View Full Version : Pastor George Moore and the West Hills Presbyterian Church of Omaha Nebraska
billiefan2000
April 1st, 2008, 01:51 PM
another sign of the apostasy problem in Omaha Nebraska
BTW
BTW, the "christian" newspaper Heartland Gatekeeper had a huge ad on this event in their paper :tsk
http://whcomaha.org/Default.aspx
Renovare Spiritual Renewal Conference at West Hills Church of Omaha Nebraska
April 25-26, 2008
http://whcomaha.org/files/PDF%20Files/2-10-08%20WHC%20Renovare%20Brochure.pdf
featured speakers
Richard J. Foster http://www.apprising.org/archives/2006/05/richard_foster_1.html
and George Skramstad
and James B. Smith (never heard of him)
are speaking at this event
I am not surprised at this:
West Hills Church of Omaha Nebraska has been a questionable church in the last few years
:tsk to George Moore and Mike Geiler and the staff of West Hills Church of Omaha Nebraska for having this event
billiefan2000
April 12th, 2008, 05:17 PM
http://www.apprising.org/archives/2006/04/do_you_know_whe_1.html
DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR MYSTIC TEACHING COMES FROM: RICHARD FOSTER
Due to the importance of this topic of Contemplative/Centering Prayer, which is the primary source for a reemergence of Gnostic neo-pagan “Christian” mysticism in new evangelicalism,
I began this series as quickly as I could.
I am asking the interested reader to please keep an eye out for this work to
be ongoing to cover various mystics who are influential in the new spirituality
that is now infecting the evangelical community of our Lord’s Church.
Let me also point out that each of these pieces will continue to be expanded as well when new information is forthcoming.
Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God. (3 John 1:11)
Richard Foster Emerges
We will begin now with Richard Foster who is arguably the leading proponent of this so-called contemplative spirituality rooted in Rome.
Undoubtedly however, he is certainly its most recognized teacher.
Foster is also very highly respected in the marred and mystical Emergent Church as evidenced in an article in Christianity Today called “The Emergent Mystique.”
None other than Brian McLaren, the prominent theologian in “Emergent, the emerging church network that he and several other church planters and pastors lead,”
points to “Dallas Willard and Richard Foster, with their emphasis on spiritual disciplines, as key mentors for the emerging church.”
As a matter of fact on McLaren’s own website he provides a running commentary on that CT article.
Following a quote from the section
mentioning his friends Willard and Foster the Emergent Guru McLaren
confirms that he considers these men as important theologians within this highly divisive group:
“He cites Dallas Willard and Richard Foster
with their emphasis on spiritual disciplines, as key mentors for the emerging church.
None of these thinkers has any inclination to throw out the baby of truth with the bathwater of modernity.” (emphasis mine)
I’m grateful to Andy for including the preceding, because many people doubt this.
It also becomes evident through the following answer to a reader’s question on McLaren’s website that the Emergent spiritual director would actually
seem to be quite appreciative for what his Richard Foster is doing in his promotion of this so-called “Christian mystical tradition” as well.
And I also ask you to note below that McLaren also recommends Emergent theologian
Tony Jones’ book The Sacred Way (SW) as another good resource on the subject of “contemplative practices” as well.
By the way, Jones just happens to be another friend of McLaren’s, and we will be looking a little further at SW later on:
In some of my readings, both of books authored by you and others, I have read about Christian mystics.
Who are the predominant Christian mystic authors?
Answer: If you pick up Richard Foster’s “Celebration of Discipline” and his other work via Renovare, you’ll get a great exposure to the Christian mystical tradition.
“The Spiritual Formation Workbook” is a great resource too.
Tony Jones’ “The Sacred Way” is also a sturdy introduction to contemplative practices (emphasis mine).
Let Us Imagine
Since this work here at AM is also aimed at exposing the severe spiritual errors of the Emerging Church movement as well,
it is critical that here we have firmly established Richard Foster undoubtedly a “key” mentor
and a primary source within the Emergent Church on contemplative practices and this alleged “Christian” mystic tradition.
In his fine book A Time For Departing (ATFD) research analyst Ray Yungengives us some of the benefits of his own in depth study of Foster’s teachings when he says:
I discovered he was the founder and head of an organization called Renovare, from the Latin word meaning renewal.
The goal of this group, as stated in their material, is to provide the evangelical church with a “practical strategy” for growing spiritually.
“An army without a plan will be defeated,” states one of Renovare’s promotional materials.
Renovare provides that plan or as they refer to it: “practical training for transformed living” (71).
We turn now to Celebration of Discipline (COD),
Foster’s own classic book on the subject of contemplative spirituality also recommended above by Emergent “theologian” Brian McLaren
While discussing “imagination” in COD, which Foster considers to be one of “The Inward Disciplines,” the Guru of Contemplation writes:
We can descend with the mind into the heart most easily through the imagination.
In this regard the great Scottish preacher Alexander Whyte speaks of “the divine offices and the splendid services of the Christian imagination.”
Perhaps some rare individuals experience God through abstract contemplation alone, but most of us need to be more deeply rooted in the senses.
We must not despise this simpler, more humble route into God’s presence (25, emphasis mine).
At this point in our discussion it becomes very important to stop and think something through: God indwells the Christian.
However, as you will be coming to see true mystics believe God is already in everything and everyone, which is called panentheism.
http://www.gotquestions.org/panentheism.html
But I will also show you that this view is also consistent with the theology of Quakers like Richard Foster.
In fact, one of the recommended “Christian Spiritual Classics” for further study in
Tony Jones
aforementioned SW is Collected Works by mystic Meister Eckart
Jones tells us it is “a mystical treatise on the intersection between Greek philosophy and Christian theology with an emphasis on God’s indwelling of humanity (221).
Modern day mystic Matthew Fox discusses Eckhart’s theology in his 1983 book The Coming Of The Cosmic Christ (CCC).
Fox explains that through mysticism we will come to understand what it is to “reach what Eckhart calls the ‘great underground river’ of divinity” within each of us (230).
That we are dealing with blatant heresy here is crystal clear because earlier in CCC Fox himself refers to all of humanity as “other Christs” (137).
Another time we’ll return to this panentheistic world-view which emerges from all those who practice this contemplative mysticism long enough
to plunge into that “great underground river” of deception;
but for now, we do know from the Bible that God only indwells the believer
who by personal faith in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is in Christ.
So, here’s the key issue:
If God is already present in the Christian, and He is, then why do we need contemplative spirituality as the “route into God’s presence?”
Answer: We don’t. O but it gets even worse.
A core doctrine in the Emergent Church of new evangelicalism is the awful idea that we will use mysticism to find the “common ground” with other world religions.
However, you must understand that the first thing which has to be done in order to attempt to attempt this is to remake Jesus Christ of Nazareth into a mystic.
This Foster begins to do in COD as, without any Biblical basis for the supposed mysticism of our Lord and Master, the Guru simply states:
Jesus himself taught in this manner [of the mystic], making constant appeal to the imagination, and many of the devotional masters likewise encourage us in this way.
St. Teresa of Avila says, “…as I could not make reflection with my understanding I contrived to picture Christ within me.”
Many of us can identify with her words, for we too have tried a merely cerebral approach and found it too abstract, too detached (ibid, emphasis added).
A Mystic Background For Foster
I cover Teresa of Avila in more depth elsewhere, but here you can clearly see that her mystic musings have undoubtedly impacted Foster.
In fact in COD he includes this troubled Roman Catholic nun among “the great writers of the devotional life,”
which he says goes “from St. Augustine to St. Francis,
from John Calvin to John Wesley, from Teresa of Avila to Juliana of Norwich”
(5, emphasis mine).
You might make note here that the highly ecumenical Foster is undoubtedly influenced in his own aberrant mystic views by the apostate Church of Rome and in opposition to the theology
of the Reformers the Guru of Contemplation obviously considers the Roman Catholic Church a part of the true Body of Christ.
And even Foster’s denigration above of “a merely cerebral approach” (analytical) to Holy Scripture is also consistent with this same grave error of the whole mystic tradition.
First of all I am not advocating a dead literal letterism as we approach the Bible; but leaving that aside,
in CCC Matthew Fox–one who is very well experienced in this transcendental meditation for the Christian–explains that the:
first meaning of mysticism is experience itself.
As Kabir, the great creation mystic of India, put it in the fifteenth century,
“I say only what I have seen with my own eyes–and you keep quoting the Scriptures!”
He goes on, “Experience, O seeker, is the essence of all things.”
The mystic is keen on the experience of the Divine and will not settle for theory alone or knowing about the Divine (48, emphasis mine).
Men and women, you have just read where all of this contemplative spirituality will always lead one who continues in it, and in words which are eerily similar to those coming from
Foster, McLaren, Pagitt, Jones,
ad infinitum among the spiritually deficient leadership of the Emergent Church today.
Then as we recall above how Matthew Fox
one who feels he has reached what mystic Meister Eckhart called “the ‘great underground river’ of divinity” (CCC, 230)
within each of us, now refers to all of humanity as “other Christs” (ibid., 137),
a very real source of serious concern for the spiritual direction of of Foster’s
Quaker “Christian” mysticism comes emerging. And this makes the following information from Ray Yungen in ATFD all the more startling:
It is not surprising to find those in the contemplative prayer camp who also subscribe to this view.
Contemplative author John R. Yungblut
former Dean of Studies at the Quaker Meditation Center at Pendle Hill in Pennsylvania, echoed a similar notion:
But we cannot confine the existence of the divine to this one man [Jesus] among men. Therefore we are not to worship the man Jesus,
though we cannot refrain from worshipping the source of this Holy Spirit or Christ-life, which for many of us has been revealed primarily in this historical figure (114,115, emphasis mine).
Foster And Quaker Mysticism
This now brings us to another critical issue that has not been thoroughly explored in the study of this invasion of contemplative spirituality into the evangelical camp.
The fact is that Guru Foster is himself a Quaker, or a member of The Religious Society of Friends, as they are also known.
Therefore if someone wants to better understand how Foster’s own
teachings about this supposed “inward life” were themselves shaped then it
becomes necessary to have a working background of the theology inherent in this group he has been raised within.
As a matter of fact Quakerinfo.com enlightens us that Richard Foster is “[p]erhaps the best known Quaker in the world today.”
And not only that but we are also told:
He is clearly one of the leading contemporary writers and speakers on Christian spirituality.
While maintaining his ties with Friends,
Foster deliberately speaks to a much broader audience.
Richard Foster grew up among Evangelical Friends.
In adult life, he has been a Friends pastor and a professor of theology at Friends University among the many positions he has held.
In his books and speaking, he frequently makes reference to Quaker historical figures and his own Quakerism.
Well then, it would appear this would be a good point at which to examine the history of Quakerism a little closer.
The New Encyclopedia Britannica brings out that the term “Quaker,”
according to founder George Fox came to be applied to this group “because we bid [people] tremble at the word of God.”
In addition however, it is “likely that the name, originally derisive, was also used because many early Friends,
like other religious enthusiasts, themselves trembled [i.e. quaked] in their religious meetings and showed other physical manifestations of religious emotion” (9/838).
This is confirmed in New Religions: A Guide while Richard Hoskins is teaching about a sect of “healers and ‘spiritual’ leaders” from the Dominican Republic called “The Ngunzist movement.”
Hoskins tells us the “Ngunzists are often called trembleurs because of their ecstatic shaking (rather like the origin of the term Quakers) (55,emphasis mine).
Next, from his fine work Christianity Through The Centuries (CTTC) noted Church historian Dr. Earle Cairns tells us that:
The Quakers appeared on the English religious scene during the chaotic period of the Civil War and the Commonwealth.
They set aside the doctrines of an organized church and the Bible as the sole and final revelation of God’s will in favor of the doctrine of the Inner Light,
by which they meant that the Holy Spirit can give immediate and direct knowledge of God apart from the Bible (381, emphasis mine)
In World Religions: From Ancient History to the Present we find out further it was in the wake of “the struggle” within various religious sects following the Reformation that:
Quakerism was born.
These “seekers,” [sound familiar?]
as they called themselves, abandoned all traditional Christian outward forms – ministry,
creeds, sacraments, liturgy, systems of theology – and waited in silence,
meditating on the Bible until they felt the “inner light” of God dawning within them and the Holy Spirit to speak. In their small communities they stressed the comradely life of love and works or charity inspired by the mystical experience of Christ through the Spirit (445, emphasis mine)
Harper’s Encyclopedia of Mystical & Paranormal Experience tells us that Quaker theology “stresses a personal, almost mystical knowledge of God and the workings of the Lord’s ‘inner light’ within all people.”
And Fox himself taught:
faith is based solely on firsthand knowledge of Christ as a living, personal reality, not on logic, reasoning, historical reporting, or even Scripture.
This empirical proof came to be called the Quaker Way:
the idea that worshippers need not consult preachers or the Bible to receive knowledge of the Holy Spirit–the so-called “inner light of Christ” present in every human heart (556, emphasis mine).
This idea in Quaker theology that every man has this alleged “Inner Light” is further corroborated in GREAT RELIGIONS of the World which tells us that Fox “insisted that the ‘light of Christ’ glimmered in all men”
(375, emphasis mine) We’ll be coming back to this “inner light” that is supposed to
glimmer “in every human heart,” but first, in his classic two volume set A History Of Christianity (AHOC)
the great historian Kenneth Scott Latourette adds a bit more background information about the person through whom the Quakers originated:
Their founder was George Fox (1624-1691).
Of humble birth, from boyhood he had heard Puritan preaching and had acquired an intimate familiarity with the text of the English Bible…
For four years he suffered severe spiritual depression induced by the spectacle of human suffering,…and by the doctrine of predestination which he heard expounded from Puritan pulpits.
By temperament a mystic, he was eager for direct and unhindered access to God…
Eventually (1647) the light broke.
He came to feel Christ could speak to “his condition,”…
He believed that God is love and truth and that it is possible for all men so to open their lives to Him… [Fox]
would follow and have others follow the Inner Light” (Vol. II, p. 822, emphasis mine)
The True Light Of Holy Scripture
All of these are extremely important concepts to understand regarding the spiritual excesses of The Religious Society of Friends (the Quakers).
Now you should be able to see an aberrant view of mysticism is already rooted in the base theology of the Quakers.
Their founder George Fox
who was himself prone to mysticism, wished for a “personal” approach “to God” that ended up being “apart from the Bible.”
As such Fox began with his theology already turned backward by believing
that it is man who seeks after God and as a result the Scriptures were forced
to take a back seat to his own way of approaching the Lord.
We need to carefully consider the above information. Fox is seeking a “direct” and “mystical experience” with God.
Admirable yes; but it is the LORD God Almighty–the glorious and transcendent Creator of the universe–Who set the prescribed means of interacting with us through prayer and His Words in Holy Scripture.
I will show you more about this “Inner Light” below, but notice that Fox was “eager” long enough while waiting “in silence” until “the light broke.”
And he finally received his mystic delusion that “it is possible for all men” to “open their lives” to God.
As I said, the “experience” of George Fox shoved the Truth of the Bible
into a secondary place in favor of this mystical view
that it is possible that “all men” are capable of opening themselves up to God.
Clearly this would appear to be a reaction on his part to the strong
Biblical “Puritan preaching” which assisted him in acquiring “an intimate
familiarity with the text of the Bible.”
For you see Fox has absolutely no excuse for missing this critical Truth from God’s Word:
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.
The LORD looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.
All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.(Psalm 14:1-3)
And it’s not like this is some obscure passage the Puritans latched onto but is open to various interpretations,
because it appears again in Psalm 51 below almost verbatim:
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good.
God looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand,
any who seek God. Everyone has turned away, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one (vv.1-3).
We aren’t able to escape this absolute Truth concerning the actual nature of mankind in the New Testament either.
O the sappy sentimentality of new
evangelicalism just loves to focus on the goodness of God and to tell us that He sent Jesus to meet our every need and to solve all of our problems. However, as I will continue to say,
Christ Jesus of Nazareth is the Creator–the dreadful and awful–holy and majestic LORD God Almighty standing upon His planet.
And concerning the fallen nature of humankind the Master unequivocally tells his Own disciples –
“If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11)
And then Jesus even clarified what He meant by “though you are evil” as He says –
“For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly” (Mark 7:21-23).
Why you’d almost have to think our Creator is trying to get a point across to self-centered and arrogant mankind when later
the inspired Apostle Paul is led by God the Holy to pick up those very same passages in the Psalms mentioned earlier:
As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one” (Romans 3:10-12)
You won't hear all of this preached in The Ecumenical Church of Deceit,
but the bottom line in all this simply couldn’t be any clearer than
Ecclesiastes 7:20
There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.
Ah, that is except – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One (1 John 2:1).
So tragically, because George Fox denied this clear teaching from God’s Word,
two major and spiritually fatal flaws emerged in his theology.
Out went the Pastoral Epistles for God’s prescribed method of spiritual leadership within His local churches;
and instead of objectively judging all experience by Holy Scripture,
“the Quaker way” became proper understanding of the Bible would be determined by subjective mystical experience in “the Inner Light.”
And it is this very same mortal theological wound of interpreting the text of the Bible by the spiritual experiences a given person may have that is also central to the postmodern approach of the Emergent Church
of which Richard Foster is unquestionably “a key mentor.”
I’ve already pointed out here that Foster considers mystic Teresa of Avila as one of “the great writers of the devotional life.”
You will come to see that even this is also consistent with Quaker theology and interestingly enough, on the page prior to the coverage of the Quakers by Dr. Cairns in CTTC
is a short piece about a mystic movement within “the Roman Catholic Church
during the seventeenth century” that would come to be known as “Quietism.”
The Inner Light Reveals The Global Family
I now draw your attention to the fact that “the Inner Light” just happened to be a core teaching of this Quietism.
Dr. Cairns informs us that this theological view within the Church of Rome:
emphasized an immediate intuitional approach to God by the passive soul opening itself to the influence of the inner light.
It was a reaction to the emphasis on the rationalization of dogma. [Sound familiar?]
Forerunners of the Quietists were Ignatius Loyola; the godly Charles Borromeo (1538-84),
cardinal and archbishop of Milan; Teresa of Avila (1515-82);
and Francis de Sales (1567-1622) of France…
These mystics of the Counter-Reformation were succeeded by the Quietists of the seventeenth century. (ibid., 380, emphasis mine)
You can see that Teresa of Avila was prominent among those who influenced what would itself become a “quiet” reformation within the Roman Catholic Church
and would end up bringing it further and further away from Biblical doctrine in favor of this mystic superstition.
George Fox and the Quakers would somewhat parallel this quiet decent into the mystical silence of demonic deception.
It’s a trap as old as the Garden of Eden where the Devil promises good will come to men who follow him in opposition to what God has said in the Bible.
There have been mystical approaches to God virtually since the time of the Fall and the LORD God Almighty has already told us that rather
than “emptying” our minds of all thought we are instead to – “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).
In AHOC Latourette also supplies another key piece of information in understanding the deadly flaw which has emerged from the theology of Fox when he brings out that
“Fox and other Quakers insisted that every man who comes into the world is illuminated by an inner light which is Christ”
(Ibid., p. 981, emphasis mine).
Men and women, here we glean some critical insight into why we are seeing the reemergence of interest in
Contemplative/Centering Prayer (meditation) within new evangelicalism.
This above view by “Fox and other Quakers” is also indicative of the inevitable result of the practice of this “Christian” mysticism as well.
Can you see it:
If this alleged Inner Light is already within every man then we don’t have to risk persecution as we stand for the exclusivity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Because now we will have opened the door to a universalism which negates any real need for anyone to have to be “born again.”
And here we have uncovered the reason why so many professing Christians today can believe that all religions should be friends now
and seek our common ground as we work together to usher in “the kingdom” of God’s Global Peace.
Take an honest look at the warped and toxic theology of men like Richard Foster
Rob Bell
Brian McLaren
Alan Jones
Steve Chalke and even the Pied Piper of Purpose Driven Rick Warren
all men involved to one degree or another in the practice of contemplative spirituality.
You see no bold stance on their part that the only way any human being anywhere upon God’s planet can ever be saved
from an eternity of conscious torment in a literal place our Creator called Hell is personal faith in Jesus Christ of Nazareth
and His vicarious penal substitutionary atonement on the Cross. In fact, you will see quite the contrary.
O yes, you will hear the occasional mild (at best) statement
that “I believe Jesus is the way,” but the end result of this neo-pagan mysticism
of Contemplative/Centering Prayer (TM for the Christian) is a “discovery”
through this alleged Inner Light (supposedly God) of what the mystic Meister Eckhart called “the ‘great underground river’ of divinity”
within all of mankind.
At the very least this would mean that if “every man” already is “illuminated by an inner light which is Christ,”
then there is no real need to preach the Cross for conversion.
Take a moment to read Colossians 2:15 and I believe it will dawn on you just who it is that came up with that twisted idea.
And the sad truth remains that those who believe this corrupt theology of Gnostic mysticism are then free to talk about the various “stories” we all supposedly have as we “journey” back to God together.
This is because in their mind all of us are actually in that great underground river of divinity and are already indwelt by God.
You should also know that Richard Foster is currently associated with that group known
as the Living Spiritual Teachers Project who are actively involved in teaching that exact thing.
So now the Guru of Contemplation is another “living spiritual teacher”
yoked with heretics like our old friends
Marcus Borg
Alan Jones and Matthew Fox
as well as to unbelievers like Marianne Williamson and Ram Dassin violation of 2 Corinthians 6:14-18
"Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.
For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?
Or what fellowship has light with darkness?
What accord has Christ with Belial?
Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?
What agreement has the temple of God with idols?
For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
'I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them,
says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.' "
So here's an interesting question:
Shouldn't the Body of Christ have a problem with this?
But an even greater question now emerges in this convoluted and confused conversation going on within the Church of our Lord today: Are you willing to tell these people the Truth:
Let it be known and understood by all of you, and by the whole house of Israel,
that in the name and through the power and authority of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,
Whom you crucified, [but] Whom God raised from the dead,
in Him and by means of Him this man is standing here before you well and sound in body.
This [Jesus] is the Stone which was despised and rejected by you, the builders, but which has become the Head of the corner [the Cornerstone].
And there is salvation in and through no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by and in which we must be saved.
http://www.apprising.org/archives/2006/04/do_you_know_whe_1.html
billiefan2000
April 19th, 2008, 04:27 PM
THE CULT OF GURU RICHARD FOSTER
You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?
This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?
Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? (Galatians 3:1-3, NASB)
Heading Right Back Home To The Bondage Of Rome
In his excellent series called Mysticism Gary Gilley
whom I’m pleased to call a friend, discusses Living Spiritual Teacher
Richard Foster
Foster, a Quaker mystic,
is hands down the leading proponent of the spiritually corrupt Contemplative Spirituality—so-called “Christian” mysticism—movement currently crippling the evangelical community.
Foster also happens to be author of Celebration of Discipline (CoD),
which is the classic textbook for the heretical spiritual formation of this neo-Gnostic mysticism.
As Gilley points out:
classical mysticism was virtually unknown in Evangelical circles until 1978 when Quaker minister
Richard J. Foster published Celebration of Discipline, the Path to Spiritual Growth.
Hailed by Christianity Today as one of the ten best books of the twentieth century and voted by the readers of that magazine as the third most influential book after the Bible,
Celebration of Discipline has blown the doors off evangelicals’ understanding of spirituality.
What Foster has done, in essence, is reintroduce to the church the so-called “masters of the interior life” as he likes to call the Medieval mystics.
He declares that they alone have discovered the key to true spiritual life and slowly, over the last few years,
convinced multitudes that he is right.
But Apprising Ministries is pleased to show you that Gilley has also already warned the Church:
Celebration of Discipline, alone, not even referencing Foster’s other writings and teachings and ministries,
is a virtual encyclopedia of theological error.
We would be hard pressed to find in one so-called evangelical volume such a composite of false teaching.
These include faulty views on the subjective leading of God (pp. 10, 16-17, 18, 50, 95, 98, 108-109, 128, 139-140, 149-150, 162, 167, 182);
approval of New Age teachers (see Thomas Merton below);
occultic use of imagination (pp. 25-26, 40-43, 163, 198);
open theism (p. 35); misunderstanding of the will of God in prayer (p. 37);
promotion of visions, revelations and charismatic gifts (pp. 108, 165, 168-169, 171, 193);
endorsement of rosary and prayer wheel use (p. 64);
misunderstanding of the Old Testament Law for today (pp. 82, 87);
mystical journaling (p. 108);
embracing pop-psychology (pp. 113-120);
promoting Roman Catholic practices such as use of “spiritual directors,” confession and penance (pp. 146-150, 156, 185); and affirming of aberrant charismatic practices (pp. 158-174, 198).
(Online source)
http://www.svchapel.org/Resources/Articles/read_articles.asp?id=107
Even so, it is very likely that this travesty of a book is probably even on the shelf of your own pastor.
Leaving this aside for now, I pray that this piece will at least alert you to keep your antenna up concerning the false doctrine spread by Guru Foster.
As one who began in the ministry of evangelizing non-Christian cults
I wanted to alert you of the growing cult of Richard Foster now infecting the evangelical community.
And if you don’t think his mumbo jumbo of contemplative mysticism is infiltrating evangelicalism, think again.
Gilley points out that Eugene Peterson
of the Message fame and author of The Contemplative Pastor says of Foster
in the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Celebration of Discipline,
“Like a child exploring the attic of an old house on a rainy day,
discovering a trunk full of treasure and then calling all his brothers and sisters to share the find,
Richard J. Foster has ‘found’ the spiritual disciplines that the modern world stored away and forgot,
and has excitedly called us to celebrate them.
For they are, as he shows us, the instruments of joy, the way into mature Christian spirituality and abundant life” (p. 206). (Online source)
Not good enough for you?
We also have James Emery White Teaching Contemplative Mysticism.
To show you just how deep within the veins of the American Christian Church this spiritual venom has traveled keep in mind that White was one of the speakers at The National Conference on Preaching along with Purpose Driven Pope Rick Warren.
In James Emery White Promotes Contemplative Mysticism I link to White’s article at the Rick Warren’s Ministry Toolbox website,
which is actually an excerpt from chapter 4 of White’s book Serious Times (ST).
This chapter entitled “Deepening Our Souls” extols the virtues of the contemplative life discussing practices that flowered in the antibiblical monastic traditions of apostate Roman Catholicism such as “Silence and Solitude” (85), “Spiritual Direction” (88) and “St. Benedict’s Rule” (90).
At this point I want you to keep in mind that James Emery White is a former president of “Protestant” evangelical Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
and is still a professor there.
And yet in ST here we find professor White quoting from all of the usual suspects of heretical mysticism—
Foster, Thomas R. Kelly another spiritually corrupt Quaker mystic,
Henri Nouwen
Thomas Merton
Teresa of Avila
etc.
In fact, White tells us of Foster:
There are many protests to the demands of living under a rule [of spiritual order/direction], but in the end practices themselves are not the issue.
The goal is to seek the face of God in such a way that Christ is formed in us.
By themselves spiritual disciplines can do nothing. Richard Foster wisely reminds us,
“They can only get us to the place where something can be done.” (93)
But what White is actually describing is a return to the very Romish spiritual bondage that we were delivered from at the Reformation.
The question we need to be asking here is why are evangelical pastors and leaders getting their spiritual teaching from a Quaker mystic who very likely is not even regenerate.
Consider the following from Phil Johnson of the well known website Pyromaniacs.
He has kindly given me permission to share the following:
I met Foster almost 25 years ago when we were both slated to teach seminars at a couple of writers’ conferences.
At the time, he was teaching at Friends University in Wichita,
which is a small college founded by Quakers and happens to be where my Mom got her degree in the early 1960s. So we had some things in common and spent quite a bit of time talking.
He is a capable writer and a very likable person.
But in my opinion, he is not an evangelical.
He does not seem to have any clear understanding of the gospel or the atonement.
That’s why his emphasis is all about “spirituality” and “spiritual disciplines” and various things the worshiper must do,
with virtually no emphasis on what Christ has done for sinners. I’ve read several of Foster’s books and have never even seen him mention the cross as a propitiation for sins.
Moreover, he blends all kinds of works-based approaches to spirituality, which he borrows from diverse “Christian” traditions and even from other religions’ mystical and superstitious practices.
In my estimation, all of that puts him far outside the pale of orthodoxy. Although he occasionally makes quotable remarks and valid observations, he is by no means a trustworthy teacher.
But this is still not good enough for you?
Then how about the Radio Bible Class, you can’t get more mainstream evangelical than that.
In Emergent Interfaith Compromise
I brought out that even RBC has been influenced by this spiritual
discipline foolishness as they have a few times turned to contemplative universalist Henri Nouwen (1932-1996)
for his supposed “spiritual” wisdom.
Richard Foster And Quaker Mysticism
The egregious influence of Richard Foster’s neo-Gnosticism has spread much further than you might think.
This now brings us to another critical issue which has not been thoroughly explored in the study of this invasion of contemplative spirituality/mysticism into the evangelical camp.
As I have already mentioned Guru Foster is himself a Quaker, or a member of The Religious Society of Friends, as they are also known.
Therefore if someone wants to better understand how Foster’s own
understanding about this supposed “inward life” developed by these spiritual disciplines was itself shaped then it becomes necessary to
have a working background of the theology of this group within which Foster has been raised.
As a matter of fact Quakerinfo.com enlightens us that Richard Foster is “[p]erhaps the best known Quaker in the world today.”
And not only that but we are also told:
He is clearly one of the leading contemporary writers and speakers on Christian spirituality.
While maintaining his ties with Friends, Foster deliberately speaks to a much broader audience.
Richard Foster grew up among Evangelical Friends.
In adult life, he has been a Friends pastor and a professor of theology at Friends University among the many positions he has held.
In his books and speaking, he frequently makes reference to Quaker historical figures and his own Quakerism.
Well then, it would appear this would be a good point at which to examine the history of Quakerism a little closer.
The New Encyclopedia Britannica brings out that the term “Quaker,” according to founder George Fox came to be applied to this
group “because we bid [people] tremble at the word of God.”
In addition however,
it is “likely that the name, originally derisive, was also used because many early Friends,
like other religious enthusiasts, themselves trembled [i.e. quaked] in their religious meetings and showed other physical manifestations of religious emotion” (9/838).
This is also confirmed in New Religions: A Guide while Richard Hoskins is teaching about a sect of “healers and ‘spiritual’ leaders” from the Dominican Republic called “The Ngunzist movement.”
Hoskins tells us the “Ngunzists are often called trembleurs because of their ecstatic shaking (rather like the origin of the term Quakers) (55, emphasis mine).
Next, from his fine work Christianity Through The Centuries (CTTC) noted Church historian Dr. Earle Cairns tells us that:
The Quakers appeared on the English religious scene during the chaotic period of the Civil War and the Commonwealth.
They set aside the doctrines of an organized church and the Bible as the sole
and final revelation of God’s will in favor of the doctrine of the Inner Light, by which they meant that the Holy Spirit can give immediate and direct knowledge of God apart from the Bible
(381, emphasis mine)
In World Religions: From Ancient History to the Present we find out further it was in the wake of “the struggle” within various religious sects following the Reformation that:
Quakerism was born. These “seekers,” [sound familiar?]
as they called themselves, abandoned all traditional Christian outward forms — ministry, creeds, sacraments, liturgy,
systems of theology — and waited in silence, meditating on the Bible until they felt the “inner light” of God dawning within them and the Holy Spirit to
speak.
In their small communities they stressed the comradely life of love and works or charity inspired by the mystical experience of Christ through the Spirit (445, emphasis mine)
Harper’s Encyclopedia of Mystical & Paranormal Experience tells us that Quaker theology “stresses a personal, almost mystical knowledge of God and the workings of the Lord’s ‘inner light’ within all people.”
And Fox himself taught:
faith is based solely on firsthand knowledge of Christ as a living, personal reality, not on logic, reasoning, historical reporting, or even Scripture.
This empirical proof came to be called the Quaker Way: the idea that worshippers need not consult preachers or the Bible to receive knowledge of the Holy Spirit–the so-called “inner light of Christ”
present in every human heart (556, emphasis mine).
This idea in Quaker theology that every man has this alleged “Inner Light” is further corroborated in GREAT RELIGIONS of the World which tells us that Fox “insisted that the ‘light of Christ’ glimmered in all men” (375, emphasis mine)
I cover this “inner light” that is supposed to glimmer “in every human heart” in great depth in Contemplating the Inner Light of the Quakers Part One and Part Two.
And then in his classic two volume set A History Of Christianity (AHOC) the great historian Kenneth Scott Latourette adds a bit
more background information about the person through whom the Quakers originated:
Their founder was George Fox (1624-1691).
Of humble birth, from boyhood he had heard Puritan preaching and had acquired an intimate familiarity with the text of the English Bible…
For four years he suffered severe spiritual depression induced by the spectacle of human suffering,…
and by the doctrine of predestination which he heard expounded from Puritan pulpits.
By temperament a mystic, he was eager for direct and unhindered access to God…
Eventually (1647) the light broke. He came to feel Christ could speak to “his condition,”… He believed that God is love and truth and that it is possible for all men so to open their lives to Him…
[Fox] would follow and have others follow the Inner Light”
(Vol. II, p. 822, emphasis mine)
The True Light Of Holy Scripture
All of these are extremely important concepts to understand regarding the spiritual excesses of The Religious Society of Friends (the Quakers).
Now you should be able to see that the heretical view of mysticism is already rooted in the base theology of the Quakers.
Their founder George Fox who was himself prone to mysticism,
wished for a “personal” approach “to God” that ended up being “apart from the Bible.”
Now this should come as no surprise when Gilley points out this is
the exact same approach Foster used to “discover” his extrabiblical spiritual disciplines:
Having come to the conclusion that there must be “more spiritual resources than I was experiencing,” he prayed,
“Lord, is there more you want to bring into my life? I want to be conquered and ruled by you.
If there is anything blocking the flow of your power,
reveal it to me.”
God seemed to answer this prayer through a growing
impression that something in his past was impeding the flow of life so he set aside blocks of time on three consecutive days to listen to
God in absolute silence,
through the use of journaling, a process whereby God is supposed to reveal His mind to the silent participant.
After the third day Foster took his lists to a friend, who volunteered to serve as his confessor,
who prayed for healing for all the sorrows and hurts of Foster’s past as presumably revealed by God.
It was following this experience of journaling, an experience not taught in the Bible but common in the occultic world,
that it seemed to him that he “was released to explore what were for me new and uncharted regions of the Spirit.
Following that event, I began to move into several of the Disciplines described in this book that I had never experienced before.”
It is most disturbing that Foster’s magnum opus stems from a questionable Divine encounter of a dubious nature.
But it is also significant to realize that Foster’s system for spiritual
formation is not drawn from the Scriptures but from subjective
experiences involving unbiblical methodologies and reinforced by Roman Catholic mystical practices. (Online source)
http://www.svchapel.org/Resources/Articles/read_articles.asp?id=107
So now you should be able to see that both Foster and Fox began with their theology already turned backward by believing
that it is man who seeks after God and as a result the Scriptures were forced
to take a back seat to his own way of approaching the Lord.
We need to carefully consider the above information.
Both Quakers were seeking a “direct” and “mystical experience” with God.
Admirable yes; but it is the LORD God Almighty—the glorious and transcendent Creator of the universe—Who set the prescribed means of interacting with us through His Words in Holy Scripture.
In the case of Foster and Fox consider how they was “eager” long enough while waiting “in silence” until “the light broke”
and they finally received their mystic delusion that “it is possible for all men” to “open their lives” to God.
As I said, the “experience” of George Fox, a mentor to for Foster,
shoved the Truth of the Bible into a secondary place in favor of this mystical view that it is possible that “all men” are capable of opening themselves up to seek God.
Clearly this would appear to be a reaction on his part to the strong Biblical “Puritan preaching” which assisted him in acquiring “an intimate familiarity with the text of the Bible.”
As such you see Fox has absolutely no excuse for missing this critical Truth from God’s Word:
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.
The LORD looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.
All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one. (Psalm 14:1-3)
And it’s not like this is some obscure passage the Puritans latched onto but is open to various interpretations,
because it appears again in Psalm 51 below almost verbatim:
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good. God looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.
Everyone has turned away, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one (vv.1-3).
We aren’t able to escape this absolute Truth concerning the actual nature of mankind in the New Testament either—repeated as it is by the Holy Spirit in Romans 3:10-12.
O sure, the sappy sentimentality of postevangelicalism just loves to focus on the goodness of
God and to tell us that He sent Jesus to solve all of our problems and postliberalism sees Jesus as the radical social reformer
instituting a kind Christian Marxism ala Rob Bell and Shane Claiborne
However, in addition to being fully Man, Christ Jesus of Nazareth is the Creator—the dreadful and awful—holy and majestic LORD God Almighty standing upon His planet.
And concerning the fallen nature of unregenerate humankind, in contradistinction to God, the Master tells his Own disciples—as well as us—in terms which are unmistakable:
“If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:11)
http://www.apprising.org/archives/2008/04/the_cult_of_gur.html
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2 Timothy 4:3-4
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
[YOU TUBE VIDEO]70rOr3bw9Fc[/YOU TUBE VIDEO]
[YOU TUBE VIDEO]Xs9nRvP-whk[/YOU TUBE VIDEO]
billiefan2000
April 21st, 2008, 11:31 AM
http://christianresearchnetwork.com/?p=4914
The Cult of Guru Richard Foster
Published April 20th, 2008 by Editor in Contemplative Spirituality, Emerging Church, New Spirituality, Postevangelicalism, Postliberalism
Apprising Ministries takes a close look at Living Spiritual Teacher Richard Foster and his cult of neo-pagan Gnosticism.
Guru Foster,
himself a Quaker mystic, is hands down the leading proponent of the spiritually corrupt Contemplative Spirituality movement—
aka so-called “Christian” mysticism—currently crippling the evangelical community.
Of Richard Foster author of Celebration of Disciplne,
http://www.apprising.org/archives/2006/05/living_spiritua_1.html
Gary Gilley is right when he says, "Celebration of Discipline, alone, not even referencing Foster’s other writings and teachings and ministries,
is a virtual encyclopedia of theological error.
We would be hard pressed to find in one so-called evangelical volume such a composite of false teaching."
http://christianresearchnetwork.com/?p=4914
billiefan2000
April 23rd, 2008, 02:05 PM
as if the Heartland Gatekeeper and the Omaha World Herald promoting this wanst bad enough
I just found out KGBI (our christian music station) is also promoting this event as a "Christian Spiritual Growth" event
does anyone use Discernment in my town of Omaha Nebraska anymore
sadly KPNO of Norfolk Nebraska is also promoting this too.
:tsk :tsk on both of them
billiefan2000
June 14th, 2008, 11:34 AM
I have a update on the West Hills PC and it's preacher George Moore who brought Richard Foster to my town :tsk
(ironically or not, it was a ad right below a ad for Trinity Church of Omaha advertising it's church services on Sunday's)
(see) http://rr-bb.com/showthread.php?t=44725 (for info on Trinity Church of Omaha and Les Beuachamp and Deacon Godsey
http://www.whcomaha.org
it was a advertisement for their new sermon series that was in today's Omaha World Herald
it has to do with their brand new Song of Solomon sermon series
and what you see on the front page of that "church's" website advertising their new sermon series was in today's Omaha World Herald (word for word) :ohno
BTW, this dont surprise me between them not using Discernment and inviting Richard Foster
and their Pro-spirtual formation beliefs (see) http://whcomaha.org/246379.ihtml
nothing that West Hills Presbyterian Church of Omaha Nebraska and its leaders does anymore surprises me :tsk
2 Timothy 4:3-4
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
[YOU TUBE VIDEO]boA3VAGIl6A[/YOU TUBE VIDEO]
billiefan2000
October 19th, 2008, 04:32 PM
more bad news about West Hills Church:
they are now recomending the book by John Ortberg called The Life You’ve Always Wanted
and is also according to: http://whcomaha.org/246379.ihtml
do a bible study based on the book The Shack by William Young :ohno
not surprising considering this church has a Spiritual Formation class and has promoted Richard Foster's false teachings :tsk :tsk
BTW:
we should pray for this church. It saddens me that this church or any church in Omaha would promote these kinds of false teachings
West Hills Church of Omaha Prayer chain
http://rr-bb.com/showthread.php?t=64883
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