Paula

Charis,

You have decided that I must consider you as my enemy, and that I have called you personally a heretic. Not so. I believe you have been deceived, but that doesn’t make you a heretic. The heretics are the ones who promote false teachings.

The terms “contemplative prayer”, “spiritual formation”, etc. are new terms (or borrowed from known mystics), terms which are being promoted as mystical and something that had been “lost”. Like it or not, that’s what those terms mean. Calling ordinary “thinking” prayer by those terms is not only unnecessary but confusing. Your personal definition is just like what I was saying would be the case if I called myself a Scientologist but didn’t have anything in common with them (which I don’t).

Yes, people recite prayers without meaning. But that hardly justifies using a term to describe “real” prayer that is identical to one that is being promoted as mystical and mind-emptying. “Contemplative Prayer” and “Spiritual Formation” are the titles the mystics give to what they do.

You’ve been warned about the books, and there’s nothing more I can say that will convince you of their danger.

When you say “Are you all sufficiently alienated, suspicious, and fearful of anything and everything I say?”, you’re saying we are afraid of the unknown. That’s not true at all; we know what we’re talking about, and it is against the Bible.

I could say that same thing in other venues. In most egal boards and blogs, I’m the black sheep, because I reject this mysticism wrapped up in Christianese. I’ve taken quite a lot of heat for this. Yet I’ve never accused them of fear, or called anyone but the teachers heretics. I tell them they are deceived, and I post warnings. Then I leave, because they become very hostile and unwilling to listen.

I’m not telling you to leave, and I do not consider you my enemy. But please don’t accuse me of being fearful or ignorant about these terms you use. Do read that Velvet Elvis article, it’s a real eye-opener.

What people act like in other religions or sects is irrelevant to what the truth is in the Bible. Truth is the standard, not how people act. All I’m doing is telling the truth, and exposing false teachings. If you consider me your enemy for this, I hope that someday you’ll see that I warned you because I cared, not because I’m afraid or ignorant or un-Christlike. Jesus strongly opposed false teachers, and I’m only following his example.