December 21st, 2009 | Author: Lighthouse Trails Editors

Mark Driscoll is a name that has grown in popularity among evangelicals especially over the past few years. Somewhat known for his vulgar and crass language in public, he has been invited to speak at conferences by a wide assortment of Christian leaders–John Piper and Robert Schuller to name two. Driscoll also shared a platform this year at the Gospel Coalition National Conference with a number of respected Christian evangelical figures such as D.A. Carson, Erwin Lutzer, and Joshua Harris. Coming up in 2010, Driscoll has been invited by Rick Warren to speak at the Radicalis conference.

Although Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Fellowship in Seattle Washington, is said to have denounced certain aspects of the emergent church, Driscoll is a proponent of the main element behind the emerging church – contemplative prayer.

Presently, on Driscoll’s website, The Resurgence (see whois info) is an article titled “How to Practice Meditative Prayer.” The article is written by an Acts 29 (Driscoll’s network of churches) pastor, Winfield Bevins. A nearly identical article on Driscoll’s site, also by Bevins, is titled Meditative Prayer: Filling the Mind. Both articles show a drawing of a human brain. In this latter article, Bevins recognizes contemplative mystic pioneer Richard Foster:

What do we mean by meditative prayer? Is there such a thing as Christian meditation? Isn’t meditation non-Christian? According to Richard Foster, “Eastern meditation is an attempt to empty the mind. Christian meditation is an attempt to fill the mind” (Celebration of Discipline). Rather than emptying the mind we fill it with God’s word. We must not neglect a vital part of our Judeo-Christian heritage simply because other traditions use a form of meditation.

Bevins has got this very wrong, as does Richard Foster. Contemplative proponents say that, while the method practiced by Christian contemplatives and eastern-religion mystics may be similar (repeating a word or phrase over and over in order to eliminate distractions and a wandering mind), the Christian variety is ok because the mind isn’t being emptied but rather filled. But in essence, both are emptying the mind (i.e., stopping the normal thought process). That is where the contemplatives say making a space for God to fill.

The Bevins’ reference to Richard Foster is not the only contemplative marker on Mark Driscoll’s site . In an article written by Driscoll himself, ironically titled Obedience, Driscoll tells readers to turn to Richard Foster and contemplative Gary Thomas. Driscoll states:

If you would like to study the spiritual disciplines in greater detail … helpful are Celebration of Discipline, by Richard Foster, and Sacred Pathways, by Gary Thomas.

In Celebration of Discipline (1978 ed., p. 13), Richard Foster says that “we should all without shame enroll in the school of contemplative prayer.” To understand Foster’s meaning of “contemplative prayer,” he has written a number of books that clearly show his propensity toward the mystics (such as John Main and Thomas Merton). Devotional Classics, Spiritual Classics, Meditative Prayer, Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home are a few. His founding organization, Renovare, has a vast number of resources, articles, etc. that further substantiate our claims that Foster is a contemplative proponent.

As for Gary Thomas, in his book Sacred Pathways (the one Driscoll recommends), Thomas tells readers to repeat a word for 20 minutes in order to still the mind. This is the basic principle in all Eastern and occultic methods. This is not an idle charge. Anglican mystic Richard Kirby astutely observes in his book The Mission of Mysticism that with this spirituality the method differs little than that of occultism:

“The meditation of advanced occultists is identical with the prayer of advanced mystics; it is no accident that both traditions use the same word for the highest reaches of their respective activities: contemplation (samadhi in yoga).”

Driscoll is just one of many Christian figures whose contemplative propensities is being completely ignored or overlooked. For the sake of the Gospel, which contemplative spirituality negates by its very nature, we pray that believers will not look to those who follow and promote this spiritual deception.

Further Information:

Richard Foster’s Legacy Endures – Christian Leaders Help to Make it So

Some Say the Emerging Church is Dead – the Truth Behind the Story

This is a list of informative videos that will be updated regularly.
~~Check back often.

Disclaimer: We're just sharing resources. If you disagree, that's fine. Take what you need and leave the rest. (*Feel free to "mute" any audio you dislike.*)

(#1) DOES GOD APPROVE OF YOGA? Pastor John MacArthur and Pastor Doug Pagitt
(#2) Can Believers in Jesus Christ Do Yoga and SWG? (3 of 3) -- see youtube for parts 1 and 2
(#3) Universal Spirituality: Changing the Face of Spirituality by Ray Yungen
(#4) The New Age Movement 1-11 (the other 10 are also on youtube)
(#5) How People Accept False Teachers
(#6) Examples of Blasphemous Teaching in Churches Today
(#7) Heresy, False Teaching, & Occultic Practices by So-Called Believers
(#8) The Church of Oprah Exposed!
(#9) New Age Oprah
(#10) Debate with Oprah
(#11) Christianity or Eckhart Tolle?
(#12) Labyrinths, Oh My!
(#13) A Hindu prior to converting to Christianity - Caryl Matrisciana on YOGA! (This is a 30+ minute CrossTalk audio file. Begin around minute 8 or 8.5 and you'll get the yoga portion. This is worth your time!)
(#14) Can Believers in Jesus Christ Do Yoga and SWG? (3of3)
See youtube.com for parts 1 and 2
(#15) Do yourself a favor and view this DVD http://www.carylmatrisciana.com/shop/catalog/Yoga-Uncoiled-p-16188.html
(#16) Alice Bailey, New World Order (by Brannon Howse)
(#17) The Cult of Liberal Theology, by Walter Martin

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Going to church this Sunday? Look around.

The chances are that one in five of the people there find "spiritual energy" in mountains or trees, and one in six believe in the "evil eye," that certain people can cast curses with a look — beliefs your Christian pastor doesn't preach.

In a Catholic church? Chances are that one in five members believe in reincarnation in a way never taught in catechism class — that you'll be reborn in this world again and again.

Elements of Eastern faiths and New Age thinking have been widely adopted by 65% of U.S. adults, including many who call themselves Protestants and Catholics, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released Wednesday.

Syncretism — mashing up contradictory beliefs like Catholic rocker Madonna's devotion to a Kabbalah-light version of Jewish mysticism — appears on the rise.

And, according to the survey's other major finding, devotion to one clear faith is fading.

Of the 72% of Americans who attend religious services at least once a year (excluding holidays, weddings and funerals), 35% say they attend in multiple places, often hop-scotching across denominations.

They are like President Obama, who currently has no home church. He has worshiped at a Baptist church, an Episcopal one, and the non-denominational chapel at Camp David.

"Mixing and matching practices and beliefs is as much the norm as it is the exception," Pew's Alan Cooperman says. "Are they grazing, sampling, just curious? We really don't know."

Even so, says Pew researcher Greg Smith, "these findings all point toward a spiritual and religious openness — not necessarily a lack of seriousness."

Among the findings:

•26% of those who attend religious services say they do so at more than one place occasionally, and an additional 9% roam regularly from their home church for services.

•28% of people who attend church at least weekly say they visit multiple churches outside their own tradition.

•59% of less frequent church attendees say they attend worship at multiple places.

The survey of 2,003 adults Aug. 11-27 has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. It measures Protestants, Catholics and the unaffiliated; there were not enough people of other faiths surveyed for analysis.

"For an extremely long time, most of us thought belonging or membership or home church was monogamous, even if it was serial monogamy, because we all know about church-switching," says sociologist of religion Scott Thumma, a professor at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research in Hartford, Conn. "Today, the individual rarely finds all their spiritual needs met in one congregation or one religion."

'Rampant confusion'

In the 1980s, Albert Mohler and Julia Jarvis were in graduate school together at Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville.

Today, Mohler is president of the seminary and a leading voice for Baptist orthodoxy. He sees a "rampant confusion" about faith revealed in the Pew findings.

"This is a failure of the pulpit as much as of the pew to be clear about what is and is not compatible with Christianity and belief in salvation only through Christ," Mohler says.

Pew says two in three adults believe in or cite an experience with at least one supernatural phenomenon, including:

•26% find "spiritual energy" in physical things.

•25% believe in astrology.

•24% say people will be reborn in this world again and again.

•23% say yoga is a "spiritual practice."

Mohler calls these "the au courant confusions," attachments to the latest fashionable free-floating beliefs.

"One hundred years ago, it would have been 'spiritualism.' They wouldn't have known what yoga was but might have been attracted to the 'New Thought' of the time," Mohler says.

His former classmate giggles at that. She's an ordained minister in the progressive United Church of Christ and leads the Interfaith Family Project, which meets for weekly worship at a Silver Spring, Md., high school.

Jarvis, of Takoma Park, Md., also studies with Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh and finds a spiritual dimension in yoga.

"I don't do astrology, but my mother, who grew up in Birmingham, Ala., and was a staunch Baptist all her life, looked at her horoscope daily and totally believed it," Jarvis says.

Jarvis says her late mother, like 49% of adults in the Pew survey, also had a moment of "religious or spiritual awakening."

"My mother feared for years that I was no longer saved, but just two days before she died, she had an epiphany," Jarvis says. "She said she was 'told' in a spiritual experience to put aside all religious and political differences and just love each other. That was her blessing to me, and that's what I'm doing."

Regina Roman of Alexandria, Va., calls herself "a very grounded Episcopalian" who's active in her church. But, she says, "I'm also stretching the boundaries of how we are to be here and now in this day, age and culture."

She leads pilgrimages to Egypt, New Mexico and Ireland to help travelers discover the truths and visions in Coptic, Native American and Celtic traditions. Roman celebrated the winter solstice with a home ceremony for guests to delight in the sun's gifts.

"We are all in relationship with the cosmos. We need to honor that," says Roman, who doesn't see herself crossing barriers but rather "coming full circle" with ancient ideas.

"People have always mixed religions, either in ignorance or willfully," says Stephen Prothero, director of the Graduate Division of Religious and Theological Studies at Boston University.

Despite the late Pope John Paul II's warnings to explicitly avoid Buddhist and Hindu practices, Prothero says, "American Catholics are so used to not caring what the official church tells them on birth control, divorce, premarital sex and other points that they don't think they are un-Catholic when they believe and do what they please."

Combating syncretism has troubled popes for centuries, says the Rev. Dan Pattee, chairman of the theology department at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio.

The problem with borrowing spiritual ideas is that "the life-giving truth becomes compromised as we understand it as Catholics," Pattee says.

The growth of mixing

Prothero sees a similar trend among Protestants, a "resistance to being told what to think."

"Even people who call themselves by denominational tags don't really feel the identity attachment to them as they once did," he says. "And without that identity marker, what's to prevent you from checking out some other church? Nothing much."

Cooperman notes that the new survey is measuring a phenomenon that may have been going on for decades. Also, it does not clearly establish how much is due to interfaith relationships.

A new study from InterfaithFamily.com, which encourages Jewish-Christian couples to raise their children as Jews, looks specifically at the Christmas/Hanukkah season. The findings are not scientific but give an indication that in intermarried couples rearing their children as Jews, most will celebrate Hanukkah — which begins on Friday night this year — at home. Less than 48% will celebrate Christmas, and largely in a secular fashion.

Pew specifically excludes the major holidays and life-cycle events to focus on ordinary worship practices. Its report says the findings on interfaith couples are "complex," in part because people in mixed marriages attend worship less frequently than those with a same-faith spouse.

The faith-mixing trend has been building; other surveys in the past two years have touched on the swirling, unbounded paths of believers:

•Forty-seven percent to 59% of Americans have changed religions at least once, a Pew survey in April found. The top reasons for most: Their spiritual needs weren't being met, or they liked another faith more or changed religious or moral beliefs.

•The percentage of people who call themselves Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation, and so many people declined any religious label that the "Nones," now 15% of the USA, are the third-largest "religious" group after Catholics and Baptists, according to the American Religious Identification Survey last March.

•Despite Americans' overwhelming allegiance to someone they call God (92%), in Pew's 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, 70% said "many religions can lead to eternal life," and 68% said "there's more than one true way to interpret the teachings of my religion."

•Most (55%) say a guardian angel has protected them from harm, and 52% believe in prophetic dreams, according to surveys by Baylor University released in 2006 and 2008.

In short, we believe our own experiences are authentic, and no "authority" can say otherwise.

That's a very "Eastern" notion, says Jim Todhunter of Bethesda, Md. Retired after three decades leading United Church of Christ congregations, he has studied in a Hindu ashram in India and practices Zen meditation and Christian contemplative prayer.

"In the Western religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — the focus is: 'What do you believe?' There is always a tremendous focus on doctrine and teachings," he says. "In the East, Buddhism and Hinduism in particular, the leading question is, 'Do you know God?' It's much more experience-based."

http://www.worldviewtimes.com/article.php/articleid-5595/Brannon-Howse/Jan-Markell

Brannon Howse speaking on Alice Bailey and the occultic nature of the rise of the New World Order. Alice Baily is one of the radicals Brannon exposes in his new book, Grave Influence: 21 Radicals and Their Worldviews That Rule America From The Grave.

http://www.worldviewtube.com/video.php/videoid-4367/Brannon-Howse/Brannon-Howse

Amazing Quotes by Contemplatives
- The Outcome of Practicing Contemplative Prayer--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rick Warren
"With practice, you can develop the habit of praying silent 'breath prayers'"
Rick Warren, from his book (p. 299)

"[U]se 'breath prayers' throughout the day, as many Christians have done for centuries. You choose a brief sentence or a simple phrase that can be repeated to Jesus in one breath."—Rick Warren, Purpose-Driven Life, p. 89.

Ken Blanchard

"Does Buddha have anything to offer non-Buddhists in the workplace? My answer is a wholehearted, 'Yes.'—Ken Blanchard, co-author of the One Minute Manager, from the foreword and front cover of What Would Buddha Do in the Workplace?

Bruce Wilkinson

"We have promoted an unbiblical message that becoming born-again is the answer to everything. It's not. It changes your eternity, but it doesn't change your sexual behavior, for instance. The gospel does not always have the answer for modern-day dilemmas."

From Youth Specialties
"I built myself a prayer room—a tiny sanctuary in a basement closet filled with books on spiritual disciplines, contemplative prayer, and Christian mysticism. In that space I lit candles, burned incense, hung rosaries, and listened to tapes of Benedictine monks. I meditated for hours on words, images, and sounds. I reached the point of being able to achieve alpha brain patterns..."—Mike Perschon, Youth Specialties Magazine,
December 2004
"Choose a sacred word or phrase. Consistently use the same word throughout the prayer. Begin silently to repeat your sacred word or phrase"
Mark Yaconelli, Youth Specialties National Pastor's Convention

"Spiritual ecstasy. The third phase of contemplative prayer ... a supernatural trance state ..."
Charisma magazine, Oct. 2004

"Contemplative prayer is nothing other than coming into consciousness of what is already there."
Brennan Manning, Signature of Jesus

"Brennan (Manning) is my friend, walking ahead of me on the path toward home. As I watch him from behind, I am drawn to more closely follow on the path..."
Larry Crabb, endorsement of Abba's Child

"I began practicing meditation, specifically breath prayer, once again. I integrated the use of Tai Chi and yoga"
John Michael Talbot,
Interview with Christianity Today 10/22/2001

"Its [visualization] effect is to dissolve our internal barriers to natural harmony and self realization"
Shakti Gawain, Creative Visualization

"[Y]ou and I may have strong opinions on double predestination, supralapsarianism, and biblical inerrancy, but these should not be considered evangelical essentials."
Richard Foster

"We need to become aware of the Cosmic Christ, which means recognizing that every being has within it the light of Christ."
Matthew Fox

What works for me is a combination of disciplines: I do yoga, tai chi which is a Chinese martial art and three kinds of meditation—vipasana, transcendental and mantra (sound) meditation.
Jack Canfield,
Chicken Soup for the Soul

This quote sums it up—
"The contemplative life is often miserable. One must act more, think less, and not watch oneself live." Chamfort[1700s]

"When we go to the center of our being and pass through that center into the very center of God we get in immediate touch with this divine creating energy ... that the divine energy may have the freedom to forward the evolution of consciousness in us and through us, as a part of the whole, in the whole of the creation." —M. Basil Pennington

"Everyone is born a mystic and a lover who experiences the unity of things and all are called to keep this mystic or lover of life alive." -- Matthew Fox

For more on these topics, continue reading at http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/amazingquotes.htm

The Shack: Helpful or Heretical?
A Critical Review by Norman L. Geisler and Bill Roach

The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity by William P. Young (Wind Blown Media, 2007, 264 pp) is a New York Times best seller with well over a million copies in print. Literally hundreds of thousands have been blessed by its message, but its message is precisely what calls for scrutiny. Responses to The Shack range from eulogy to heresy. Eugene Peterson, author of The Message predicted that The Shack “has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!” Emmy Award Winning Producer of ABC Patrick M. Roddy declares that “it is a one of a kind invitation to journey to the very heart of God. Through my tears and cheers, I have been indeed transformed by the tender mercy with which William Paul Young opened the veil that too often separated me from God and from myself.” (http://theshackbook.com/endorsements.html). People from all walks of life are raving about this book by unknown author “Willie” Young, son of a pastor/missionary, and born in Canada. He is a graduate of Warner Pacific College in Portland, Oregon.

The Background of the Book
The Shack is Christian fiction, a fast-growing genre in the contemporary Christian culture. It communicates a message in a casual, easy-to-read, non-abrasive manner. From his personal experience, Young attempts to answer some of life’s biggest questions: Who is God? Who is Jesus? What is the Trinity? What is salvation? Is Jesus the only way to Heaven? If God, then why evil? What happens after I die?
In the final section of the book titled “The Story behind THE SHACK,” he reveals that the motivation for this story comes from his own struggle to answer many of the difficult questions of life. He claims that his seminary training just did not provide answers to many of his pressing questions. Then one day in 2005, he felt God whisper in his ear that this year was going to be his year of Jubilee and restoration. Out of that experience he felt lead to write The Shack. According to Young, much of the book was formed around personal conversations he had with God, family, and friends (258-259). He tells the readers that the main character “Mack” is not a real person, but a fictional character used to communicate the message in the book. However, he admits that his children would “recognize that Mack is mostly me, that Nan is a lot like Kim, that Missy and Kate and the other characters often resemble our family members and friends” (259).
Continue the article here.

Mark Driscoll at Crystal Cathedral – FAILURE
August 23, 2009 by The Desert Pastor

First, I recognize that there are those who will read this that will immediately judge my statements while at the same time stating, “JUDGE NOT!” Second, I know that Driscollites will probably show up en masse to defend their champion while deliberately overlooking Biblical commands to point out error.

Sadly, there are few opportunities for those who claim to be ministers of the gospel to make a stand that will impact millions. This is because the gospel OFFENDS and the listener to the Word of God will be brought under conviction of the Holy Spirit. The conviction will bring a conviction of sin and then it will bring transformation from an old creature to a new creation in Christ Jesus.

Recently, one man was given that opportunity to give a clear explanation of the gospel and the consequences of not believing the truth as proclaimed in the Word of God. That man was Mark Driscoll AND HE FAILED MISERABLY!

(The video can be viewed by clicking here.)


Let’s consider a few thoughts from this man who by his own admission has 20 (something) services a week and has over 10,000 members per week on average.

The venue was Crystal Cathedral where . . .

CONTINUE ARTICLE AT http://defendingcontending.com/2009/08/23/driscoll-at-crystal-cathedral-failure/