Graham Center Pushing Contemplative Mysticism

The Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove is scheduled to host a contemplative prayer retreat by the Renovaré organization October 29 - November 1. The goal is to "enter into a connection with God" in the "quietness." Renovaré was founded by Richard Foster, who has done more than any other individual to promote Roman Catholic mysticism among Protestants and Baptists. Speakers at the Cove conference will include Richard's son Nathan. Foster's book Celebration of Discipline, which has sold more than two and a half million copies, was selected by Christianity Today as one of the top ten books of the 20th century. Foster advocates Roman Catholic mysticism with absolutely no qualms. He recommends Ignatius of Loyola, Francis of Assisi, Benedict of Nursia, Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Genoa, Julian of Norwich, Brother Lawrence, Dominic, Catherine of Siena, John of the Cross, The Cloud of Unknowing , Madame Guyon, Thomas à Kempis, Catherine Doherty, Meister Eckhart, Thomas Aquinas, Hildegard of Bingen, Francis de Sales, Alphonsus de Liguori, Bernard of Clairvaux, John Henry Newman, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, G.K. Chesterton, Andrè Louf, Henri Nouwen, Dorothy Day, Karl Rahner, John Main, Mother Teresa, Thomas Merton, Brennan Manning, John Michael Talbot, and others. In the introduction to the 1998 edition of Celebration of Discipline, Foster says that these people taught him spiritual depth and substance (pp. xiii, xiv), and he calls them "Devotional Masters of the Christian faith." There is no warning that these Catholic mystics trusted in a cursed works gospel (Galatians 1), venerated Mary, worshipped Christ as a piece of consecrated bread, believed in purgatory, exalted papal supremacy, and scores of other heresies. Some of them believed in panentheism and universalism. (For extensive documentation of this see the book Contemplative Mysticism, available from Way of Life Literature.) Foster promotes extremely dangerous practices such as centering prayer, visualization, guided imagery, the repetition of mantras, silence, walking the labyrinth, even out of body experiences. Consider the following quotes from the mystics that Foster heartily recommends: Thomas Merton (who called himself a Buddhist Catholic): "... the deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. IT IS WORDLESS. IT IS BEYOND WORDS, AND IT IS BEYOND SPEECH, and it is BEYOND CONCEPT" (The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton, 1975 edition, p. 308). The Cloud of Unknowing: "I URGE YOU TO DISMISS EVERY CLEVER OR SUBTLE THOUGHT no matter how holy or valuable: Cover it with a thick cloud of forgetting because in this life only love can touch God as He is in Himself, never knowledge" (chapter 8). Teresa of Avila: "All that the soul has to do at these times of quiet is merely to be calm and MAKE NO NOISE. BY NOISE I MEAN WORKING WITH THE INTELLECT to find great numbers of words and reflections with which to thank God. ... in these periods of quiet, the soul should repose in its calm, and learning should be put on one side" (The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila by Herself, chap. 15, pp. 106, 107, 108). For more on this see the report "Richard Foster: Evangelicalism's Mystical Spark Plug" at www.wayoflife.org.

(Friday Church News Notes, September 27, 2013, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

---