President of MOPS, Elisa Morgen, recently endorsed a book by author Keri Wyatt Kent called Listen: Finding God in the Story of Your Life. Wyatt's books are also available for purchase from the MOPS website . Wyatt's book Listen: Finding God in the Story of Your Life can be purchased from the MOPShop as well as Gary Thomas' book Sacred Pathways, in which he teaches mantra meditation.
Here is an excerpt from the Lighthousetrails Research Article about Wyatt's book Listen: Finding God in the Story of Your Life. Click here to read the entire article.
*** In March 2006, it came to our attention that MOPS was part of CCN (Church Communication Network), a network of Christian ministries that promotes contemplative spirituality. However, and perhaps even more disturbing, MOPS is promoting (and selling) books that are pro- contemplative. The book that stands out among the others is Breathe. The author, Keri Wyatt Kent, is a writer for Willow Creek Community Church and often speaks on spiritual formation. Her upcoming book, Listen: Finding God in the Story of Your Life, teaches readers to "listen" to God through "spiritual practices," including the practice of silence. The author quotes extensively throughout the book both contemplatives and New Agers, including Henri Nouwen, M.Scott Peck, Sue Monk Kidd, Anne Lamott, Julia Cameron, Rick Warren, Richard Foster, Ruth Haley Barton, and Eugene Peterson (read A Time of Departing for more on the New Age and/or contemplative connections to these mentioned authors).
As with many contemplatives, Kent said (in her book) that she didn't really get a lot out of the Bible until she started practicing contemplative methods such as Lectio Divina: "When I was introduced to the ancient practice, Lectio Divina, everything changed" (p. 151). Kent encourages the use of breath prayers and quotes contemplative Jan Johnson to help build her case for this practice.***
***on the back cover of Listen: Finding God in the Story of Your Life sits an endorsement by Elisa Morgan, president of MOPS, which reads: "Keri offers insightful and practical help for all of us who are "hearing impaired" in our spirits. Ah ... what a relief!" ***
And here is an excerpt from Gary Thomas' book Sacred Pathways, also sold on MOPShop website. This is also from Lighthousetrails Research.
*** As we have shown in the past, Gary Thomas is an advocate for mantra meditation. In his book, Sacred Pathways, he states:
It is particularly difficult to describe this type of prayer in writing, as it is best taught in person. In general however, centering prayer works like this: Choose a word (Jesus or Father, for example) as a focus for contemplative prayer. Repeat the word silently in your mind for a set amount of time (say, twenty minutes) until your heart seems to be repeating the word by itself, just as naturally and involuntarily as breathing.(p. 185)***
So, for all you MOPS groups out there, make sure you are aware of their promotion of this New Age material, warn your MOPS moms about it, and even maybe consider not being associated with an organization that promotes some of these books and authors.
2 comments:
hi, just stumbled across your blog this evening...I'll first put it out there that I'm a fellow Christ follower, and your blog provoked some questions. perhaps I don't know much about things such as lectio divina or silence prayers, but I was wondering if you could explain the source of your fear concerning them. The bible tells us to "be still and know" God, and as far as I know a prayer of silence is more of a way of stopping and listening to God and just being in his presence than anything. As for lectio divina, unless there are some specifics I'm missing out on, it's basically reading a small portion of scripture, meditating on it (I hesitate to use that word for its new age connotations, but even the psalms talk of meditating on God's decrees (check psalm 119) and that's more the sense I mean it in), and paying attention to the teaching of the Holy Spirit. To me, it seems much more profitable than simply reading and reading the bible for the sake of reading it without stopping to consider what God is saying.
Hi Kt, thanks for stopping by. I just want to clarify a few things to start with. Biblical meditation is simply considering what a passage of Scripture means. It is not repeating a passage over and over to obtain a different state of consciousness and using one's breath to facilitate this (that is mantra meditation and is New Age and unbiblical). I have no problem with biblical meditation, as in considering what a passage means. I agree that one should always stop and consider what God is saying in a passage. I'm not exactly sure what you mean when you refer to "silence prayers".
I'm very glad to hear that you would like to know more about the dangers of lectio divina and contemplative prayer methods and the reason why they are unbiblical. The Bible verse "be still and know that I am God" is probably the most misused verse from those who practice contemplative prayer methods. There is an excellent article by Brian Flynn, a Christian who used to be a New Ager that explains that verse in context and the original Greek of the words. It's about half-way in the article you can find here
http://www.onetruthministries.com/
MysticsMisueofScripture.htm
As for lectio divina, the "meditation" in this practice is the unbiblical mantra meditation I previously mentioned, where they use their breath and repetitive bible phrases to manipulate their consciousness and become inwardly quiet. The purpose of lectio divina is not to understand a passage of Scripture but rather to gain a feeling or experience from it. It's not just simply understanding the passage. Once again, I would highly recommend reading a very good article about lectio divina from this website here that explains what it is and why it is unbiblical.
http://www.onetruthministries.com
/LectioDivina.htm
As for my concerns with these practices, there are several reasons. First of all, practices that have their origins not in the Bible, but in the occult are prohibited by God several times in the Bible. Also, in Leviticus 10,God killed Nadab and Abihu when they offered God "strange fire." So, methods of worship that are "strange" to God (like man-made unbiblical attempts to reach God) should not be practiced. Secondly, mantra meditation (repeating phrases over and over) are also prohibited in the Bible in Matthew 6:7 when we are told not to use vain repetitions like the heathens. Therefore, lectio divina and any form of mantra meditation is prohibited. Furthermore, lectio divina was an experiential practice that was practiced by the mystics and monastics who were not searching for understanding but rather were searching for an experience or a feeling. The Bible teaches we should not rely on experiences or 'feelings' because the heart is deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9). (I'm not meaning that the Holy Spirit can't speak to us because He does, but it will always align with Scripture and also will be through a biblical method)Thirdly,there are many self-professing Christians who, after practicing these prayer techniques, no longer believe that Jesus is the only way to God. Henri Nouwen is an example of a self-proclaimed Christian who began meditating and practicing these things and then concluded in his last book Sabbatical Journey that a person can get to God whether they know Jesus or not. Sue Monk Kidd is another self-professing Christian who started off as a Baptist Sunday School teacher and then started these prayer techniques and now believes that "we are one with all people" (a New Age belief)--this info was from the website here
http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch
.com/blog/index.php?s=negating
In a time when 'new spirituality' is being promoted all around us through yoga, mantra meditation, Oprah, etc, etc., we have to expect that Satan will try to deceive Christians into thinking these practices are harmless. In fact, many of them sound harmless and look harmless, but we need to always remember that Satan masquerades as an angel of light, so it will look like a good thing.
In your comment, you say many things I agree with such as trying to understand what a passage of scripture means rather than mindlessly reading it over. I would just encourage you to look at those links I provided to help you better understand the dangers of contemplative prayer methods such as lectio divina and to find out exactly what these practices are.
Post a Comment