Apprising Ministries continues tracking the syncretism and ecumenicism now slithering throughout the mainstream of the evangelical community because of the spread of Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) a la Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster and his spiritual twin Dallas Willard.

If you wish to see where it will all end up you need only look at the now mortally wounded mainline denominations, which began dabbling with CSM circa 1966 as the charismatic renewal dawned. Beyond question CSM flowered in the anti-biblical monastic traditions of the long apostate Roman Catholic Church.

So, not surprisingly, those who persist in the so-called spiritual disciplines of CSM eventually come to consider Roman Catholicism as a viable form of the Christian faith. Some pretty big names within the SBC already do as you’ll see in Southern Baptists Assist The Roman Catholic Church To Infiltrate Evangelicalism.

People like General of the Seeker Driven Army Rick Warren, wildly popular quasi-elder Beth Moore and undoubtedly Billy Graham Has Been Compromised For Years. From this vantage point of the battlefield I give you a peek at evangelicalism’s dark future in the above picture of Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Recently Cindy Wooden of the Catholic Herald told us in her report Dr Rowan Williams: joint prayer and contemplation are key to evangelising the world:

Dr Rowan Williams has told Pope Benedict XVI and the Synod of Bishops that evangelisation is not a project, but the natural “overflow” of an experience of Christ and his Church that transforms lives, giving them meaning and joy.

The Archbishop of Canterbury said that “those who know little and care even less about the institutions and hierarchies of the Church these days” are nevertheless attracted and challenged by Christians whose lives show they have been transformed by their encounter with Christ. (source)

It’s clear that Williams, who retires in January, considers the Roman Catholic Church part of the Body of Christ, i.e. the invisible Church, despite its placing its anathema upon the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Any doubt is immediately dispelled by what Williams says next:

The leader of the Anglican Communion had been invited by Pope Benedict to deliver a major address at the synod on the new evangelisation yesterday.

Dr Williams began his talk by remembering the Second Vatican Council, which, he said, was a sign that “the Church was strong enough to ask itself some demanding questions about whether its culture and structures were adequate to the task of sharing the Gospel with the complex, often rebellious, always restless mind of the modern world”.

In many ways, he said, the synod on the new evangelisation is a continuation of the work of Vatican II.

Presenting the Gospel means being confident that it has a distinctive, life-giving message, the archbishop said. Confidence in the message, and not in oneself, can be cultivated only through contemplation, he said. (source)

For those who know their Bibles and the history of the church, now we reach the heart of the matter with these ecumenical pow wows: Which Gospel are we going to be presenting? You see, this was the very heart of the Protestant Reformation and The Roman Catholic Church Hasn’t Changed Its Condemnation Of The Gospel.

Now let me unpack for you Williams’ musing that supposedly our confidence “in the message…can be cultivated only through contemplation.” If that reminds you of something gurus of the Emerging Church like Brian McLaren or former Emergent Church rock star pastor Rob Bell would say, this is for good reason.

It’s the classic mystic-speak of CSM, and particularly its crown jewel, which is meditation in an altered form of consciousness known as Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP). Those persisting in the transcendental meditation-lite of CCP long enough at some point eventually receive a highly subjective personal “experience.”

They come under a delusion, which mystics of all stripes are seeking. They may express it in slightly different ways, but that’s why I’ve been explaining to you that they speak of this experience using words like “enlightenment” and ”transformation”; Buddhists call it “satori,” but the result is always the same.

With remarkable similarity, practitioners of CSM in various religions, eventually describe their experience roughly along the following lines: All of a sudden as I meditated I was filled with an overwhelming sense of God’s presence/love, and I then realized I was one with Him/Her/It, as well as with the creation itself.

For many of these mystics the creation is also believed to be alive and dwelling in God i.e. panentheism. However, in the Bible the Lord tells us that all of this mystic mythology is really rooted in the love of the self. As in the last days — people will be lovers of self (2 Timothy 3:2); in other words, in love with mankind.

That’s why, as I previously pointed out e.g. in Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism Creeps Closer…To Your Church, as CSM slithers deeper into the church visible we’re seeing more and more spiritually obtuse evangelical leaders now also buying into an insipid Rodney King-like theology of: Can’t we all just get along?

And the time has arrived in the genuine Church of Jesus Christ for us to take off the gloves and begin to counterattack this attempted infiltration into mainstream Christendom by men who know not God; and who just do not believe His Word. Men like Rowan Williams who love man over God and opine:

“With our minds made still and ready to receive, with our self-generated fantasies about God and ourselves reduced to silence, we are at last at the point where we may begin to grow,” he said.

“The face we need to show to our world is the face of a humanity in endless growth toward love, a humanity so delighted and engaged by the glory of what we look toward that we are prepared to embark on a journey without end to find our way more deeply into it,” Archbishop Williams told the synod. (source)

Yes, that kind of man-centered musing plays well to the world. In fact, Scripture tells of dreamers like Rowan Williams — They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them (1 John 4:5). But in truth, what Williams has just said actually turns the Christian faith completely backward.

Further reading

• HAS THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH REALLY CHANGED?
• THINK YOU’RE A ROMAN CATHOLIC IF YOU DISAGREE WITH THE POPE; BETTER THINK AGAIN
• HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION