishops go against the aforementioned statement of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Flemish bishops are also bound by it.
4. In the community's prayer on the occasion of the blessing of gay couples, the Flemish bishops said that the community prays "for God's grace to work" in the gay couple to enable them to care for each other and the community they live in. However, we cannot pray for God's grace to work in a relationship that does not conform to his order of creation. The Flemish bishops do not explicitly say that same-sex relationships are justifiable. However, even the wording of the community prayer in their liturgical model for the blessing of gay couples suggests that same-sex relationships can be morally justified. Indeed, in the end, the community prays: "Give us the strength to walk with them, together in the footsteps of your Son and strengthened by the Spirit”. Do same-sex people in their same-sex relationships follow in the footsteps of Christ? So do the Flemish bishops really believe that same-sex couples in their same-sex relationship follow in the footsteps of Christ? In the sample prayer, the gay couple says: "By your Word, we want to live." But the Word of God contained in Scripture unequivocally and undeniably qualifies homosexual relationships as a sin. At the very least, in the formulation of model prayers for the gay couple and the community, there is a risk that the average Catholic, who generally knows very little about their faith today, will be led astray and begin to think that lasting, monogamous same-sex sexual relationships are morally acceptable.
5. If gay couples in monogamous, lasting sexual relationships can receive a blessing, should not the same be possible in the monogamous, lasting sexual relationships of a man and a woman living together without being married? Allowing the blessing of gay couples carries the great risk of devaluing blessings and undermining the Church's teaching on the morality of marriage and sexual ethics.
The statement of the Flemish bishops, in which they allow the blessing of same-sex couples and even provide a liturgical model for it, meets with inherent ethical objections, radically contradicts a recent ruling by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and carries the risk that it may lead Catholics to views on the morality of same-sex relationships that are contrary to Church teaching. Catholics who accept the Church's teaching, including on sexual morality, therefore fervently hope that the Flemish bishops will soon be asked by ecclesiastically competent circles to withdraw their statement and that the latter will comply.
I was deceived and brainwashed by this black magic. Seek Jesus the living God if you too have been or currently following and listing to the “motivational” videos and practicing the sorcery that they teach.
JACK CANFIELD: CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL REVIEWED~UNDERSTANDING CANFIELD’S SPIRITUALITY~SERVING CHICKEN SOUP AT WORK
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Chicken Soup for the Soul Reviewed
Craig Branch
Charisma magazine recently ran a short news story, "Christians are Buying Book that Critics Claim has New Age Flavor" (November 1995, p. 25). The book referred to in the article was Chicken Soup for the Soul, by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen.
Unfortunately, Spring Arbor, a major Christian book distributor, sold 35,000 copies of it in one year. As of November 26, 1996, it has been in the top four of the "self-help" bestsellers in the New York Times' bestseller list for 113 weeks. Its newer companion volume, A 2nd Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul, has also made the list.
These books have been enormously popular. The success has generated additional offerings - A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul, Chicken Soup for the Surviving Soul, Chicken Soup for the Soul Cookbook, Chicken Soup for the Soul of Women, and Chicken Soup for the Soul of the Workplace. All are published by theNew Ageoriented Health Communications, Inc.
So why are some Christians critical of these books? If there is something so un-Christian about them, why are so many Christians reading and enjoying them? These are good questions that deserve answers.
Jack Canfield has long been a New Age self-esteem guru. He formerly directed the Institute for Wholistic (New Age) Education, was past president of the Association for Humanistic Education, chairman of the board for the Foundation for Self-esteem, board member for the National Council for Self-esteem, and president of "Self-esteem Seminars," which has currently evolved into The Canfield Training Group. His current training seminars in "self-esteem" include the use of meditation (guided imagery and visualization), the New Age, highly questionable Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), and affirmations.
Canfield has been a prominent leader in transpersonal or New Age education for over 20 years. He describes his beliefs and approaches to enhance self-esteem, "In a growing number of classrooms throughout the world, education is beginning to move into a new dimension. More and more teachers are exposing children to ways of contacting their inner wisdom and higher selves.... New age education has arrived. A new note has been sounded and our children are ready" (New Age, February 1978, p. 27).
Canfield promotes meditation, centering, Arica psychology, mandalas (psychic pictures), yoga, and spirit guides. The promotion of those beliefs are blatant examples of Canfield's New Age world view, but his focus on "self-esteem" is more subtle and, therefore, more insidious.
Canfield has a long history of mingling his New Age philosophy with humanistic psychology. This approach is termed "transpersonal psychology" or "fourth force" psychology. It was launched by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, whose goals are for the individual to reach an optimal state of "self-actualization" or "self-transcendence."
The assumptions are that man is not only basically good, but intrinsically very good, even perfect. Therefore, if one appeals to or satisfies their emotional (affective) side and reinforces their abilities to be self-sufficient (omnipotence), then they will become whole and happy. The direction this usually takes is toward self-absorption, narcissism, subjectivism, and experiential truth.
One of the most misleading aspects of Canfield's view of self-esteem and performance is that if we can first inspire people to feel good about themselves, then their behavior will automatically change positively.
Christians recognize that encouragement is very helpful, but they also believe a true (biblical) self-image rather thanself-esteem should be man's goal. God demonstrates His unconditional, unfathomable love in that "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Yes, man is made in the image of God, is "fearfully and wonderfully made," and has wonderful potential and value. But the way to experience that fulfillment is to surrender to Him, become His servant, learn His truth and obey. The New Ager reverses this and seeks the image of God rather than God Himself. [See Self Esteem]
The way to build a proper self-image is by giving someone 1) founding, guiding principles that are true (biblical), 2) realistic objectives, 3) corrective discipline, and 4) much encouragement along the way. When one's thinking is biblical, and one accomplishes biblical goals or tasks, a healthy self-image results (Romans 12:1; Ephesians 4:17).
The Chicken Soup series is full of material from Canfield's and Hansen's self-esteem colleagues. If one checks the descriptions found in the contributors section, many of these professional self-esteem speakers are found. Many of them are also New Agers.
In fact, the original Chicken Soup volume contains at least 25 New Age attributions or contributors, at least oneMormoncontributor, and at least 7 other self-esteem gurus. The term "at least" is used because some of the authors' short biographical sketches don't indicate their perspective one way or the other.
However, many are very well known to New Age and cult researchers. Names like Wally (Famous) Amos, Kahil Gibran, Eric Butterworth, Virginia Satir, Michael Murphy, Gloria Steinem, Tony Robbins, Tielhard de Chardin, Carl Rogers, Wayne Dyer, Lao Tzu, and Richard Bach are prominent. The volume even advertises the New Age oriented magazine,Changes.
Some of the stories are overtly New Age. For example, in Canfield's "The Golden Buddha" he writes,
"We are all like the clay Buddha covered with a shell of hardness created out of fear, and yet each of us is a Golden Buddha,' a golden Christ,' or a golden essence,' which is our real self."
He goes on to say that after two years old we begin to cover up "our golden essence, our natural self" with the dirt (p. 71). This reflects the New Age belief that we are born pure and perfect, with natural omniscience and omnipotence.
Another example is Mark Victor Hansen's story titled "Amy Graham." In it Hansen recounts the time he conducted one of his seminars (which he promotes at the end of his book) at the Mile High Church in Denver. Mile High Church is a part of the Church of Religious Science, an overtly New Age group.
Hansen asked the one thousand plus attendees if they wanted to learn how to "grow and become more fully human." He then proceeded to teach them a "healing technique." He instructed them to "vigorously rub their hands together, [and] separate them by two inches and feel the healing energy" (p. 41). Incredible! It seems the regression to the Dark Ages has been faster than imagined.
Other New Age/self empowerment stories in Chicken Soup are "Two Monks," "The Dolphin's Gift," "Sachi," "My Declaration of Self-Esteem," "Rules for Being Human," and "All I Can Remember."
In A 2nd Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul can be found at least 38 New Age or Mormon contributors or attributions, including M. Scott Peck, Steve Andreas, Sai Baba, Martin Buber, Gandhi, William James, Joseph Campbell, Leo Buscaglia, Napoleon Hill, Norman Vincent Peale, Benjamin Hoff, Ken Blanchard (Please See Update), Canfield, Hansen, and T.M. promoter Harold Bloomfield.
In A 3rd Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul are at least 23 New Age or Mormon contributors or attributions. And inChicken Soup for the Surviving Soul, there are at least 20 New Age contributors, with several of them having multiple stories (as in all the books in the series).
Some of the authors or references in these last two volumes are Dr. Bernie Siegel (six times), Peter McWilliams, Norman Cousins, Jonas Salk, Joan Borysenko, Marianne Williamson, Fr. John Groff, Alan Cohen, Les Brown, and two Mormon contributors - Art Berg and Hal Manwaring.
And finally (for now), in Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul, at least 27 New Age and Mormon authors or attributions are found, including a "psychic", two Transcendental Meditation trainers, a Unity minister, and a shaman.
Chicken Soup for the Working Soul has at least 42 New Age and Mormon contributors and attributions, including Joseph Campbell, Jean Houston, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Gerald Janpolski, Meister Eckhart, Buddha, and Ernest Holmes. [For information on Jean Houston see Part Two of THIS Article]
Issues of Concern
1. New Age with subtle mixtures of humanistic approaches to "open the heart and rekindle the spirit."
The messages are fairly consistent. People can be inspired by others in order to realize their own potential. Tune in to your own intuitive and latent powers and go after what you feel is right.
The stories have the popular Norman Vincent Peale appeal. But, as the opening lines of his famous book, Power of Positive Thinking state, "Believe in yourself, have faith in yourself," this New Age and self-help blending is the wrong message. [For those who want a packet exposing the mind-science teachings of Norman Vincent Peale, contact yourWatchman office and request it.]
The teaching and stories of these books blur any distinctions between a holy, transcendent, righteous and personal God, and their view of "god," which is a universal consciousness or power resident in all, for the use of all.
2. Promotes and gives credibility to Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen.
As mentioned earlier, the temporal success of these books gives a platform and provides an acceptance for their authors' other books and seminars.
Canfield is featured as a spokesman along with other New Agers in a popular New Age magazine, Body, Mind, Spirit (June/July 1996, p. 43). He is a featured speaker in the recent "Sacred Living Conferences" along with Dr. Bernie Siegel, Wayne Dyer, Ram Dass and Dannion Brinkley, Dan Millman, and Barbara DeAngelis. He is also featured as a speaker at the summer 1996 Omega Institute for Holistic Studies alongside Deepak Chopra, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and John Gray (New Age Journal, May/June 1996, p. 61).
Canfield and Hansen's Chicken Soup tape and book series is featured in the flagrant New Age Nightengale-Conant business catalogue along with many other prominent New Agers listed earlier (p. 34). Along with the popularity and wide spread exposure, the bibliography/advertisements of the various contributors will undoubtedly garner many bookings for their training seminars in the business community.
Canfield and Hansen have written another book, The Aladdin Factor, which more directly reflects their ideas. It is filled with quotes from New Age leaders. In it they write that the way to achieve personal happiness, creative fulfillment, personal success, freedom from fear and a new joy is to rid oneself of all negative programming derived from one's parents, school, church, doctors, by learning to go into oneself for answers and strength, especially by using affirmations and meditation visualizations (back cover, pp. 10-14). Yes, it is like Christian Science or Unity, which are neither Christian, science, nor unifying.
Canfield writes,
"I was at a ten day meditation retreat and after seven days they conducted private interviews with everyoneto make sure we were staying sane." (Ibid., p. 21; emphasis added). Everything was done in silence, without even eye contact allowed.
When asked how he was doing, Canfield said, "I think I am flipping out. Everything I ever believed in doesn't make sense anymore. Everything I thought was reality...." His instructor answered, "That is good. You must empty yourself of all your preconceived notions so that you can become acutely aware of what is really there...dissolving into a state of pure awareness." (p. 21). [See What Eastern Gurus Say About Occult Practices]
3. Reflects a postmodern view of our church and culture.
The success of these books is troublesome, especially to discover Christians feeding on their contents and passing the books on to others. It reflects a culture that is shaping the church rather than vice-versa. It reflects a time when people are looking for the quick and easy, feel good, pick-me-up, the instant answers, the microwave, fast-food solution.
Postmodernism, the state of Western culture at large, assumes that there is no objective truth, that moral values are relative, subjective, experiential, and "truth" is that which seems relevant to each person. It is a self-absorbed, narcissistic world view.
This has given rise to the popularity and flood of self-help books and pop (often New Age) psychology. Postmodern culture is syncretistic, exploring and drawing from any or all forms of spirituality, and piecing together various elements that Ainspire," motivate, and give an emotional or sensual lift. Even the church is reflecting a lack of sound doctrine, a lack of the importance of systematic theology, and a reversal of the correct order of theology and experience. The correct paradigm is that if one has the right teaching, one will truly experience God. The new paradigm is that if one has some subjective experience of God, he must have the right teaching. [See Section on Postmodernism]
This is illustrated by the Gallup and Barna Research groups which found that 53% of professed evangelical Christians believe that there are no absolutes compared with 66% of America as a whole. [See Religious Pluralism]
Protest!The latest marketing strategy has been negotiated between Mark Victor Hansen, Jack Canfield, their publisher, Health Communications, Inc., and the American Red Cross. A deal was struck with acting Red Cross president Gene Dyson while Liddy Dole was away campaigning with her husband, whereby the Red Cross would promote the Chicken Soup series.
The terms included publishing over one million condensed version booklets containing selections from A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup, with the inscription "Special Sampler Recognizing the American Red Cross Blood Donors for their Caring and Concern."
The deal also makes the Red Cross the authors' "charity of choice." The booklets have a coupon for one dollar off purchases of 3rd Serving, and a commitment of fifty cents per book purchased, to be donated back to the Red Cross. These "special samplers" are distributed to all blood donors. How ingenious! Who will dare criticize them now?
Christians must! Recently, a large church in Birmingham, Alabama, which conducts large and successful blood drives for the Red Cross, informed the Red Cross that they will not do it through them if they bring the Chicken Soup booklet, and told them why. Similar action should be taken by others, through whatever channels of influence they have. Write to Liddy Dole, and to Gene Dyson, and express your consternation and loss of respect for the organization. The address is:
The American Red Cross
National Headquarters
430 17th Street N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20006.
Canfield and Hansen claim that their "Chicken Soup" is good for the soul, but the Scripture says, "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Proverbs 14:12). The Mormon and New Age philosophies stirred into Canfield's and Hansen's Chicken Soup make it a deadly brew for the soul. "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" (Matthew 16:26). Chicken Soup purports to contain the elixir for inner peace. But it is not the peace of Him who said, "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you" (John 14:27). Jesus and Paul warn us that many are going to be deceived by Satan's craftiness, warning us that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light (Matthew 24:24; 2 Corinthians 11:13). The Trojan horse of the Chicken Soup series is an example of just such deception.
As quoted in Serving Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work by Jason Barker [Below]
"Aloha should not be seen as just a frivolous tourist greeting. Alo means the bosom or center of the universe, and ha, the breath of God, so to say this word is to appreciate another person's divinity." [Jack Canfield and Jacqueline Miller, Heart at Work p. 165]
"we do not have to die to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. In fact we have to be fully alive. when we are truly alive, we can see that the tree is part of Heaven, and we are also part of Heaven. The whole universe is conspiring to reveal this to us." [Heart at Work. p. 54].
Particularly egregious is the quotation from Matthew 6:34, "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." [8]
While this quotation was appropriately placed in a section on reducing stress, removing it from its context eradicates its full meaning, which is stated in the preceding verse, "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Jesus Christ was not simply telling the people on the Mount of Olives to avoid stress, but instead to focus on the things of God rather than exclusively on temporal concerns.
Understanding the Spirituality of Jack Canfield
(Chicken Soup for the Soul)http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com. February 28, 2007
Every religion I've looked at has some technology ... I've studied all of them and found what works for me and I've tried to make it available to others. What works for me is a combination of disciplines: I do yoga, tai chi which is a Chinese martial art and three kinds of meditation-vipasana, transcendental and mantra (sound) meditation. If you have to pick a yoga for me, I lean towards bhakii in the sense of devotion, adoration, singing, feeling love and joy exist in my heart." [Jack Canfield, author of Chicken Soup for the Soul, from "Choosing to Be Happy"]
Jack Canfield, one of the top promoters of The Secret, is known by many people as the creator of The Chicken Soup for the Soul series. Millions of books have been sold, and even many Christians have bought the books. That's easy to tell just by looking at some of the titles in the series:
Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul
Chicken Soup for the Gospel Soul (Songs)
Chicken Soup for the Christian Teenage Soul
Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul II
Chicken Soup for the Christian Women's Soul
Chicken Soup for the Christian Family Soul
And of course, there are countless books in many different categories from Chicken Soup for the Dieter's Soul to Chicken Soup for the Dog Lovers Soul. But while the Christian is obviously represented by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen in their series, can the Christian Chicken Soup books be trusted? It is fair to say that would depend on the spirituality of Canfield and Hansen, which Ray Yungen explains:
In recent years, a series of high profile, immensely successful books have impacted the lives of many Christians. They are the Chicken Soup for the Soul books by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. Although these books are filled with seemingly charming and uplifting stories, Canfield's New Age spirituality is quite disturbing from a Christian viewpoint. In understanding the foundational views of these two authors, one must ask, "Can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit" (Luke 6:43)?
In 1981, in the Science of Mind magazine, an interview revealed Canfield was no less than a teacher of the highly occultic "psychosynthesis" method developed by a direct disciple of Alice Bailey. In some of his most recent writings, Canfield openly reveals he had his "spiritual awakening" in a yoga class in college where he felt God "flowing" through all things (Dare to Win, p. 195). Hence, Canfield also promotes many occult writers.
[Read More About Alice Bailey and The Lucis Trust HERE]
In order to draw a conclusion on the spiritual persuasions of the Chicken Soup for the Soul authors take a look at one particular book they both enthusiastically endorse. The book is called Hot Chocolate for the Mystical Soul, compiled by Arielle Ford. Its format is identical to that of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series--101 stories by different authors on a particular theme.
Ford's book permeates with Eastern and New Age metaphysical content. A panoply of psychics, mediums, astrologers, channelers, and especially Hindu mystics present a wide array of stories. One such story is about a psychic who writes of her abilities (pp 244-247). Another story in the book is about a Hindu holy man who manifests "holy ash" out of thin air( pp. 36-39). [SeeThe Influence of Eastern Mysticism] Yet another involves a man who claims to be the reincarnation of the apostle Paul and writes that the message of Jesus is "God dwells within each one of us [all humanity]"(p. 15). Co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soulseries, Mark Victor Hansen, agreed with Ford's book so wholeheartedly that he wrote the foreword. Listen to a few excerpts from this foreword, which reveal Hansen's view:
[E]nlightening stories will inspire you. They will expand your awareness, ... you will think in new exciting and different ways ... You will be renewed through the tools, techniques and strategies contained herein ... May your mystical soul be united with the mystical magical tour you've been wanting and waiting for" (pp. xiii- xiv).
Jack Canfield echoes this praise on the back cover by stating, "They [the stories in the book] will change your beliefs, stretch your mind, open your heart and expand your consciousness." [See What Eastern Gurus Say About Occult Practices]
In March 2005, Canfield came out with his book, The Success Principles. As can be expected, one of these success principles is about meditation. Canfield relates, "I attended a meditation retreat that permanently changed my entire life" (p. 316). Canfield does a superb job of integrating metaphysics with the needs of business creativity. He emphasizes:
As you meditate and become more spiritually attuned, you can better discern and recognize the sound of your higher self or the voice of God speaking to you through words, images, and sensations. (p. 317)
These books are selling like hotcakes in some evangelical bookstores because they are positive. (from A Time of Departing, chapter 5)
As The Secretcontinues to climb in popularity in such a short period of time, perhaps Christians need to take a look at their bookshelves at home and in their churches and ask themselves, "Do I really want those I love to read a Chicken Soup for the Soulbook?" It is probably safe to say that most homes in America have at least one of them. After all over 80 million have sold. And now with The Secret, Canfield's spirituality will permeate Western society at even greater measures, and that includes Christendom at large.
Ken Blanchard, so called ‘Christian’ speaker and author will be one of the speakers at a one day seminar in San Diego called titled "The Secret to Having Your Best Year Ever." [http://www.yourbestyearever.org/]
Among other goals this seminar is touted as being able to “in a single afternoon”
Get healthy & stay healthy forever
Double or triple your income
Infuse your life with positive spirituality.
Serving Chicken Soup for the Soul at WorkBy Jason Barker
The Chicken Soup for the Soul series of books is one of the success stories of the 1990s. The original book of homespun wisdom sold millions of copies, inspiring a series oriented toward specific life situations. One of the more recent editions, Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work (as well as Heart at Work, a similar book from series editor Jack Canfield) explicitly try to bring alternative spiritualities into the workplace, aiming at "mak[ing] your spirits soar and broaden[ing] your perspective of what it means to be fully human." [1]
Heart at Work is by far the more explicitly religious of the two books. The focus of the book is to recognize the divinity in each person, as is evidenced by a quote from a Hawaiian Kupuna, "Aloha.should not be seen as just a frivolous tourist greeting. Alo means the bosom or center of the universe, and ha, the breath of God, so to say this word is to appreciate another person's divinity." [2] Another example is a poem by Kahlil Gibran, a mystic who proclaimed "the Mighty Unnameable Power," [3] who uses quasi-biblical metaphors (e.g., harvesting joy and singing with the tongue of angels) to teach that "work is love made visible" (this quote also appears in Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work). [4]
More obvious is an excerpt from Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hahn that "we do not have to die to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. In fact we have to be fully alive. When we are truly alive, we can see that the tree is part of Heaven, and we are also part of Heaven. The whole universe is conspiring to reveal this to us." [5] This religious principle is called pantheism: the belief that all is God (or, in this case, Heaven), and that God is all. The principle is foundational to Buddhism and Hinduism, and is highly prevalent in the New Age movement. Heart at Work contains many such New Age teachings to enhance people's self-esteem by convincing them that they have the power of divinity.
Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work is much less overt in its presentation of religious ideologies. The book's stories revolve around such themes as "on caring," "the power of acknowledgment," "service: setting new standards," and "overcoming obstacles." Nonetheless, the inspirational quotes that precede each story give a strong taste of the pluralistic, New Age emphasis that underlies the book. For example, the Buddha is quoted as saying,
"Your work is to discover your work, and then with all your heart to give yourself to it." [6]
This sentiment, while on the surface quite noble, does not fully explain the Buddha's meaning: disengagement from self, and immersion in the present moment of work, is the path to the obliteration of self and the achievement of Nirvana. While the quote seems compatible with Christianity, its meaning is ultimately far different. [See Buddhism]
Similar to this is a quote from psychic Jean Houston:
"We all have the extraordinary coded within us... waiting to be released." [7]
The quote seems to say merely that all people have the potential to succeed at work. However, Houston, who adheres to the pantheistic tenet that all is one, is saying that all people are divine and simply have to manifest their divinity. Again, the inspirational quote has a meaning that is foreign to Christianity.
Particularly egregious is the quotation from Matthew 6:34, "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." [8] While this quotation was appropriately placed in a section on reducing stress, removing it from its context eradicates its full meaning, which is stated in the preceding verse,
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
Jesus Christ was not simply telling the people on the Mount of Olives to avoid stress, but instead to focus on the things of God rather than exclusively on temporal concerns.
See The Message of The BibleAll too many people picking out a random phrase or two, think 'love' was Jesus' core message. Unfortunately, they are terribly wrong... In fact, Jesus never stopped talking about the "kingdom of God", which phrase is used over 50 times in the four Gospels alone. He even said that the proclamation of the Kingdom was the reason He was sent to earth (Luke 4:43). But what and where is this kingdom? Here is what is really paradoxical ... the Bible's description of this kingdom of God, also called heaven is no pie in the sky ethereal place 'somewhere out there', but matches, in every respect, the world most men and women would choose to live in. a place of peace and safety, where there is no crime, hunger and disease, war and above all... no death. Far from being outdated, out of touch, and largely irrelevant to modern society, Christianity promises exactly the utopian world most men and women can only dream of. Unless, of course, your idea of paradise is "an ineffable transcendental state" (whatever that means).
As is the case with many books dealing with infusing spirituality into the workplace, the books of Jack Canfield contain a great deal of common-sense. Nonetheless, Christians should be aware that the books also are steeped in a spirituality that is opposed to biblical Christianity.
1 Jack Canfield and Jacqueline Miller, back cover, Heart at Work (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996).
2 Quoted in ibid., p. 165.
3 Quoted in G. Richard Fisher, "The Defective Prophet," Personal Freedom Outreach, 7.4 (1987), p. 1.
4 Canfield and Miller, p. 36.
5 Ibid., p. 54.
6 Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, et al, Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work (Deerfield Beach, Fl: Health Communications, Inc., 1996), p. 143.
7 Ibid., p. 181. Ellipses in original.
8 Ibid., p. 286.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
[Lifesite News] CHARLOTTE, North Carolina, December 14, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Profits from the sacrilegious rosary
promoted by LGBT-affirming Father James Martin last week will fund
groups supportive of abortion and other causes in conflict with Catholic
teaching.
Some of the proceeds from “Rosary of Modern Sorrows” will go to Sister Simone Campbell’s NETWORK, a social justice lobbying group of U.S. Catholic nuns cited as problematic by
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). Other groups
receiving the proceeds include Women for Women International,
which promotes contraception and “reproductive health” and has partnered with Planned Parenthood and leftist groups such as Southern Poverty Law Center.
The rosary is the product of social justice group Contemplative
Rebellion and has decades comprised of social justice intentions, with
the fifth decade consisting of rainbow beads. The suggested prayer for the decade petitions for the “full acceptance” of LGBT couples. Its Charities We Support page
lists a numer of problematic partners. The company says it gives 20
percent to 100 percent of its profits to the listed charities.
Martin had promoted the rosary on Twitter and Facebook, as reported by LifeSiteNews last week.
In 2012 the Vatican’s CDF had censured the
Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the association of the
leaders of congregations of Catholic women religious in the United
States representing more than 80 percent of the 57,000 women religious
(nuns) in the country, for its positions on pro-life issues, women’s
ordination and homosexuality, also naming NETWORK in the process.
NETWORK had worked to undermine the US Bishops’ opposition to Obamacare because of abortion funding.
Campbell herself undermined the Bishops’ efforts to ensure pro-life
protections in Obamacare by pushing for a bill the Bishops opposed and
then supporting a bill that would put more federal funding into Planned Parenthood and mandate abortion coverage in state medical assistance programs. Both Planned Parenthood and NARAL also backed the bill.
Campbell pushed for swift passage of Obamacare; despite concerns it
meant the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade, which she
dismissed as “insignificant details,”
In addition to supporting NETWORK, the rainbow-rosary making group funds other non-profits that support abortion, including the radical Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
[Editor’s Note: This article was written by Lisa
Bourne and first published at LifeSite News, title changed by P&P.
This re-post is not an endorsement of the theology of Lifesite News] _________________________________________________________
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
[Church Militant] A so-called Catholic LGBT ministry is heralding
the canonization of a notorious pederast, the late Harvey Milk. Out at St. Paul (OASP), the gay and lesbian ministry group based at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in New York City, posted on its Facebook page Tuesday an article lauding the openly gay activist Milk as a saint. Milk is upheld by pro-LGBT activists as a martyr for their leftist cause.
What they hide is the known fact
Milk had a homosexual relationship with a mentally disturbed
16-year-old named Jack McKinley and was attracted to others like him.
Milk’s biographer Randy Shilts noted in his book The Mayor of Castro Street that the pederast was extremely attracted to “young waifs with substance abuse problems” and “men in their late teens.”
Joseph Sciambra, a Catholic advocate who
truly cares for the salvation of each individual that struggles
with same-sex attraction, also references Shilts’ work on Milk. Citing
Milk’s biography, Sciambra writes, “It would be to boyish-looking men in their late teens and early 20s that Milk would be attracted for the rest of his life.”
The homosexualist Jesuit priest Fr. James Martin has often praised Out at St. Paul. Last June, Fr. Martin tweeted,
“‘Out at St. Paul’ is one of the most vibrant Catholic #LGBT ministries
in the country, perhaps the world.” He added that the group is “a model
for many parishes.”
In 2017, the Jesuit called for Catholics to reverence so-called gay marriage.
Referring to an active homosexual friend in
a same-sex marriage, Martin said, “I have a hard time imagining how
even the most traditionalist, homophobic, closed-minded Catholic cannot
look at my friend and say, ‘That is a loving act, and that is a form of
love that I don’t understand but I have to reverence.’”
Martin’s favorite strawman is labeling
Catholics who morally object to the homosexual lifestyle as
“homophobic,” saying such Catholics “hate” people with same-sex
attraction.
“Ken Wilson is senior pastor of Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor and serves on the national board of Vineyard, a Community of Churches. Before entering the pastorate, he worked in community mental health. Ken is the author of Jesus Brand Spirituality: He Wants His Religion Back (Thomas Nelson, 2008) and Mystically Wired: Exploring New Realms in Prayer (Thomas Nelson, May 2010)”, and most recently A Letter To My Congregation.
Ken and Nancy hosted the early versions of what became Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor in their home back in 1975. You can reach Ken via email or by phone at 734 477-9135 x413.
Mystically Wired by Ken Wilson claims to be “a practical guide to cooperating with your brain’s innate capacities in order to experience a richer, fuller prayer life.” Wilson bases much of his doctrine of prayer on new discoveries by Andrew Newberg; (SEE FOOTNOTE BELOW REVIEW) http://www.andrewnewberg.com/) et al that suggests that the brain is uniquely active during prayer and meditation. Based on these findings, Wilson attempts to show why contemplative prayer practices are affective and how anyone can begin such practices.
It is odd that Wilson advocates mysticism while dismissing the supernatural. In all fairness, Wilson denies being a mystic, yet he recounts a vision in which he met with Jesus in a cave and another prayer where the “presence” of his deceased father sat next to him. Wilson is attempting to dwindle all things spiritual to brain chemistry. In other words, he is defining the supernatural in terms of the natural. He claims that praying is essentially looking “inward.” This ought to be the first clue that Wilson’s prayers have very little to do with Christ.
Throughout the book, prayer is presented as a way to manipulate brain activity in order produce results. Thus, Christ is of no consequence to prayer. This may be very true regarding the scientific link between brain activity and certain meditative practices. It is also true of various drugs, exercise, and other activities. However, the Christian in prayer is not looking for chemistry. He or she is looking for communication with Almighty God. The “prayer” of this book is not that kind of communication.
Thomas Nelson publishers provided this book to me, free of charge, in exchange for a review. One question I am to address is, “Did the author convey biblical truth?” In fact, there is virtually no biblical foundation for Wilson’s doctrine of prayer. Though he does quote a few verses, they nothing more than weak proof-texts. The gospel is absent. The cross is reduced down to nothing more than a “desolate place” of prayer.
There are some that would say that people are afraid of new methods and are thus cautious concerning books like this one. Let me be clear. It is not the method, but the doctrine that is problematic here. If someone were looking for a book on prayer, they would be best to stick with the classics. May I suggest The works of E.M. Bounds on prayer? Or perhaps simply reflecting on what it means to have a life in Christ? Jesus Manifesto is a great resource for such meditation. Someone wanting a deeper prayer life need not be distracted by tricks of the imagination, but should seek to embrace a life in Christ. Mystically Wired adds nothing to such a life. __________________________________________________________________________
FOOTNOTE & QUOTE ABOUT ANDREW NEWBERG FROM HIS WEBSITE:
“Dr. Andrew Newberg is a neuroscientist who studies the relationship between brain function and various mental states. He is a pioneer in the neurological study of religious and spiritual experiences, a field known as “neurotheology.” His research includes taking brain scans of people in prayer, meditation, rituals, and trance states, in an attempt to better understand the nature of religious and spiritual practices and attitudes.”
EXCERPT: “The 62-year-old preacher claims that God gave him a message three years ago in which He told him to change his views on same gender relationships and to share this information with his congregation. He adds that, previous to this information from God, he had been firmly opposed to the gay community.”
“Last month, Wilson released A Letter to my Congregation: An Evangelical Pastor’s Path to Embracing People who are Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Into the Company of Jesus.He told the Detroit Free Press that while he “take[s] the Bible very seriously,” he does not believe that it prohibits sexual relations between those of the same gender.”
SEE: http://annarborvineyard.org/about/staff/99; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes; bold type is ours for emphasis:
“I grew up in the Episcopal church of the 1950’s in Detroit, when Detroit was the bustling, growing, Motor City place to be. I absorbed the Apostles’ & Nicene Creeds-Ten Commandments-Lord’s Prayer catechism of that church. During the sermons I read through the Thirty Nine Articles with a sense of complete confusion as to their meaning or relevance to my life. The articles were for the most part answering questions I wasn’t asking.
In early adolescence I switched gears theologically, under the influence of Ayn Rand whose novel, The Fountainhead, led me to a declared atheism, which lasted through high school.
Fresh out of high school, newly married and a father-too-young, I had long conversations with Brian Martin, a friend from high school days. He was part of what was simply called the Northwest Fellowship, an expression of the growing “Jesus movement” in Detroit. The primary teacher of that group of young people was Haskell Stone, a Jewish believer who came from an Orthodox Jewish family. Haskell had a unique take on faith because of his Jewish identity. He didn’t fit easily into the existing theological or ecclesiastical categories. He was also one of the best teachers of the Bible I have ever heard or ever will.
Haskell Stone went to Fuller Theological Seminary where he studied under George Eldon Ladd. Ladd was influenced by Oscar Cullmann, who emphasized the importance of the kingdom of God as the central theme of Scripture tying together the Old and New Testaments, culminating in the teaching and ministry of Jesus in the gospels.
My earliest adult Christianity, in other words, was delivered and received with the assumption that the gospels were the primary teaching document of the church. Paul was to be read in light of Jesus, the final word, not Jesus in light of Paul.
Haskell Stone worked closely with Dick Bieber, pastor of Messiah Lutheran Church in Southwest Detroit. Dick was shaped by the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth, Oswald Chambers, and of course, the ever-present C.S. Lewis. Bieber was also influenced (quietly) by the neo-Pentecostal movement. (It was Dick who prayed with my comatose father in an intensive care unit, when my father woke up to say hello to Dick.) Dick’s primary theological theme was discipleship–radical discipleship to Jesus. Like Bonhoeffer, he spoke often about the dangers of “cheap grace.” A Christian was first and foremost a disciple of Jesus called to “pick up his cross daily” to follow wherever Jesus might lead.
Moving to Ann Arbor to attend the University of Michigan, I came into contact with a Pentecostal grad student from South India, named Joseph Arthungal. Joseph and Lilly took my wife Nancy and me under their wing and loved on us. We needed it, alone with each other and our newborn in a new town. Joseph came from the Ceylon Pentecostal Mission–a form of indigenous Indian Pentecostalism that was strict, to say the least. (The pastors of the Ceylon Pentecostal Mission lived “as brother and sister,” that is celibate, with their wives!) I took Joseph’s theology with a grain of salt, but was powerfully influenced by his love of Scripture, his concern to share the gospel with others, and his Eastern devotion to prayer. Joseph introduced me to the biography of Sadhu Sundar Sing, a Hindu Sikh who became a holy man following Jesus of Nazareth.
After a few years in Ann Arbor, Nancy and I became involved with an ecumenical charismatic community that was one of the early centers of the worldwide Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Most of the members of this charismatic community were Roman Catholic or mainline Protestants (Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, etc.) with a smattering of Eastern Orthodox and Coptic Christians. Like many of the charismatic movements of the 1970’s this group went overboard in many areas, but has long since regained it’s bearings. Lay leaders like Ralph Martin and Stephen Clark were trained in philosophy, well read in catholic theology, and willing to learn from Pentecostals and Evangelicals to shape the catholic charismatic renewal. It was a kind of semi-monastic lay community of nearly 1500 adults who maintained their connection to established churches.
The church that eventually became our home church, Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor was started by Mark Kinzer, high school friend and fellow Jesus freak who was profoundly influenced by Haskell Stone, being like Haskell, a Jewish believer in Jesus. I quickly became a kind of co-founding leader of this informal fellowship, along with Mark Kinzer and Prentice Tipton who has since become a Roman Catholic priest. Kinzer is now a leader in Messianic Judaism. (Yes, we’re hoping one day to go to a bar together where we might tell the bartender a joke about the priest, the rabbi, and the minister.)
Eventually this home church grew and became one of four churches related to each other in an ecumenical covenant. They included a Roman Catholic non-territorial parish, a Lutheran congregation (now Missouri Synod) and a Presbyterian church (now part of the Evangelical Covenant Church.) Our church was called, “the Free Church Fellowship” as we were neither Catholic, Reformed, or Lutheran, identifying rather with the radical reformers of the Anabaptist tradition. We were more or less making it up as we went along. Again you see the theological lean toward greater emphasis on the gospels, a characteristic of the Anabaptist movement, centered as it was on the Sermon on the Mount as the Christian Manifesto.
During my years as a leader of “the Free Church Fellowship” I engaged in ecumenical dialog in the form of monthly study groups with the ordained clergy of the other churches involved in this ecumenical arrangement. We considered the various approaches to Scripture, tradition, sacraments, justification, sanctification, etc., in these various traditions. It was quite an education.
Because the Catholic charismatic renewal was such a powerful movement in the Catholic Church, I met several bishops, catholic theologians, and even a Cardinal or two. The personal preacher to Pope John Paul II, now Cardinal Cordes, prayed a special “ecumenical blessing” over me; I hope it took.
In time, as the ecumenical arrangement dissolved, Mark Kinzer went on to found Zera Avraham, a congregation within Messsianic Judaism, and I became the primary leader of the church, which eventually was adopted into the association of Vineyard churches, led at the time by John Wimber, now deceased. It was a kind of theological homecoming because Wimber was a popularizer of the theology of George Eldon Ladd. Wimber was an adjunct faculty at the Fuller Theological Seminary, where Ladd taught.
Since becoming involved in Vineyard, I have been shaped by the writings of Dallas Willard, Jonathan Edwards, and most importantly N.T. Wright, the Anglican Jesus scholar, whose work I view as in the trajectory of the theology of Ladd, with its emphasis on the kingdom of God and the centrality of the gospels as the primary teaching documents of the church.
Being an autodidact (with some graduate work at Ashland Theological Seminary, which I will never, alas, complete) I’ve been fairly free to roam where the Spirit and circumstance and my interests and relational connections have led me. This is why I’m a little outside of the American evangelical box, though I consider myself evangelical, properly understood. (But, like many evangelicals, I’d like to define that for myself!)
Beyond this, I have a kind of insatiable curiosity. I’m old enough to realize that the authorities aren’t quite as together as they appear to be. I’ve been through enough of the spiritual discipline of disillusionment (a profound one in the late 1980 and early 1990’s) to know that humility is the hardest of virtues and the most fleeting. I don’t mind poking and prodding at things, believing the substantial and enduring things can take it.
I’m not a voracious reader, but I’m always reading something–usually a few books at a time. I enjoy reading science, because so few of my fellow evangelicals do and because I find it fascinating and invigorating. Facts are God’s native language and I try to listen to them. All truth is God’s truth and it’s the one thing we shouldn’t be frightened to learn, even it presents us with
previously undiscovered contradictions. Some of the best theology comes from wrestling with truths that don’t seem to fit together. If we’re not wrestling with truths that don’t seem to jive, I suspect it’s because we’re not curious or honest enough.
I enjoy reading up on evolutionary biology. It’s the primary narrative of modern science and it irks me that so many of my fellow evangelicals seem to be frightened by it and understand so little of it. It’s challenged my faith, but only in the process of deepening it. Reading about the new physics–I know enough to know I don’t understand it–and biology and environmental science and the rest has been one of the highlights of my faith in the past ten years. I’m currently working my way through some low level cognitive science. The nature of personhood and consciousness is the concern of the Trinitarian Christian and I want to be in on the action. I’m hoping to become better read in the field of human sexuality one of these days. I’m praying for a long life, because I love my wife and kids and there is so much to learn and so little time.
One last thing: it’s often assumed that I’m well read in that new Christian genre called “emergent” or “emerging.” It turns out that I’m not. I’m friends with Phyllis Tickle and love her writing, but she was at it long before the emergent genre hit the scene.”
LTRP Note: One of the things, among many, that we found interesting about the information below that was sent to us from a LT reader is that Donald Postema (Ken Wilson’s spiritual director) was part of the Snowmass Conferences. Some of our readers may recall us recently talking about the Snowmass Conferences in an article regarding Moody Radio, Concerns Grow as Moody Presses Forward Down Contemplative Path.
To Lighthouse Trails:
I have read Ken Wilson’s book and also did some background work on Ken’s ‘spiritual director,’ Donald Postema, whom he references in the book (p. xiii) [as his spiritual director]. Below is what I found. The attached documents are even more revealing; going into background where Postema attends the Snowmass Conference. Feel free to use it as you see fit. I wish to remain anonymous.
Documentation on Ken Wilson’s “spiritual director,” Don Postema, sent from LT reader:
Rev. Donald Postema
Caring about Other People of Faith The 21 st century has brought an unprecedented awareness and encounter of people from differing faith traditions. This has produced a volatile threat to world peace. It is also one of the biggest challenges Christians face today. Perhaps it is also a divine gift and opportunity. Can we acquire caring and respectful attitudes toward other religions that could be a ferment for peace throughout the world? Rev. Postema has been pondering these and other questions during his many years of interfaith dialogue and campus ministry. He will share insights gleaned from his personal biblical, theological and spiritual journey. We will be invited to explore how we can become caring agents of hospitality, reconciliation and peace in our personal lives and in the world.
Rev. Don Postema is an ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church. He carries on a ministry of spiritual formation through retreats, conferences, teaching, writing and spiritual direction. He serves as a member of the adjunct faculty at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena , CA , in the area of Christian Spirituality. He has also taught at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA; Whitworth College, Spokane, WA; Mars Hill Graduate School, Seattle, WA. and San Francisco Theological Seminary. Rev. Postema is author of “Space for God: Study and Practice of Prayer and Spirituality” and a cassette tape and CD, “ Space for God in Words and Music.” Don also authored “Catch Your Breath: God’s Invitation to Sabbath Rest” . He has traveled widely as a retreat leader and conference speaker – including Gambia and Sierra Leone , West Africa; Canada ; Costa Rica ; Japan ; Malaysia ; and Mexico as well as many places in the U.S. He is a graduate of Calvin College and Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids , Michigan , and of the Vrije Universiteit van Amsterdam, the Netherlands . He has also studied at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley CA and at Yale Divinity School , New Haven , CT with Fr. Henri J.M.Nouwen. In 1997 Don retired after 34 years as pastor of Campus Chapel [campus ministry of the Christian Reformed Church at University of Michigan , Ann Arbor , Michigan ]. As a lecturer at the University of Michigan , he taught “World Religions,” and “Personality and Religious Development.” Source:http://www.careandkindness.org/2007/topics.htm#zakich
Donald Postema : I’m one of those who came to the Snowmass Conference by word of mouth. In 1988, I went on a sabbatical spiritual journey for seven months, visiting monasteries, retreat houses, Buddhist centers, and Hindu ashrams in the western part of the United States.But, before I left, a woman in Ann Arbor told me about Anada Ashram in California, and also sent them a copy of my book, Space for God. So I ended up visiting the ashram, and really got to know and appreciate Gayatri Devi and Sudha. Later I realized that they were probably checking me out too, to see whether Calvinist could be spiritual or contemplative enough to be a member of the Snowmass Conference. Toward the end of my stay, they invited me to the Snowmass gathering at Mount Holyoke that spring. Source: Miles-Yepez, Netanel (2011-04-12). The Common Heart: An Experience of Interreligious Dialogue (Kindle Locations 343-344). Lantern Books. Kindle Edition.
Donald Postema : In the group, we are encouraged and expected to represent our respective traditions as authentically as possible. This serves a couple of purposes: first, it gives the group a more realistic picture of where you are coming from, and secondly, it lets the “representative” know that he or she needn’t feel pressured to water anything down, to make it more palatable for the group. Source: Miles-Yepez, Netanel (2011-04-12). The Common Heart: An Experience of Interreligious Dialogue (Kindle Locations 381-383). Lantern Books. Kindle Edition.
Donald Postema : Yes, we like to say that our members are speaking from a tradition, not for a tradition. We try to be authentic, but no one is expected to speak for their particular tradition. We aren’t here giving presentations, we have to drop the roles to some degree, and just try to have a rich and honest sharing on a number of levels.Source: Miles-Yepez, Netanel (2011-04-12). The Common Heart: An Experience of Interreligious Dialogue (Kindle Locations 386-388). Lantern Books. Kindle Edition.
Donald Postema : I came in at the tail end of the Points of Agreement discussion, but for me the value in it was an expansion of language. We had to listen hard and discerningly as others spoke of the Ultimate in their own tradition’s language just so we could talk together and understand each other. We had to evolve a common language, and it was difficult not using precise words as they are understood in one’s own tradition. But as clear as they may be to folks “within the tradition,” they may completely mystify folks from other traditions; thus the need to listen and expand one’s vocabulary. Our purpose was not to weaken our convictions but to find ways to communicate better. Source: Miles-Yepez, Netanel (2011-04-12). The Common Heart: An Experience of Interreligious Dialogue (Kindle Locations 452-456). Lantern Books. Kindle Edition.
Donald Postema : I found that one way to really “know” someone’s spirituality is to share in that person’s rituals or worship. I have long had a real love for Gregorian chant and Catholic liturgy, so it was no surprise that attending Mass and other liturgies at St. Benedict’s Monastery gave me a unique insight into Father Thomas’s spiritual life. But I was surprised to find similarities between the Native American pipe ceremony and the Holy Communion of Christians. Source: Miles-Yepez, Netanel (2011-04-12). The Common Heart: An Experience of Interreligious Dialogue (Kindle Locations 712-715). Lantern Books. Kindle Edition.
Netanel Miles-Yepez: How about you, Don? Was ecumenism dealt with in Reformed Christianity? Donald Postema : Our tradition has a history of relating to plenty of other folks in the Reformed and Evangelical Christian traditions, but our official relations do not extend much beyond other Christian denominations, let alone to other world religions. To tell the truth, that attitude influenced me for a long time. However, working for thirty-four years on the campus of a major university convinced me that religious leaders had to work together if they were to have any influence at all on the university. Meeting and working together gradually broadened my acquaintance with other people of faith, and being part of the Snowmass Conference expanded and deepened my commitment to interfaith dialogue. Source: Miles-Yepez, Netanel (2011-04-12). The Common Heart: An Experience of Interreligious Dialogue (Kindle Locations 860-865). Lantern Books. Kindle Edition.
As you may know, Fuller is purports to be an evangelical institution.5 It’s about to get even worse than merely emergent Tony Jones pushing a pro-homosexual agenda, which he was very instrumental in doing as one of the first major voices to do so openly.6 Now consider Jones’ post Evangelical Pastor Turns Pro-Gay.
Just a little over a month ago he would introduce us to the pastor of a Vineyard megachurch who has now gone over to the dark side on this sin of sexual immorality. We’re not surpassed to find out that Ken Wilson, the pastor in question, is deeply immersed in corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism:
Tony Jones explains that :
Ken Wilson, [is] pastor of Vineyard Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan, [and] has just published a book entitled,A Letter to My Congregation, in which he explains his change of mind and heart on the issue of homosexuality. He may be the first active pastor of a large evangelical congregation to make such a switch. (source, bold his)
RtS truly is an interspiritual black hole of heresy. Lord willing, another time we’ll look further into Ken Wilson since he isn’t the subject of this article. While I would not recommend the Vineyarddenomination, I brought this up because now we have moved the emerging arena right into the mainstream of evangelicalism.
In fact, Wilson’s turned A Letter to my Congregation (ALC) into a book on this subject, published by Crumm’s Read the Spirit publishing, and complete with an introduction from his friend Phyllis Tickle, the Empress of Emergent. Tickle calls Ken Wilson’s ALC:
One of the most exquisite, painful, candid, brilliant pieces of Christian midrash I’ve ever seen.7
This is how far afield Ken Wilson’s willing to go to advance an unbiblical homosexual agenda, and how close this all is moving toward your evangelical church. For your further edification on this coming same-sex storm, below I’ll leave you with the April 23rd version of Dr. James White’s Dividing Line program.
From Lighthouse Trails Research: http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=14035
reprinted in full below unedited for educational purposes, is Chris Lawson’s new booklet tract which has three lists of authors that Christians should avoid. To order copies of A Directory of Authors (Three NOT Recommended Lists), click here.
A Directory of Authors (Three NOT Recommended Lists) written and compiled by Chris Lawson is our newest Lighthouse Trails Print Booklet Tract. The Booklet Tract is 14 pages long and sells for $1.95 for single copies. Quantity discounts are as much as 50% off retail. Below is the content of the booklet.To order copies of A Directory of Authors (Three NOT Recommended Lists), click here.
A Directory of Authors (Three NOT Recommended Lists)
Written and Compiled by Chris Lawson
It is no secret these days that Christian bookstore and ministry resource databases are often jam-packed with so-called Christian resources that are actually promoting anything but biblical Christianity. Special care may be taken by bookstore owners and ministry leaders alike to ensure that ministry and business are “in order,” but, when a close look is taken, the sale of spiritually unsafe material abounds. This is the primary reason for these three lists—to help warn and protect you, the reader, and to provide a quick reference guide.
You should know that many of the authors listed here profess to follow or glean from “Jesus,” yet at the same time they assiduously reject the biblical Jesus Christ of Nazareth Who is Savior, Lord, and God. In fact, many of these authors teach the absolute antithesis (opposite) of the historic Christian faith. Books rife with New Age occult teachings and practices abound in many Christian bookstores, and many owners and managers are going to sell them, regardless.
Over the past twenty plus years, I have spent thousands of hours researching, examining, and refuting dangerous cultic and occult practices as a missionary, church planter, and pastor. My purpose in doing so has been to help people escape dangerous occult influences, heretical doctrines both inside and outside the church, and the bondage of satanic genius that holds people captive by the powers of darkness.
The Christian literature marketplace has become utterly dangerous in the 21st century. I never thought I would see the day when New Age, occult, eastern-style meditative practices and all manner of aberrant and heretical teachings would become commonplace among Christian bookstores. What’s even worse is that much of this dangerous material is couched in Christian jargon and presented as spiritual paths to deepen and connect more intimately with God.
Considering these things, most of the authors listed in the first two lists profess to be “Christian,” while at the same time writing, recommending, and/or personally endorsing either outright or by proxy, heretical teachings and/or dangerous practices, which are contrary to sound biblical theology.
Discerning believers have expressed deep concern over the apostasy we face in the 21st century churches. The courage to stand firm and “earnestly contend for the faith” (Jude 3) coupled with a deep personal love for the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word are at the very foundation of these believers’ lives. Their concern for the spiritual welfare of the body of Christ has been a deeply motivating factor in this project.
Our Lord Jesus Christ warned, “Take heed that no man deceive you” (Matthew 24:4, Mark 13:5; Luke 21:8). Paul the apostle warned, “Let no man deceive you by any means (2 Thessalonians 2:3). John, the apostle warned, “Little children [believers in Christ], let no man deceive you” (1 John 3:7). Every single New Testament book except one warns about some form of spiritual deception, false teaching, or false teachers. Should we not “take heed,” as God through His very Word has so clearly warned, especially as the days in which we live grow precariously evil.
Scriptural Admonitions, Commands, and Warnings:
Genesis 1:1-12:20; Exodus 19:1-20:26; Deuteronomy 13:1-18; 18:20-22; 1 Samuel 28; Jeremiah 23; Ezekiel chapters 1-3 and 8-11; Daniel 1:8-21; 3:1-25; Zechariah 5:1-11; Matthew 7:1-5, 15-27; 23:1-39; 24:1-51; Mark 9:42-50; 13:1-37; Luke 9:23; John 17; Acts 8:9-25; 19:19-20; 20: 27-31; Romans 16:17-20; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 2 Corinthians 6:14-15; 11:1-4, 12-15; Galatians 1:6-10; 2:4-5; Ephesians 4:11-16; 5:11-12; Philippians 1:8-11; 4:17-21; Colossians 1:28-29; 2:8-9; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-22; 2 Thessalonians 1:3-2:16; 1 Timothy 1:3-11,18-20; 4:1-11; 6:3-5,11-12, 20-21; 2 Timothy 1:13-15; 2:1-7,14-26; 3:1-4:22; Titus 1:9-2:18; 3:9-10; Hebrews 5:12-14 and chapters 11 and 12; James 1:1-5:20; 1 Peter 3:18-5:14; 2 Peter 2:2-3:16; 1 John 2:18-23; 4:1-6; 2 John 1-13; 3 John 9-12; Jude 1:1-25; Revelation 2:1-3:22; 11:1-14; 13:1-18; 17:1-20:15.
#1—The New Spirituality in the Church
Each of the following authors professes to be Christian and/or uses biblical terminology in his or her writing, yet promotes at least one of the following serious false teachings: contemplative spirituality (i.e., Spiritual Formation), the emergent, progressive “new” spirituality, the seeker-friendly, church-growth movement (e.g., Willow Creek, Purpose Driven) and/or Yoga.
A
Abbott, David L.
Adams, James Rowe
Allender, Dan
Arico, Carl J.
Armstrong, Karen
Artress, Lauren
Assagioli, Roberto
B
Babbs, Liz
Bakker, Jay
Barton, Ruth Haley
Bass, Diana Butler
Batterson, Mark
Baxter, Mary
Bell, Rob
Benner, David
Bennison, John
Bentley, Todd
Bickle, Mike
Bjorklund, Kurt
Blanchard, Ken
Boa, Kenneth
Bolger, Ryan
Bolz-Weber, Nadia
Bono
Bordenkircher, Susan
Borg, Marcus
Bourgeault, Cynthia
Bronsink, Troy
Brother Lawrence
Brueggemann, Walter
Bruteau, Beatrice
Buchanan, John M.
Budziszewski, J.
Buford, Bob
Burke, Spencer
C
Calhoun, Adele Ahlberg
Caliguire, Mindy
Campbell, Joseph
Campolo, Bart
Campolo, Tony
Canfield, Jack
Card, Michael
Carroll, L. Patrick
Chalke, Steve
Chalmers, Joseph
Chinmoy, Sri
Chittister, Joan
Claiborne, Shane
Coe, John
Coffin, William Sloane
Collins, Jim
Crabb, Larry
Cron, Ian
Crossan, John Dominic
Crowder, David
D
De Mello, Anthony De Waal, Esther
Demarest, Bruce
Dillard, Annie
Dowd, Michael
Dykes, David R
Driscoll, Mark
Drury, Keith
Dyckman, Katherine Marie
E
Edwards, Gene
Edwards, Tilden
Egan, Harvey
Epperly, Bruce
Evans, Rachel Held
F
Felten, David
Fleming, Dave
Flowers, Betty Sue
Ford, Leighton
Fosdick, Harry Emerson
Foster, Richard
Fox, George
Fox, Matthew
Friend, Howard E., Jr.
Funk, Mary Margaret
G
Garrison, Becky
Geering, Lloyd
Gibbs, Eddie
Gire, Ken
Goleman, Daniel
Goll, James
Graham, Dom Alfred
Greig, Pete
Griffin, Emilie
Griffiths, Bede
Gru, Jean-Nicholas
Gungor
H
Haas, Peter Traban
Haight, Roger
Haliczer, Stephen
Hall, Thelma
Hansen, Mark Victor
Hays, Edward
Hazard, David
Healey, Charles
Hedrick, Charles
Hildegard of Bingen
Hipps, Shane
Holmes, Emily
Hougen, Judith
Humphreys, Carolyn
Hunard, Hannah
Hunt, Anne
Hunter, Todd
Hybels, Bill
I
Ignatius Loyola, St.
Issler, Klaus
J
Jager, Willigis
Jenks, Gregory C.
Johnson, Jan
Johnston, William
Jones, Alan
Jones, Laurie Beth
Jones, Tony
K
Kaisch, Ken
Keating, Thomas
Kelsey, Morton
Kent, Keri Wyatt
Kidd, Sue Monk
Kimball, Dan
King, Mike
King, Robert H.
Kraft, Robert A.
Kreeft, Peter
L
L’Engle, Madeleine
Lamott, Anne
Law, William
M
Madigan, Shawn
Main, John
Manning, Brennan
Martin, James
Mattioli, Joseph
Matus, Thomas
May, Gerald
McColman, Carl
McKnight, Scot
McLaren, Brian
McManus, Erwin
Meninger, William
Meyers, Robin R.
Miller, Calvin
Miller, Donald
Moon, Gary
Moore, Beth
Moore, Brian P.
Moran, Michael T.
Moreland, J.P.
Morganthaler, Sally
Mother Theresa
Mundy, Linus
Muyskens, John David
N
Newcomer, Carrie
Norris, Gunilla Brodde
Norris, Kathleen
Nouwen, Henri
O
Ortberg, John
P
Pagels, Elaine
Pagitt, Doug
Palmer, Parker
Paloma, Margaret M.
Patterson, Stephen J.
Peace, Richard
Peale, Norman Vincent
Pennington, Basil
Pepper, Howard
Peterson, Eugene
Piper, John
Plumer, Fred
Pope Benedict XVI
Procter-Murphy, Jeff
R
Rakoczy, Susan
Reininger, Gustave
Rhodes, Tricia
Robbins, Duffy
Robbins, Maggie
Rohr, Richard
Rolle, Richard
Rollins, Peter
Romney, Rodney
Ruether, Rosemary Radford
Rupp, Joyce
Russell, A.J.
Ryan, Thomas
S
Sampson, Will
Sanford, Agnes
Scandrette, Mark
Scazzero, Pete
Schuller, Robert
Selmanovic, Samir
Senge, Peter
Shannon, William
Shore, John
Sinetar, Marsha
Sittser, Gerald
Smith, Chuck, Jr.
Smith, Elizabeth
Smith, James Bryan
Southerland, Dan
Spangler, Ann
Spong, John Shelby
St. Romain, Philip
Stanley, Andy
Steindl-Rast, David
Strobel, Kyle
Sweet, Leonard
T
Talbot, John Michael
Tasto, Maria
Taylor, Barbara Brown
Teague, David
Thomas, Gary
Thompson, Marjorie
Thresher, Tom
Tiberghien, Susan
Tickle, Phyllis
Treece, Patricia
Tuoti, Frank
Twiss, Richard
V
Vaswig, William (Bill)
Virkler, Mark
Voskamp, Ann
W
Wallis, Jim
Wakefield, James
Ward, Benedicta
Ward, Karen
Warren, Rick
Webber, Robert
Wilhoit, James C.
Willard, Dallas
Wilson-Hartgrove, Jonathan
Winner, Lauren
Wink, Walter
Wolsey, Roger
Wright, N.T.
Y
Yaconelli, Mark
Yaconelli, Mike
Yancey, Phillip
Yanni, Kathryn A.
Yarian, Br. Karekin M., BSG
Young, Sarah
Young, William Paul
Yungblut, John R.
Z
Zeidler, Frank P.
#2—CHRISTIAN AND NON-CHRISTIAN MYSTICS OF THE PAST
Mystics from the past oftentimes favorably endorsed by “Christian” authors today
Middle Ages (Medieval Times) and Renaissance
Angela of Foligno (1248-1309)
Anthony of Padua (1195-1231)
Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
Bonaventure (1217-1274)
Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)
Desert Fathers, The
Hadewijch of Antwerp (13th century)
Henry Suso (1295-1366)
Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)
Hugh of Saint Victor (1096-1141)
Jacopone da Todi (1230-1306)
Johannes Tauler (d.1361)
John of Ruysbroeck (1293-1381)
John Scotus Eriugena (810-877)
Julian of Norwich (1342-1416)
Mechthild of Magdeburg (1212-1297)
Meister Eckhart (1260-1327)
Richard of Saint Victor (d.1173)
Richard Rolle (1300-1341)
The Cloud of the Unknowing (anonymous, instruction in mysticism, 1375)
Theologia Germanica(anonymous, mystical treatise, late 14th century)
Thomas a’ Kempis (1380-1471)
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
Walter Hilton (1340-1396)
Renaissance, Reformation, and Counter-Reformation
Brother Lawrence (1614–1691)
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1822)
George Fox (1624–1691)
Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556)
Jakob Böhme (1575-1624)
John of the Cross (Juan de Yepes) (1542–1591)
Joseph of Cupertino (1603-1663)
Madame Guyon (1647-1717)
Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582)
Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894)
William Law (1686–1761)
Modern Era (19th—20th Century)
Alexandrina Maria da Costa (1904–1955)
Bernadette Roberts (1931–)
Berthe Petit (1870–1943)
Carmela Carabelli (1910–1978)
Domenico da Cese (1905-1978
Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941)
Flower A. Newhouse (1909-1994)
Frank Laubach (1884–1970)
Frederick Buechner (1926-)
Karl Rahner (1904-1984)
Lúcia Santos (1907-2005)
Maria Pierina de Micheli (1890–1945)
Maria Valtorta (1898-1963)
Marie Lataste (1822–1899)
Marie Martha Chambon (1841–1907)
Martin Buber (1868-1965)
Mary Faustina Kowalska (1905–1938)
Mary of Saint Peter (1816–1848)
Mary of the Divine Heart (1863–1899)
Padre Pio of Pietrelcina (1887–1968)
Pierina Gilli (1911–1991)
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881- 1955)
Simone Weil (1909-1943)
Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
Thomas Merton (1915–1968)
Thomas Raymond Kelly (1893–1941)
#3—New Age Movement
Each of the following authors promotes one or more of the following: New Age/Eastern philosophy and/or meditation, New Thought religion, Kaballah, Sufism, and/or Buddhism.
what I found. The attached documents are even more revealing; going into background where Postema attends the Snowmass Conference. Feel free to use it as you see fit. I wish to remain anonymous.