- I called the leader of the
women's ministries I knew from about 10 years ago and she was
let go after 9/11. She was aware of some of the influences of
the women in leadership as relating to Catholic traditions.
She is not very involved now and had been busy with family
over the past few years. She encouraged me to go to leadership
because I may be on to something especially if the spiritual
formation was in any way leading to having another direct you
in prayer in some way. I affirmed that the books did just that
and that there were more in the bookstore promoting the same.
She said that Mindy Caliguire, the spiritual guide, had been
an intern with her husband and that they started a church in
Boston and had returned. The associate pastor, John Ortberg,
had gotten together with Ruth Barton about 5 years ago and
started a focus on "spiritual formation" with a book
they co-authored.
I got a call from the women's ministries volunteer about
becoming a mentor at Willow. I told her I hadn't had an
interview yet and I wasn't even a member. I only attended
recently in the past few weeks. She said as long as I attended
the class that was good enough since they were understaffed.
Then I let her know that I was concerned about some of the
references to Catholic, Quakers, and the Jesuits in class. She
told me she was just reading a book on "Quakers."
And then she added, "We must avail ourselves to the
classics!" I was concerned that the church was not
Protestant anymore so I asked about these influences from
other religions. She said Sibyl Towner had been a volunteer
for 8-9 years and has recently headed up mentoring in the past
year and a half. She has inspired the liturgical influences
like "lectio divina." I told her I didn't agree with
these meditations and the "breath prayers" as
described by Sibyl. I warned her that this form of meditation
could open people up to the wrong spirit and hearing voices.
She replied, in defense, that in the Old Testament God spoke
to people. I told her God doesn't speak to us today as he did
in the Old Testament and that she may be opening herself up to
other spirits and they are not of God. I shared the Scripture
Matthew 6:6-9 with her about how to pray.
-
Hungry Souls website (http://teamsundays.gospelcom.net/hungrysouls/mentortraining.html)
- This Hungry Souls website, in
which Sibyl Towner is planning to train mentors, details
experiences by Karen Mains as she anxiously awaits to hear her
"voices." They're geared up for growth complete with
"telementoring calls," and "pilgrimages back to
the sacred Spanish mystic sites."
Sibyl Towner called me after speaking with the volunteer and
reading my comments on the Mother Theresa video. We covered
all of the information I shared with Pam and I asked her why
not choose a great woman of faith like Elizabeth Eliot who is
not compromising like Mother Theresa. I discussed my problem
with the meditating and breath prayers with her also. I also
shared my concern for her misleading innocent women with her
teaching which may open them up to evil spirits since this
type of prayer is how the occult prays and it's not found in
Scripture. She tried to have me see how Psalm 1:2 taught this
method. Although it describes one who meditates on the
Scriptures day and night I see no indication of choosing one
or two words to repeat over and over for hours or even half a
day as they are beginning to teach in these classes.
We need to read all of God's word so we can have more
resources to guide us in our daily decisions. When we pray to
God He already knows all about what is on our mind but he
wants us to relate with us and when we read the Bible we learn
what He is like and what He wants for us to do. Habitual,
formula prayers dominate in pagan religions. They appeal to
human nature and its "felt needs." Who wouldn't want
to recite a prayer or mantra that promises easy access to
higher powers that will fulfill your dreams and satisfy your
wants? Our finite dreams and wishes fall far short of God's
wonderful plan for us.
Promoted writers and leaders of
this movement at the WCCC
1. Richard J. Foster www.cephasministry.com/new_age_richard_foster.html
Renovare & Christian Mystic Quaker and Fuller psychologist,
Foster teaches all the techniques of the New Age such as quietism,
mantras, centering, Buddhism, Yoga, T. M., exercises of Ignatius
Loyola, Eastern religion and so on….
2. Tilden Edwards www.shalem.org
author: Spiritual Friend, Paulist Press, 1980 Episcopal priest;
founder and director of Shalem Institute For Spiritual Formation.
His vision is that contemplative spirituality can have a powerful
effect on today's national life.
3. Parker Palmer believes that a life illuminated by spirit and infused with
soul will transform education. His on-line [no longer available] transcript follows the
Dalai Lama. He is a Quaker.
4. Ignatius Loyola and the Jesuits Ignatius was the first general of the Jesuit army. They
infiltrated churches to destroy all that were not related to the
mother church. One of the bloodiest times in the history of
mankind, the Jesuits were probably the most cruel and fierce as
they justified torture and murder for the church. Loyola's
spiritual exercises were used by the Jesuits and they would put
themselves into a trance and levitate.
5. George Fox founder of Quakerism
Mothers of Feminism; The Story of Quaker Women in America by
Margaret Hope Bacon, Harper & Row Publishers, 1986; The
Quakers by Hugh Barbour and J. William Frost, Greenwood Press,
1988, Westport, CT. In deep depression and hopelessness Fox hears
a voice and promotes it as the "Light within." Perhaps
out of his devotion to his over-indulging and well-learned mother,
he pushes a strong egalitarian movement and sets up women
preachers as he twists Scripture to make sense of his
"experiences" and explain his unscriptural choices.
6. Gilbert Bilezikian and
Egalitarians www.wayoflife.org/fbns/fbns/fbns464.html
Bilezikian is the founding elder and influential theologian at
WCCC. Egalitarians assert that women should be pastors,
elders, and co-heads of families. They twist Scripture just like
George Fox did to make this possible.
7. John Ortberg & Ruth Barton
Egalitarian and New Age influences. Together they opened up "spiritual formation" at WCCC
with the introduction of their new book and curriculum An Ordinary
Day With Jesus.
Richard Foster
Al Dager writes: "A large part
of Renovare's spiritual disciplines involve meditation on the
writings of selected spiritual masters associated with the
"Christian" contemplative tradition. Most, of course,
are Roman Catholic, particularly those mystics from the fourth
through the fifteenth century..
Like other occultists, Foster
encourages his followers "astral projection," the
ascension to heavenly places and into the "Presence."
Foster takes his followers on spiritual journeys up beyond the
heavenly places and into the "Presence of God", face to
face with the Creator of the universe through the use of Eastern
meditative techniques. His book, Celebration of Discipline,
instruction is offered using guided imagery in occult practices of
visualization, meditation and even astral travel.
Media Spotlight gives a long list
of those supporting Foster's Renovare including: Renovare's
Steering Committee *Sister Thomas Bernard, Director. The
Spirituality Centre, Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. *Isaac
Canales, Ass. Dir. Hispanic Ministries, FTS* *T. Eugene Coffin
Counselllor, Memorial Gardens, Crystal Cathedral. *Richard Felix,
President, AZUSA Pacific University. David Allen Hubbard,
President of Fuller Theological Seminary…*Robert A. Seiple,
Pres. World Vision, Inc. Renovare's Board of Reference Ted W.
Engstrom, Tony Compolo, Richard Felix, Roger Forster, William C.
Frey, Millare Fuller, Henry Gariepy, Michael Harper, Roberts
Hestenes, Jerry R. Kirk, Clarence A Kopp, Sr., David LeShana,
Peter Lord, Carl H. Lunquist, David and Karen Mains, Martin Marty,
Renovare's speaking platform are: (Many are from Fuller Theo.
Seminary). Eugene Coffin, Crystal Cathedral, Bob Seiple, World
Vision, Inc…..
Foster reciprocated John Wimber's
endorsement by commending Wimber's honesty in the forward to
"Power Healing." He affirmed Wimber's apostolic role and
claimed that "John speaks with confidence as one who is
living out of the divine center." That "divine
Center" is an Eastern mysticism term, meaning "God is a
universal consciousness, residing within everyone, guiding them on
the path to evolutionary perfection."
Renovare is merely one of the many
avenues for incorporating this mysticism and ecumenical teaching
into society, and specifically, Christianity. Foster and Vasivig
have held many conferences and in 1991 had their second
"National Conference on Personal Spiritual Renewal of
Christian Leaders": "with more than one thousand pastors
and leaders in attendance, the directors praised
occultist/psychiatrist Carl Jung as a great psychiatrist
emphasized personal renewal through 'meditative prayer' involving
'centering down' to become quiet and passive, then used guided
imagery and visualization of Christ" "Foster called for
unity in the body of Christ through the five streams of
Christianity, the contemplative, the holiness, the charismatic,
social justice and evangelical. Vasivig recalled that his first
experience of "meditative prayer using visualization was
taught to him personally by Episcopalian mystic Agnes Sanford.
Roman Catholic mystics,
particularly of the fourth to the fifteenth century are associated
with these same teachings. Besides Jacob Boehme and George Fox,
some like-minded mystics include Thomas Merton, Ingatius Loyola,
Henry Suso, Dorothy of Montau, Julian of Norwich and so on.
Tilden Edwards
"Together I think both the
Catholics and Protestants vaguely have sensed that we share a time
of grouping together toward and emerging, reconstellated
understanding of direction in which none of us is yet thoroughly
confident. Thus, in regard to readings, as in all other dimensions
of the program, there is a common sense of humble searching and
equality.
Five levels of reading are involved in the first year.."p.
223; criteria for selection of individual: 4. Have a B.A. degree
or equivalent, 5. Express commitment to Truth through a particular
major religious tradition and at the same time are open to
learning from other traditions. p. 208; Roughly 50 people applied
for the first program in September, 1978. Our main disappointment
was in having no black applicants. ..we chose a group of almost
equal numbers of men and women and of Roman Catholics and
Protestants, and a good mix of parish clergy, religious community
members, chaplains, seminary faculty, advanced students, formation
directors, and laity working in various church and community
situations. ..they really need apprenticeship to a master..but in
this relatively "masterless" time, ,this is not likely
to happen. They do need to be with someone who is their director,
who can help them attend to the Master of Loving Truth within.
There is that dimension of charisma involved that can only be
attended as an unfolding process. A program can provide launching,
sensitising, and securing platforms, but oh, how puny these look
beside the spirit's movement in a person when the time has come. A
program at its best stands as midwife, attending the birth of
deeper spiritual sight through cleansing, aligning, resting.
This faithfully appropriated
integrative sight is what "makes" a good spiritual
director. It is not the accumulation of knowledge. It is the
nakedness of sight. The program can be taken for graduate academic
credit...some are taking it as part of academic doctoral programs
in Christian Spirituality at Catholic University..and some as part
of master of divinity programs. (pp. 210-212, Tilden Edwards,
Spiritual Friend, Paulist Press, 1980,).
Parker Palmer
"As we go into these five days
together, let us remember one thing about the soul. It is like a
wild animal: tough, self-sufficient, resilient, but also
exceedingly shy… if we are willing to go into the woods and sit
quietly at the base of a tree, that wild animal will, after a few
hours, reveal itself to you. And out of the corner of your eye,
you will glimpse something of the wild preciousness that this
conference is looking for.
I ask for guidance for myself and,
as Quakers say, hold the entire conference in the light, to be
here, to be present to each other in the right spirit, speaking
our truth gently and simply…ground in our own experience and
expanded by experiences that are not yet ours. Compassionate
toward that which we do not yet understand, not only as a kindness
to others but for the sake of our growth and our students and the
transformation of education. Amen."
Ignatius Loyola and the Jesuits
Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) spent
time reading about pious Roman saints and the life of Christ while
recuperating from a broken leg. Feeling too inadequate, he
confessed his sins for three days at a shrine of the Virgin Mary.
As his conscience troubled him deeply he chose to earn his
salvation by obedient service to the Roman church and the pope
rather than accept Christ's free offer of salvation. He soon
planned to bring Catholic turned Protestants back to the Roman
Church which he thought was the Kingdom of God on earth.
The Counter-Reformation brought new
life to the inquisition. The Inquisition virtually destroyed
Protestantism in Spain and halted its growth. The Inquisition
became one of Europe's bloodiest times and one of the bloodiest
times in the history of mankind. Loyola was responsible for
torturing and killing Protestants. He started up the Jesuits. He
was the first general of the Jesuit army. The Jesuits, an order of
priests, were probably most the most cruel and fierce of all the
Catholic organizations in their tactics. They believed that
"to kill or torture is justifiable, if it is done for the
cause of the church. He used to put himself into a trance and
levitate like many other Roman Catholic Jesuit priests. Around
1550 the Jesuits began infiltrating every religion and
denomination. Their job was to infiltrate and destroy churches
other than the mother church. Before long, Jesuits had become
teachers and professors in universities throughout Europe.
Eventually they started their own schools, colleges, and
universities. They saw education as a way to serve the church by
strengthening people who were already members and reclaiming those
who had become Protestants.
The Roman Church remained convinced
that it was the Kingdom of God on earth, and it saw the Protestant
Reformation as a threat to that Kingdom. The church determined to
regain what it had lost and to put the whole world under its
religious domination once and for all. A Christian is condemned by
the Roman Catholic Church. Over 100 anathemas against Christians
have been pronounced by the Roman Catholic Councils of Trent and
Vatican II. These condemnations are still in effect today. A
Catholic is condemned by the Word of God. There is a judged for
the one who rejects Me and does not accept my words; that very
word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day (John 12:48).
If we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than
the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!
(Galatians 1:9)
They still infiltrate churches
today. They also infiltrate many Bible schools and Seminaries
around the world and keep them from teaching the fullness of the
word of God. Education was and is used to reach others and
strengthen their own and their hallmark is "the end justifies
the means." (History of the World by A Beka Book, 1995,
Pensacola Christian Collage, p. 221, Church History and the Things
to Come by A Beka Book, 1993, Pensacola Christian Collage, p.50)
George Fox
The Quakers sought equality for
women from their beginnings and had women teachers and circuit
preachers known to abandon their large families at the start. In
some of their earlier travels they appeared to enjoy arguing with
young theologians and even went to such extremes as walking
through the streets naked to oppose hypocrisy. Their acts were
considered to be under the direct leading of the Holy Spirit. Some
of their experiences were described as response to falling deeply
in love and they would follow whatever the Spirit wanted. The
nickname "Quaker" came from the shaking aroused by inner
struggles of individuals facing their inner motives "under
the Light" in the Quaker meetings. They believe they have
revived true Christianity and all other religions are false.
In 1654 pairs of north-country
farmers or women who had received calling from the Quaker Light,
set out to reach all parts of England. Huge crowds gathered at a
rented hall in a tavern in London and at an orchard in Bristol:
John Audland, who very much
trembled…stood up, full of dread and shinning brightness on his
countenance, lifted up his voice as a trumpet, and said "I
proclaim spiritual war with the inhabitants of the earth, who are
in separation from God."…some fell on the ground, others
crying out under the sense of the opening of their (spiritual)
states…Oh, the tears, sighs and groans, tremblings and mournings…in
the sense of our spiritual wants and necessities…We are forced
to meet without doors, and that in frost and snow, when several
thousands have been assembled together.
Margaret Fell, wife of George Fox,
instructed to "let the Eternal Light search you…for this
…will rise up and lay you open…naked and bare before the Lord.
…Keep down your Minds that questions and stumbles at the power
of God.
Puritan Francis Higginson writes during the summer of 1652: Groups
met in homes or on crags sometimes a hundred or two hundred in a
swarm…..and continue all night long. They have no singing of
psalms, no reading or exposition of Holy Scripture, no
administration of sacraments….Their speaker for the most part
uses the posture of standing, or sitting with his hat on, his
countenance severe, his face downward, his eyes fixed mostly
towards the earth, his hands and fingers expanded, continually
striking gently on his breast, …his voice low, his sentences
incoherent…Some stand in the market place…and cry
"Repent, repent, woe, woe, the judge of the world has
come." They exhort people to mind the Light within, to
hearken to the voice and follow the guide within them, to dwell
within…The priests of the world (they say) do deceive them,
….they speak of living under the cross, and against pride in
apparel and covetousness. (The Quakers by Hugh Barbour and J.
William Frost, Greenwood Press, 1988, Westport, CT.)
George Fox was the founder of
Quakerism. He was indulged by his mother who was considered to be
"more learned" than most women. George was described as
an inward and serious child and was kept away from playing with
the other children since he was different and quite withdrawn. His
mother had encouraged him to spend many hours of solitary
meditating and Bible reading. After the death of his mother he
wrote that his spirit was in travail. As an adolescent he writes
in his journal that he continued in his "religious
struggles." After seeking on a pilgrimage for anyone who
could answer his spiritual yearnings he had a religious experience
where he actually heard a voice say: "There is one, even
Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition."
From then out the Quakers believed
that Jesus Christ was the light within that everyone had the
potential to experience. The "light" was always given a
capital "L." He believed that "there was that of
God" in all men, in the American Indian, the African Black,
and in all men. We are all a "holy community" where no
one has dominance over another and where there is no reason for
war. For a long time Fox had been promoting equality of men and
women. In 1648 he stood up and opposed a meeting of Presbyterians,
Independents, Baptists, and Anglicans when a woman was silenced
and not allowed to speak in the church. Fox said that because the
church is a spiritual household in which Christ is the head that
women may be allowed to prophecy and speak. In 1656 He wrote a
tract called The Women Learning in Silence: or the Mysterie of the
woman's Subjection to her husband, as also, the Daughter
prophesying, wherein the Lord hath, and is fulfilling that he
spake by the Prophet Joel, I will pour out my Spirit unto all
Flesh. Fox explained that he thought that people respond "to
a certain measure" of their attained "Light" of the
teaching of Christ in their heart. He taught that 1 and 2 Timothy,
where Paul writes that women are to keep silent in churches, is
only "Paul's attained level of knowledge on the
subject."
All Scripture is God-breathed and
is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in
righteousness. 2 Timothy 3:16
Every Word of God is flawless; He is a shield to those who take
refuge in Him. Do not add to His words, or He will rebuke you and
prove you a liar. Proverbs 30:5-6
In his second tract he believed
Paul was merely speaking to a particular group of unsaved women
who had not been raised to that "certain level of
understanding" so he did not actually condemn the preaching
of all women. He continued to write and defend women and stated
that the Holy Spirit is available to everyone and no one had the
right to stop it. As his followers turned to him for advice and
counsel, Fox was compelled to bring others to the liberating
experience he knew and to also confound false teachings. He
likened the experience of the Holy Spirit as to that of mother
nurturing her baby at her breast. In 1652, in Lancashire, Fox
converted a large group of seekers. This was the beginning of the
Society of Friends once called the Children of the Light.
In 1669 when he married a convert
he was determined to exemplify marriage as a union of equals.
Their marriage was considered a spiritual partnership and neither
hindered the other's leading of the Spirit. After his death his
wife, Margaret Fell, traveled and counseled until her death.
Puritan values were challenged as
the Quakers pushed gender equality and disorder to the Puritan's
reverence for order and the Scriptural role of the man as the sole
authority of his household. William Penn, who believed that
religious liberty must be available to everyone, helped the
Quakers secure their own colony while remaining ambivalent to
their roles of women. (Mothers of Feminism; The Story of Quaker
Women in America by Margaret Hope Bacon, Harper & Row
Publishers, 1986).
- Gilbert Bilezikian
See www.wayoflife.org/fbns/fbns/fbns464.html
-
- Selections from the article
"Femme Fatale: The Seduction of the Evangelical
Church," World Magazine, March 29, 1997: The move (to
inclusive language Bibles) fits with the trend toward
egalitarianism-the denial of any distinctions between men and
women-in the church and home. Egalitarians assert that women
should be pastors, elders, and co-heads of families. Gilbert
Bilezikian, professor emeritus at Wheaton College and author
of Beyond Sex Roles, puts it bluntly: "There cannot be
authentic community as described in the New Testament without
the full inclusion of the constituency of members into the
ministry life and leadership of the group." After reading
the book Mothers of Feminism; The Story of Quaker Women in
America I could see obvious parallels with Belezikian's book
Beyond Sex Roles. He's been promoting the Quaker's feminism
all along.
Mr. Bilezikian is a founding elder and influential theologian
at Bill Hybel's Willow Creek Community Church in South
Barrington, Ill. Willow Creek's rapid growth and it's
influence on other evangelical churches through the
2,200-member Willow Creek Association makes it position on the
issue important. Willow Creek has had women elders since its
founding in 1978. But in the past year the church has made
explicit among its leaders the reasons for its position-and
demanded a level of agreement from staff and prospective
church members.
-
- John Ortberg & Ruth
Barton
John Ortberg had gotten together with Ruth Barton about 5
years ago and started a focus on "spiritual
formation." She's a graduate of Wheaton College, recently
served as president of the Chicago chapter of Christians for
Biblical Equality. She is currently working on a degree at
Northern Baptist Theological Seminary and ministering in the
area of spiritual formation at Willow Creek. Ruth is a trained
spiritual director and speaks often to conferences and groups.
NAPCE, North American Professors of Christian Education,
annual conference 2001; this conference explored the journey
to spiritual maturity in four communities; African, Asian,
Hispanic and the Willow Creek Community Church experiences.
"Ruth Barton 'champions' the rapidly emerging spiritual
formation emphasis at Willow Creek." At the National
Pastors Convention February 26-March 1, 2003 meetings were
planned one-on-one with spiritual directors to explore your
presence and call in your life. You get to embark on an
hour-long journey through the prayer experience of Labyrinth.
A personal guided meditation tour to help you
"deeply" relate with God…Ruth was scheduled to
teach seminars on spiritual transformation. General session
speakers included John Ortberg and Rob Bell(well known at WCCC).
John Ortberg and his wife, Nancy, both teach at Willow. John
claims to be "passionate about spiritual formation"
as his write up states on the website along with his wife they
are selling teaching videos there. www.napce.org/archives/confer01/confer01.html
Teaching videos are sold by the Ortbergs on spiritual
formation. Note Nancy's New Age term "centering" and
John's terminology "Rule for Life" which was written
by St. Benedict in the early years of monasticism and is still
used in monasteries and convents; also used in the
discipleship of a New Age by Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul.
"The rule" can be roughly translated into modern
English as follows: "The one upon the Way leaps forward,
leaving the world of fluid life. He makes the great transition
and leaves the watery way behind. He walks upon the water and
is not submerged therein. A chela with a light leads him by
the hand from light into a greater Light. (John's current book
is titled, You Can't Walk On Water Until You Get Out Of the
Boat)
Mr. Ortberg's teaching became the basis for a draft position
paper dated January 1996. The paper, which was distributed
only to Willow Creek's ministry leaders, says the church
"has sought to ensure an appropriate level of consensus
on this issue with new staff members" to avoid an
environment that "would be destructive to authentic
community and effective ministry." The statement makes
clear the church's belief that "when the Bible is
interpreted comprehensively, it teaches the full equality of
men and women in status, giftedness, and opportunity for
ministry," despite "a few scriptural texts that
appear to restrict the full ministry freedom of women."
Willow Creek has had women elders
since its founding in 1978 (compromise #1). In 1995 John Ortand
and Ruth Barton were allowed to begin "spiritual
formation" at Willow Creek Community Church (compromise #2).
In 1996 John Ortberg taught a two hour class to church ministry
leaders to seek "an appropriate level of consensus on the
issue of the church's belief that "when the Bible is
interpreted comprehensively, it teaches the full equality of men
and women in status, giftedness, and opportunity for
ministry," despite "a few scriptural texts that appear
to restrict the full ministry freedom of women."
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