Why Does The Emerging Church Mess With Mysticism?

Tom: You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him.

Our topic is and has been for a number of weeks the emerging church movement. Now, this is a movement that has goals, alleged goals, of attempting to make Christianity more accommodating to our culture—specifically, the culture of the young adults in our society. And in the process, it is leading young evangelicals away from the Scriptures and into some unbiblical and even anti-biblical beliefs and practices.

Dave, as we were discussing last week, there is no doubt that some of the teachings reflect “doctrines of devils,” as 1 Timothy:4:1Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
See All... warns us against. And the emerging church movement’s penchant for mysticism (we’ve been talking about this for the last couple of weeks), particularly drawing these beliefs and practices from the Roman Catholic Desert Fathers and Mystical Saints, well, it’s had a major influence on the worship programs and practices within the Emerging church movement.

Last week, as you remember, I told about my own experience when I attended an emerging church service down in southern California. And I read on last week’s program instructions—they had a prayer altar there for their emerging church service, complete with icons and candles and incense and so on—and I read instructions…

Now, I am not going to go over those instructions, Dave, but I do want to talk about where the instructions came from and who is influencing these Emerging church leaders.

Dave: These were instructions for what to do at the prayer station, how to pray through the icons?

Tom: Exactly, and it was clear that it was a form of divination—that is, communing with the spirits out there, which the Bible condemns very clearly.

Dave, a man who was a great influence among the emerging church leaders—not just the emerging church leaders, but also men like Richard Foster—there is a major, major development, growth (whatever you want to call it) of mysticism, contemplation, contemplative approach to spirituality which Richard Foster and his organization Renovaré heads up.

So this man that I am going to mention not only influences the emerging church leaders and many leading evangelicals—well, what about him? He is deceased; he died about 3-4 years ago, but his name is Father Henri Nouwen—in case you come across the name. Well, what about him? Who has he influenced? Well, Rick Warren quotes him favorably a couple of times in the Purpose Driven Life where he talks about some contemplative methods, techniques which we’re concerned about here. He also mentions that his wife Kay, that Henri Nouwen is one of Kay’s favorite authors, and has gone through his books and really enjoys them. Tony Campolo, whom some of our listeners may know about (he has been very influential among evangelical youth and others), I think he is a primary heretic. All you need to do is read his works and…

Dave: I would agree.

Tom: Yeah. Well, he calls Father Nouwen one of the great Christians of our time. This is a Catholic priest—Henri Nouwen—and a mystic, all right?

Dave: Yes, long ago in The Seduction of Christianity, was it? I think…maybe not. Sometime back there, we simply quoted Tony Campolo. Where was he, in Haiti? He had to get on the plane, and he had taken a liking to this little orphan, I think it was, who he would really have liked to take on the plane with him. But—so he says—but he couldn’t. He said, “Well, but Jesus is living in that little orphan.” Well, that’s not biblical.

You remember Mother Theresa said every beggar and leper is Jesus in a pitiful disguise. And then Tony Campolo—just to bring you kind of up to date on some of his heresies—said Jesus was fully God because he was fully human, and he was fully human because he was fully God. Well, I don’t know what he was getting at about that. But anyway, apparently Jesus is in everybody, according to Tony Campolo.

Tom: And Campolo is Professor of Sociology in a school on the East Coast. And the idea here is that if you are poor and destitute, then it’s almost like you are a vehicle for Jesus. Jesus must be in the poor and so on…

But as you say, Dave, this is just one of a number of his heresies. Do you remember that Christianity Today chided us for being heretic hunters because we addressed some of the heresies—overt heresies—of Tony Campolo? But as I said, he calls Henri Nouwen one of the great Christians of our time, and I am going to read some quotes later by Campolo. Campolo is into mysticism, all right, among other things.

Dave: Now, what’s wrong with mysticism, Tom?

Tom: Well, do you know—have a question about it?

Dave: I think we need to explain it to the people out there. We are talking about mysticism. Mysticism is—it’s not rational, number one. It doesn’t have evidence, but it’s—you kind of get yourself in a state of consciousness, where you quiet yourself. Let the silence empty your heart. And now you are seeking God—God to speak to you. It has nothing to do with His Word. He’s not speaking through His Word, but He’s going to somehow speak to you inside when you get in this state of consciousness. You don’t go by objective truth, objective values, but you go by a mystical feeling.

Tom: Experiences. Dave, and as you know, the heart—anyone who studies mysticism historically finds that mysticism is a goal, and that is the goal that we are going to have complete union with God.

“We are drawn into God; we become God. That’s been the heart of it from the beginning,” Henri Nouwen writes in his book Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons.

Now, we addressed icons briefly last week. But icons are paintings for the most part. Sometimes they are reliefs. It is a style of art. They are Byzantine for the most part, although you do find them in Russia. There are Russian icons—there are various styles. But basically, they are two-dimensional and they are paintings of characters, biblical characters. They might be Jesus, could be Mary, but they’re primarily (as I said) biblical characters and biblical scenes. So, you would have some with characters in them that might be symbolic or representative of the Holy Spirit, for example—that’s a very popular icon. But these then are devices—they really are occult devices for divination. That, as we mentioned last week…and Nouwen (Henri Nouwen), when I quote him, you will see that. These are devices—they call them openings or gates, windows into heaven—that, somehow, we are going to move from this temporal realm into the spiritual realm through these devices.

Dave: Mm-hm. That’s divination. Yes, it is a divination device.

Tom, let me just say another word. We’ve talked about this in the past and I don’t want to go into to great detail, but supposedly St. Veronica gave her veil to Jesus, He wiped His face, and His face was on it. That would be where the first icon came from. And I don’t know how many of them…they don’t seem to follow this original face of Jesus, because you have all kinds of pictures of Jesus. But we’ve talked about that….

Tom: Now, let me just point out: St. Veronica—for those out there who may be Catholic, maybe former Catholics—this is a saint I first learned about growing up Roman Catholic in a very sacred ritual in Roman Catholicism called the “Stations of the Cross.” And I believe it was station 8 in which…the stations of the cross would be the movement of Jesus from the Praetorium, of being scourged, to the cross. And it was called the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrows. And along those lines there are different stations in which certain things happened to Jesus where he interacted with the crowd and so on.

And one of the stations, I believe it was station 8, in which you have represented a woman, Veronica. Now, I don’t know any Jewish women named Veronica—okay, honestly, Dave—but the name means “veri,” meaning “truth,” and “icon.” Ver- plus -onica equals -iconica. It means “true image.” So, that was her name. And she saw Jesus fall, according to the legend—because this is not true—but according to the legend, she saw Jesus fall. And she came and gave Him her veil, that He could wipe His face with, and He left an imprint of His face supposedly on this veil. And then, as you say, the veil then became sacred. It was—supposedly Veronica went to Rome, gave it to the emperor in Rome and was—Caesar in Rome supposedly was ill and supposedly it healed him.

But, Dave, that’s not the only legend about the image of Jesus. There were certain other ones.

Dave: Right. Well, Tom, when I visited the headquarters of the Russian Orthodox Church—a couple hours’ drive outside of Moscow—they’ve got a picture of God! God the Father! Now, of course the Bible says God is a spirit. No man has seen God nor can see Him. The Bible forbids images….

Tom: Second commandment.

Dave: Right.

Tom: Oh, and by the way, Dave—just to interject this—as Roman Catholics we had 10 Commandments, but we did not have the second commandment. That was taken out. You say then, “Well, you only have nine commandments.” No, the 10^th commandment was divided, so we ended up with 10.

Dave: Right. Now I think they’ve tried to correct that since, but this is the way it was for centuries. Anyway, this is not only unbiblical, but it’s a delusion. You’re not going to get an idea of God by looking at somebody’s painting of Him. That’s all it could possibly be. Nor are you going to get an idea of Jesus by looking at someone’s painting. And I’ve studied these paintings and there are hundreds, literally hundreds in museums, and they’re all different according to the likes or dislikes of the tastes of the artists.

Tom: Well, it could even be who the patron of the artist was. Patrons and their families showed up in many so-called sacred art works.

Dave: Right, okay? So now, how is this going to help you know Jesus? See, it will only lead you astray. And Paul said though we have known Christ after the flesh, that’s the way He looked as He walked the roads of Galilee. Though we have known Him after the flesh, we “now know Him thus no more,” because He does not look like that. He was crucified, brutalized. He’s in a rectified, glorified body. Now, even if you—see, you mentioned Richard Foster. Richard Foster is about page 24, 26 somewhere around there in his book. He says, “Now…”

Tom: Celebration of Discipline.

Dave: Yes. He says, “Now, just imagine that you’re there sitting on the shore, and Jesus is pushed back in Peter’s boat. And now He’s speaking to the crowd. Now, the way to really understand what Jesus was saying—if you want to read the Sermon on the Mount or whatever—you must visualize Jesus; get a clear picture of Him. Feel the hunger in your stomach. Get all your senses involved. Smell the fishnets hanging up to dry, and the rough spun texture of your robe, and etc., and focus on Jesus. This is the Jesus that you have called up in your mind, or you have visualized Him out of your own imagination….”

Tom: Conjured up, basically.

Dave: Yes, and all these guys say it does matter. Calvin Miller for example, says, “I glory in His auburn hair and his blue eyes. What? You say his hair is black? Oh, well just be sure that it’s real to you as you visualize this,” whatever Jesus that you have conjured up. That’s a delusion.

So…but Richard Foster goes so far as to say, “Focus on this, and it will be more than an exercise of imagination. The real Jesus will come to you and speak to you.” This is occultism par excellence!

Now I can guarantee—I think most of the listeners would agree (I hope they would) Jesus is not going to be called down from the Father’s right hand in heaven where He is in a resurrected, glorified body to become like you had in Catholicism, a little baby who appears with Mary at Fatima.

Tom: Right, with Mary being in charge, basically.

Dave: Right, right. No, He’s in a resurrected, glorified body, and He’s not going to come—“Oh, I’d like to have Him come…no, I’ll just visualize Him.” That will not be Jesus, but I guarantee you there are thousands, probably millions, of demons out there who would be very happy to pretend to be Jesus.

Tom: Absolutely. Again, all our listeners and viewers need to do is check out 1 Timothy:4:1Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
See All...: “…seducing spirits, doctrines of devils….” That’s the concern we have.

Dave: So, Tom, this is what this mysticism leads into, okay? And this is what Nouwen is promoting.

Tom: Here’s a quote from his book Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons. And again, Dave, I can’t say this strong enough—he is such a major influence! This deceased mystical priest has had such an influence among evangelicals, particularly those of the literary set. As you mentioned, Calvin Miller, Richard Foster, Eugene Peterson, and on and on, but also Kay Warren, and others, Rick and so on.

Now, this is what he writes: “As you read these meditations [he’s talking about praying with icons], as you read these meditations be sure to keep the icons themselves always before you. They were painted for both the glory of God and our salvation [I’m going to finish the quote, but I want you to respond to this, Dave]. I pray that these icons will imprint themselves upon your heart and strengthen the awareness of God’s magnificent and loving presence in your life. May they become faithful guides on your journey and vital sources of lasting joy and peace.”

Dave: Now, Tom, I want to know is that (what you just quoted) in the book that Kay Warren thinks is great?

Tom: Well, if it’s the book she’s talking about, it’s Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons. You know, I don’t know if it is that specific book, but this is what this man is all about. And these ideas permeate all of his writings.

Dave: Well, Tom, David talks about beholding the beauty of the Lord. He says, “One thing have I desired of the Lord,” in Psalm 27, “that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to behold the beauty of the Lord; to inquire in His temple…” Now, I think I wrote an article about that because that challenged my heart, what David said. What do I know of the beauty of the Lord? Is He really beautiful to me? I tell the Lord so often, “Lord, I love you with all my heart.” But the beauty of the Lord—He was not talking about the Lord Jesus. He was talking about Jehovah, Yahweh, and no man has seen God at any time and so forth. We already quoted that, so this was not some visible thing, and David knew very well that you are not to make—it’s forbidden to make any visual representation of God! So he was not at all in agreement with Henri Nouwen.

Tom: Well, Dave, some people think, Okay, well I am not going to make paintings, but I just want to conjure up in my imagination what Jesus may have looked like, seeing, moving and doing all of that. What’s wrong with that, Dave?

Dave: May have looked like? May have looked like?

Tom: And I think so far removed that we wouldn’t even use the word “may.”

Dave: Tom, you could have been sitting there that day with Jesus out there on that boat, listening with your own ears; seeing Him with your own eyes and hearing every word He spoke, and you could have been in that crowd crying, “Away with Him! Crucify Him!” Understanding does not come through a visible image.

Now, Jesus came to reveal the Father. “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” But He’s not talking about His face, He’s talking about His character, His truth.

So, we are being led—Tom, you’ve emphasized this many times, and so have I—we’re being led away from the Bible. You quoted earlier, “You continue in my Word, and then are you my disciples indeed, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

“The entrance of thy word giveth light,” the Scripture says. Read Psalm 119, over and over—it’s the statutes, the law, the Word of God. This is where we are to go because what we need is objective truth.

Now, somebody says, “Well those are just ideas. Now I want some feeling.” Wait a minute, if you’ve got feeling without truth, you have no way of measuring these feelings. And furthermore, I’ve put it like this (and I know we’re running out of time)…

Tom: No, we’re alright.

Dave: Well, your Buckeyes did pretty well this year.

Tom: Beat Michigan! How much more…

Dave: They’re going to be in the Rose Bowl, I guess, or something at least.

Tom: Hopefully, yeah. When I say “hopefully” I prefer that, but they could go on for the national championship. But by the time this program airs, it could be history. But anyway…

Dave: But anyway, Tom, so we’ve been to a very exciting football game. Could be a professional game. No, one: it’s got to be college, where they’ve got cheerleaders out there. Wow, the crowd is worked up, and they’re yelling and so forth, and I say, “Tom, hey, I’ve got a great idea: we don’t need the team on the field, we don’t need those cheerleaders. Let’s call the crowd back again. We’ll sell them tickets, 90,000 tickets, you know. We’ll rent the Rose Bowl and we’ll get the crowd up there—no cheerleaders, no teams on the field, but we’ll just visualize this thing! And wow, we can get more excited just by visualizing it and imagining it!” Is this insanity? Okay, but now, oh, we are going to get really close to Jesus by visualizing Him?

I was speaking on this, and a pastor came up to me. He was complaining—this was at a conference at Arrowhead Springs, the headquarters of Campus Crusades at that time…

Tom: Right before they moved to Florida.

Dave: Right, and he said, “Wait a minute now, when I pray, I see myself right in the presence of God and I find that it really helps me!”

Well, I said, “I don’t know how you can see yourself in the presence of God. It says He dwells in a light that no man can approach unto, whom no man has seen or can see. Now, how do you know that this presence of God that you are visualizing has any relationship to what it really is? Furthermore, you’re not even supposed to try to visualize it, because God has barred you from that. You are being not helped, but led astray.”

Tom: Dave, I just want to top that off. It’s not only what you said, but it’s just plain stupid. For example, if it’s an image, and it’s an image that I conjure up, it’s an image in my imagination. Is it a true image or is it a false image?

Dave: Every image was conjured up in the imagination before they put it down on paper.

Tom: Right. So, the point is that it is a false image!

Dave: Absolutely.

Tom: No matter how sincere and how much you desire, it’s a false image! So, what’s the value of a false image, if somebody, particularly this is somebody that we love, that we have an intimate relationship with? How would Jesus feel by me carrying around an image of Him that doesn’t even look like Him? It’s just something I’ve conjured up. It’s stupid!

Dave: And it’s leading you astray.

Tom: Exactly, exactly!

Dave: I don’t think He’s happy with that.

Tom: I know He’s not! Dave, next week, what I’d like to do, Lord willing, is—I’ve got a book by an emerging church leader. It’s called The Sacred Way, and the author is Tony Jones. Tony Jones is an associate of Doug Padgett, and many of the people who know the emerging church know these names. And this is a book—he was here in Bend. I got this book from him, and it has a list of the techniques, many, many techniques—some we’ve addressed, and others that are coming into the emerging church, and we’re just going to explain them for people. Everything from prayer labyrinth, to centering prayer, to lectio divina (that is, sacred readings), and so on. These things are being introduced to our young people, and we want to talk about them, and we want to explain them. And by the grace of God, we can do that next week.

Dave: These are all techniques to get in touch with God and with Jesus, and they are not in the Bible at all. They are going to lead you astray.