Contemplative Spirituality

Contemplative Spirituality* Is a Religious Practice with Historical Roots, But Is It the Biblical Model?

By Susan Hyatt, January 6, 2008

I have briefly organized the following thoughts concerning contemplative spirituality at the request, only yesterday, of two friends who do not know each other and who live hundreds of miles apart. As I faithfully press on and complete the current assignments God has given me, perhaps He will release me to develop these thoughts and present them with adequate documentation (which is available).

BIBLICAL

Jesus didn’t teach contemplative prayer or contemplative spirituality as a form of prayer. When asked by the disciples to teach them to pray, Jesus said, When you pray, say "..." He didn’t teach methods of pursuing silence or experience.
Jesus didn’t say we were to seek The Presence or Silence. He did say He would never leave us or forsake us in any way, that He would be with us always.
Paul didn’t teach contemplative prayer or contemplative spirituality. He did say that we are to be changed by the renewing of your mind in the Word of God.
OT meditation is not a passive activity of blanking the mind or seeking silence, but is portrayed as active thinking on the Word of God, much as a cow chews her cud.

HISTORICAL

It comes from eastern mystical practices, having entered historic Christianity via the desert monks.
It is propagated by Roman Catholicism which ascribes authority to the Roman hierarchy as the primary authority rather than to the Bible. It does not remove the Scriptures as authoritative but it does reduce the Bible to, at best, a secondary authority, thereby diminishing the authority of Scripture, which must be the case for those who pursue contemplative prayer and the spiritual formation movement.
It flourishes in a climate of biblical illiteracy. The Bible is not used with integrity but only as bait to “hook” the unsuspecting convert.
The Reformers decried the practice, turning instead to God’s Word, and even as the Reformers are being maligned in many seminaries today, the mystics and practices of Roman Catholicism are being held forth as role models.

PERSONAL

Post-modernism encourages the seeking of experience, the same goal as contemplative spirituality. The cultural milieu is, therefore, conducive to this movement. For a gentle attempt to reach friends caught up in this movement, I wrote “The Wise Still Seek Him” a few years ago and this is available at www.icwhp.org.
I have always had a heart for the Lord Jesus, seeking to serve Him throughout my life. When I was baptized in the Holy Spirit in the late 60s – a biblical “experience” – I loved the experience and therefore wanted to worship so that I could “feel” God’s Presence. BUT I heard the Holy Spirit speak these words to me: Do not seek experience. Obedience to this directive has protected me over the decades. He GIVES experiences, but I am not to seek them. Contemplative prayer is about seeking an experience, as are many of the practices among various Christian groups today. We live in an experience-hungry world. Experience becomes God!
Eddie and I knew about the mystics and had read many of their writings, but saw nothing in them that we should emulate. We were surprised then, when we entered the doctoral program (1998-2000) at Regent University (Virginia Beach) and found ourselves in what we came to understand as the spiritual formation movement, with the mystics as role models. Our eyes were opened! It was amazing to us that so many would be emulating the mystics instead of the Lord Jesus and the biblical patterns! In partial fulfillment of requirements in the Spiritual Renewal course, we were required to read books by contemplative prayer leaders such as Henri Nouwen, Richard Foster, and Eugene Peterson. We were introduced to the Spiritual Formation Movement and all that that entails and were required to participate in various practices. To our utter amazement, none of our colleagues questioned any of this! Then in our post-seminar work, we were required to answer questions and write a critique of the course. This meant that I had to get to the bottom of this, since we were admonished to he honest in our responses. After much research, I discovered what was going on. Needless to say, my paper was not well received. In another course in the doctoral program, we students spent a week together on campus looking at how we might bring closure to the Great Commission. We discussed various methods and means of world evangelization. Beginning on Monday, we had been in class from 8 am – 5 pm daily, and by Thursday afternoon, I was getting weary. At about 4 pm, someone suggested we pray, and I sighed and thought to myself and God, “Praise the Lord! I can lay my head on the table and just rest. They can do all their praying, Lord, and no one will ever know that I’m just resting.” After a brief time, the Holy Spirit “hit me” like a lightning bolt and I began interceding in tongues. It was intense! Knowing that some present did not believe in speaking in tongues, I was concerned that I was creating chaos and disrupting their “prayer time,” so I made my way to the hall, all the while yielding to the Holy Spirit. While I was praying in tongues in this manner, I was aware that the Lord was saying that He wanted to purge the message. He was saying that the Church has all the money, materials, and means to get the message to the world, but that the message was not the Message of Jesus Christ. And He wanted to purge the message. In retrospect, I believe that part of the message he want to purge was the non-biblical message and extra-biblical practices of contemplative prayer, ecumenicalism, many paths to God, spiritual formation, etc., that had already permeated church leadership. Now, a decade later, the root of deception has grown into a huge tree with many branches that are producing their destructive fruit in the lives of multitudes!

OBSERVATIONS

When we were thrust into this movement in the course of our education as Church leaders, I commented, “This is the most dangerous deception that has come down the pike in a long time!”
It was so oppressive that at the end of each day, we would drive away from the retreat site to “disengage,” as we called it.
This movement seems to all about “me” and my “experience.” It “centers” on the “god within.” Jesus only opened the door and now we can all, Christian or not, practice the spiritual exercises that create certain desired experiences. The starting point is this rather than the Bible and the transcendent Creator of the Universe. Our starting point must always be the Lord Jesus and the Word of God, accurately interpreted and not used as a means to our self-centered satisfaction.
I have noticed that it had a dulling affect on the ability of its practitioners to discern between what was of God and biblical, and what was, in fact, the activity of “angels of light” and altered states of consciousness induced by non-biblical methods.
I have since noticed that this form of “spirituality” fosters passivity in its practitioners, as opposed to developing responsible attitudes and actions, creativity, and productive thinking and behavior.
I have also observed that those who practice this “spirituality” seem to become addicted in a manner not unlike those who become hooked on drugs and require regular “hits” to keep going.
There is also an obvious over-emphasis on and perversion of the immanence (indwelling of the Lord) of God as opposed to the transcendent nature of God.

APPROACH

It seems that those who practice this activity do not seem to be open to evaluating it. Yet we are encouraged to test all things and hold fast only that which is good. What is our measuring stick in this evaluation process? Historical precedent is offered as making it legitimate but this is not to be our ultimate justification for anything that we practice. IF we were to examine the historical fruit of this form of spirituality, we would find adequate evidence that it is not a viable pursuit for followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. This movement, in terms of history, practice and fruit does not stand up to biblical evaluation.
Most people involved in this movement seem to feel threatened and become defensive when they sense that you may be resistant and present reasons that you do not wish to embrace their spirituality. Rather than confronting the practice directly, therefore, I believe we must let the Lord show us the unmet needs that lure Christians to this deception. We are called to hold forth the Word of Truth, to teach what the Bible says about meeting the need, and let the Holy Spirit do the work of setting the captives free.

*Definition: contemplative spirituality - a belief system that uses ancient mystical practices to induce altered states of consciousness (the silence) and is rooted in mysticism and the occult but often wrapped in Christian terminology; the premise of contemplative spirituality is pantheistic (God is all) and panentheistic (God is in all). www.LightHouseTrailsResearch.com

P. S. If you wish to see where this may be going, have a look at what Henry Nouwen’s soul mate is teaching, consider an excerpt from What's Sex Got to Do With It? Source: Lighthouse Trails. This article or excerpt was posted on May 23, 2007 @ 1:45 pm. From: www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com Category: Contemplative

“These assertions may sound absurd and far-fetched to some readers, but evidence of the truth of this does exist. For instance, Henri Nouwen (who along with Thomas Merton is one of the top icons of the contemplative prayer movement), in his last book The Sabbatical Journey, favorably revealed how he listened to audio tapes on the seven chakras which is the basis for tantric sex (p. 20). Also in Nouwen's book, he makes mention of his encounter with a mystic named Andrew Harvey, whom Nouwen referred to as his soul friend (spiritual mentor) and how much Harvey's mysticism had touched him (p. 149). And yet Harvey's mysticism also includes the tantric element. In an upcoming conference (The International Conference on Sacred Sexuality) Harvey is actually leading a workshop called ‘Sexual Liberation, Tantra, and Sacred Activism’ in which Harvey ‘will show that sexual liberation and Tantra are vital parts of the Divine Mother's plan for the birth of a new humanity, since they make possible a profound and ecstatic contact with what Andrew calls Divine Eros - a tender passionate dynamic love-connection. True Tantric sexuality gives its' practitioners access to extraordinary and unified energies which will form the base of a commitment to Sacred Activism.’"