December 23, 2008
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A while back Apprising Ministries ran a piece called Ravi Zacharias Answers “Can A Person Live A Sincere Christian Life As A Homosexual?” where you can hear Protestant evangelical apologist Zacharias say, “One of the greatest saints of recent memory was Henri Nouwen.”
Just the other day an AM reader sent along to us the letter that you can read in this piece which they had received from Ravi Zacharias’ RZIM addressing concerns raised by the You Tube clip in that article mentioned above as well as some things I discussed with Ingrid Schlueter on her Crosstalk Program.
December 23, 2008
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A while back Apprising Ministries ran a piece called Ravi Zacharias Answers “Can A Person Live A Sincere Christian Life As A Homosexual?” where you can hear Protestant evangelical apologist Zacharias say, “One of the greatest saints of recent memory was Henri Nouwen.” Just the other day an AM reader sent along to us the letter below which they had received from Ravi Zacharias’ RZIM addressing concerns raised by the You Tube clip in that article mentioned above as well as some things I discussed with Ingrid Schlueter on her Crosstalk Program. You can listen to the discussion in Evangelicals Embrace Mystics with Guest Pastor Ken Silva (Crosstalk America).
As a pastor, and since I happen to be one whom God, in His mercy and sovereignty, chose to regenerate and deliver from the religious bondage of apostate Roman Catholicism and RZIM simply dismisses the results of my own personal study into Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM), I now believe it’s very important for readers to see for themselves the official RZIM position on CSM and Roman Catholic priest Henri Nouwen (1932-1996).
Obviously, being that he was a Roman Catholic monk Nouwen rejected Sola Scriptura and was also a very well-known teacher of corrupt Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP) whose own highly subjective personal ”experience” in the deceptions of CCP - transcendental meditation lightly sprayed with Christian terms - finally led him to write the following:
Today I personally believe that 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 way to God. (Sabbatical Journey, 51)
What you’re about to read from RZIM is a very sad case of either being unwilling, or unable, to exercise spiritual discernment. The political spin doctoring below with its revisionist history is also quite steeped in the whole Emerging Church rebellion against the authority of the Bible. O, if only the Lord’s Reformers had been so wise as Ravi Zacharias et al and were as able to take into consideration the “Christian commitment” of the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church then we could have all been spared that nasty ol’ Reformation in the first place:
Thank you for your recent email to RZIM. I am responding on behalf of Ravi Zacharias, who regrets being unable to personally correspond due to his intense travel schedule and the volume of mail he receives.
With regards to Henri Nouwen, as an apologetics ministry, we would urge you to read Nouwen for yourself and then make up your mind as to Christian commitment. I would recommend you begin with his excellent book, The Return of the Prodigal Son. With regard to Ravi quoting Nouwen or anyone else, you should know that it does not mean that we agree with every statement the author has ever written or spoken; rather, we believe that the book will, on the whole, be helpful to readers. We would disagree with Nouwen’s seeming sympathy with universalistic theology, but the overall corpus of his writings have been instrumental for many Christians, including Philip Yancey who is a writer for Christianity Today magazine. Several of us on staff have been blessed by Henri Nouwen’s teachings. As far as I’m aware, his theology was orthodox and faithful to the teachings of Scripture (though of course there are points of disagreement since he was a Catholic priest and we are Protestants). The context of the you Tube video, and the clip (24 seconds, I might add, so completely without context), is from his autobiography called Sabbatical Journey, is a collection of his writings from his personal diary. The main themes are friendship and prayer. So, I believe his remarks, at the very least must be thought about in that context. You don’t expect the world to read your personal diaries – we do not know if he intended this since these writings were published posthumously. So, none of us should presume with over-confidence what he intended them to mean. I would recommend you examine the following articles at Christianity Today that that demonstrates why many Christians would call Henri Nouwen one of our greatest saints.
Henri Nouwen is often associated with contemplative prayer or spirituality. Contemplation, or contemplative prayer has been practiced throughout the church for millenia beginning in the early monastic movements of both the Western (Catholic) and Eastern (Byzantine) Church. To “contemplate” is simply another term for the Hebrew understanding of “meditating” on God’s word, and simply another way to pray. Contemplative prayer and spirituality as it is being recovered in Christian worship and devotional life, is simply that – a recovery of ancient practices and teachings from church history. I would encourage you to examine the writings on prayer in Martin Luther, for example. See his works, “The Table Talk of Martin Luther”, “The Sermons of Martin Luther” (specifically “Epistle Sermon, Fourth Sunday in Advent”), and his “Treatise on Good Works.” Indeed, it was St. Augustine, in speaking abut contemplative prayer long before Luther who said, “True, whole prayer is nothing but love.”
The word “to meditate” in the Hebrew, literally means to “chew on” and “digest”. The sense is that we keep God at the center of our thoughts every minute of every day. I know many on our staff that have been tremendously helped and challenged by Brother Laurence’s short book “The Practice of the Presence of God” which is essentially an accounting of contemplation. There is more to knowing God then can be gained purely through the intellect; the Puritans emphasized communion with God and the spiritual affections. We should seek to engage our whole beings in the pursuit of knowing God. This is the practice of contemplative prayer that has long been the practice of the Christian church. The psalms tell us that “in His law he (the righteous) meditates day and night” (Ps. 1:2) and also that the “meditation of our hearts be acceptable to God” (Ps. 19:14). So, meditative prayer was not foreign to ancient Hebrew practice, nor was it foreign to the developing Christian church. The Eastern mysticism that they talk about on the Crosstalk program, is not even remotely related to the kind of meditation and prayer that the Bible, and individuals like Nouwen would have practiced and discussed.
Finally, I would also encourage you to do some good study on church history. While the Protestant Reformation was vital for reform of many aberrant teachingss and practices that had come into the Church in the Middle Ages, if it weren’t for the Catholic church, you and I would not be here – nor would Christianity. Just as Christians came from Jews, so Protestant Christians come out of the Catholic/Tradition. St. Augustine, for example, was Catholic – Catholic meaning “one” or “whole” (that is what the word means – “one” Church). I recommend Jaroslav Pelikan’s five volume church history set called The Christian Tradition or Kenneth Scott Latourette’s two volume set A History of Christianity.
I hope this is a helpful response to your concerns. We do appreciate you contacting us directly, and we certainly hope that if you have additional questions or concerns you will not hesitate to write us again.
Sincerely,
Margaret Manning
Speaking Team/Associate Writer
RZIM
See also:
WHO IS HENRI NOUWEN?
HENRI NOUWEN HELPED BY “MEDITATION”
THE HOLY AND CATHOLIC CHURCH IS NOT THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
ROMAN CATHOLICISM: WILL THE POPE DO?
THE TERMINOLOGY TRAP OF “SPIRITUAL FORMATION”
CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY OF RICHARD FOSTER ROOTED IN THE EASTERN DESERT AND THOMAS MERTON
CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY/MYSTICISM (CSM) OF SPIRITUAL FORMATION IS RECKLESS FAITH
RICHARD FOSTER: CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER PROGRESS TOWARD THE SILENCE OF GOD
December 23, 2008
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Here is one more unforgettable Christmas song posted at the Always Ready blog. It is based on Christina Rossetti’s famous poem, Love Came Down at Christmas.
December 23, 2008
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I would like to wish every Slice reader a Christmas of rich spiritual blessing. I would also like to say thank-you to so many of you who have expressed concern for the purity of the Gospel and a love for the Word of God in these times by sending news stories and leads. While I am not always able to respond personally, I read the emails and appreciate the help so much. I would also like to thank all those in online ministry today who are committed to the defense of God’s Word. You have all been a great encouragement to so many, including me. In closing, I leave you with these wonderful carols in German, Silent Night and Oh, How Joyfully, one of my favorites.
December 23, 2008
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When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him [...]
December 23, 2008
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December 23, 2008
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Please keep this little girl and the persecuted church around the world in your prayers.
Hindu extremists may have burned a 10-year-old Christian girl’s face, inflicted shrapnel wounds on 40 percent of her body and forced her family to hide in a forest and flee to a refugee camp in Orissa, India, but her plight hasn’t shaken her faith and thankfulness to God this season.
“Christmas is a time to thank the baby Jesus who saved me from the fire and saved my face which was disfigured and wounded,” Namrata Nayak told Asia News.
Nayak’s face was severely mutilated after Hindu extremists bombed the home where she was staying on Aug. 26. They broke into the house and burned it while Nayak and her siblings hid in a small bathroom. Before exiting the home, they left a bomb in a dresser, according to the report.
While the little girl surveyed the destruction, the bomb detonated and burned her face.
The explosion also lodged shrapnel into her face, hands and back.
Nayak’s mother, Sudhamani, came running out of the forest where she was hiding.
“We saw everything burned, and feared that everyone had died in the flames,” Sudhamani said. “Instead, thanks to God, everyone was safe. Only that my daughter had been wounded. But Jesus took care of her. We took her to the hospital in Berhampur, still unconscious and badly hurt.”
Nayak spent 45 days recovering in the hospital. Despite all her troubles, she is cheerful and giving thanks to God for healing her.
“There is so much pain and suffering, and I don’t know how long the special forces will protect us,” she told Asia News. “But Christmas is a time of gratitude. I am afraid that my people will still be attacked, but this is our life. If God has saved me, he can save other Christians too.”
The Hindu attackers have vowed to launch another widespread assault on Christians during Christmas. The violence began after Christians were blamed for the death of Hindu leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati on Aug. 24. They continue to be persecuted even though Maoists openly admitted to murdering Saraswati.
Hindus have offered money, food and alcohol to anyone who murders Christians and destroys their homes – especially pastors. Thousands of homes and churches have been destroyed, and Christians have been forced to flee the violence. Many have been doused with kerosene and torched after refusing to renounce their Christian faith.
Nonetheless, Nayak urges India’s Christians to forgive their Hindu attackers.
“[W]e forgive the Hindu radicals who attacked us, who burned our homes,” she told Asia News. “They were out of their minds, they do not know the love of Jesus. For this reason, I now want to study so that when I am older I can tell everyone how much Jesus loves us. This is my future.”
Nayak said her life plan is to share the message of God’s love.
“The world has seen my face destroyed by the fire, now it must come to know my smile full of love and peace,” she said. “I want to dedicate my life to spreading the Gospel.”
End of post.
December 23, 2008
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Please keep this little girl and the persecuted church around the world in your prayers.
Hindu extremists may have burned a 10-year-old Christian girl’s face, inflicted shrapnel wounds on 40 percent of her body and forced her family to hide in a forest and flee to a refugee camp in Orissa, India, but her plight hasn’t shaken her faith and thankfulness to God this season.
“Christmas is a time to thank the baby Jesus who saved me from the fire and saved my face which was disfigured and wounded,” Namrata Nayak told Asia News.
Nayak’s face was severely mutilated after Hindu extremists bombed the home where she was staying on Aug. 26. They broke into the house and burned it while Nayak and her siblings hid in a small bathroom. Before exiting the home, they left a bomb in a dresser, according to the report.
While the little girl surveyed the destruction, the bomb detonated and burned her face.
The explosion also lodged shrapnel into her face, hands and back.
Nayak’s mother, Sudhamani, came running out of the forest where she was hiding.
“We saw everything burned, and feared that everyone had died in the flames,” Sudhamani said. “Instead, thanks to God, everyone was safe. Only that my daughter had been wounded. But Jesus took care of her. We took her to the hospital in Berhampur, still unconscious and badly hurt.”
Nayak spent 45 days recovering in the hospital. Despite all her troubles, she is cheerful and giving thanks to God for healing her.
“There is so much pain and suffering, and I don’t know how long the special forces will protect us,” she told Asia News. “But Christmas is a time of gratitude. I am afraid that my people will still be attacked, but this is our life. If God has saved me, he can save other Christians too.”
The Hindu attackers have vowed to launch another widespread assault on Christians during Christmas. The violence began after Christians were blamed for the death of Hindu leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati on Aug. 24. They continue to be persecuted even though Maoists openly admitted to murdering Saraswati.
Hindus have offered money, food and alcohol to anyone who murders Christians and destroys their homes – especially pastors. Thousands of homes and churches have been destroyed, and Christians have been forced to flee the violence. Many have been doused with kerosene and torched after refusing to renounce their Christian faith.
Nonetheless, Nayak urges India’s Christians to forgive their Hindu attackers.
“[W]e forgive the Hindu radicals who attacked us, who burned our homes,” she told Asia News. “They were out of their minds, they do not know the love of Jesus. For this reason, I now want to study so that when I am older I can tell everyone how much Jesus loves us. This is my future.”
Nayak said her life plan is to share the message of God’s love.
“The world has seen my face destroyed by the fire, now it must come to know my smile full of love and peace,” she said. “I want to dedicate my life to spreading the Gospel.”
End of post.
December 23, 2008
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Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”
From the Hubble Space Telescope:
Click each picture to see a larger view or click HERE to go to the original web page.
In January 2002, a dull star in an obscure constellation suddenly became 600,000 times more luminous than our Sun, temporarily making it the brightest star in our galaxy. The star, called V838 Monocerotis, has long since faded back to obscurity, but observations of a phenomenon called a “light echo” around the star have uncovered remarkable new features over the following years (this animation covers two years’ time). The light echo is light from the earlier explosion echoing off dust surrounding the star. Light from the outburst traveled to the dust and then was reflected to Earth. Because of this indirect path, the light arrived at Earth months after light from the star that traveled directly from the star.
Also around 55 million light-years distant, we see here the colliding Antennae Galaxies (NGC 4038/NGC 4039) – a pair of interacting galaxies that lie in the constellation Corvus. The two spiral galaxies started to fuse together a few hundred million years ago making the Antenna galaxies the nearest and youngest example of a pair of colliding galaxies. Nearly half of the faint objects in the Antennae are young clusters containing tens of thousands of stars.
This image, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), represents a small section of a larger mosaic – the sharpest view ever taken of the Orion Nebula – a picture book of star formation with massive young stars that are shaping the nebula and pillars of dense gas that may be the homes of budding stars. The bright glow at left is from M43, a small region being shaped by ultraviolet light from a massive young star. Astronomers call the region a miniature Orion Nebula because only one star is sculpting the landscape. The Orion Nebula has four such stars. The Orion Nebula is 1,500 light-years away, the nearest star-forming region to Earth.
This image of the ancient open star cluster NGC 6791 was taken in early 2008. Studying the dimmest stars in the cluster, astronomers uncovered three different age groups of stars. Two of the populations are burned-out stars called white dwarfs. One group of these low-wattage stellar remnants appears to be 6 billion years old, another appears to be 4 billion years old. The ages are problematically out of sync with those of the cluster’s normal stars, which are 8 billion years old. Located 13,300 light-years away in the constellation Lyra, NGC 6791 is one of the oldest and largest open clusters known, containing roughly 10,000 stars. Also interesting to note are the numerous distant galaxies far beyond our Milky Way Galaxy that are visible between the crowded mass of stars.
This object is a billowing tower of cold gas and dust rising from a stellar nursery called the Eagle Nebula. 7,000 light-years distant from us, the soaring tower is 9.5 light-years or about 90 trillion kilometers tall. Stars in the Eagle Nebula are born in clouds of cold hydrogen gas that reside in chaotic neighbourhoods, where energy from young stars sculpts fantasy-like landscapes in the gas. The tower may be a giant incubator for those newborn stars. A torrent of ultraviolet light from a band of massive, hot, young stars [off the top of the image] is eroding the pillar. The column is silhouetted against the background glow of more distant gas. The bumps and fingers of material in the center of the tower are examples of stellar birthing areas. These regions may look small but they are roughly the size of our solar system. The blue colour at the top is from glowing oxygen, the red color in the lower region is from glowing hydrogen. This image was taken in November 2004 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys.
Part of the famous “Pillars of Creation” formation in the Eagle Nebula, this eerie, dark structure, resembling an imaginary sea serpent’s head, is a column of cool molecular hydrogen gas (two atoms of hydrogen in each molecule) and dust that is an incubator for new stars. The stars are embedded inside finger-like protrusions extending from the top of the nebula. Each ‘fingertip’ is somewhat larger than our own solar system. The Eagle Nebula is 7,000 light-years distant from Earth.
Looking across 26,000 light-years of space toward the center of our Galaxy, Hubble captured this dense view of over 150,000 stars in February of 2004 while monitoring for any dips in brightness, or transits of orbiting planets. 16 candidate stars were found for closer scrutiny.
The Cat’s Eye Nebula (NGC 6543), about 3,300 light-years distant, shows a bull’s eye pattern of eleven or even more concentric rings, or shells, around the its center. Each “ring” is actually the edge of a spherical bubble seen projected onto the sky – that’s why it appears bright along its outer edge. Observations suggest the star ejected its mass in a series of pulses at 1,500-year intervals. These convulsions created dust shells, each of which contain as much mass as all of the planets in our solar system combined (still only one percent of the Sun’s mass). The view from Hubble is like seeing an onion cut in half, where each skin layer is discernible.
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December 23, 2008
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Here is Brian McLaren singing about the “Jesus” he believes in. McLaren’s poor social justice “Jesus” has more in common with Ghandi than with the Jesus of the New Testament. While listening to McClaren keep this passage of scripture in mind.
Revelation 19:15 From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. 16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.
December 23, 2008
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by Phil Johnson
If God knows the future with certainty, then the future is (by definition) already predetermined. If tomorrow is predetermined and you don’t want to acknowledge that the plan was decreed by God, you have only two choices:
1. Some being other than God determines the future and is therefore more sovereign than He. That is a kind of idolatry.
2. Some impersonal force does the determining without reason or coherence. That is a kind of fatalism.
So anyone who denies that God preordained whatsoever comes to pass but wants to avoid both fatalism and idolatry is logically compelled to deny God’s omnscience.
That of course, is precisely the rationale that has led so many to embrace Open Theism.
The more sensible option—and the biblical one—would be to abandon Arminian presuppositions and acknowledge that God declared the end from the beginning, and that He works all things according to the counsel of His own will.
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December 23, 2008
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December 23, 2008
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What is the cost of Rick Warren’s blatant attempt to navigate a middle course between conservatism and liberalism ? Answer: A compromise of Biblical truth?
Case in point: The Saddleback church website used to contain language that clearly stated that unrepentant homosexuals could not be members of Saddleback Church. But, now that Rick Warren will be giving the invocation at Obama’s inauguration that language has disappeared from the Saddleback website and has some of his critics both liberal and conservative wondering if Saddleback will now be welcoming unrepentant homosexuals into membership.
December 23, 2008
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What is the cost of Rick Warren’s blatant attempt to navigate a middle course between conservatism and liberalism ? Answer: A compromise of Biblical truth?
Case in point: The Saddleback church website used to contain language that clearly stated that unrepentant homosexuals could not be members of Saddleback Church. But, now that Rick Warren will be giving the invocation at Obama’s inauguration that language has disappeared from the Saddleback website and has some of his critics both liberal and conservative wondering if Saddleback will now be welcoming unrepentant homosexuals into membership.
December 23, 2008
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The kind of Christianity that endures to the end is not the Rick Warren kind of Christianity–it is a faith that is grounded in the solid rock of Christ. Watch this powerful call to participation in the sufferings of Christ at Always Ready.
December 23, 2008
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This really needs no commentary. This is how “America’s Pastor” is covered by the celebrity media. Can anybody say, “confusion?” Where is the true Gospel in any of this, as the gays fight over whether Rick Warren is a good guy or bad guy, and Rick stages daily photo ops to add to his street cred in the Tenderloin District? What in the world is Rick Warren doing in a thrift store called, “Out of the Closet?” TMZ has the answer. He’s “image adjusting.”
December 23, 2008
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For those wondering about the strength of concern about Henri Nouwen and his defenders like Ravi Zacharias, here is an excerpt of a new book from David Cloud about this new mystical fascination in evangelicalism. This is taken from a press release regarding the book:
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
Excerpt:
“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).”
December 23, 2008
Click the post title to be taken to the source.
December 23, 2008
Click the post title to be taken to the source.
Pro-life leaders are seriously concerned that their voices will be silenced at the Obama inauguration. Read about it here.
December 23, 2008
Click the post title to be taken to the source.
“When we met later that night, he entered the room with open arms and an open heart. We agreed to build bridges to the future.”
Melissa Etheridge, lesbian activist and singer, talking about meeting Rick Warren. Today’s Huffington Post.
Slice readers, what sort of “bridges to the future” do you think Rick Warren has in mind? Here is the column from Ms. Etheridge today. She’s inviting him to her home to meet her “wife and kids.” Remember the column when I advised angry, anti-Warren gay activists to go back to their bathhouses because it would all be OK? That is the essence of what Melissa Etheridge says in today’s Huffington Post. I told you so.
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