Contemplative prayer
A falsehood making significant inroads into the Evangelical/Pentecostal churches is the teaching of the practice of contemplative prayer (also called “centering prayer”, “breath prayer” or “Christian meditation”).[1] It is a central component of “the spiritual disciplines” also known as “spiritual formation” or “spiritual exercises”. These practices were confined historically to Catholic monasteries but are now promoted in Catholic and Protestant churches, and Bible colleges and seminaries worldwide. Contrary to claims by its advocates of being ‘Christian’, it is in fact a mystic practice that produces an altered state of consciousness and opens a person up to demonic influence.
Typically in the practice of contemplative prayer, a verse of scripture, or single ‘Christian’ word, is repeated like a mantra for a period of time in order to ‘empty the mind’ and enter into a ‘stillness’. (Alternatively, the practitioner focuses upon their own rhythm of breathing.) Effectively the mind and therefore a person’s will is disengaged, like putting a car into neutral. In this state a person experiences the spiritual realm. In the ‘stillness’, its proponents claim, a person encounters ‘God’. However, they have rather opened themselves up to communication with demonic spirits. The spiritual voice they hear is not God or Jesus nor the Holy Spirit, though that spiritual entity might claim to be.
This form of prayer is entirely absent in the Bible – although its teachers will inappropriately use a verse of scripture to beguile their followers. It is not what Jesus taught when the disciples asked him to teach them to pray (see Luke 11:1-4). It is no different in its design to meditation in Hinduism, and has been used throughout the centuries in occultism, witchcraft and shamanism to contact the demonic realm:
“… Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism (teach) … since the universal divine Self dwells within the heart, the way to experience and recognize divinity is to turn one’s attention inward in a process of contemplative meditation.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhyana_in_Hinduism
“The science of witchcraft is based upon our ability to enter altered states of consciousness we call “alpha”… This is a state associated with relaxation, meditation and dreaming … In alpha the mind opens up to non ordinary forms of communication … Here we also experience out-of-body sensations and psychokinesis and receive mystical, visionary information”
Laurie Cabot, Power Of the Witch, Delta Books, 1989
Contemplative prayer is endorsed in the New Age movement and recognised for its association with Eastern religion:
“Those who have practiced Transcendental Meditation may be surprised to learn that Christianity has its own time-honored form of mantra meditation. The technique, called Centering Prayer, draws on the spiritual exercises of the Desert Fathers, the English devotional classic, The Cloud of Unknowing, and the famous Jesus Prayer …Reliance on a mantric centering device has a long history in the mystical canon of Christianity.”
Ronald S. Miller and Editors of New Age Journal. As Above So Below: Paths to Spiritual Renewal in Daily Life, 1992
‘Christians’ who practice it are not encountering God; they are meeting with the devil who masquerades as an “angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14). What they hear from him are lies and corruptions of the Word of God. The voice they hear speaks words of ‘wisdom’, ‘love’ and ‘peace’, but it carries with it a viper’s sting, which they are oblivious to. They inevitably embrace a universalist message (that God loves everyone and every person goes to heaven irrespective of their beliefs and deeds) and they deny the true gospel of Jesus Christ (that only through faith by trusting in Jesus Christ alone and the new birth will a person enter heaven; while everyone else remains an enemy of God and are under his wrath). People who call themselves ‘Christian’ and deliberately engage in contemplative prayer, fully aware of its unbiblical origins and objective, are false Christians. They worship at the feet of the devil. They feast at the table of demons.
(If you have already naively engaged in contemplative prayer, this information will no doubt be very disturbing to you. Your ignorance of its origins and intent, however, is no excuse any more than being caught speeding when you were unaware you were driving in a lower speed limit area. It is imperative that you break the authority you have permitted Satan by now purposefully and deliberately standing in a place of resistance to Satan and submission to God.
You must now immediately repent and verbally renounce your involvement in contemplative prayer:
– firstly, humbly admit to God that you are now remorseful that you have engaged in the practice and that you promise never to participate in it again; and
– secondly, verbally declare to any evil spirit(s) that have gained access to you because of this involvement to now be gone in the Name of Jesus Christ and to disassociate themselves from you from this very moment on and forevermore.)
Nowhere in the Bible are we taught to empty or still our mind. To the contrary, we are instructed
(1) to meditate on (i.e. think upon intelligently) the Word of God, day and night (Psalm 1)
(2) to think upon things which are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8)
(3) to take captive every thought and make it subject to Christ (2Corinthians 10:5)
Our will is never to be disengaged as in contemplative prayer but rather always submitted to God – these are two very different states.
The principal proponents of contemplative prayer teach that all human beings have a divine centre and that all, not just born again believers, should practice contemplative prayer. The purpose of contemplative prayer, therefore, is to find one’s true self, thus finding ‘god’. This true self relates to the belief that man is basically good. The premise of contemplative spirituality is pantheistic (god is all) and panentheistic (god is in all). Thomas Merton, perhaps the most influential proponent of contemplative prayer in modern times, writes:
“It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, … now I realize what we all are …. If only they [people] could all see themselves as they really are …I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other … At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusions, a point of pure truth … This little point …is the pure glory of God in us. It is in everybody.”
Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
See also Christian Meditation Spiritual Disciplines Spiritual Formation Thomas Merton
Here is a list of authors who promote the practice of contemplative prayer (the list is not exhaustive):
Historic
Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
Brother Lawrence (1611- 1691)
Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)
Eckhart, Meister (1260-1327)
Fox, George (1624-1691)
John of the Cross (1542-1591)
Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)
Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556)
Julian of Norwich (1342-1423)
Law, William (1686-1761)
Madam Guyon (1647-1717)
Rolle, Richard (c. 1300-1341)
Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
The Cloud of Unknowing (anonymous monk)
Present-day
Alhberg Calhoun, Adele
Babbs, Liz
Barton, Ruth Haley
Bell, Rob
Bentley, Todd
Bickle, Mike
Bjorklund, Kurt
Blanchard, Ken
Boa, Kenneth
Borg, Marcus
Boyd, Gregory
Benner, David
Burke, Spencer
Burns, Jim
Bruteau, Beatrice
Caliguire, Mindy
Campolo, Tony
Canfield, Jack
Card, Michael
Coe, John
Collins, Jill
Crabb, Larry
Crowder, David
de Mello, Anthony
Driscoll, Mark
Drury, Keith
Edwards, Tilden
Erre, Mike
Ford, Leighton
Foster, Richard
Fox, Matthew
Gire, Ken
Goleman, Daniel
Goll, James
Greig, Pete
Griffin, Emilie
Gru, Jean-Nicholas
Haley Barton, Ruth
Hirsch, Alan
Hybels, Bill
Johnson, Jan
Jones, Alan
Jones, Laurie Beth
Jones, Tony
Jones, Laurie Beth
Keating, Thomas
Keller, Timothy
Kelsey, Morton
Moreland, J.P.
Kimball, Dan
Lamott, Anne
Lucado, Max
MacDonald, Gordon
Manning, Brennan (1934-2013)
May, Gerald
McColman, Carl
McCracken, Brett
McLaren, Brian
McManus, Erwin
Merton, Thomas (1915-1968)
Miller, Calvin
Miller, Don
Moore, Beth
Mooreland, J.P.
Monk Kidd, Sue
Nouwen, Henri (1932-1996)
Ortberg, John
Pagitt, Doug
Peace, Richard
Pennington, Basil
Peterson, Eugene
Pope Benedict XVI
Rahner, Karl
Rhodes, Tricia
Robbins, Maggie and Duffy
Rohr, Richard
Rolle, Richard
Rhodes, Tricia
Sanford, Agnes (1897-1982)
Scazzero, Pete
Schuller, Robert (1926 – 2015)
Senge, Peter
Shannon, William
Shirer, Priscilla
Sittser, Gerald
Smith Jr., Chuck
Steindl-Rast, David
Strobel, Kyle
St. Romain, Philip
Sweet, Leonard
Talbot, John Michael
Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre (1881- 1955)
Tickle, Phyllis
Thomas, Gary
Thompson, Marjorie
Underhill, Evelyn (1875-1941)
Viola, Frank
Virkler, Mark
Warren, Rick
Webber, Robert
Wilber, Ken
Willard, Dallas (1935-2013)
Wilson-Hartgrove, Jonathan
Winner, Lauren
Wyatt Kent, Keri
Yaconelli, Mark
Yancey, Phillip
Young, William Paul