And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12, KJV)

In his book The Sacred Way (TSW) under the category of “meditation” in his suggested “Resources” Emergent theologian Tony Jones recommends Moment of Christ: The Path of Meditation (MOC) by Roman Catholic Benedictine monk Dom John Main (1926-1982). Jones informs us, “Main combined Christian teaching with Hindu meditation to form a mantra-meditation” (215). I find this quite interesting because these practitioners of contemplative spirituality keep trying to tell people that those of us who point out that Contemplative/Centering Prayer involves a mantra and borrows practices from Eastern religions are wrong to say so.

Yet another mystic monk, Dom Main also happens to be one of the writers that are featured in Spiritual Classics, which is actually edited by Richard Foster and Emilie Griffin. In Main’s introduction we read:

Dom John Main understood well the value of both silence and solitude… Always drawn to religion and the spiritual life, Main rediscovered meditation while living in the Far East… Influenced by the fifth-century writings of John Cassian, Main learned the ancient Christian discipline of the prayer of silence… In the following selection, an essay taken from his book Moments of Christ: The Path of Meditation, Father John is not just teaching us a style of praying… Silence is a path into the reality of the universe, where God is in charge and we are not,… (155)

Tony Jones further informs us in TSW that:

At the end of the 20th century, Benedictine monk John Main pioneered a Christian form of meditation that was influenced by his study with a Hindu master. He taught a form of meditation using the word maranatha (Aramaic for “Come, Lord”) as a mantra. Sitting cross-legged, the meditator chants (either aloud or silently) “ma-ra-na-tha” for 20 minutes daily. The teachings of Brother Main and others became so popular that the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a letter to all Catholic bishops in 1989, entitled “Some Aspects of Christian Meditation” to guide the bishops in their leadership of churches that were using meditation (80)

The New Gnostic Mysticism Of Contemplative Spirituality

I’ll have more on this another time but for now I wanted to make sure the reader fully understood here that both Emergent theologian Tony Jones and Living Spiritual Teacher Richard Foster are well aware of, and as you have just seen, even recommend Main’s book MOC. The main point (pardon the pun) right now that I wish to draw your attention to is in relation this idea espoused by Rick Warren, as well as others in the new evangelicalism, that men can be saved apart from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And why they believe this is directly related to their heretical practice of contemplative spirituality.

The reason I have continually hammered at this so-called “Christian” mysticism is that it is in reality a throw back to the very same Gnosticism the ancient Church itself was battling. Men who also ran forth claiming to be Christian and spread their teachings which said that to actually be “saved” one needed more than the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they had to become initiated into the secret “knowledge” (gnosis) that all men contained “the spark of divinity” within them. I cover this in more detail in The Emergent “One” , but for now I will show you in John Main’s book MOC this is exactly what he taught right in line with classic mysticism, which itself is right in line with classic Gnosticism, which (sense the theme here) itself is also right in line with Satan’s classic statement – “I will make myself like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14).

Here in the work of Dom John Main we read the root thinking behind this Emergent idea of interspritual dialogues, which is exactly the same thing that John Cassian did, and what John Main himself did to learn this transcendental meditation for the Christian. Main tells us:

Every great spiritual tradition has known that in profound stillness the human spirit begins to be aware of its own Source. In the Hindu tradition, for example, the Upanishads speak of the spirit of the One who created the universe as dwelling in our heart. The same spirit is described as the One who in silence is loving to all. In our own Christian tradition Jesus tells us of the Spirit who dwells in our heart and of the Spirit as the Spirit of Love (76).

There in about as succinct a manner as possible is the poisoned root of the neo-liberal contemplative spirituality movement currently killing the more evangelical section of our Lord’s Church just as its father the Cult of Liberal Theology once did the mainline denominations. How many more times does one have to read these denials of Holy Scripture before they wake up to the fact that this movement cannot possibly have come from God? Above Dom Main writes about: “Every great spiritual tradition.” However an insoluble problem emerges because there is no such thing as a “great spiritual tradition” in God’s eyes because He has already told us that pagans do not offer worship to Him because they are actually worshipping demons (see–1 Corinthians 10:20).

In TSW Tony Jones also recommends as a “spiritual classic” messed-up mystic Meister Eckart’s Collected Works as “a mystical treatise on the intersection between Greek philosophy and Christian theology with an emphasis on God’s indwelling of humanity” (221). This again is an example of classic Gnostic mysticism and it is exactly what you have seen above when Main says, “the Upanishads speak of the spirit of the One who created the universe as dwelling in our heart.” This compromise of the Christian message and the acceptance of other religions as vaid expressions of faith in God is always the end result of the alleged “enlightenment” arrived at through prolonged practice of Contemplative/Centering Prayer (i.e. TM for the Christian).

The Inner Light Of Divinity Within All Men

Now you know why the man-pleasers like Rick Warren and Robert Schuller, his “mentor” before him, teach that men can be saved apart from Christ. They believe, as does Richard Foster through the Quaker teaching of the “Inner Light” supposedly within all mankind, that God already dwells in men so all they need to do is walk sincerely according to that “light” of God living within and He will then take into account their good lives and save them accordingly. But the eternally deadly deception spiritually is that the LORD God Almighty Himself has already told us in no uncertain terms that God’s Spirit will only dwell within those Who completely surrender their old lives to Him through God’s Grace alone; through faith alone; in Jesus Christ alone.

Now you should be able to see why the apostate Church of Rome and the new evangelical Ecumenical Church of Deceit, her devious daughter, have been undoing the teachings of the Reformation through the Gnostic mysticism of contemplative spirituality, and most especially attacking Sola Scriptura, which neither of them adheres to. Let me sum it up for you like this using our reasoning skills which these spiritual fools claiming to be wise (see–Romans 1:22) want us to shut off in “silence.” Jesus tells us – “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever – the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you (John 14:16-17).

Look again at verse 16 above, I will ask the Father. The Master was going to do this, therefore it hadn’t been done yet. He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever – the Spirit of Truth. Again we can see this had not yet happened, however if God already dwelled within all men by creation as these mystics “reveal,” the Father wouldn’t have had to send the Spirit to spiritually dead mankind, He would already be in them. And finally, Jesus tells us – The world – those not in Christ – cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. However, says the Lord – you – those in Christ – know Him, for He lives with you. Yes, God is present “with” men in this world; well, at least for now, but the Holy Spirit will be in only those who are born again in Christ (see–Romans 8:8-11; 2 Corinthians 13:5).

You Had Best Know Your Bible

So the choice you are going to have to make in this generation as this Age of Grace continues to run out as sand through a nearly empty hourglass is this: Are you going to believe what the inerrant and infallible Word of God in the Bible says–regardless of what life around you may appear to be? Or instead are you going to trust your corrupt, degenerate and sinful human reasoning alone and go by what you feel God is like, or what you think He ought to be doing? Let me leave you with this; 2 Thessalonians 2:9 says – The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders. Then in Hebrews 2:3-4 God the Holy Spirit tells us – This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

Men and women, you really need to understand that the exact same Greek words are used for both sets of “miracles, signs and wonders” described above. The point God is making here is that the closer we get to the End, the more spiritual deceptions are sure to be coming. I encourage you to forget your pet eschatological views for the moment because if you cannot recognize God’s true Voice, and if you cannot test these coming supernatural experiences by the Bible, then you will end up finding yourself here:

The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness. (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)