Contemplative Prayer And Meditation<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

By Ken Silva

In my work at Apprising Ministries you will have heard me talk much lately about the subject of a new spirituality within new evangelicalism. This neo-pagan Gnostic spirituality is most pointedly on display in the misguided mysticism of the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Emergent Church. I am fully aware that people involved in this highly schismatic movement prefer to be known as the Emerging Church, but no longer emerging this movement has now emerged fully from the shadows on the outskirts of the evangelical camp.

The most dangerous aspect of the new spirituality is this idea propounded by the EC of spiritual disciplines/practices which they insist must be performed in order to more fully "experience" God. Space does not allow a discussion of "the deeper life" that orthodox Christians such as A.W. Tozer would speak of. Here I am talking about the heretical practices of so-called "Christian" mystics borrowed from eastern religions and then passed off as consistent with the historic orthodox Christian faith.

In his book The Sacred Way (SW), theologian Tony Jones, the National Coordinator for Emergent-US, provides us with a list of what he refers to as "Contemplative Approaches to Spirituality." [1] These "spiritual disciplines" would be: "Silence and Solitude, Sacred Reading, The Jesus Prayer, Centering Prayer, Meditation, The Ignatian Examen, Icons, Spiritual Direction, and The Daily Office." [2]

While those who are following the blind guides in the EC will insist that these areas are not the same, the truth is that most of these "practices" are indeed aligned with what Richard Foster refers to as "The Inward Disciplines" in his classic book on the subject Celebration of Discipline (COD). [3] In fact with "Silence and Solitude," "The Jesus Prayer," and Centering/Contemplative Prayer," we are involved with what Foster himself calls "The Discipline of Meditation." [4]

Here is the most important point to understand with all the talk in the evangelical church today about contemplative prayer: The practice of meditation is virtually identical to that practiced in eastern religions such as Zen Buddhism and the transcendental meditation of Hinduism. This is readily apparent as Jones tells us:

As a Christian practice [meditation is] inextricably bound up with…silence, the Jesus Prayer, and Centering Prayer,… Further, it's linked with the recent popularity in the West of Eastern religions, resulting in books with such titles as Christian Zen and Christian Yoga. While this makes some Christians nervous, others revel in the fact that God is revealed in all truth, no matter the religion of origin. [5]

Jones has now introduced the book Christian Zen (CZ) by the late William Johnston, a Roman Catholic priest who wrote "numerous articles on Zen and Christianity, [and] on mysticism East and West." [6] As Johnston enlightens us:

Turning to Christian mystics,…[h]ere are men and women whose meditation (or contemplation) is more akin to that of the Zen Masters… [Thomas] Merton, too, belongs to the same tradition, and that is why he has such sympathy for Zen. [7]

Foster, who considers Merton one of his mentors, then tells us what happens in this meditation "is that we create the emotional and spiritual space which allows Christ to construct a sanctuary in the heart." And Foster is so right when he writes that meditation "opens the door." [8] It is what inevitably comes through that open door which is the concern of this work. As we progress with this you will come to understand the spiritually dangerous truth of what Foster tells us about the eventual effect produced through meditation "of this kind [which] transforms the inner personality."

In COD Foster does make the attempt to distance his brand of "Christian" meditation from Zen and Hinduism when he says:

there are those who assume it is synonymous with the concept of meditation centered in Eastern religions. In reality, the two ideas stand worlds apart. Eastern meditation is an attempt to empty the mind; Christian meditation is an attempt to fill the mind." [9]

The problem is this just isn't true as you have seen from Johnston in CZ and from what Tony Jones himself admits in SW. As a matter of fact on page 73 of SW Jones mentions that M. Basil Pennington is "one of the Trappist monks who has developed the modern practice of Centering Prayer." Among the "resources" that Jones recommends is Pennington's book Centering Prayer: Renewing An Ancient Christian Prayer Form (CP). You will also find it interesting to note that in COD Foster recommends another book called The Living Testament: The Essential Writings of Christianity Since the Bible, which just happens to be edited by Pennington and Alan Jones–another name that should be familiar to those following this work.

It is quite revealing in CP as Pennington tells us that in "recent years" there has been "a significant number" of people who have been "turning to the East" in search of wisdom." [10] In Pennington's view this is a return to the ways of early Christian mystics who also headed "toward the East in search of wisdom." While discussing the meaning of the words meditation and contemplation it becomes obvious that what Pennington writes about in CP is the same type of meditation as that practiced by what he refers to as "our brothers and sisters in the Hindu tradition." [11]

Next time we will explore a little further into exactly how to practice this form of so-called Christian meditation and you will see from non-Christian sources that the practice of Centering/Contemplative Prayer is nothing more than transcendental meditation lightly sprayed with Christian terminology.    

[2] Ibid.

[3] Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, (HarperCollins, 1998), p. 12.

[4] Ibid., p.15.

[5] Jones, op. cit., pp. 79, 80, emphasis mine.

[6] William Johnson, Christian Zen (Harper & Row, 1971), back cover.

[7] Ibid., p. 25, emphasis mine.

[8] Foster, op. cit., p. 20.

[9] Ibid.

[10] M. Basil Pennington, Centering Prayer: Renewing An Ancient Christian Prayer Form, (Doubleday, 2001), p. 15.

[11] Ibid., p.20, emphasis mine.