Monday, June 20, 2011

The Prayer of Hezekiah (Isaiah 37:14-20) (prayer stations and labyrinths)

"Though many are quick to defend these places, due to a sensory experience they have undergone, we simply cannot afford to avoid one of the essential tenets of the Christian faith:  “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” (II Cor. 5:7)  Participants in prayer stations are encouraged to walk in a place where one relies upon the multisensory world, and not the Word.  Can God honor a place that would test this truth?"


http://reformednazarene.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/the-prayer-of-hezekiah-isaiah-3714-20/


The Prayer of Hezekiah (Isaiah 37:14-20)

by Pastor Joe Staniforth, ordained minister, Church of the Nazarene
In these last days, it is becoming increasingly difficult to live victorious lives as Christians.  We are constantly under siege, as apostasies of all kinds are pounding on the walls of the church.  If we are to be victorious, we must seek not only to be “fervent” in our prayers, but also formidable.  The formidable pray-er is one who prays, not only with zealousness for his Father‘s House, but in ways that honor both God and His word.  He is immovable in His devotion to righteous ways.  For it is the “the effective, fervent prayer of a RIGHTEOUS man” that will “avail” against all the sieges of the devil (James 5:16).  King Hezekiah was such a righteous man.  He prayed in a way that was pleasing to the Lord.  Therefore, the Lord made him a formidable Kingdom in the face of the apostate Assyrians.
When the city of Jerusalem was under siege by the Assyrians, the Judean King, Hezekiah, turned to the Lord with a prayer.  In his hand was the letter of another King, King Sennacherib of Assyria, containing a threat against Jerusalem:  “Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying , ‘Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’” (Isaiah 37:10). The Assyrian empire was feared throughout Mesopotamia and both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel.  In fact, they had carried much of the people of the Kingdom of Israel away captive (II Kings 18:10), and overcome major cities in the Kingdom of Judah (II Kings 18:13) .  Until this time, the Lord has used Assyria to bring judgment: “the rod of My anger.” (Is. 10:5). But now, she would dare to challenge, not only the city of God, but God himself.  For this reason, she was a rebel – like any apostate.
There are two points that I would like to consider concerning Hezekiah’s prayer:  The location and the motivation.  If we are to be victorious against all the sieges of the evil one, then we must honor God with both our location and motivation for prayer. First of all, let us look at the location of his prayer – ‘the House of the Lord’ (Isaiah 31:14)   The Lord would bring victory to Hezekiah because the King had honored God with his place of prayer.  He knew the Lord “dwelt between the cherubims” of the temple (Is. 37:16) and not the high places of other gods.
Prayer is not limited to the house of the Lord.  We do not need the church building in order to offer a prayer, especially now that the veil into the holy of holies has been torn in two (Luke 23:45).  In the Old Testament, the Israelites were commanded:  “But you shall seek the place where the Lord your God chooses, out of all the tribes, to put His name for His dwelling place; and there you shall go.” (Deut. 12:5).  In the New Testament, Jesus told the woman at the well, that the people would no longer ‘worship the Father” in a temple, but “in spirit and in truth.”  (John 4:23,24)
However, if we are to worship “in truth” can we do so in places that are strictly forbidden by the Lord?  Hezekiah was heralded as one of the greatest kings because he rid the land of the “high places:”
He removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars…He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were before him.” (2 Kings 18:4a,5)
The high places were stations set on mountains or hills where secular religious rites were performed.  Certain peoples in the land of Canaan believed that their gods dwelt in these places.  The Israelites often used these places to worship the Lord their God.  For example, when King Manasseh repented of his rebellion against God, he removed many of the idols from the house of the Lord, but allowed the worship of God to continue upon the high places (II Chr. 33:15, 17).  However, is worship or prayer on such places justified, because it is directed toward God?
There is no doubt that Hezekiah considered the Word of the Lord as the authority on all matters of life, as did his great-grandson – King Josiah.  Josiah was dedicated to the Lord from the age of eight. However, after the book of law was rediscovered in the temple, the light of God‘s Word served to expose many abominations within the land (II Chr. 34:8-28).
King Josiah had obviously rediscovered a commandment of the Lord given in Deuteronomy.  Before the Israelite army entered the promise land, the Lord said:
“You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations which you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills under every green tree.” (Dt. 12:2)
When the Israelites were in the ministry of dispossessing the land of evil, the Lord commanded a clean sweep.  This included, not just the destruction of evil people, but also evil places. In this same chapter the Lord commanded those who would use pagan methods to meet with Him:  “You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way.” (Dt. 12:31)  Therefore, when Josiah saw the abominations of these worship stations, he repented, destroyed them and removed those priests who were responsible for conducting such worship from certain positions (2 Kings 23:5, 9).
Nazarene academic institutions and Nazarene churches across America have adopted new places of prayer called labyrinths and prayer stations.  Until recently, a labyrinth was used in Trevecca Nazarene University by students.  At the Nazarene Youth Congress in St Louis, 2007 I personally witnessed a labyrinth in a prayer room, upon which youth were encouraged to offer up their prayers. It was located across from two simulated confessional booths, made with black curtains.  Thousands of youth were encouraged to use the prayer room at the main assembly. Furthermore, at the 2009 General Assembly in Florida, two different rooms were set up with prayer stations, and people were encouraged to join together for prayer in these places by General Secretary David Wilson.
Nowhere in scripture are we instructed to use a labyrinth as a place on which to pray.  On the contrary, these maze-like structures (also called ‘prayer walks’) have their roots in the pagan mythologies of the ancient world.  For example, in Greek mythology, the minotaur dwelled in the center of a labyrinth, and used his home as a place to devour young people.  In the ancient religion of Buddhism, the labyrinth is referred to as ‘mandala’, meaning ‘sacred design.’  Like the high places, they were associated with the worship of false gods and rediscovered on shrines – places of worship.  Also, we can trace the use of labyrinth in the “sacred” tradition of Roman Catholicism all the way back to 324 AD in a basilica of North Africa (Saward, “The Labyrinth in Ireland,” n.p.).  However, as there are no grounds in scripture for the labyrinth, it is evident that these Catholics had borrowed from pagan cultures.
More recently, labyrinths were introduced and popularized in religious circles in America by Dr. Lauren Artressan Episcopal Priest.  On a visit to Chartes Cathedral in France, she discovered a Labyrinth that had been covered by chairs.  She removed the chairs, and gave this report of her experience in her book, Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Tool: “Everyone in our group felt an awesome, mysterious sense of grounding and empowerment from the walk.  Looking back on that experience, I feel we touched the Holy Spirit.  Each of us had ventured to the centre of our beings in the Chartres labyrinth that day” (Artress, “Excerpt from Walking a Sacred Path,” n.p.). Artress then introduced the labyrinth to Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.  Since then, labyrinths have been on the rise in churches and other religious establishments all across America.
Prayer stations can be found in a labyrinth or by themselves.  Quite simply, different stations, perhaps on a table or the floor, are set up along a predetermined route.  At each of these prayer stations, you may find books on contemplative prayer, Bible verses, pictures, icons, candles or other devices to create a multisensory type of experience.  The “stations” are much-like the “stations of the cross” – a ‘sacred’ tradition of Romanism.  Originally, pilgrimages to Jerusalem were conducted by monks who sought a ‘holy’ experience, and stopped at “stations’ or monasteries along the way.  In time, the Franciscans of the 1600’s built shrines in Europe, to duplicate those in the Holy Land.  However it was not until 1731 that Pope Cement XII permitted all churches to build stations inside their buildings.  A standard fourteen stations were set, each representing an incident in the bitter pilgrimage of Christ’s journey to the cross (some of these incidents are not found in the Bible).  Like the prayer stations, participants were given images and icons as a multisensory aid to prayer and meditation.*
Though many are quick to defend these places, due to a sensory experience they have undergone, we simply cannot afford to avoid one of the essential tenets of the Christian faith:  “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” (II Cor. 5:7)  Participants in prayer stations are encouraged to walk in a place where one relies upon the multisensory world, and not the Word.  Can God honor a place that would test this truth?   Can we replace faith with touch and feel?  At the foot of Mt. Sinai, the Israelites were not faithful enough to simply wait upon the Lord.  Hence, they created the Golden Calf.  When Aaron saw it, he used this image to worship the Lord – “a feast to the Lord.” (Exodus 32:5)  Instead of simply closing their eyes, and faithfully praying to God who had set them free from their captivity, they had turned back to the images of Egypt.
In the Word, there is only one “image of the invisible God” and His name is Jesus (Col. 1:15).  He is the one that serves as the mediator between God and man (Heb. 6:15).  Whenever we replace Him with places laden with props to appeal to the senses, we have begun the work of image making (Deut. 4:24). We will inevitably end up worshiping the image, and not God Himself.  Take for example the Roman Catholic Mass: The wafer has become such an image.  Instead of a symbol of Christ‘s body, it has now, in essence, become the body of Christ, to which a priest may bow after performing transubstantiation.
In scripture we find the perfect example of a symbol that had become more than God had intended it to be – the bronze serpent.  Because the people had required something tangible with which to worship, Hezekiah not only had to destroy the high places, but also “broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made” (2 Kings 18:4).  What had once been a symbol of Christ’s sacrificial death (John 3:14) had now become an image of worship: “the children of Israel burned incense to it, and called it Nehushtan” (2 Kings 18:4).  This is a definite indication of the danger of relying upon sight and not faith. As we now have the one that the brass serpent represented, Jesus Christ, why do we need icons, pictures and candles to draw us close to Him?  Jesus said: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” (John 12:32)
Despite the great dangers of using such places for prayer, Trevecca Nazarene University president, Dan Boone, has recently sought to defend the use of both prayer stations and labyrinths.  Although a labyrinth has now been removed from this university, “to keep from offending”, the president does not admit to any wrongdoing. (Boone, “Dr. Boone’s Comments on Trevecca”, n.p.)
Although Dan Boone has used labyrinths and prayer stations in an effort to bring revival, can God grant victory when His Word is defiled by the use of pagan methods, especially when we take into account that our young people are being taught “to stumble in their ways, from the ancient paths”? (Jer. 18:15).  Hezekiah saw victory because he destroyed such places and met with the Lord on holy ground! Both he and his people were promised by the living God that the Assyrians would be sent back, and the nation would “sow and reap” once again (Is. 37:29,30).  Perhaps we may experience such revival, if we return to praying in places that are pleasing to the Lord!
Secondly, let us look at the motivation for Hezekiah’s prayer.  In the conclusion, he states:
“Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the Kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord, even Thou only.” (Isaiah 37:20)
Hezekiah’s soul reason for seeking victory over the Assyrians was that God may be glorified.  With the fall of each city prior to the siege of Jerusalem came the fall of hope and the gods in whom they had trusted.  For this reason, the Assyrian leaders had become proud.  Although the Lord God of Israel had used them as an instrument of punishment, they now used the authority given them to turn against the one true God:   “Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their countries from my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?” (II Kings 18:25).   It was Hezekiah‘s desire that the Lord defend the city of Jerusalem, so that, unlike the gods of other cities, the world would know that He was the only God.
Assyria did not understand that the Lord God Almighty could not be worshiped on pagan places.  Rabshakeh, a spokesman for King Sennacherib, mocked Hezekiah from without the city walls:
“But if thou (Jerusalem) say to me, we trust in the Lord our God, is it not He, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘ye shall not worship before this altar.’” (Isaiah 36:7)
Rabshakeh lacked discernment.  He had assumed that the Lord was like any other god, and could meet with His people in those same places that the pagans pray.  He could not understand why Hezekiah had destroyed the high places.  Furthermore, his pride had far exceeded his sense of judgment, and would soon lead to his downfall.  The Holy One would not tolerate such a challenge to His authority.
In the same way, much of the leadership in the Nazarene denomination has displayed as much discernment as Rabshakeh.  For instance, in a video by the pastor at Sojourn church of the Nazarene in the Dallas, Texas area, the labyrinth is endorsed when its winding path is compared to the Christian journey (Anonymous, “Sojourn Video”, 2009).  Furthermore, the allowance of prayer stations at the General Assembly in Florida reeks of a complete lack of discernment.
Let us understand that Hezekiah knew that there would be even greater dangers ahead, if the Lord did not give them victory.  If the Assyrians had overrun Jerusalem, the people of this city would have assumed that their God was a god of compromise: He would be seen as a god who commanded his people to destroy all the high places, but would not be willing to defend “righteous men” like Hezekiah who obeyed His commandment.  Such a god would be nothing short of a hypocrite. He is certainly not the one true God, who gets all the glory when men diligently follow His Word.
Have we not presented our youth with a god of compromise, when we encourage them to pray to God in such pagan ways?  Are we no longer teaching them to walk by faith, and not by sight when we give them aids of all kinds with which to pray?  Is Jesus not enough, that we need images and icons?  Where has all the discernment gone?
At the close of the gospel of Luke, the physician writes:  “And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.” (Luke 24:45) Jesus opened the apostles understanding of the scriptures, in order that they may fully comprehend the significance of His death and resurrection (Luke 24:46-48).  Jesus died so that His bride, the Church, may be purified of all her pagan ways (Eph. 5:25,26).  These men’s eyes had to be opened to this truth because they had been called by Jesus to be the leaders in the church.  Their task was set before them: “to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His blood.” (Acts 20:28)  Therefore, they were given discernment by God, so that the church for which He had paid such a heavy price would not become tainted by such things as pagan praying.
Yet, within the Nazarene Church, men have been allowed to rise up among us, who have been given no such understanding of scripture.  They hold positions behind our lecterns and our pulpits, but they do not hold to the truth that is found in God’s Word:  They do not count the blood of Jesus Christ sufficient enough to free us from all sin.  And, as I have already stated before, they have caused the little children of our academic institutions to fall for their pagan practices (Mat. 18:6).  Did not Christ die in a pagan place, outside the walls of Jerusalem where the Assyrians stood, that He may purify His body from all paganism?  God have mercy on us!
My dear fellow Christians, let us look to the young King Josiah, for the last time.  When He had rediscovered the Word, he tore His clothing and repented of the sin of a nation (II Kings 22:11).  Then, he rid the land of the high places and the hypocrites who instituted them.  For this, the Lord brought a time of blessing to the land of Israel once again. I call upon you to do the same.  We must cry out first for his mercy for the Nazarene denomination.  For He is merciful to those who seek His mercy (James 4:8).  However, there is also a time for removal.  Let us pray, on holy ground and not high places, that the Lord will remove all our leaders who will not repent.  Let us pray, in faith and without the aid of any visuals that times of blessing may return.  May we see His victorious church rise once again – the church that will resist the very gates of Hell and every apostasy that rises from its pit! (Mat. 16:18) Let us pray that God will be glorified among His people!  Praise His holy name!
*Since writing this article, I have noted two Nazarene Churches that are now using Stations of the Cross during their Easter events.   The first church is based in Houston, Texas and the other is given by way of an announcement at a Nazarene Church in Visalia, California.
WORKS CITED
Saward, Jeff.  “The Labyrinth in Ireland.” No Pages. Cited March 15, 2010. Online:
Artress, Lauren. “Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Practice.”  No Pages. Cited March 15, 2010. Online: www.ereader.com
Boone, Dan. “Dr. Dan Boone’s Comment on Trevecca.” No Pages.  Cited March 15, 2010.  Online: http://reformednazarene.wordpress.com/emergent-church-what-is-it/dr-boones-comments-on-trevecca/

Unbiblical Teachings on Prayer and Experiencing God

http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue99.htm


A Biblically based commentary on current issues that impact you
Unbiblical Teachings on Prayer and Experiencing God 
How Mysticism Misleads Christians
by Bob DeWaay

To a Christian, praying to God is privilege, a blessing, and a Biblically defined responsibility. We are called to pray. But a genre of literature exists that I call “prayer secrets.” Practitioners claim to have discovered new avenues of prayer that can create power, excitement, success, and even new revelations from God. These “prayer secrets” add unbiblical practices and claims to prayer in the hope of spicing up the topic to make it more interesting. And this is not a new development; mystical practices have been brought into the church under the guise of prayer since medieval times.
However, since these teachings change in form and packaging, I will review three books about prayer and “experiencing God” subjectively. What they have in common is a form of pietism that promises better things than to go before the throne of grace to find help in time of need, as well as other basic Biblical teachings on prayer.

Experiencing God by Henry T. Blackaby


Blackaby’s book, co-authored by Claude King, promises readers that they can come to know God by experience and come to know God’s will beyond what is revealed in Scripture, thereby living out a life full of adventure.1 Blackaby promises his readers that they will, among other things, learn to hear God speaking to them and learn to identify God’s activities.2 He promises to alleviate their problem of being frustrated with their Christian experience.
Experiencing God does start out with some basic facts about the gospel and has a place for people to check to indicate that they have made a “decision for Jesus.” I am glad he told his readers about such things as sin and repentance but am disappointed in the “make a decision for Jesus” approach. We have addressed that elsewhere.3 But having checked the appropriate box, the reader is quickly ushered into the realm of subjectivity that permeates Blackaby’s approach from beginning to end. For example, we are urged to evaluate our “present experience with God.”4 However, I have known people who are totally deceived and in bondage to false doctrine who are very excited about their experience with God, so such evaluation doesn’t do much good. For example, I once met a pastor who just returned from the Toronto laughing revival and was so very excited because he had seen “God” cause people to bark like dogs and quack like ducks. That is just one example why what one thinks about his own “experience with God” is immaterial. What we need to know are the terms God has laid down for knowing Him and walking faithfully with Him.
In Blackaby’s theology, the importance of God’s self-revelation through the Scriptures is de-emphasized while personal experience is given priority. He writes, “We come to know God as we experience Him. God reveals Himself through our experience of Him at work in our lives.”5 I am not disputing that God is at work in our lives if we have truly been converted. But, like other subjectivists, Blackaby de-emphasizes specific revelation (Scripture) and puts unwarranted emphasis on general revelation (what can be observed in the created order). Our personal, spiritual experiences are unreliable. People observing general revelation and interpreting their own spiritual experiences in light of it have created the host of the world’s false religions.
For example, Blackaby writes, “Find out what the Master is doing—then that is what you need to be doing.”6 Here he suggests that by observing what is around us and studying human history we can determine God’s will. He further suggests that God reveals His will by some process in history—that He hasn’t revealed it once for all. But this subjective approach cannot reveal God’s moral law which is His revealed will. Someone’s estimate of “what God is doing” is likely to be based on their own prejudices and inclinations. Let’s look at another example. Consider a person who believes the social gospel. If they see a situation where social services are being provided, they will conclude that they are witnessing “what God is doing.” In the previous example of the laughing revival, that pastor was a charismatic. His thinking led him to believe that anything that appears to have a supernatural cause done in the context of a Christian meeting must be “what God is doing.” So he saw people behaving oddly in such a context and joined it so as to participate in God’s activities. Subjective evaluations can lead to falsely attributing things to God that in fact are not from God.
God’s providence unfolding in history is what we actually observe. But providence contains good and evil. We cannot know what God’s revealed will is by observing providence. We can only know His will through inerrant, infallible, special revelation—Scripture. Even our dreams and inner impressions are part of providence and they too are a mixture of good and evil (and indifferent). They do not reveal what God is doing or His will for our lives.
Blackaby fails to distinguish these categories, and thus uses stories of God revealing things to prophets and apostles in the Bible to suggest that these experiences should be normative for us. For example he includes a section about Moses, not to prove that Moses was an authoritative spokesperson for God, but to prove that God expects all of us to gain revelation like Moses did. This is false, and we have shown it to be false in a recent article.7 In the Moses section of his book Blackaby writes, “His desire is to get us from where we are to where He is working. When God reveals to you where He is working, that becomes His invitation to join Him.”8
Such a search for “where God is working” makes no sense. God is working always everywhere as He holds all things together by “the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3). Blackaby’s concept “where God is working” is vague. Is he talking about geography? God’s revealed will is to preach the gospel to all people everywhere. God works through the gospel to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment and to convert those who will be saved. There is no place off-limits, and this great work of God is not limited by geography. Blackaby’s kind of thinking causes people get on airplanes scurrying to the latest hot “revival.” But how do they know God wants them in Pensacola, for example, chasing a spiritual experience rather than preaching the gospel where they live? The simple answer: they don’t.
Blackaby’s book is filled with claims that we all need personal revelations from God, that these are binding upon us, and that if we do not gain these “words from God” we are going to fail God and live frustrated and empty lives. He claims that we are to obey these words seemingly without question: “When you do what He tells you, no matter how insensible it may seem, God accomplishes what He purposed through you. Not only do you experience God’s power and presence, but so do those who observe what you are doing.”9 This is simply wrong and is a version of works righteousness.
All that I can possibly know as God’s binding, authoritative will is what God TOLD me (Scripture) not what God “tells” me (subjective ideas that may or may not be from God). It is abusive to bind people to non-authoritative, fallible words (even insensible ones) and tell them that obeying such words is the key to God’s presence in their lives. This, in my opinion, is an attack against the gospel. We have the promise of God’s presence because of what He did for us through the cross, not because we have become mystics following ideas that enter our minds which we decided might be from Him. But Blackaby reiterates, “Obey whatever God tells you to do.”10 So, on that point I think I’ll choose to follow his advice based on what I know God has told me in the Scriptures. I know God told me not to listen to people who teach false doctrine; I am going to obey that and not listen to Blackaby.
Beyond promoting these personal revelations as laws to be obeyed (as if they were God’s revealed moral law), he further claims they are also infallible: “When we come to God to know what He is about to do where we are, we also come with the assurance that what God indicates He is about to do is certain to come to pass.”11 This is another problem, because the only things certain to come to pass are those God has predicted in Scripture. Personal revelations that we think might be from God are not certainly from God [we can’t be sure they are] and they will not “certainly come to pass.” Blackaby calls this type of word “revelation”: “When He opens your spiritual eyes to see where He as at work, that revelation is your invitation to join Him.”12 Subjective impressions are now to be considered revelation? This approach could lead to every imaginable error.
Blackaby makes personal revelations not only binding (they must be obeyed) and infallible (certain), but he also declares that they are necessary for everyone’s spiritual well-being: “If the Christian does not know when God is speaking, he is in trouble at the heart of his Christian life!”13 Furthermore, he says, “If you have been given a word from God, you must continue in that direction until it comes to pass (even twenty five years like Abraham).” That means that if someone should get one of these “words from God” and if it actually was not from God, he would be obligated to follow whatever foolhardy, insensible path the “word” led him down. Such teaching, in my opinion, is foolish and abusive to the flock.
God physically appeared to Abraham many times as “the angel of the Lord.” Abraham received special revelations. We don’t. We do not have the same certainty that our subjective impressions are “the word of the Lord.” Amazingly, Blackaby sees the problem with his approach but still presses on with it: “If you have not been given a word from God yet you say you have, you stand in judgment as a false prophet . . . [cites Deut. 18:21-22].”14 EXACTLY! That is the very claim I made in the last issue of CIC.15 If these personal words from God are taken as binding, and we speak them to ourselves and they are not totally accurate, we have become false prophets to our own selves. Blackaby evidently agrees, yet he pushes on.
The flaws of Blackaby’s subjectivism are rather obvious when you examine his claims objectively. God’s revealed will is not found by subjective experiences, but in Scripture. Looking around in the world hoping to discover “where God is working” is impossible since God is always working everywhere as He providentially brings history along toward His ultimate purposes. We will be fooled by our own prejudices because we think “God working” must look something like whatever our religious inclinations tell us it will look like. Furthermore, he has elevated fallible words that may or may not be from God to the level of infallible Scripture and elevated every believer to the status of Moses and Abraham as recipients of special revelation. Following his approach is not how we “experience God.” We cannot not know if we are experiencing God in any way other than to come to Him on His own terms, by faith. When we do, we are assured that God is with us no matter what experiences we have.

Body Prayer by Doug Pagitt


Doug Pagitt,Emergent Church leader, wrote a book (coauthored by Kathryn Prill) that claims that using various body postures can bring people closer to God and deepen one’s life of prayer.16 Here is an example of some of the claims of this book:

Engaging the body in acts of being present with God, including certain ceremonial practices, opens us up to God in new ways. People of faith in ancient times understood that such physical acts and practices as rest and worship, dietary restrictions, and mandated fabric in their wardrobes were of great value to their faith and life.17

The problem is that the Bible says that these types of practices are of NO value:

If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with the using)-- in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence. (Colossians 2:20-23)

Furthermore, creating dietary restrictions for religious reasons is called a “doctrine of demons” (1Timothy 4:1-5).

Pagitt claims that we can connect with God through body prayers. He calls his approach a “deeper” form of prayer: “This book is meant to be a companion and a guide into deeper forms of prayer; this book is not a specific prescription of how prayer must be done.”18 I appreciate that he does not claim that these postures are mandatory. But that introduces an important question—if his postures are not mandated by Scripture (and they are not) how can they be “deeper” than the sort of prayer the Bible does teach? Such claims are the problem with all the “prayer secrets” books. Why is praying to God in the manner taught in Scripture so inadequate that people need to discover new practices that are superior to those Jesus and His apostles taught? Would God withhold something so good and important to all but those spiritual innovators who discover the secret? The Bible says, “Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence” (2Peter 1:3). God did not forget to reveal to the Biblical writers key practices we need.
Pagitt teaches the same “breath prayers” that we have discussed in other articles:

As you begin to pray, close your eyes. Then inhale and exhale with deep breaths. Put your hands in a comfortable position—consider turning both hands palms up. Notice the tension in your head … and let it go as you take in a deep breath … and then exhale. Notice the tension in your shoulders and let it go, again by breathing in and then out. Notice the tension in your stomach and let it go. Move down your body doing the same.19

Concentrating on one’s breath is a way to achieve an altered state of consciousness. Jesus told us to ask the Father in His name, which we can do when fully conscious and requires no prior stress relief practice.
Some of the postures are similar in that they seem more like a technique for self awareness. One is pressing fingertips together: “There is a theory that pressing each fingertip to its corresponding fingertip activates a certain portion of our brain. Also, it is one of the gentlest ways to feel our own pulse.”20 Doing some of these practices is even confused with reconciliation which one comes through the finished work of Christ received by faith:

Start in a sitting position. Then use your arms to push your body up so you are standing. Inhale deeply through your mouth. Let your shoulders fall, release any stress in the top of your legs, and let your hips fall forward. Feel pressure on the bottom of your feet—and in that space alone. Keep breathing deeply. Allow the deep breaths to prepare you and arm you for the work of reconciliation.21

Reconciliation does not happen through some physical process, but through Christ’s blood atonement which we have received by faith (Romans 5:9-11).
It is not surprising, given the theology of the Emergent Church, that Pagitt’s approach is infused with theological immanence at the expense of transcendence. He writes, “So we extend to the rest of the world this hope: that good will be saved and increased and that God’s dreams will be done on earth as they are in heaven.”22 Pagitt claims that we are co-re-creators of the world: “God is never finished with creation, and God is never finished with us. We are constantly being re-created, and we are invited to join God as co-re-creators of the world.”23 There is no cataclysmic, future judgment of the cosmos in the theology of most Emergent Church leaders. Rather God is working in the world to transform it into a better place through the processes of history.
Pagitt’s terminology reflects a rather panentheistic worldview that is infused with God in some not totally explained way:

There is a rhythm to life. We find it in the ocean tides, in the rising and setting of the sun, in the beating of our hearts. And there is a rhythm of God—a rhythm that encompasses life, both the life we can readily see and the unseen life of the spirit. The rhythm of God beckons us, guide us, and dwells in us.24

This highly immanent theology implies that God is in the creation to be discovered, and not as the transcendent One who can only be known by His self-revelation in the authoritative Scriptures and in Christ who came in the flesh and ascended into heaven. Pagitt says, “As those who are created in the image of God, we are endowed with this rhythm.”25 Since all human beings are created in God’s image this is a universal statement, not limited to those who have been converted through the gospel. He continues, “We can find it [the rhythm of God] step into it, and live in it. This is the kingdom of God — to live in sync with the rhythm of God.”26
Sadly, the processes of “body prayer” described in this book reflect a theology that is gleaned not from authoritative Scripture but from creative efforts to create a version of prayer that is in keeping with the sensibilities of the postmodern culture. Key ideas that the Bible teaches about prayer (coming to God on His terms, grace for sinners, how we have access to God only because of the blood atonement, that God hears Christians who ask according to His will, etc.) are missing from this book. The techniques and teachings found in the book are not taught in the Bible. So the bigger question is whether God has spoken and revealed how we can come to Him or whether the means of access to God are discovered in the creation. Pagitt and his co-author leave us searching for the “rhythm of God” in the creation by means God has not ordained.

Prayer Quest by Dee Duke


The subtitle to this book is “Breaking through to your God-given dreams and destiny.” Duke speaks of our dreams and God’s dreams throughout his book. In the Bible God gave dreams to certain people. Those dreams, if interpreted by an infallible prophet, revealed God’s will and God plans. In the Bible, the dreams were from God, but they were not God’s dreams. They were the dreams of the people who dreamt them (for example Nebuchadnezzar’s in Daniel 2). Here we have to add a point of clarification: Only the dreams that are interpreted in the Bible by God’s prophets and spokespersons can be considered to authoritatively reveal God’s will.
The term “dream” in English can mean “hope for an ideal future,” as in, “I have a dream.” This denotes the hope for some better state of affairs that may or may not come into existence. Duke, in his book, is clearly not using the term in the Biblical sense as a dream a person has that has been interpreted by an authoritative prophet. Instead he says, “He calls us now to dream His dreams, to ask Him daily to display His power.”27 Duke is speaking of a hoped for future when he uses the term “dream”:

Welcome to the reality where dreams come true! God has a dream, and it is certain to happen just as He imagines it. He has placed the stamp of His image on our souls, so that we also dream great dreams. As we learn to passionately share and enjoy God’s dreams, we will see Him work in amazing ways . . .”28

This statement involves some serious category problems. Supposedly God’s dream is His imagination about the future. We (all humans evidently because all humans are created in God’s image) can dream like God. Either this is anthropomorphism run amok or some seriously bad theology. God is the one who says this about Himself: “Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’” (Isaiah 46:9, 10). God does not dream, He decrees. God calls things into being and works all things according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11). He doesn’t imagine a potential future that may or may not happen.
Concerning us, the only thing we know about what God “dreams” (using Duke’s terminology) is what is revealed in Scripture. Our own dreams about what we would like the future to bring are not going to make God do anything. Duke says, “This book is intended to help you learn to walk so intimately with God that you will see Him fulfill His dreams in and through you.”29 This brings us back to the typical “prayer secret” genre of Christian writing. Supposedly there is some key to “intimacy with God” that is not based on the once-for-all finished work of Christ, not based on availing ourselves of the means of grace by faith, but based on our own level of personal piety and the use of practices not revealed in the Bible.
Duke asks his readers, “Do you feel as though you’ve given up on dreams you had when your faith was new?” The implication is that our “dreams” (i.e., hopes for an ideal or optimal future) somehow authoritatively reveal God’s will and that we must make these come to pass by some process. But our ideas about what we hope life will be like are nothing more than ideas and may have nothing to do with God’s purposes. Our dreams are part of providence, but providence contains good and evil. Duke is treating personal imaginations about the future as if they were infallible guidance to be nurtured and followed. But personal dreams are not God’s moral law.
Here is a further definition of what Duke means by “dream,”

A dream is a desire felt so strongly that we think and meditate on it constantly until we see it in our mind as clearly as if it were reality. A dream believes that what is desired will happen; it is accomplished by anticipation and positive expectation. People who dream tend to be upbeat and enthusiastic.30

This is a very much the type of mind over matter thinking that has enjoyed popularity in self-help circles.
He gives people some practical guidance on releasing their “imagination” in prayer: “Envision yourself embarking on a day trip into the presence of God. . . . Envision yourself approaching God in His glory.”31 This is strikingly similar to guided imagery. He gives more examples of how to manage your dream time with God, including making lists of dream notes. This is a journey into the subjective realm under the guise of “prayer.”
Much bad teaching comes into the church by route of mysticism, subjectivism, and having faulty theological categories. In previous articles I carefully defined categories to help my readers avoid these pitfalls. Risking redundancy, I must again assert that there is God’s revealed will in Scripture as well as God’s providential will (containing good and evil) that is revealed as history unfolds. Though Duke wants us to dream God’s dreams about the future, he admits that these dreams we might have come from various sources. He lists thoughts from God, your own thoughts, thoughts from the world, and thoughts from Satan.32 His readers are supposed to sort through their dream notes to find ones that they think are from God. But how? God’s future providential will is not revealed and cannot be known until it unfolds in history. Our dreams about the future cannot be determined to be from God by any means available to us because they are not revealed in Scripture.
Duke reveals his lack of Biblical understanding when he cites the scripture, “My sheep know my voice,” as proof that we can figure out which of our dreams is God’s voice. That passage in John 10 is about those whom the Father has given to the Son and who consequently will respond to the gospel and follow Christ, not about listening to various subjective voices in our heads and trying to figure out which one sounds the most like Christ.
There is no need to belabor how bad this book is theologically. It starts from a series of faulty premises and bad theology and builds from there a concept of prayer that is not taught in the Bible. The term “dream” as he uses it is basically the idea of one’s imagination. The Bible tells us about those who speak in this manner: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you. They are leading you into futility; They speak a vision of their own imagination, Not from the mouth of the Lord’”. (Jeremiah 23:16).
That a publishing house like Navpress produced this book shows how little discernment there is in the evangelical movement these days.

Conclusion


God has not left us to fish around in the world of spirits and subjective experiences to know Him and speak to Him. God send His Son, who pre-existed as God and with God, to be born of a virgin and live in history in the flesh. The apostles heard Him, touched Him and saw Him (see 1John 1:1-3). He died for sins on the cross, shedding His blood to avert God’s wrath against our sin. He was bodily raised on the third day and He bodily ascended into heaven where He sits at the right hand of the Father. Before He left He promised His followers that they could ask the Father anything in His name. He inspired eyewitnesses to write His inerrant words so that we would know the truth from Him. The Bible promises us that He hears us. It doesn’t give us a set of techniques to hear inner voices and call these techniques “prayer.”
The mystics are confident that their extra-biblical techniques and extra-biblical experiences are certainly from God and are making more pious Christians than those of us who only have prayer as taught in the Bible and the Word of God to go by. Having discovered the secrets to increased piety and “intimacy with God,” they write books so that others can become similarly “enlightened” and be saved from their “ordinary” Christian lives. Dear readers, they are selling you a bill of goods. They are not infallible apostles and prophets, they do not speak authoritatively for God, their theology is unbiblical, and their practices are not ordained by God. I have touched on three examples of this approach but there have been literally thousands of them in church history. The simple application is this: do not listen to them. They can only deceive you; they cannot make you more holy or pleasing to God. Only the finished work of Christ and His ordained means of grace can do that.
Listen to the radio series on this topic HERE.
Issue 99 - March / April 2007



End Notes

  1.  Henry T. Blackaby & Claude V. King, Experiencing God (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994). For simplicity, I will refer to Blackaby as the author with no slight intended to King as the co-author.
  2.  Ibid. 4.
  3.  HTTP://CICMINISTRY.ORG/COMMENTARY/ISSUE73.HTM
  4.  Blackaby 5.
  5.  Ibid. 9.
  6.  Ibid. 48.
  7.  HTTP://CICMINISTRY.ORG/COMMENTARY/ISSUE73.HTM
  8.  Blackaby 55.
  9.  Ibid. 61.
  10.  Ibid. 63.
  11.  Ibid. 128.
  12.  Ibid. 129.
  13.  Ibid. 132.
  14.  Ibid. 140.
  15.  HTTP://CICMINISTRY.ORG/COMMENTARY/ISSUE98.HTM
  16.  Doug Pagitt and Kathryn Prill, Body Prayer, (Colorado Springs: WaterBrook Press, 2005) For simplicity I will refer to Pagitt as the author with no slight intended to Prill as the co-author.
  17.  Ibid. 3.
  18.  Ibid. 8.
  19.  Ibid. 11.
  20.  Ibid. 36.
  21.  Ibid. 53.
  22.  Ibid. 103.
  23.  Ibid. 27.
  24.  Ibid. 127.
  25.  Ibid.
  26.  Ibid.
  27.  Dee Duke, Prayer Quest, (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2004) 11.
  28.  Ibid. 15.
  29.  Ibid..
  30.  Ibid. 26.
  31.  Ibid. 28.
  32.  Ibid. 29.


Sunday, June 19, 2011

Ann Voskamp’s Best Selling Book One Thousand Gifts – A Collision of Inspiration and the New Spirituality

http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/

Ann Voskamp’s Best Selling Book One Thousand Gifts – A Collision of Inspiration and the New Spirituality

One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp is a 2010 Zondervan title that is a New York Times, USA Today, and Amazon Best-Seller. The author is a contributing writer for DaySpring, and she has a blog that receives 40-50 thousand visitors every week.1  Voskamp has risen quickly in popularity, with invitations to various conferences and other events. (In April, she spoke in Portland Oregon at the Q Conference sharing a platform with popular Christian figures like Luis Palau and Louie Giglio).
Ann Voskamp’s sincerity and her desire for a relationship with the Lord are unarguable. Her honesty in her own shortcomings and frailities is admirable. Her description of how she witnessed the death of her baby sister (run over by a farm truck) when she herself was very young is heart-wrenching. What’s more, few would disagree with the overall key theme of the book that we should give thanks to God in everything (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Voskamp shares how practicing thanksgiving and gratitude has changed her life. Thinking about 1 Timothy 6:6 (“godliness with contentment is great gain”), it is true that being thankful and content does have great gain in the believers life.
But One Thousand Gifts, as well-meaning as the author may be, is not a book we can recommend and in fact is one we must warn about. We do not want to cause distress to Ann Voskamp; but given the high popularity of her book, we are compelled to issue this warning.
It is clear by reading One Thousand Gifts that Ann Voskamp reads and admires several mystics, panentheists, and universalists. Her book is peppered with quotes by Sarah Ban Breathnach (a New Age author launched into stardom by Oprah), Teresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich, Evelyn Underhill, Brennan Manning,  Annie Dillard, Thomas Acquinas, Buddhist sympathizer and Catholic convert Peter Kreeft, Walter Brueggemann, Francis de Sales, Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Henri Nouwen, and Jean-Pierre de Caussade. Many of the statements Voskamp says in her book  would resonate with these authors showing that Voskamp has absorbed some of the beliefs of these people. In addition, Voskamp’s popular blog lists a number of contemplative/emerging authors on her book list page: Richard Foster (Celebration of Discipline),  Adele Ahlberg Calhoun (Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, a primer on Eastern style meditation), and emerging church author Phyllis Tickle are included.
In reading One Thousand Gifts, we are reminded of author Sue Monk Kidd (The Secret Life of Bees), who started off as a conservative Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher, but when she began reading Thomas Merton and other mystical writers, her spiritual outlook changed dramatically. The progress of Monk Kidd’s spiritual change can be seen from one book to the next. Today, she is a self-proclaimed worshipper of the goddess Sophia and states in her book The Dance of the Dissident Daughter that God is in all things (panentheism) even graffiti and excrement. Monk Kidd says:
Deity means that divinity will no longer be only heavenly … It will also be right here, right now, in me, in the earth, in this river, in excrement and roses alike. (p. 160)
Ann Voskamp echoes Monk Kidd when she states that God is “present in all things,” even “sewage flowing downriver” (p. 110-111)
The last chapter of One Thousand Gifts, “The Joy of Intimacy,” Voskamp devotes to what she calls ”intimacy” with God. But brace yourself, you won’t find the way she talks about intimacy with God in the Bible. We share the following with you not to shock you for theatrical sake – its to show where the “new” Christianity is heading.  We think it important, in light of the many young women who are reading this book, to quote Voskamp’s view of “intimacy” with God whch she also calls the “mystery of that romance.” Voskamp says:
Mystical union. This, the highest degree of importance. God as Husband in sacred wedlock, bound together, body and soul, fed by His body, quenched by His blood . . . God, He has blessed – caressed. I could bless God – caress with thanks. It’s our making love. God makes love with grace upon grace, every moment a making of His love for us. . . . couldn’t I make love to God, making every moment love for Him? To know Him the way Adam knew Eve. Spirit skin to spirit skin. . . The intercourse of soul with God is the very climax of joy . . . To enter into Christ and Christ enter into us – to cohabit.  (pp. 213, 216-217).
We find Voskamps mixture of sexual and spiritual language when referring to a relationship with God offensive. The most “intimate” relationship anyone ever had with God on this earth was the one Jesus Christ had with His Father; but nowhere in the Bible does Jesus (or the disciples) use sexual language and innuendos to describe the relationship between God and man. And in fact, the Bible tells us that sexual union was given to man, in the confines of marriage between a man and wife, for procreation; the Bible also tells us that in our eternal heavenly home, there will be no marriage (the need for procreation will not exist). If we, as Christians, were supposed to think about our relationship with God in sexual terms, wouldn’t God have made that clear in His word?  It’s like the contemplative prayer movement that emphasizes repeating a word or phrase over and over to be intimate with God. But nowhere are we instructed to do this in Scripture. It’s as if the Holy Spirit who inspired men to write the books of the Bible left out vital elements that now contemplatives and emergents are enlightening us to. God forbid that we should think so. Books like One Thousand Gifts have added to what God has said in His Word.
Voskamp isn’t the only emerging-type author to use sexual language when talking about intimacy with God. We see an increase in books and speakers talking about” intimacy with God” (most of these writers are proponents of contemplative – that’s no coincidence – but rather signs that tantra spirituality (sexual experiences combined with mystical experiences)) is entering the church now. One of the most popular books today on marriage, Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas (promoted by Calvary ChapelFocus on the Family, and Rick Warren) is laced with quotes by or references to (about a dozen instances) Mary Anne McPherson Oliver’s book, Conjugal Spirituality, a primer on tantric sex; McPherson Oliver says that “mystical experiences can be associated with erotic love.” McPherson Oliver tells readers to use mantras and breath prayers during the sexual experience to help induce the tantric mystical experience. The fact that one of today’s most popular Christian books on marriage has so many references to this book is a telling sign of what has entered the evangelical/Protestant church. The popularity of One Thousand Gifts is another sure indication.
Today, the “new” progressive Christianity is more sensual than spiritual.  Appealing to the senses (making it sensual) and the carnal man rather than strengthening the spiritual man within. Scripture warns us though: “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Romans 8:6). One Thousand Gifts may be the poster book, so to speak, for the latest carnally-minded book, taking a place in line with The Shack.
For an in-depth review of One Thousand Gifts, please read Bob DeWaay’s review titled: “Romantic Panentheism, a Review of One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp”