Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Fighting For the Faith Interview

Posted by Christine Pack

Thank you to Chris Rosebrough at Pirate Christian Radio for recently having me on his program to discuss the dangers of Roman Catholic Monastic Mysticism and how it is flowing unchecked into today's visible church via the delivery systems of these very popular practices:
- Spiritual Formation
- Spiritual Disciplines
- Ancient Future
- Contemplative Prayer
- Contemplative Spirituality
- Taize
- Centering Prayer
- Lectio Divina
- Jesus Prayer
- Labyrinth
- Walk To Emmaus
This is a very in-depth interview, and is both a wake-up call and an exhortation to today's Christians to be on guard about what their pastors and elders might unwittingly be promoting or even teaching.

The interview can be listened to here.




 Additional Resources 

Mysticism: A Counterfeit Holy Spirit

John MacArthur on Spiritual Formation and Biblical Sanctification

What Is Mysticism?

Mysticism: Who Needs Crack?

The Dangers of Contemplative Prayer

What Is Mysticism? (5-Part Series by Dr. Gary Gilley) - Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4 and Part 5

Mystical Youth Ministry


Biblical Silence vs. Mystical Silence

Sunday, January 24, 2010

"This Growth Will Grow Up and Will Become the Treetops"

Posted by Christine Pack

"The word "emergent" -- the part of it that I liked most was its use in forestry, where the emergent growth, or in agriculture it's pre-emergent growth, it's the growth that's just down right at the surface, and it's just broken through, and it's small. So we said, what we are is this small, little thing that's broken through, but down the road.....this growth will grow up and will become the treetops. So in the forestry world, you determine the health of a forest both by what you see at the treetops from a flyover but also by the level of emergent growth and pre-emergent growth. So we said, hey that's kind of our metaphor, we're not trying to eliminate anything else that exists - in fact, we're gonna grow up inside of the shadows of all the rest of this. So "emergent," it kind of captures us pretty well, that's what we think this is, it's not competition, it's not anything like that, it's just that which is now growing up inside of the context that the rest of this has already existed." Doug Pagitt, discussing the Emergent Church


The Parable of the Weeds (Matthew 13:24-26)
"Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared."

photo credit: depone via photopin cc

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Karma Just Doesn't Cut It

Posted by Christine Pack

I had an abortion when I was 20 years old. I was not a Christian at the time. By this age, I had completely discarded any teachings I had learned having grown up in church, and to my mind, Christianity was for the weak, for those who needed a crutch, an opiate for the masses. Let the simple people have their silly little superstitions to keep them warm at night, I didn't need it. But after the abortion, my life took a curious turn: I spent the next 15 years looking for salvation. Oh, I would have never admitted to any such thing. Quite honestly, I didn't even have a framework for such a concept. But when I look back on my life, that's exactly what I was doing. Something inside of me (my conscience?) knew that I needed atonement, and I unconsciously set about looking for it.

I began to restlessly move through belief system after belief system, searching for redemption. As long as there was no sovereign holy God to whom I was accountable, any religion was fine for me to try: hinduism, buddhism, kabbalah, paganism, mysticism, occultism, shamanism, wicca, humanism - whatever. The problem was that within each system, guess what? There was no redemption. I would read all the books and do all the practices I learned to do -- meditation, fasting, yoga, reiki, hypnotherapy, crystals, astrology, numerology, visualization, tarot cards -- but when I would get to the end, I would always think: that's it? There was no "there" there.....

At the end of all my searching, I had ended up with a vague sort of belief system that all paths led to God, that there was no way to know him personally, that he/it was probably some kind of impersonal force out there. I leaned toward Buddhism and the law of cause and effect (karma), but what I really thought was that there was no way for anyone to know for sure.

By age 35, I was married to a wonderful man and was a new mother to a precious baby boy. But my life had taken another strange turn. For some reason, I had become consumed with fears that something horrible was going to happen to my loved ones. My fears would paralyze me, they would wake me up at night, they would leave me in a cold sweat, my heart pounding, thinking horrible thoughts that I couldn't stop thinking. I had no control over my thoughts, I only managed to sort of co-exist with them.....but I could bleakly see that these fears had only worsened as time passed. My outer life looked great (sweet husband, precious baby). But my inner life was a shambles.

When 9/11 happened, my husband, who was an agnostic, and I began to attend a local church. We were really rocked by this catastrophic event. We began to think more soberly about the weighty questions that everyone has: Is there a God? Can we know Him? If He does exist, what does He require of us? We had both grown up attending church, but had thrown it off as foolishness when we became adults. Now, we were taking a new look. Between the 2 of us, we had covered most of the other world religions! Time to examine again the claims of Christianity.

I was saved when our pastor preached through the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments? Isn't that sort of old-fashioned and kind of legalistic? Well, our pastor didn't teach the Ten Commandments as a way to live so we could get better and better, and hopefully someday be "right with God." What he did was pull back the veil of the Holy of Holies and show me a picture of who God was. He was a God so blindingly holy that one transgression of these Commandments was enough to doom me. This was no prescription for getting right with God: this was a one-way ticket to hell! One lie, a death sentence. One covetous thought, a death sentence. One single act of rebellion against my parents, a death sentence. I sat still as he spoke, desperately trying to think of all the "good things" I had done in my life that might get me a pass. Finally, our pastor came to the 6th commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," and I was undone.

In an instant, I realized how my inner need for atonement had driven me relentlessly to pursue redemption in some way through the many religions I had tried. And I realized the futility of any way other than the one God had prescribed. Jesus' words that I had learned in my childhood went through my head: "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No-one comes to the Father but through Me." Suddenly, the realization washed over me that my fears were actually the by-product of the karmic belief system I had come to embrace! This impersonal system of cause-and-effect demanded payment for what I had done. And my fears were my own inner struggle with attempting to reconcile my unforgivable crime - the abortion - with the cool, impersonal laws of karma that I felt pressing down on me: I killed; therefore, there must be a corresponding death. Would it be mine? My husband's? My baby's? That's the law of karma. Those were the fears that enslaved me. I realized I didn't want justice; I wanted, I needed mercy.

I knew in an instant I would never be able to atone for my sin - never. I could never atone for myself, I could never save myself. I needed to be saved. I needed a Savior.

Suddenly, the gospel message, the very heart of Christianity, made glorious sense to me. God sent Jesus to make atonement for me because I couldn't make atonement for myself. Jesus suffered on the cross so that I would not have to pay the penalty for my sin. There truly was no other way! I was dumbfounded as the simplicity of God's plan broke over me in a fresh way. Scripture came flooding into my mind, suddenly making sense. God had used my sinful, murderous, selfish act to drive me to my knees and save me. And yet, He did save me, even me, a wretched, depraved sinner. What an amazing God.

In a sense, Buddhism got it right with the idea that there was a ledger being kept somewhere, recording rights and wrongs, and also the idea that wrongs had to be corrected. But only Christianity makes a way for sinners to be made right with God without being punished themselves. Someone did pay the price for my sin...only, it wasn't me. In the face of such infinite mercy, who would want something as small as karma?

photo credit: kleer001 via photo pin cc

 Additional Resources 

When Abortion Suddenly Stopped Making Sense (The National Review)

A Christian Woman and Her Frightening Experience With Yoga ( Drs John Ankerberg and John Weldon)


"Christian" Yoga? (Caryl Matrisciana)

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Mysticism: A Counterfeit Holy Spirit

Posted by Christine Pack

An excellent article at More Books and Things discusses the startling trend of Calvinists beginning to embrace mystical practices such as contemplative prayer, taize, lectio divina, centering prayer, etc. Mystical Calvinists? An oxymoron, if ever there was one. Calvinists are supposed to be the solid ones, the ones holding the line on attacks against the Sola's.....right? Hello? Hello? Is this thing on? Okay, for anyone unclear on this:
Mysticism = the Opposite of Sola Scriptura
But in today's crazy, mixed-up world of postmodernism, syncretism and ecumenism, the Calvinists are letting down their guard. They're letting themselves be convinced that there is a type of mysticism that is not pagan, but is Christian, biblical and necessary for being close to God.

For those who don't know, Sola Scriptura was one of the rallying cries of the Reformation. It is the doctrine that the Bible is the only infallible and inerrant authority for Christian faith, and that Scripture alone contains all knowledge necessary for salvation and holiness.

Christian proponents of mysticism, however, are making the assertion that Scripture is not enough of a revelation from God. No, according to them, we've got to power down, get still and silent, and "hear" from God.

However, speaking as a former mystic/gnostic/hindu/buddhist/pagan, I can attest that the "powering down" thing that mystics do is not biblical. In Matthew, Jesus makes this cryptic statement: "And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. ..." "Meaningless repetition" - does that not sound like mantra meditation?

As a New Age mystic in the 90's, I moved freely from religious system to religious system without difficulty. Why was I able to do this? Because syncretism is not just for Christians, silly rabbit! It was considered very tolerant and forward-thinking in the late 80's and 90's in New Age circles to take a little of this, a little of that, and craft for yourself a belief system that you could be comfortable with. But, no matter what religious system I found myself in, mysticism was always at the core.

Okay, let's think about why mysticism would be at the core of so many false religions. It must serve some purpose, after all. Well, my take on this, having participated in many different "flavors" of mysticism is that mysticism functions as a counterfeit Holy Spirit experience.

So - what is the true Holy Spirit and how does it function? All true Christians are indwelt with the Holy Spirit at the moment of conversion. When this happens, the Holy Spirit comes to live and dwell inside each newly born-again Christian until their time on this earth is over. The Holy Spirit has many functions, among them bringing conviction over sin and illuminating Scripture.

False religions do not have this indwelling of the Holy Spirit taking place within their adherents. So what's a Devil to do? Well, he'll just do what he's always done, and rather successfully at that: create some kind of counterfeit experience to mimic a real blessing given by God to true Christians.

So let's look at how mysticism functions. Practically speaking, how does Satan get people into a mystical state? Well, there are many different avenues he has given us for getting into this state. One of the most widely used practices is mantra meditation. This is done by using a repetitive device (repeating a word, focusing on breathing, singing or speaking a phrase over and over) until the mind is emptied and "parked." It's not driving, it's not in reverse, it's idling. It's parked. There are other ways, of course, such as staring at a candle or an image, drumming, whirling, dancing and taking mind-altering drugs. But for our purposes here, we're going to be looking mainly at mantra meditation, as this is what is flowing unchecked into once-solid churches.

In this meditative state, a person is still awake and somewhat aware but one's God-given boundaries are down. So what happens to a person in this state? Mantra meditation is so very seductive because it generates a very powerful, seemingly supernatural experience that can make one feel as if they are actually encountering "God." The first meditation I ever did at age 20 left me utterly convinced that I had experienced the presence of God. In hindsight, I believe that this encounter truly was supernatural. The Bible tells us that Satan himself can masquerade as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14). So I ask you: would Satan be so bold as to actually pretend to be God? Of course he would. He's no gentleman. It's not like he would say to himself, "Well, that would be deceitful, I can't do that!" More like this: "That's deceitful - awesome!! I wonder how many times I could trick people into thinking they're encountering God before somebody starts to catch on?" And Satan was more than happy to give me an "experience" if it would turn me away from the one true God.

Something else happened during my first meditation that I didn’t realize until years later. I came out of that FIRST meditation session with an altered worldview. Now think about that. In the space of 20 minutes (because that's all the time it takes to do a meditation), my worldview shifted dramatically. Prior to this meditation experience, as far as I was concerned all spiritual choices were still "on the table" for me: Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, paganism, gnosticism, etc. But after I had come out of that first meditation, the Christianity of the Bible was no longer on the table for me. Why? Because Christianity is the only religion with such unbending and exclusive truth claims. ("I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life....no-one comes to the Father but through Me.") And meditation counters this claim by generating an experience in which a person feels a profound sense of interconnectedness and oneness with all that "feels" counter to the exclusive truth claims of Christianity. It feels just like you have had an encounter with God, that you have been in the presence of the Divine...only, you haven't.

Now. Let's look at the logical conclusions that practicing mystics MUST come to if they are staying true to their belief system: If I can experience God through meditation, then the cross has no meaning. And Jesus was a liar when He said that He was the only way to God.

Unfortunately, many Christians today are very innocent and naive about the dangers of the occultic realm (which is precisely where mantra meditation leads) because they have not been warned about it by their pastors and they have had no direct personal experience with it (and in this postmodern age, direct personal experience seems to trump everything). Yet, instead of (1) following the clear mandate of scripture on this and (2) listening to those of us who have had direct personal experience with the occult and who attempt to warn about how dangerous it is, many Christians today blindly follow their leaders into any and every new teaching (contemplative prayer, lectio divina, breath prayers, Jesus prayer, etc.). And those who sound the alarm are labeled as narrow-minded, intolerant, Pharisaical, and judgmental....not by the world, but by their fellow Christians!

Also, among professing Christians there is almost an attitude of, "Hey, I can't be deceived, I'm a Christian!" As if somehow just being a Christian renders one "deceit proof." But if this were true, then Jesus would not have given warning after warning for us to vigilantly guard against false teachers and false doctrine, and to take care that no one deceive us.

Christian mysticism is being taught in many seminaries today, including but not limited to the institutions listed below:
Belmont
Dallas Theological Seminary
Bethel University
Fuller Theological Seminary
Biola University
Moody Bible Institute
Wheaton College
John Brown University
Popular Christian authors whose writings fill the shelves in Christian bookstores promote mysticism. Some of the most well-known authors are listed below:
Rick Warren
Rob Bell
Brian McLaren
Doug Pagitt
Shane Claiborne
Tony Jones
Dallas Willard
Richard Foster
Dan Kimball
Donald Miller
Erwin McManus
Brennan Manning
Laurie Beth Jones
Phyllis Tickle
Ruth Haley Barton
Tony Campolo
Christian mystical practices come in many different guises, including, but not limited to:
Spiritual Formation
Spiritual Disciplines
Ancient Future
Taize
Centering Prayer
Lectio Divina
Jesus Prayer
Contemplative Prayer
Contemplative Spirituality
Labyrinth
Walk To Emmaus
The Silence
Promoters of Christian mysticism today say "Embrace the silence!" The Bible says, Test the spirits and flee from deception (I John 4:1), hold fast to what is true (1 Thess. 5:21) and don't assume immunity from deception (Matthew 24).


 Additional Resources 

Fighting For The Faith Interview on Mysticism

John MacArthur on Spiritual Formation and Biblical Sanctification

What Is Mysticism?


Mysticism: Who Needs Crack?

The Dangers of Contemplative Prayer

What Is Mysticism? (5-Part Series by Dr. Gary Gilley) - Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4 and Part 5

Mystical Youth Ministry


Biblical Silence vs. Mystical Silence

Thursday, December 17, 2009

The Lesson of the Plucked Chicken

During those final days of the collapsing Marxist experiment in the Soviet Union, Soviet novelist Chingiz Aitmatov retold the following story, which has been paraphrased here:

On one occasion, so it was narrated, Stalin called for a live chicken and proceeded to use it to make an unforgettable point before some of his henchmen. Forcefully clutching the chicken in one hand, with the other he began to systematically pluck out its feathers. As the chicken struggled in vain to escape, he continued with the painful denuding until the bird was completely stripped. “Now you watch,” Stalin said as he placed the chicken on the floor and walked away with some bread crumbs in his hand. Incredibly, the fear-crazed chicken hobbled toward him and clung to the legs of his trousers. Stalin threw a handful of grain to the bird, and it began to follow him around the room, he turned to his dumbfounded colleagues and said quietly, “This is the way to rule the people. Did you see how that chicken followed me for food, even though I had caused it such torture? People are like that chicken. If you inflict inordinate pain on them they will follow you for food the rest of their lives.”

Ravi Zacharias, Can Man Live Without God, (Word Publ., Dallas: 1994), pp. 26-27

The question is...what will we do in America after our feathers have been plucked? Will we cling to the one who did the plucking? Have we been made soft by a generation of X-box playing and Big Mac eating? Is Big Government the answer?