December 23, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -


The following is excerpted from our new book CONTEMPLATIVE MYSTICISM: A POWERFUL ECUMENICAL BOND. Contemplative mysticism, which originated with Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox monasticism, is permeating every branch of Christianity today, including the Southern Baptist Convention. In this book we document the fact that Catholic mysticism leads inevitably to a broadminded ecumenical philosophy and to the adoption of heresies. For many, this path has led to interfaith dialogue, Buddhism, Hinduism, universalism, pantheism, panentheism, even goddess theology. One chapter is dedicated to exposing the heresies of Richard Foster: “Evangelicalism’s Mystical Sparkplug.” We describe the major contemplative practices, such as centering prayer, visualizing prayer, Jesus Prayer, Lectio Divina, and the Labyrinth. We look at the history of Roman Catholic Monasticism, beginning with the Desert Fathers and the Church Fathers, and document the heresies associated with it, such as its sacramental gospel, rejection of the Bible as sole authority, veneration of Mary, purgatory, celibacy, asceticism, allegorical interpretation of Scripture, and moral corruption. We examine the errors of contemplative mysticism, such as downplaying the centrality of the Bible, ignoring the fact that multitudes of professing Christians are not born again, exchanging the God of the Bible for a blind idol, ignoring the Bible’s warnings against associating with heresy and paganism, and downplaying the danger of spiritual delusion. In the Biographical Catalog of Contemplative Mystics we look at the lives and beliefs of 60 of the major figures in the contemplative movement, including Benedict of Nursia, Bernard of Clairvaux, Brother Lawrence, Catherine of Genoa, Catherine of Siena, Dominic, Meister Eckhart, Francis of Assisi, Madame Guyon, Hildegard of Bingen, Ignatius of Loyola, John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, Thomas Keating, Thomas a Kempis, Brennan Manning, Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, Basil Pennington, John Michael Talbot, Teresa of Avila, Teresa of Lisieux, and Dallas Willard. The book contains an extensive index. 482 pages, $19.95

This book can be ordered online, by phone, or by e-mail with a credit card, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org, www.wayoflife.org
___________________

Henri J.M. Nouwen (1932-1996) was a Roman Catholic priest who taught at Harvard, Yale, and the University of Notre Dame. Nouwen has had a vast influence within the emerging church and evangelicalism at large through his writings, and he has been an influential voice within the contemplative movement. A Christian Century magazine survey conducted in 2003 found that Nouwen’s writings were a first choice for Catholic and mainline Protestant clergy. Nouwen is promoted by Christian leaders as diverse as Robert Schuller and Rick Warren (who highly recommends Nouwen’s contemplative book In the Name of Jesus).

Nouwen’s biographer said that he “had a homosexual orientation” (Michael Ford, Wounded Prophet, 1999).

Nouwen did not instruct his readers that one must be born again through repentance and personal faith in Jesus Christ in order to commune with God. The book With Open Hands, for example, instructs readers to open themselves up to God and surrender to the flow of life, believing that God loves them unconditionally and is leading them. This is blind faith. Nouwen wrote:

“When we pray, we are standing with our hands open to the world. We know that God will become known to us in the nature around us, in people we meet, and in situations we run into. We trust that the world holds God’s secret within and we expect that secret to be shown to us” (With Open Hands, 2006, p. 47).

Nouwen did not instruct his readers to beware of false spirits and to test everything by the Scriptures. He taught them, rather, to trust that God is leading in and through all things and that they should “test” things by their own “vision.” He denied the biblical teaching that man is a fallen creature with a darkened heart that can only be enlightened through the new birth.

Nouwen was deeply involved in contemplative mysticism. He was strongly influenced by Thomas Merton and wrote a book about him in 1972 (Pray to Live: Thomas Merton--Contemplative Critic). Nouwen also mentioned Merton in his books Intimacy (1969) and Creative Ministry (1971).

In his book In the Name of Jesus, Nouwen said that Christians must move “from the moral to the mystical.”

Nouwen claimed that contemplative meditation is necessary for an intimacy with God:

“I do not believe anyone can ever become a deep person without stillness and silence” (quoted by Chuck Swindoll, So You Want to Be Like Christ, p. 65).

He taught that the use of a mantra could take the practitioner into God’s presence.

“The quiet repetition of a single word can help us to descend with the mind into the heart ... This way of simple prayer ... opens us to God’s active presence” (The Way of the Heart, p. 81).

He said that mysticism and contemplative prayer can create ecumenical unity because Christian leaders learn to hear “the voice of love”:

“Through the discipline of contemplative prayer, Christian leaders have to learn to listen to the voice of love. ... For Christian leadership to be truly fruitful in the future, a movement from the moral to the mystical is required” (In the Name of Jesus, pp. 6, 31, 32).

In fact, if Christians are listening to the voice of the true and living God, they will learn that love is obedience to the Scriptures. “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous” (1 John 5:3).

Nouwen, like Thomas Merton and many other Catholic contemplatives, combined the teaching of eastern gurus with ancient Catholic practices. In his book Pray to Live Nouwen relates approvingly Merton’s heavy involvement with Hindu monks (pp. 19-28).

In his foreword to Thomas Ryan’s book Disciplines for Christian Living, Nouwen says:

“[T]he author shows a wonderful openness to the gifts of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Moslem religion. He discovers their great wisdom for the spiritual life of the Christian and does not hesitate to bring that wisdom home” (Disciplines for Christian Living, p. 2).

Nouwen’s involvement with mysticism led him to a form of universalism and panentheism (God is in all things).

“The God who dwells in our inner sanctuary is the same as the one who dwells in the inner sanctuary of each human being” (Here and Now, p. 22).

“Prayer is ‘soul work’ because our souls are those sacred centers WHERE ALL IS ONE ... It is in the heart of God that we can come to the full realization of THE UNITY OF ALL THAT IS” (Bread for the Journey, 1997, Jan. 15 and Nov. 16).

In his final book Nouwen described his universalist doctrine as follows:

“Today I personally believe that while Jesus came to open the door to God’s house, all human beings can walk through that door, whether they know about Jesus or not. Today I see it as my call to help every person claim his or her own way to God” (Sabbatical Journey, New York: Crossroad, 1998, p. 51).

He claimed that every person who believes in a higher power and follows his or her vision of the future is of God and is building God’s kingdom:

“We can see the visionary in the guerilla fighter, in the youth with the demonstration sign, in the quiet dreamer in the corner of a café, in the soft-spoken monk, in the meek student, in the mother who lets her son go his own way, in the father who reads to his child from a strange book, in the smile of a girl, in the indignation of a worker, and in every person who in one way or another dreams life from a vision which is seen shining ahead and which surpasses everything ever heard or seen before” (With Open Hands, p. 113).

“Praying means breaking through the veil of existence and allowing yourself to be led by the vision which has become real to you. Whether we call that vision ‘the Unseen Reality,’ ‘the total Other,’ ‘the Spirit,’ or ‘the Father,’ we repeatedly assert that it is not we ourselves who possess the power to make the new creation come to pass. It is rather a spiritual power which has been given to us and which empowers us to be in the world without being of it” (p. 114).

The radical extent of Nouwen’s universalism is evident by the fact that the second edition of With Open Hands has a foreword by Sue Monk Kidd. She is a New Ager who promotes worship of the goddess! Her book The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman’s Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine was published in 1996, a decade before she was asked to write the foreword to Nouwen’s book on contemplative prayer. Monk Kidd worships herself.

“Today I remember that event for the radiant mystery it was, how I felt myself embraced by Goddess, how I felt myself in touch with the deepest thing I am. It was the moment when, as playwright and poet Ntozake Shange put it, ‘I found god in myself/ and I loved her/ I loved her fiercely’” (The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, p. 136).

“Over the altar in my study I hung a lovely mirror sculpted in the shape of a crescent moon. It reminded me to honor the Divine Feminine presence in myself, the wisdom in my own soul” (p. 181).

Sue Monk Kidd’s journey from the traditional Baptist faith (as a Sunday School teacher in a Southern Baptist congregation) to goddess worship began when she started delving into Catholic contemplative spirituality, practicing centering prayer and attending Catholic retreats.

Nouwen taught that God is only love, unconditional love.

“Don’t be afraid to offer your hate, bitterness, and disappointment to the One who is love and only love. ... [Pray] ‘Dear God, ... what you want to give me is love--unconditional, everlasting love’” (With Open Hands, pp. 24, 27).

In fact, God’s love is not unconditional. It is unfathomable but not unconditional. Though God loves all men and Christ died to make it possible for all to be saved, there is a condition for receiving God’s love and that is acknowledging and repenting of one’s sinfulness and receiving Jesus Christ as one’s Lord and Saviour.

Further, God is not only love; He is also holy and just and light and truth. This is what makes the cross of Jesus Christ necessary. An acceptable atonement had to be made for God’s broken law.

We conclude with the following discerning warning from Lighthouse Trails:

“For skeptics in Christian circles (professors, pastors, teachers, etc.) who are touting and promoting the writings of Henri Nouwen, let it be known that you are promoting the writings of Thomas Merton--they are one in the same. They both believed in the importance of eastern-style meditation, and they both came to believe there were many paths to God and divinity dwelt in all things and people. Not only are Nouwen's books evidence of this, but there is record of nearly thirty years of journals, articles, forewords to others books, talks, and interviews where Nouwen espouses the path of mysticism” (“Why Christian Leaders Should Not Promote Henri Nouwen,” Lighthouse Trails, Nov. 21, 2008).

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]

December 17, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

The following is excerpted from our new book CONTEMPLATIVE MYSTICISM: A POWERFUL ECUMENICAL BOND. Contemplative mysticism, which originated with Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox monasticism, is permeating every branch of Christianity today, including the Southern Baptist Convention. In this book we document the fact that Catholic mysticism leads inevitably to a broadminded ecumenical philosophy and to the adoption of heresies. For many, this path has led to interfaith dialogue, Buddhism, Hinduism, universalism, pantheism, panentheism, even goddess theology. One chapter is dedicated to exposing the heresies of Richard Foster: “Evangelicalism’s Mystical Sparkplug.” We describe the major contemplative practices, such as centering prayer, visualizing prayer, Jesus Prayer, Lectio Divina, and the Labyrinth. We look at the history of Roman Catholic Monasticism, beginning with the Desert Fathers and the Church Fathers, and document the heresies associated with it, such as its sacramental gospel, rejection of the Bible as sole authority, veneration of Mary, purgatory, celibacy, asceticism, allegorical interpretation of Scripture, and moral corruption. We examine the errors of contemplative mysticism, such as downplaying the centrality of the Bible, ignoring the fact that multitudes of professing Christians are not born again, exchanging the God of the Bible for a blind idol, ignoring the Bible’s warnings against associating with heresy and paganism, and downplaying the danger of spiritual delusion. In the Biographical Catalog of Contemplative Mystics we look at the lives and beliefs of 60 of the major figures in the contemplative movement, including Benedict of Nursia, Bernard of Clairvaux, Brother Lawrence, Catherine of Genoa, Catherine of Siena, Dominic, Meister Eckhart, Francis of Assisi, Madame Guyon, Hildegard of Bingen, Ignatius of Loyola, John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, Thomas Keating, Thomas a Kempis, Brennan Manning, Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, Basil Pennington, John Michael Talbot, Teresa of Avila, Teresa of Lisieux, and Dallas Willard. The book contains an extensive index. 482 pages, $19.95

This book can be ordered online, by phone, or by e-mail with a credit card, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org, www.wayoflife.org
___________________

M. Basil Pennington and Thomas Keating are very influential in the centering prayer movement which is sweeping through evangelical and Baptist churches. Their writings have helped popularize monastic retreats among evangelicals.

Both are Trappist monks and priests in the Roman Catholic Church. They co-authored Finding Grace at the Center: The Beginning of Centering Prayer. First published in 1978, this book has had a wide influence.

PENNINGTON (1931-2005) entered the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance in 1951 at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. This Order is also called Trappist after the name of the location of their founding, which was the Abbey of Notre Dame de la Grande Trappe.

The Order is dedicated to contemplation. The monks dedicate themselves to silence and solitude and meditation under the Rule of Saint Benedict. This Rule teaches salvation and sanctification through asceticism. Chapter 7 of the Rule presents a 12-step ladder of virtue and asceticism that “leads to heaven.” These include repression of self-will, submission to superiors, confession, stifling laughter, and speaking only when asked a question. Under the Rule of Benedict everything is regulated, including sleeping, waking, meal times, quantity and quality of food, clothing, work, and recreation. The Rule forbids the ownership of any private property or the receipt of letters or gifts without permission of the abbot.

Pennington became professor of Theology at St. Joseph’s in 1959, professor of Canon Law and professor of Spirituality in 1963, and Vocation Director in 1978.

In 2000 he was elected abbot of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia. This was founded in 1944 by 20 monks from the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky where Thomas Merton lived.

Pennington returned to St. Joseph’s after his retirement in 2002, and died in 2005 in a car crash.

Pennington believed that hell is separation from God and a feeling of isolation in this present life.

“Separation from God is the essential suffering and we call it hell. Many people don’t know that much of the emptiness or longing desire that they suffer from is because they are not in touch with God or whatever name they give Him. Separation is a very real form of suffering in this life” (interview with Mary NurrieStearns, “Transforming Suffering,” 1991, Personal Transformation website, http://www.personaltransformation.com/Pennington.html).

Pennington was a universalist who taught that man shares God’s divine nature.

“We are united with everybody else in our human nature and in our SHARING OF A DIVINE NATURE, so we are never really alone, we have all this union and communion. Getting in touch with that reality is the greatest healing. We can adopt meditative practices which enable us to begin that journey of finding our true inner selves or transcending our separate selves and leave behind some of the pain and suffering” (Interview with Mary NurrieStearns)

Pennington said, “... the soul of the human family is the Holy Spirit” (Centered Living, p. 104).

Pennington taught that the meditative practices of all religions bring one into the experience of the same God:

“It is my sense, from having meditated with persons from many different [non-Christian] traditions, that in the silence we experience a deep unity. When we go beyond the portals of the rational mind into the experience, there is only one God to be experienced” (Pennington, Centered Living, p. 192).

In fact, there is also the “god of this world” who assumes the persona of an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14).

Pennington promoted a radical interfaith ecumenism. He called Hindu swamis “our wise friends from the East” (Finding Grace at the Center, p. 23). He said, “We should not hesitate to take the fruit of the age-old wisdom of the East and capture it for Christ. Indeed, those of us who are in ministry should make the necessary effort to acquaint ourselves with as many of these Eastern techniques as possible ... Many Christians who take their prayer life seriously have been greatly helped by Yoga, Zen, TM and similar practices” (p. 23).

THOMAS KEATING (b. 1923) entered the Cistercian Order in 1944 and was appointed Superior of St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado, in 1958.

In 1961 he was elected abbot of St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. The centering prayer movement began at St. Joseph’s in the 1970s. Trappist monk William Meninger found a “dusty copy” of The Cloud of Unknowing, and he and Keating and Pennington began developing a system of contemplation based on that as well as the writings of John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila.

Observing that this type of Catholic contemplation is very similar to that of Buddhist and Hindu mystics, they invited pagan meditation masters, including Zen Buddhist Roshi Sasaki, to teach at some of the retreats.

They also began writing books. In addition to co-authoring Finding Grace at the Center, Keating has written Open Mind, Open Heart (1986), The Mystery of Christ (1987), Invitation to Love (1992), Intimacy with God (1994), The Human Condition (1999), Fruits and Gifts of the Spirit (2000), and St. Therese of Lisieux (2001).

By 2004, St. Joseph’s had become a full-fledged Zen center. This was the fruit of interfaith contemplative dialogue. In April of that year Jesuit Robert Kennedy installed Trappist monk Kevin Hunt as the first American Trappist instructor of Zen (National Catholic Reporter, July 16, 2004).

“Under the ‘protection’ of a Buddha statue and filing in to the cadence of a Japanese drum, the procession reached the Abbey’s Chapter Room. There the installment was made: after the imposition of hands whereby Kennedy made Hunt his successor, the latter received the ‘Robe of Liberation’ -- a black Japanese kimono -- and his teaching staff.

“Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, General Superior of the Jesuits, wrote a letter praising Hunt’s achievement as ‘one that we can all celebrate in thanksgiving to God.’ According to Kolvenbach, it is through Zen meditation that Catholics can become aware of the loving presence of God. HUNT PREDICTS THAT BUDDHISM WILL CHANGE CATHOLICISM” (http://www.traditioninaction.org/RevolutionPhotos/A082rcTrapistZen.htm).

Keating combines contemplative practices with humanistic psychology, eastern religion, and New Age, and he has been deeply influenced by his pagan associations.

He believes that man has a “false self” built up through one’s life experiences and this false self is filled with guilt because of a false sense of sin and separation from God. The guilt supposedly is not real and the false self is “an illusion.” The objective of contemplative techniques is to reach beyond this false self to the true self that is sinless and guiltless and already in union with God.

This is a universalistic doctrine that denies the fall and salvation through faith in the substitutionary atonement of Christ.

Keating says:

“As we evolve toward self-identity and full self-consciousness, so grows the sense of responsibility, and hence guilt, and so grows the sense of alienation from the true self which has long ago been forgotten in the course of the early growth period. This whole process of growth normally takes place without the inner experience of the divine presence. That is the crucial source of the false self. ... THERE’S NOTHING BASICALLY WRONG WITH YOU, it’s just that YOUR BASIC GOODNESS has been overlaid by emotional programs for happiness which are aimed at things other than the ultimate happiness which is your relationship with God” (Keating interview with Kate Olson, “Centering Prayer as Divine Therapy,” Trinity News, Trinity Church in the City, New York City, volume 42, issue 4, 1995).

Keating describes thoughtless meditative prayer in Hindu terms as being united with God in a mindless experience.

“Contemplative prayer is the opening of mind and heart, our whole being, to God, the Ultimate Mystery, BEYOND THOUGHTS, WORDS, AND EMOTIONS. It is a process of interior purification THAT LEADS, IF WE CONSENT, TO DIVINE UNION” (Keating interview with Kate Olson, “Centering Prayer as Divine Therapy,” Trinity News, Trinity Church in the City, New York City, volume 42, issue 4, 1995).

Keating describes centering prayer is “a journey into the unknown” (Open Mind, Open Heart, p. 72).

Keating wrote the foreword to Philip St. Romain’s strange and very dangerous book Kundalini Energy and Christian Spirituality (1990). Keating says, “Kundalini is an enormous energy for good,” but also admits that it can be harmful. He recommends that kundalini “be directed by the Holy Spirit.” He postulates that the meditative prayer practices of Catholic mystics such as Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross might have been associated with kundalini energy. Keating concludes by saying: “This book will initiate Christians on the spiritual journey into this important but long neglected dimension of the transforming power of grace.”

Kundalini is a Hindu concept that there is powerful form of psychic energy at the base of the spine that can be “awakened.” It is called the serpent, is purely occultic, and has resulted in many demonic manifestations.

Its own practitioners warn repeatedly about its dangers. The Ayurveda Encyclopedia says, “Those who awaken their kundalini without a guru can lose their direction in life ... they can become confused or mentally imbalanced ... more harm than good can arise” (p. 336). The book Aghora II: Kundalini warns many times that “indiscriminate awakening of the Kundalini is very dangerous” (p. 61). It says: “Once aroused and unboxed Kundalini is not ‘derousable’; the genie will not fit back into the bottle. ... Those who ride Kundalini without knowing their destination risk losing their way” (p. 20). In fact, the book says “some die of shock when Kundalini is awakened, and others become severely ill” (p. 61). It is likened to a toddler grasping a live wire (p. 58).

Keating retired as abbot in 1981 and co-founded (with Gustave Reininger and Edward Bednar) the Contemplative Outreach to promote centering prayer.

Keating is heavily involved in interfaith dialogue and promotes contemplative practice as a tool for creating interfaith unity.

He is one of the founders of the Snowmass Conference at St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado. This organization sponsored contemplative interfaith conferences for 20 years. They met “to meditate together in silence and to share our personal spiritual journeys.”

At the conclusion of the dialogues they published The Common Heart as an expression of their conviction that the things that unite them are greater than the things that divide. Contributors included Keating, Roshi Bernie Glassman (Zen), Swimi Atmarupananda (Hindu), Ibrahim Gamard (Islam), Pema Chodron (Buddhism), Netanel Miles-Yepes (Sufi), and Rabbi Henoch Dov Hoffman (Judaisim).

The foreword to the book was written by New Ager Ken Wilber.

Keating and the Snowmass Conference published eight “Guidelines for Interreligious Understanding,” including the following.

* The world religions bear witness to the experience of Ultimate reality to which they give various names: Brahman, Allah, Absolute, God, Great Spirit.

* Ultimate Reality cannot be limited to any name or concept.

* The potential for human wholeness--or in other frames of reference, enlightenment, salvation, transformation, blessedness, nirvana--is present in every human person.

* Prayer is communion with Ultimate Reality, whether it is regarded as personal, impersonal or beyond them both

This is blatant universalism, and it is fruit of contemplative spirituality and interfaith dialogue.

Keating is past president of the Temple of Understanding, founded in 1960 by Juliet Hollister. The mission of this New Age organization is to “create a more just and peaceful world” by achieving “peaceful coexistence among individuals, communities, and societies.” The tools for reaching this objective are interfaith education, dialogue, mystical practices, fostering mutual appreciation and tolerance, and promotion of the contempt of global citizenship.

Keating is also past president of the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue (MID), which is sponsored by the Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries of North America. Founded in 1977, it is “committed to fostering interreligious and intermonastic dialogue AT THE LEVEL OF SPIRITUAL PRACTICE AND EXPERIENCE.” This means that they are using contemplative practices, yoga, Zen, and Sufism to promote interfaith unity and to help create a new world. The MID works in association with the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. Consider one of the objectives of the MID:

“The methods of concentration used in other religious traditions can be useful for removing obstacles to a deep contact with God. They can give a better understanding of the oneness of Christ as expressed in the various traditions and CONTRIBUTE TO THE FORMATION OF A NEW WORLD RELIGIOUS CULTURE. They can also be helpful in the development of certain potencies in the individual, for THERE ARE SOME ZEN-HINDU-SUFI-ETC. DIMENSIONS IN EACH HEART” (Mary L. O’Hara, “Report on Monastic Meeting at Petersham,” MID Bulletin 1, October 1977).

In January 2008 the MID web site featured Thomas Ryan’s book Interreligious Prayer: A Christian Guide. It contains “resources from eight religions that might be used in varying kinds of interreligious services.” The religions are Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Baha’i, and Native American. A review of the book at the MID site web says:

“It is as one human family ... that we are called to live in harmony and to bring about justice and peace in our one world; and, as the author points out, FINDING ONE ANOTHER IN GOD IN PRAYER ‘is the shortest way between humans’” (Katherine Howard, “Book Review: Can We Pray Together,” MID Bulletin 80, January 2008).

The Monastic Interreligious Dialogue is associated with the North American Board for East-West Dialogue (NABEWD). At its first meeting in January 1978 at a monastery in Clyde, Missouri, Robert Muller, a New Age leader at the United Nations, was selected as the organization’s advisor (Pascaline Coff, “Bridging Millennia through Dialogue,” MID Bulletin 71, Sept. 2003). Muller believes in the divinity of all men.

Beginning in 1982 the NABEWD has sponsored exchanges between Catholic and Buddhist monks and nuns. The Buddhists visit Catholic monasteries in North America, while the Catholics visit Buddhist monasteries in Asia. This was done with the approval of the Dalai Lama, who was approached in 1981 while he was participating in a Buddhist-Catholic interfaith symposium at the Naropa Buddhist Institute in Boulder, Colorado. David Steindl-Rast and Thomas Keating also participated in the symposium. When the Catholics asked the Dalai Lama if he and his monks would be willing to participate, he replied, “Yes, but I have no money” (Pascaline Coff, Ibid.). The Catholics volunteered to pay the expenses, and the exchanges began the following year.

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]

December 9, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

The following is excerpted from WHAT IS THE EMERGING CHURCH? This is a thorough examination of the emerging church, a name that describes a new approach to missions and church life among some “evangelicals” for these present times. Nothing has made us more conscious of the vicious battle that is raging for the very life and soul of Bible-believing churches than the research into the emergent church. It is frightful, because so many are falling into devil’s trap and so many more will doubtless fall in the coming days. At the same time, it is exciting, because it reminds us that the hour is very, very late and we need to be busy in the Lord’s service and always “looking up.” I have made a great effort to understand the emerging church. In the past several months I have read more than 80 books and a great many articles by emerging church leaders and their teachers. In reality, the emerging church is simply the latest heresy within the broad tent of evangelicalism. When the “new evangelicalism” swept onto the scene in the late 1940s, with its bold repudiation of “separatism” and its emphasis on dialogue with heretics, the door was left open for every sort of heresy to infiltrate the “evangelical” fold, and that is precisely what has happened. The Bible does not warn in vain, “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Corinthians 15:33). OUTLINE: I. What Is the Emerging Church? II. A Great Blending and Merging. It is difficult to draw a strict line between the two streams of the emerging church, because there is a blending and merging going on that will cause all lines to be blurred eventually. III. The Liberal Emerging Church and Its Errors. IV. The Conservative Emerging Church and Its Errors. V. Cain the First Emerging Church Worshiper. VI. Charles Spurgeon Exposed the Emerging Church. VII. Index. 489 pages. $19.95

Available from Way of Life Literature

USA -- P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368
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CANADA -- Bethel Baptist Church, 4212 Campbell St. N., London, Ont. N6P1A6
866-295-4143 (toll free), 519-652-2619 (church)
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Donald Miller’s (b. 1971) book Blue Like Jazz: Non-Religious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality (2003) is a harsh rant against biblical Christianity.

The thesis is that the Christian faith is vague and non-resolving and lacking in boundaries like jazz and that the believer should be a free spirit, having the liberty to follow his own impulses and live pretty much as he pleases without “rules” and “dogmatism.”

This dangerous book is very popular and influential. It has sold over a million copies and can be found at places like Family Christian Stores and the Southern Baptist Convention’s Lifeway Christian Bookstores.

Miller calls doctrinal statements “formulas” and says they are “created by their authors to help us, but they do more hindering than helping” (Searching for God Knows What, p. 206). He criticizes the “formulaic methodology” (p. 217). He wonders if all the time spent developing doctrine from the Bible would “be better spent painting or writing or singing or learning to speak stories” (p. 217).

Blue Like Jazz is a basically a manual for rebels.

At a book signing event, one enthusiastic reader of Miller’s Blue Like Jazz said: “I love Blue Like Jazz because it’s, like, a Christian book, but it doesn’t make you feel bad about yourself” (“A Better Storyteller,” Christianity Today, June 2007).

Another said: “I’ve already bought Blue Like Jazz 13 times. But I gotta have all these to give to people. I’m a Jesus girl, but I also like to go out and do tequila shots with my friends. This is a book I can give to those friends.”

NON-DOGMATIC FAITH

In discussing his involvement in church in his youth he writes, “I wished I could have subscribed to aspects of Christianity but not the whole thing” (Blue Like Jazz, p. 30). He says, “In order to believe Christianity, you either had to reduce enormous theological absurdities [i.e., Garden of Eden, universal flood] into children’s stories or ignore them” (p. 31). He wanted to believe the gospel “free from the clasp of fairy tale” (p. 35). Thus, he wants to pick and choose what parts of the Bible he would believe.

Miller claims that terms such as “inerrancy” are relatively new to church history and that “much of biblical truth must go out the window when you approach it through the scientific [literal] method” (Searching for God Knows What, p. 160).

Miller tells how that he refused to be restricted by the teaching of traditional-type churches. He wanted to drink beer and watch raunchy movies and talk trashy and run around with atheists and other rebels. In discussing his involvement in church in his youth he says, “I wished I could have subscribed to aspects of Christianity but not the whole thing” (p. 30).

A FALSE COOL PARTY JESUS

Miller’s Jesus is a cool, gentle, party Jesus who loves to hang out with any worldly gang and show them unconditional love. Miller says that he hated it when preachers “said we had to follow Jesus” because “sometimes they would make Him sound angry” (p. 34).

In fact, Jesus was angry sometimes even in His incarnation (“he looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts,” Mark 3:5), and He will be very angry in the future when the wrath of the Lamb is poured out upon mankind as described in the book of Revelation and many other places in Scripture!

At the conclusion of Blue Like Jazz, Miller gives the following “gospel invitation.”

“I want you to know Jesus too. ... If you haven’t done it in a while, pray and talk to Jesus. Ask Him to become real to you. Ask Him to forgive you of self-addiction, ask Him to put a song in your heart. I can’t think of anything better that could happen to you than this” (pp. 239, 240).

That is a false gospel and a false christ. There is nothing about repentance from sin, nothing about the necessity of Christ’s blood atonement, nothing about the new birth. Just talk to Jesus, but what Jesus? The apostle Paul warned that there are false gospels, false christs, and false spirits (2 Cor. 11:1-4).

We agree with the following review of Blue Like Jazz by Shane Walker:

“Jesus is presented as a nice fellow who meets one at the campfire and swaps stories. He’s a listener, a friend, accepting, warm, kind, and gentle. And Jesus is all these things. But the meta-narrative of the Bible, also reminds us that Jesus is terrible. He is the judge, the king, the warrior, the avenger (Rev. 19:2). The good news is not merely that Jesus wants to listen to your story, but rather that he wants to save you from his just wrath.

“The postmodern convert who comes to Christ the friendly listener has yet to meet the authentic Jesus. He’s met the aspects of Jesus that are most comforting to contemporary Westerners, but he has never experienced the stripping bare of all fleshly dignity before the reigning king of the universe. And this nakedness before God is necessary for salvation.

“Likely, right now someone in your church is reading Blue Like Jazz or some similar book. It will resonate with them in style and content--it is cool and Christian. And it is extremely unhelpful. The only antidote seems to be twofold. The first is to reintroduce young Christians to the biblical Jesus: the person who died an agonizing death for their sins, who will tread the winepress of the wrath of God, and who listens to their prayers. The second is to begin the battle against the cool. The godly must begin to prove in the pulpit, in writing, and in their lives that Christianity is the deadly enemy of the cool. And the cool is the Western postmodern entertainment driven culture that has tutored our children and ourselves for the last fifty years.”

LOVING THE WORLD

When Miller decided to attend a raunchy secular college in Portland, Oregon, where most of the students are atheists and agnostics and they use drugs and openly fornicate and sometimes run around naked, a Christian friend sat him down and warned him that God did not want him to attend there. That was good biblical advice (e.g., 2 Corinthians 6:14-17; Ephesians 5:11; 2 Timothy 3:5; James 4:4; 1 John 2:15-17), but Miller ignored the warning and felt that the wicked atmosphere was a liberating experience. He writes: “The first day of school was exhilarating. It was better than high school. Reed had ashtrays, and everybody said cusswords” (p. 38).

Miller says that “flaming liberals” also love Jesus (Blue Like Jazz, p. 110). He described a group of atheistic, drug-using, fornicating, thieving hippies that he once spent time with as “purely lovely” and says they taught him about “goodness, about purity and kindness” (pp. 208, 209). He said that this taught him that there is light and truth outside of Christianity. He concluded, “I had discovered life outside the church, and I liked it. As I said, I preferred it” (p. 210).

Miller describes a house where he lived in communally with a group of other single men in Portland in connection with an emerging church there. They called the house Graceland, not because of the grace of God in Christ but because they love filthy Elvis Presley, and Presley’s hedonistic mansion was called Graceland (Blue Like Jazz, p. 178). One occupant of the emergent household was a communist; another posed nude for the brochure of his advertising agency; another was “a womanizer, always heading down to Kell’s for a pint with the lads” (pp. 178, 179). When they played Nintendo, they would “yell profanities at each other.”

EXTREME ANTI-FUNDAMENTALISM

Miller describes how that he was “a fundamentalist Christian” for “a summer” (Blue Like Jazz, pp. 79-80). During that short time he became “a Navy SEAL for Jesus.” But his description of fundamentalism is a convenient straw man. He said that in those days he got upset when preachers talked too much about grace, as if biblical fundamentalists don’t believe in and preach much about grace. He says he was self-righteous in those days, as if Bible fundamentalists are a bunch of self-righteous Pharisees, which simply isn’t true. I have been walking in fundamentalist circles for 35 years and have met countless humble, godly, Christ-centered Christians who know that they are merely sinners saved by grace and that they have no righteousness apart from Jesus and that they are not better than anyone else. Miller says that during that summer he and some of his friends made a contract not to watch television or smoke or listen to music and to read the Bible every day and to memorize certain long passages of Scripture, then he describes how that he gave all this up because he “got ticked at all the people who were having fun with their lives.” This gives the idea that Bible-believing fundamentalists separate from the world only because they don’t like to have fun and they only read the Bible every day because they are forced to. I realize that the term “fundamentalist” is very broad, but in my experience I can say that the fundamentalists I know read the Bible because they love the Lord and want to know His thoughts and walk in His ways and they separate from the world because they want to please the Lord that saved them and they don’t want to be caught in snare of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

CONTEMPLATIVE MYSTICISM

Miller disagrees with those who reject mysticism and claims that “you cannot be a Christian without being a mystic” (p. 202).

He says, “Too much of our time is spent trying to chart God on a grid, and too little is spent allowing our hearts to feel awe” (p. 205).

This is the dangerous and unscriptural mystical approach, which downplays the importance of biblical doctrine and exalts intuition and feeling.

In the acknowledgements to Searching for God Knows What, Miller thanks New Age meditation proponent Daniel Goleman). Lighthouse Trails observes: “Goleman (author of The Meditative Mind) writes favorably about mantra meditation and Buddhism. He was the editor for a book titled Healing Emotions: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Mindfulness, Emotions, and Health” (“Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller,” Lighthouse Trails).

For more about the extreme danger of contemplative practices see the book Contemplative Mysticism: A Powerful Ecumenical Bond, which is available from Way of Life Literature.

WANTING NO GUILT ABOUT EVANGELISM

Miller says that one thing that drew him to Imago Dei, an emerging church in Portland, Oregon, was the fact that the pastor didn’t see evangelism as “a target on the wall in which the goal is to get people to agree with us about the meaning of life.” Rather, “He saw evangelism as reaching a felt need” (Blue Like Jazz, p. 114). He liked this because he had always felt guilty for not “telling anybody about Jesus except when I was drunk at a party.”

LIBERAL ACTIVISM

Miller thinks that we are to build the kingdom of God on earth today, and his view of that encompasses anyone that is involved in “social justice.” Under the “Activism” section of his web site Miller links to radical leftist organizations such as the ACLU, Greenpeace, and Moveon.org. His note accompanying the links says these organizations are doing the work of God, which is a reflection of a particularly dense spiritual blindness.

STRANGE VIEW OF HELL

Miller tells about one of his housemates named Stacy who wrote a story of an astronaut who has an accident while working on a space station and has to spend the rest of his life circling the earth in a special space suit and suffering a lingering death. Miller concludes, “Stacy had delivered as accurate a description of hell as could be calculated” (Blue Like Jazz, p. 172).

Thus, he describes a “hell” without fire or torment, and a “hell” that has an end.

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]

December 4, 2008 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

The defense of the King James Bible is not new. The following is excerpted from FOR LOVE OF THE BIBLE: THE BATTLE FOR THE KING JAMES VERSION AND THE GREEK RECEIVED TEXT FROM 1800 TO PRESENT. This book traces the history of the defense of the KJV and the Received Text from 1800 to present. The book includes hundreds of testimonies and biographies; sketches of churches, schools, and organizations that have defended the KJV; a digest of reviews and condensations of major books and articles written in defense of the KJV in the past 200 years; excerpts from rare books on this subject which are no longer available; a comprehensive overview of the varied arguments in favor of the KJV. For Love of the Bible also gives a history of the modern English versions, beginning with the English Revised of 1881. Also included is a history of textual criticism, revealing that most of the textual scholars from the 19th-century on were rationalists who denied the infallible inspiration of Scripture. The 46-page annotated bibliography is the most extensive in print on the subject, to our knowledge. A detailed index is also included. The author spent several thousand dollars researching the book and has written several hundred letters in this connection, communicating with men from around the world who stand for the KJV today. Michael Maynard, author of A History of the Debate over 1 John 5:7,8, wrote: “For Love of the Bible is a masterpiece. It ought to be in every academic, public, and special library in the world.”

5th edition, October 2008, 522 pages, 5X8, soft cover. $19.95

This book is available from Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143 (toll free), www.wayoflife.org (online catalog), fbns@wayoflife.org (e-mail).
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James Lister, minister of Lime Street Chapel, Liverpool, England, defended the King James Bible in 1820 in The Excellence of the Authorized Version of the Sacred Scriptures Defended Against the Socinians (Liverpool: Printed by J. Lang, 1820). This was an edited version of a sermon that Lister had preached at Gloucester Street Chapel, Liverpool, on Wednesday Evening, October 18, 1820.

The purpose of the sermon was to defend the King James Bible against the Unitarian Book Society’s edition of the New Testament founded on William Newcome’s version, which was based on the Griesbach critical Greek text. Lister was one of the many Christians that were stirred up by this publication.

When the Unitarian Book Society was formed, a major objective was the translation of a new English version based on the Griesbach critical text. Abandoning this plan, it published in 1808 an “improved” edition of the 1796 translation by William Newcome of Ireland “chiefly because it followed Griesbach’s text” (Earl Wilbur, A History of Unitarianism in Transylvania, England, and America, 1952, p. 339; see also P. Marion Simms, The Bible in America, pp. 255-258). The complete title was “The New Testament, An improved version upon the basis of Archbishop Newcome’s new translation with a corrected text and notes critical and explanatory.” This publication “drew the fire of the orthodox by omitting as late interpolations several passages traditionally cited as pillars of Trinitarian doctrine,” such as “God” in 1 Timothy 3:16 and the Trinitarian statement in 1 John 5:7.

After tracing the history of Bible translations in foreign languages (Syriac, Latin, Ethiopic, Coptic, Armenian, Persian, Gothic, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Flemish, Danish, Swedish, Bohemian, Polish, and Sclavonian or Russian), Lister summarized the history of the English Bible, beginning with Bede. He then described two aspects of the KJV translation that illustrate its excellence, the brilliant biblical scholarship of that time and the fierce religious debates that resulted in extreme caution in translation:

“The time when our translation was completed, though two hundred years ago, was remarkable for classical and biblical learning. The classics from the capture of Constantinople, had been revised, and had been studied with enthusiastic ardour in all the countries of Europe. In the century immediately preceding our version, schools and colleges had been multiplied over all the western world. Manuscripts were explored, compared and edited, and correct copies of the ANCIENT AUTHORS, BOTH PROFANE AND SACRED WERE PUBLISHED WITH A ZEAL AND PATIENCE FAR EXCEEDING ANY THING OBSERVABLE IN OUR TIMES. Oriental literature, Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac and Greek was deeply studied; and dictionaries, concordances, polyglots, such as the world had never seen before for depth and variety of erudition remain to this day as monuments of the talents, learning and research of our ancestors. Exalted on these monuments, some of our puny scholars, in THESE LATTER DAYS OF GREAT PRETENSION, have taken their lofty stand, and affected to despise the very men by whom these monuments were reared” (Lister, The Excellence of the Authorized Version, 1820, p. 14).

“The time when our authorized version was completed was a time of awful contention between catholics and protestants; a contest in which whole nations were embarked to a man, arranged under their respective civil authorities. Every nerve was strained on both sides to obtain the ascendency. Learning, talents, piety and zeal rushed forth to the conflict. AND THE MIGHTY FIELD ON WHICH THEY MET WAS, ‘THE TRANSLATION OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES INTO THE VULGAR TONGUES.’ In this fearful combat England stood at the head of the Protestant union; and both sides were fully aware of the incalculable consequences connected with an authorized version of the sacred scriptures into the English tongue. The catholics watched every measure of our government, and put every verse of our translation to the severest scrutiny. The Catholics had already sanctioned the Vulgate, and were prepared to inpugn every sentence wherein our version should differ from their authorized text. The mass of protestant learning was engaged on the one side to make our version as fair a copy as possible of the matchless originals; and the mass of popish erudition, on the other side, stood fully prepared to detect every mistake, and to expose without mercy every error of our public version” (James Lister, The Excellence of the Authorized Version, pp. 14, 15).

The fierce religious debates of the 16th and 17th centuries resulted in a zeal for biblical scholarship and a caution about the details of biblical translation that has absolutely no comparison in our day.

Lister then proceeded to give quotations from 11 authorities as to the excellence of the King James Bible. Following are two of these:

“To Dr. Walton may be added [Matthew] Poole in his Synopsis Criticorum 1669: ‘In the English version published in 1611, occur many specimens of an edition truly gigantic, of uncommon skill in the original tongues, of extraordinary critical acuteness and discrimination, which have been of great use to me very frequently in the most difficult texts’” (Lister, The Excellence of the Authorized Version, p. 17).

“Dr. [Joseph] White [1745-1814], Laudian professor of Arabic at Oxford, in a sermon recommending the revisal of our present version, says, ‘When the authorized version appeared, it contained nothing but what was pure in its representation of scriptural doctrine, nothing but what was animated in its expressions of devout affection. General fidelity to its original is hardly more its characteristic than sublimity in itself. The English language acquired new dignity by it; and has scarcely acquired additional purity since: it is still considered as the standard of our tongue...” (Lister, p. 18).

Lister concluded with a review of the Unitarian translation. One of the passages that he examined was 1 Timothy 3:16, where the Unitarians had replaced “God was manifested in the flesh” with “He who was manifested in the flesh.” This, of course, is what all of the modern versions following the critical Greek New Testament have done since that day, beginning with the English Revised of 1881 and the American Standard of 1901. Lister rightly mocks the Unitarian rendition of 1 Timothy 3:16 as meaningless.

“This translation rises far above my weak understanding. ... what is this great mystery according to the Socinian Creed? It is ‘a man manifested in the flesh.’ This is indeed a mystery, compared with which all Calvinistic or Trinitarian mysteries are nonentities; ‘a man manifested in the flesh.’ ... What adds to this mystery is, that this man, this man of clay manifested in the flesh, was seen, truly seen by his messengers that is by the apostles. That a man should be seen, seen by others, this is a mystery in the presence of which all Athanasian mysteries must for ever hide their heads. In the last clause they say of this man manifested in the flesh ‘he was received in glory.’ It is not to be supposed that we Trinitarians can understand such words. No—this is the climax of the Socinian mystery, such as has not entered into the hearts of Trinitarians to conceive” (Lister, The Excellence of the Authorized Version, pp. 28, 29).

Lister concluded his message with this challenge about holding fast to the KJV: “I entreat my candid readers, to be thankful for a version of God’s book so eminently correct and faithful. To God we owe unfeigned gratitude for the instruments, the holy and learned men, whom he raised up at the era of the reformation; not only to preach, but to translate the sacred volume into the English tongue” (p. 31).

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This is excerpted from For Love of the Bible: The Battle for the King James Version and the Greek Received Text from 1800 to Present. The fifth edition (November 2008) is revised and updated and fully illustrated. This book is available from Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143 (toll free), www.wayoflife.org (online catalog), fbns@wayoflife.org (e-mail).

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist Information Service, an e-mail listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY IS NOT DEVOTIONAL BUT IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the list. If somehow you have subscribed unintentionally, following are the instructions for removal. The Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list is automated. To SUBSCRIBE or to UNSUBSCRIBE or to CHANGE ADDRESSES or to RE-SUBSCRIBE UNDER A NEW ADDRESS, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/fbis/subscribe.html. If you have any trouble with this, please let us know. And please be patient with us. We do not ignore any unsubscribe request, but we cannot always get to your request immediately as each person involved with maintaining the Way of Life web site does this only on a very part time basis and is busy with many other major activities, such as pastoring and missionary work. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and those who use the materials are expected to participate (Galatians 6:6) if they can. Some of the articles are from O Timothy magazine, which is in its 25th year of publication. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site: http://wayoflife.org/catalog/catalog.htm Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061. 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org. We do not solicit funds from those who do not agree with our preaching and who are not helped by these publications, but from those who are. OFFERINGS can be made at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/offering.html. PAYPAL offerings can be made to https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=dcloud%40wayoflife.org]

Republished December 3, 2008 (first published May 16, 1996) (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -

Note from the FBIS editor: A couple of years ago I witnessed the sad breakup of a Christian home, and one of the problems which came out of--and perhaps helped lead to--the breakup was the "inner healing" confusion dealt with in the following article. The wife left a fundamental Baptist church and became involved with charismatics (a Wimber group). After going through inner healing sessions she became convinced that she remembered being sexually abused by her father. Not a hint of such a thing had ever come out before. She called her father and told him she knew dogmatically and without a doubt that he had abused her! What a shocker! How did she know such a thing? Her mind had been occultically manipulated by one of these false teachers. And just as the Bobgan's testify, this wife will not listen to the voice of reason. What wickedness, confusion, and division this inner healing movement is creating. North America, having turned away from the Word of God, is being engulfed with Freudianism and other forms of self-worship. We are thankful for the Bobgans and others who are exposing this wickedness. The Bobgans’ address is Eastgate Publishers, 4137 Primavera Rd., Santa Barbara, CA 93110, http://www.psychoheresy-aware.org/
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INNER HEALING: ILLUMINATION OR ILLUSION?
By Martin and Deidre Bobgan

Across America parents are receiving phone calls and correspondence that plunge them into a nightmare of accusations of abuse and incest. These are not parents of young children or teenagers. They are parents of grown children who throughout their lives had had no recollection of being sexually molested by their mother or father. Now, seemingly out of the blue, their bizarre stories are stunning their parents. These adult children, usually daughters, now claim to remember precise details of one of their parents sexually abusing them. Where do they get such ideas? Where do those sordid memories come from? What brings them to the surface? Inner healing and other forms of regressive-type therapy lurk behind this surge of family horror stories.

At first the parents are stunned. They are being accused of sexual exploits that they declare they would never even think of doing. But when they try to talk to their son or daughter, their words fall on deaf ears. They are accused and condemned without a trial--all based upon alleged memories discovered through inner healing. And now they are helpless in their concern over the welfare of their adult child who will have nothing to do with them.

With the media accentuating and exaggerating the numbers of women who have been molested, nearly anyone who cries "incest" is believed beyond a doubt. And why should anyone doubt a grown woman's sudden "recall" of a memory hidden in her unconscious? After all, isn't the memory like a tape recorder or computer that faithfully records and retains every event in some deep unconscious vault of the mind? Aren't there reliable techniques that enable a person to recall past events accurately? Or, are there some problems with those assumptions?

IS THE MIND A COMPUTER?

While many writers of pop psychology continue to equate the human mind with a tape recorder or computer, those are poor and misleading analogies. Dr. John Searle, in his Reith Lecture "Minds, Brains, and Science," explained:

"Because we don't understand the brain very well we're constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a model for trying to understand it.

"In my childhood we were always assured that the brain was a telephone switchboard. ("What else could it be?") And I was amused to see that Sherrington, the great British neuroscientist, thought that the brain worked like a telegraph system. Freud often compared the brain to hydraulic and electromagnetic systems. Leibniz compared it to a mill, and now, obviously, the metaphor is the digital computer. ...

"The computer is probably no better and no worse as a metaphor for the brain than earlier mechanical metaphors. We learn as much about the brain by saying it's a computer as we do by saying it's a telephone switchboard, a telegraph system, a water pump, or a steam engine" (John Searle, "Minds, Brains, and Science," The 1984 Reith Lectures, London: British Broadcasting Corp., 1984, pp. 44,55,56).

What Searle is getting at is the fact that the brain is not a mechanical piece of technology.

Medical doctor-researcher Nancy Andreasen, in her book The Broken Brain, declares that "there is no accurate model or metaphor to describe how [the brain] works." She concludes that "the human brain is probably too complex to lend itself to any single metaphor" (Nancy Andreasen, The Broken Brain, New York: Harper & Row, 1984, p. 90).

Current research demonstrates that computer memory and biological memory are significantly different. In his book Remembering and Forgetting: Inquiries into the Nature of Memory, Edmund Bolles refers to the human brain as "the most complicated structure in the known universe" (Edmund Bolles, Remembering and Forgetting, New York: Walker and Company, 1988, p. 139). He says,

"For several thousand years people have believed that remembering retrieves information stored somewhere in the mind. The metaphors of memory have always been metaphors of storage: We preserve images on wax; we carve them in stone; we write memories as with a pencil on paper; we file memories away; we have photographic memories; we retain facts so firmly they seem held in a steel trap. Each of these images proposes a memory warehouse where the past lies preserved like childhood souvenirs in an attic. This book reports a revolution that has overturned that vision of memory. Remembering is a creative, constructive process. There is no storehouse of information about the past anywhere in our brain" (Ibid., p. xi). [Emphasis added by authors]

After discussing the scientific basis for memory and how the brain functions, he says:

"The biggest loser in this notion of how memory works is the idea that computer memories and human memories have anything in common" (Ibid., p. 165).

He goes on to say, "Human and computer memories are as distinct as life and lightning" (Ibid.).

IS MEMORY RELIABLE?

Unlike a computer, the memory does not store everything that goes into it. First, the mind sifts through the multitude of stimuli that enter it during an actual event. then time, later events, and even later recall color or alter memories. During the creative process of recall, sketchy memories of events may be filled in with imagined details. And, an amazing amount of information is simply forgotten--gone, not just hidden away in some deep cavern of the mind. Memory is neither complete nor fixed. Nor is it accurate. As researcher Carol Tavris so aptly describes it:

"Memory is, in a word, lousy. It is a traitor at worst, a mischief-maker at best. It gives us vivid recollections of events that could never have happened, and it obscures critical details of events that did" (Carol Tavris, "The Freedom to Change," Prime Time, Oct. 1990, p. 28).

Yes, memories can even be created, not from remembering true events, but by implanting imagined events onto the mind. In fact, it is possible for implanted and enhanced memories to seem even more vivid than memories of actual past events.

Under certain conditions a person's mind is open to suggestion in such a way that illusions of memory can be received, believed, and remembered as true memories. Hypnosis, guided imagery, and inner healing are as likely to cause a person to dredge up false information as true accounts of past events. In a state of heightened suggestibility a person's memory can easily be altered and enhanced. This happens under hypnosis, through guided imagery, in age regression therapies (such as primal therapy) and during certain forms of inner healing.

THE POWER OF SUGGESTION

Bernard Diamond, a professor of law and clinical professor of psychiatry, says that hypnotized persons "graft onto their memories fantasies or suggestions deliberately or unwittingly communicated by the hypnotist." Not only may they have new memories, but Diamond declares that "after hypnosis the subject cannot differentiate between a true recollection and a fantasy or a suggested detail." He notes that court witnesses who have been hypnotized "often develop a certitude about their memories that ordinary witnesses seldom exhibit." Diamond declares, "No one, regardless of experience, can verify the accuracy of the hypnotically enhanced memory" (Bernard Diamond, "Inherent Problems in the Use of Pretrial Hypnosis on a Prospective Witness," California Law Review, Mar. 1980, pp. 314,333-337,348).

The certainty of pseudomemories and the uncertainty of real memories render such activities as hypnosis and inner healing questionable at best and dangerous at worst. Because memory is so unreliable, methods of cure that rely on unearthing so-called hidden memories not only open up the possibility of human creativity but also expose the mind to possible demonic suggestion. Even though the hypnotist or inner healer may wish to protect the person from receiving false material, he cannot avoid implanting human suggestion. Nor can he prevent demonic suggestions from entering the vulnerable mind of the person who is in a heightened state of suggestibility.

Even if there are people in the room praying for the person undergoing hypnosis or inner healing, the possibility of lies and fantasies being engrafted into the memory remains. That is because of the involvement in occult activity, which is forbidden in the Bible. Hypnosis and guided imagery are both occult activities, and inner healing may involve hypnotic suggestion, guided imagery, and occult visualization. Hypnotherapist Dr. Joe M. Persinger says that the field of hypnosis "includes meditation, visualization, guided imagery, relaxation, biofeedback, and breathing techniques" (Joe M. Persinger, quoted by Sheri Graves, "Hypnosis: Exploring Deep Levels of the Mind," Santa Barbara News-Press, Sept. 20, 1989, p. D1).

Regarding the relationship between guided imagery and hypnosis, Dr. David Bressler, an authority in the field of hypnosis and imagery says, "I think they're the same thing. It's that simple." He also says, "Imagery is at the heart of all magic" (David Bressler, "The Inner Adviser Technique: The Healer Within," InfoMedix tape, Garden Grove, Calif., 1983).

John Weldon and Zola Levitt say, "We would expect that most if not all of those who are occultly healed are likely to suffer either psychologically or spiritually in some way" (John Weldon and Zola Levitt, Psychic Healing, Chicago: Moody Press, 1982, p. 195).

REALITY OR ILLUSION?

Those who practice inner healing should not be surprised at the possibility of altering or enhancing the memory, because there are times when they purposely attempt to replace bad memories with good memories. They do this through guided imagery and visualization. In fact, one of the seemingly attractive forms of inner healing is to have Jesus enter a painful scene from the past. The inner healer helps the person recreate the memory by having Jesus do or say things that will make the person feel better about the situation. For instance, if a man's dad had neglected him when he was a boy, an inner healer may help that man create a new memory of Jesus having played baseball with him when he was a boy. Through verbal encouragement he would regress him back to his childhood and encourage him to visualize Jesus pitching the ball and praising him for hitting a home run. Some inner healers regress people back to the womb and lead them through rebirthing by guided imagery and imagination. Thus inner healers should recognize the danger of unwittingly enhancing or engrafting memories through words or actions that mean one thing to the inner healer but may communicate something else to the highly vulnerable subject.

It is very likely that people who remember sexual abuse and incest through inner healing are remembering an illusion or distortion of reality, a destructive suggestion accidentally placed there by the inner healer, or created through a combination of stimuli, such as in a nightmare, or worse yet, implanted by demonic influence. Yet they have no doubts about their newly discovered dark memory. In fact, the certainty of the alleged memory has the mark of an hypnotically engrafted memory rather than of a distant reality. And who can or will reveal the truth to them? Probably not their church or other Christians if they have been either supportive or ignorant of inner healing.

THE TRAGIC INFLUENCE OF INNER HEALING

Many Christians have been influenced by such best-selling authors and inner healers as John and Paula Sandford, Rita Bennett, and David Seamonds. Unfortunately those Christians believe such statements as this one from Seamands:

"The realization of grace cannot be maintained in some people without an inner healing of the past. God's care cannot be felt without a deep, inner reprogramming of all the bad conditioning that has been put into them by parents and family and teachers and preachers and the church" (David Seamands, Healing for Damaged Emotions, Wheaton: Victor Books, 1981, p. 85).

Such Christian writers perpetrate false information and encourage erroneous beliefs. In spite of brain research to the contrary, they teach that the mind is like a computer and that there is an unconscious reservoir of hidden, but very powerful memories that highly influence a person's thoughts, attitudes, and actions. And they are convinced that the memories they dredge up are accurate.

This tragic example of people with newly unearthed "memories, caught in a black hole of anger, resentment, unforgiveness, accusations, separation, and confusion, is part of the picture of the damage wrought by those who honestly believe they are helping people. Inner healing practices of regressing into the past, fossicking about in the unconscious for hidden memories, conjuring up images, acting out fantasies and nightmares, and believing lies, resemble the world of the occult, not the work of the Holy Spirit. An imaginary memory created under a highly suggestible, hypnotic-like state will only bring imaginary healing. It may also plunge people into a living nightmare.

We were approached by a woman one day who asked if we knew of a Christian psychiatrist. Months earlier she had enthusiastically exclaimed how she and her daughter had attended an inner healing seminar and had been healed of all kinds of things that they did not even know existed. Now she was desperate. Her daughter was trying to deal with all of the rot that had materialized during inner healing.

The people who are most vulnerable to inner healers are those who are at a low point in their spiritual walk or who are experiencing difficult circumstances. The inner healers entice through all kinds of direct and implied promises for healing damaged emotions, healing roots in the past that prevent personal growth, and enabling a person to have a closer walk with God. They circle about congregations like vultures, waiting for the opportunity to swoop down on those who are near to dropping from spiritual exhaustion. They assure their prospective victims of their sincere desire to help and they communicate a biblical facade by using butchered Bible verses and Christian-sounding conversation.

However, once their talons pierce the person, a penetrating parasitic process begins. And the host/parasite relationship continues as long as the host continues to look to the inner healer to make him emotionally well and spiritually whole.

Instead of being healed, however, there is a very strong possibility that the recipients of inner healing are now living on the basis of a lie from the pit of hell. Inner healing is not based upon truth. It is based upon faulty memory, guided imagery, fantasy, visualization, and hypnotic-like suggestibility. And while the inner healers may conjure up a Jesus and recite Bible verses, such inner healing is not biblical. Jesus said, "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:31-32).

We pray that those who have suffered under the abuse of inner healing will be set free through the truth that is in Christ Jesus.

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