Now in part one, what we dealt with was the exercises of Loyola.
And we saw how the spiritual exercises of Loyola are being applied in the world
today in many forms and many guises, and that they are a counterfeit to faith.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Faith is something that you grasp because it says so.
The Word says so, therefore it is.
Faith is total trust.
The spiritual exercises are hands-on.
You experience, you have a feeling, you have a meeting with whatever it is you
are imagining until it becomes real.
So it is the counterfeit to faith.
Now, unfortunately, this has crept into every aspect of Christianity.
And it is a very delicate subject because everything we're going to speak of is in
vogue today.
And because it is in vogue doesn't necessarily mean that it is from God.
The Reformation rejected the spiritual exercises as a means of finding your
relationship with God, and Luther taught that the just shall walk by faith.
You walk by faith.
Now, how are they putting spiritual exercises into practice?
Ignatius Loyola said the first thing you have to do is imagine the place.
You must visualize it, and it must become a reality, and then you must actually get
to the point where you communicate on a one-to-one basis, and there are various
rituals that you go through until you finally have this spiritual experience.
Now, the first megachurches to put it into practice were some of the very big
evangelization churches that beamed it up throughout the world on their television
networks.
Robert Schuller.
Here is Paul Yonggi Cho, head of the world's largest church in South Korea,
and he wrote a book, The Fourth Dimension, and Robert Schuller said the following in
regard to visualization in the foreword to this book.
He said, I discovered the reality of that dynamic dimension in prayer, fourth
dimension, in prayer that comes through visualizing.
Don't try to understand it, just start to enjoy it.
It's true, it works, I tried it.
Now, visualization is the first method, if you like, of the spiritual exercises of
layala, and it is a form of hypnosis.
Psychologist Michael Yapko explains many times therapists aren't even aware that
they're doing hypnosis.
They're doing what they call guided imagery, which is visualization,
or guided meditation, which are all very mainstream hypnotic techniques.
If you need hypnosis to capture your loved one, then you're in big, big trouble.
If you can't do it with being yourself, then forget it.
Here we have the Inner Experience Explored, Mystical Experience Registry,
Carl Jung.
Now, we'll tie psychology, we'll tie spiritual meditation and visualization
together with all of these techniques in order to experience a phenomenon.
Now, Carl Jung had mystical experiences himself.
The Swiss psychologist and major contributor to psychotherapy, Carl Jung,
cultivated the ability to have visions from deep imagination.
Some would label these explorations as mystical experience, while others would
say they are more akin to the sort of creating thinking artists did.
So there's a fine line here.
In addition to these experiences, Jung had several spontaneous visions when
he was recovering from a heart attack when he was about 69 years old.
All of his visions are described in detail in his book, Memories, Dreams,
and Reflections.
And I want you to see how this happened and where he went.
I'm going to read one of them.
This comes from the Mystical Experience Registry, Jung's recorded active
imagination experience.
Jung uses a visual technique that he has found helps him go deeper into active
imagination.
This technique is realistic visualization as descended a great distance.
In this experience he figures that he has descended about a thousand feet.
So you go down, down, down, down.
There he discovers a cosmic abyss.
Next he sees something like a moon crater and then he has the feeling that he's in
the hand of the dead.
Near the steep slope of a rock he catches sight of two people, one an old man and
the other a beautiful young girl.
I want you to notice what he's what he's seeing and as he's visualizing this.
He summons up his courage and approaches them.
He listens carefully to what they say.
The old man turns out to be the biblical figure Elijah and the girl Salome.
Now there's an odd couple.
That's an extremely odd couple.
Elijah, who was translated without seeing death.
Elijah, the type of the anti-typical end-time Elijah.
Salome, a totally different type.
She was the daughter of Herodias.
She's the one who danced before the king.
She's the one who asked for the head of John the Baptist.
That's an interesting typology.
We'll deal with that in the next lecture.
So here is this odd couple.
One for good and one for evil.
And what does he imagine?
What a strange couple he muses.
But Elijah tells Jung that he and Salome belong together for all eternity.
What do we have here?
We have yin-yang.
We have the fusion, the cosmic fusion, pantheistic fusion of good and evil.
And they belong together for all eternity.
Along with the two is a third, a large black snake.
Jung sticks close to Elijah and keeps his distance from Salome.
I would do that too, by the way.
You could lose your head in the process.
You never know.
Over time, Jung holds conversation with Elijah, who eventually changes into
another figure, Philemon.
Philemon teaches Jung about the nature of human consciousness.
Jung begins to see how autonomous inner figures can act.
It is the inner figure that seems to hold this knowledge, not Jung.
Again, Jung's inner figure changes.
This time it alters to take on the form of the Egyptian notion of the spirit car.
Vintage edition of memories, dreams, reflections.
There is the quotation.
So here you have the full catastrophe.
Good, evil, inner voices, and the soul spirit, which is the car, which is part of
the human makeup.
Now let's go to St. Louis University.
Ignatian passion, the challenge of the cross in the 21st century.
Now we're talking Jesuits, straight up.
Ignatian passion.
Carl Jung and the spiritual exercises of Ignatius Loyola.
Presenter Anthony Timor, PhD, special assistant to the president, Georgetown
University, Jesuit University.
Fascinating.
What do a 20th century Swiss psychoanalyst and a 16th century Spanish mystic have to
say to each other?
Talking about Ignatius Loyola and Jungian psychology.
This workshop is based on the premise that Carl Jung offers a uniquely compatible
psychological framework for understanding the dynamics of the spiritual exercises of
Ignatius Loyola.
Here we have a marriage of convenience.
It will begin with an overview of the structure of the psych according to Jung.
The Jungian framework will then be applied to the spiritual exercises.
Some of the themes covered will be the archetypical imaginary in Ignatius's
account of his conversion experience at Loyola, discernment of spirits,
movement of the self towards wholeness, the principle and foundation of the
desires of the authentic self, connecting to unconscious psychic energy
and hearing the call of the king, the practice of Jungian active imagination
and Ignatian contemplation.
This is a cult to its very core, but this forms the basis of modern
spirituality.
Gone is the walk where you walk by faith and you trust the Lord because he said so.
Gone is the faith where you have a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Now you have to experience it in a tangible, touchable feeling.
So it's no longer faith, it's no longer substance of things hoped for and evidence
of things not seen because it becomes a reality.
Let's see how the same contemplation works outside of the church.
According to Marianne, A Course in Miracles is a self-study program,
this is the Oprah Winfrey website, of spiritual psychotherapy contained in
three books.
It is not a religion but rather a psychological mind training based on
universal spiritual themes.
So here you have the same type of approach completely outside of the spiritual realm
and we're moving into a totally different realm here and it's being offered in a
secular capacity.
So let's have a look at how they do this.
Here is a discussion, the power of meditation with Oprah and Sheryl
Richardson, Oprah and life coach.
Please note the terminology.
The terminology is even the same.
Coach, Sheryl Richardson, talk about the importance of meditation, explain how you
can get started centering upon yourself.
Here we go, Sheryl.
So don't worry if nothing miraculous happens in the next five minutes,
as long as you spend five minutes of quiet time with yourself just turning your
vision inward, which is what closing your eyes allows you to do, you've succeeded.
You've accomplished something very, very important.
As a matter of fact, probably one of the most important things in your life.
So I'm going to just do a five minute meditation, guided visualization.
You're getting the connecting, getting the dots together here?
You might want to put things down on the floor around you, get comfortable,
sit in a way that feels comfortable to you.
That's the basis of the first step towards hypnosis.
Oprah, so just start there and you will be surprised by the discipline that comes
from doing it on a regular basis, how your life begins to unfold for you
differently.
I call it centering upon myself.
Fascinating stuff.
Alright, so we find it in the secular world, the mega media, and millions of
people are drinking it in, in the spiritual and the non-spiritual world.
Let's go to another world.
Let's go to the sports world.
Here is the official webpage of the Olympics that have just taken place.
The Beijing 2008 Olympics.
One world, one dream.
Isn't that interesting?
There's so much to read between the lines.
One world, one dream.
This is the mega movement to the one world mindset.
Well, let's have a look.
Black Pope Hans Kollenbach, the Jesuits general, what do they have to say in this
quote?
The Jesuits in sport.
They're the ones in government.
They're the ones behind professional sports.
The owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2000 is the Knight of Malta.
The owner of the Detroit Lions in 2000 is the Knight of Malta.
All the top owners of these ball clubs for the most part are Knights of Malta,
getting the people whooped up on this hoopla over games and sports while they're
busy creating a tyranny.
Well, that's a quote from an author, and they do own the sports world.
They are the masters of visualization.
That's where their spiritual exercises come from, and they're using it in sports.
Visualization and sports psychology, you can check it out anywhere you want.
Mind training for triathlon, whatever the mind can conceive and believe,
it can achieve.
That's the power of positive thinking.
Do you lack confidence?
Do you need this, that, that, and the other?
I'll show you how to do it.
The essential component to visualization.
Visualization is the best method I've seen for programming yourself for success.
Through the all-powerful subconscious mind, the key to all sport.
This is the simple act of regular mentally imagining yourself performing at your peak
level.
They say it's even more important than the training.
You sit down, you relax, and you run in your head, and you win.
Power of positive thinking.
Trouble is, what if everybody starts doing that?
Who's going to win then?
Just a thought, never mind.
So here your subconscious goes into overgear.
Effective visualization is the answer to overcoming most triathletes' problems and
reaching the next level of improvement.
The main reason why the daily visualization recording is so effective,
now you get a recording and you just play it into your ear, is because of automatic
relaxation.
Now listen, this is their own words.
The hypnotic relaxation recording places you in an easy and automatic state of
relaxation, perfect for visualization.
The visualization gets more powerful each day.
The recording has to be designed to become stronger and more effective by day.
It can even work while you're asleep.
Now imagine a relationship with Jesus Christ, and Jesus compares a relationship
with your wife, in a husband and wife situation.
So if I want a good relationship with my wife, I get my pendulum out, I get my
music out, and I go oooooooo until her eyes go oooooooo and then I get a maid.
That's pathetic.
Let's take another one.
Are you a better swimmer than your results are showing?
Mind training for swimmer.
And who are the trainers?
Craig In clinical, what?
Hypnosis.
Many techniques, such as visualization, had to be specially tailored and
specialized to suit swimmers.
Otherwise, they simply didn't work.
And so, many head coaches, swimmers around the world, and also many U.S.
university competitive swimming programs use this technique.
Here's another one.
Get in the zone and stay there.
Who are the people training these people?
The psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, author, lecturer, then they give his name,
psychotherapist, 24 hours of clinical experience.
He trains, who?
Golfers, tennis players, baseball players, martial arts, bowlers, fencers,
the whole shooting match.
Everybody comes to him to get this hoopla.
The power of visualization.
Here's another man, author, and there's his name, he's a master educator on mental
training to achieve peak performance, psychologist who has worked with Olympic
athletes and teams, Canada, da-da-da-da-da.
What did he do?
Realities beyond hypnosis.
Are you getting the drift?
That we're not making this up?
Power of visualization has helped millions of people achieve goals.
So you need visualization to achieve your relationship on a spiritual level as well.
So now let's go to blatant New Age.
New Age, Ascended Masters Research Centre, gems from the Ascended Masters,
true visualization and excerpt from I Am Discourses.
Where are we going?
Now we're going to visualize ourselves to the point of being God.
True visualization is God's attribute and power of sight acting in the mind of men.
When one consciously pictures in his mind the desire he wishes fulfilled,
he is using one of the most powerful means of bringing it into his visible,
tangible experience.
I am God.
I can do it.
I have the power within me.
This is the language of the serpent.
Dave Hunt writes in his Occult Invasion, Occultism has always involved three
techniques for changing and creating reality.
Thinking, speaking, visualization.
There is no doubt that this technique is not a religious technique solely.
It is used across a broad spectrum of human activity.
Now let's get back to Robert Schuller.
He says, you don't know what power you have within you.
You make the world into anything you choose.
Yes, you can make your world into whatever you want it to be.
This is power religion.
True religion is magnifying Jesus, and he must become more and I must become
less.
It is important to remember that meditation in any form is the harnessing
by human means of God's divine laws.
We are endowed with a great many powers and forces that we do not yet fully
understand.
The most effective mantras employ the M sound.
You can get the feel of it by repeating, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, many times
over.
Isn't that a blasphemy to say that I am?
Move into mighty moods of meditation, he says.
Draw energy from the centers of sacred solitude, serenity and silence.
Sacred silence.
Find yourself coming alive in the garden of the prayer called meditation.
That's your own little private place.
Yes, the new ages have grabbed hold of meditation.
Hey, Christian, hear me.
Let's not give up the glorious God-given gift of meditation by turning it over to
those outside of our faith.
So now they're using this hypnotic tool, and any form of hypnosis is never from
God.
Why?
Because God has never designed that one mind should be subject to another in
anything.
You are a free agent, accountable to God and not to someone else.
True meditation is always word-based.
Psalms 119, 140, 48.
Mine eyes prevent the night watchers that I might meditate in thy word.
Contemplate the word.
Not visualize all kinds of things and then, you know, let it happen.
When I remember thee upon my bed and meditate on thee in the night watchers,
I will meditate also all thy works and talk about thy doings.
That is, living the word.
Believing the word and talking about the goodness of God.
The word meditate, siak, a primitive root.
To ponder, to converse, to commune, complain, declare, meditate, muse,
pray, speak, talk.
So when the Bible uses this word, it says, talk to God.
He's your friend.
Don't go, ooooh, go and talk.
Talk like with a friend.
Pastor Steve Mitchell, Garden City Grace Brethren Church, quotes Schuller as
saying, The secret of winning unchurched people into the church is really quite
simple.
Find out what would impress the non-churched in your community,
then give it to them.
Wow.
Whatever it takes, just do it.
He took his cues from Norman Vincent Peale and began an approach to ministry that all
but did away with expository preaching centering on God's word.
It's replaced that.
And decided to address what he felt were people's psychological and emotional
needs.
While you don't have to go to church for that, you can tune in to Oprah Winfrey for
that.
You don't have to go to church.
You can do that elsewhere.
This approach shifted the focus from God to man.
And ultimately gave birth to a lot of what we see today in terms of pragmatic or
do-whatever-works-to-get-the-folks-in strategy regardless of whether we see
these methods in the Bible or not.
He's right.
We're getting a man-centered religion.
Schuller said blatantly the church's problem is that it had a God-centered
theology for centuries when it needs a man-centered one.
Self-esteem, the new reformation.
Page 115.
So we have to get away from this God-centered religion to a man-centered
religion.
And my question is, where did he get that idea from?
Did he make it up?
Malachi Martin, keys of this blood.
Roman Catholic pontifical professor.
At the conclusion of Vatican II, Pope Paul VI told the bishops that their
church had decided to opt for man and to serve man to help him build his home on
this earth.
Man with his ideas and his aims.
Man with his hopes and fears.
Man in his difficulties and sufferings.
That was the centerpiece of the church's interest, said the pontiff to his bishops.
So where did he get the idea?
He got it from his Roman Catholic mentor, the Pope.
That's where he got it from.
This is a new theology to get the whole world into one big soup tank.
He writes, Robert Schuller says, Self-esteem then or pride in being a human
being is the single greatest need facing the human race today.
I strongly suggest that self-love is the ultimate will of man.
Good grief.
That what you really want more than anything else in the world is the
awareness that you are a worthy person.
Do not fear pride.
The easiest job God has is to humble us.
God's almost impossible task is to keep us believing every hour of every day how
great we are as his sons and daughters on the planet.
He'll have to change the hymns.
We'll have to sing from now on, How great we are!
Isn't that terrible?
What does Timothy say to Timothy?
This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come for men shall be
lovers of their own self.
You know the verse.
I don't have to read it to you.
Self-love is something which the Bible condemns.
The whole aim of Christianity is emptying yourself and pouring yourself out for
others.
Not centering on self and imagining your great I am experience.
This author writes, by beholding Christ you will become changed until you will
hate your former pride, your former vanity and self-esteem.
Here we have two opposing Gospels.
Your self-righteousness and unbelief you will cast these sins aside as worthless
burden and will walk humbly, meekly, trustfully before God.
You will practice love, patience, gentleness, goodness, mercy and every
grace that dwells in the child of God and will at last find a place amongst the
sanctified and the holy.
The two religions are diametrically opposed to each other.
The biblical view and the modern view.
It is through this avenue of self-esteem and self-sufficiency that Satan will seek
to ensnare the people of God.
Wow, I think this person knew what she wrote about 120 years ago.
Through this avenue of self-esteem that God's people will be ensnared,
we will move from the lowly image to this image of power.
Where does Schuller stand with Rome?
Schuller has sympathized with Catholicism in the past.
In 1972 he invited Catholic Bishop Fulton Sheen.
That man had some interesting things to say about in-time events.
Wow, fascinating.
And he said we're right on the button, just two sides are going to oppose each
other.
To his pulpit and joined with Catholic Bishops at their Mass and their annual
Mary Hour.
So he's had that experience.
Schuller said it's time for Protestants to go to the shepherd, to the Pope,
and say what do we have to do to come home?
When Schuller was planning for the building of his Crystal Cathedral,
he made a special trip to Rome to ask for the Pope's blessing.
So if he gets his blessings there, why not his theology as well?
He's got Vatican II theology, and who were the champions of Vatican II theology?
The Jesuits.
In 1985, the Paulist National Catholic Evangelization Association and Tyndall
House Publishing jointly published What Christians Can Learn From One Another
About Evangelizing Adults, which contained a chapter by Billy Graham, and the book
called for greater cooperation between Protestants and Catholics, and so-called
evangelism.
And there were articles by Cardinal Benadine, Robert Schuller, Bill Bright,
Jack, all the others.
You know, this is how it works.
And then he makes this mega-statement.
I like this statement.
It's very interesting.
I'm dreaming a bold, impossible dream that positive-thinking believers in God will
rise above the illusion that our sectarian religion have imposed on the world,
and that leaders of the major faiths will rise above doctrinal idiosyncrasies,
choosing not to focus on disagreements, but rather to transcend divisive dogmas,
to work together to bring peace and prosperity and hope to the world.
You take away doctrine, you're left with liturgy.
No doctrine, liturgy.
No doctrine, no methodology, no roadmap to Jesus.
Replace it with a roadmap to self.
That's the modern theology.
All right, groundwork.
Let's take it to the next level.
Willow Creek, spawning the children.
Both Belibles and the Saddleback leaders all received their training from Shula.
And where are we going with this spiritual exercise?
These were the mega-churches that started.
We've moved beyond that.
We're just going through a little bit of history.
Let's have a look at their buzzwords.
Understanding the new terminology.
This is the visualization.
This is the terminology from Willow Creek.
Visualization, formation, mentoring, that's coaching, spiritual direction.
We spoke about that the previous night.
Consensus, ecumenism, seismic shifts, inter-spiritual community, changing face
of worship, stemming the tide.
When you hear these buzzwords, run!
What do they teach at Willow Creek?
Meditation promoter Kerry Wyatt Kent writes positively about monastic
communities.
Fascinating.
What did Ignatius Loyola say in his spiritual exercises?
Praise much, monastic institutions.
Here we're going back to monasticism.
Martin Luther wrote that article that it is the worst evil that has ever been found
on the planet.
The worst evil.
When King Henry VIII, who was not a good man himself, said, clean up this mess,
what they found in the monastic system is not fit for description.
Evil system.
Well, let's continue.
Fascinating.
Monastic community, emergent church, rediscovering spiritual formation.
All of these buzzwords.
Kent identifies Scott McKnight as part of this mystical shift.
McKnight acknowledges the Catholic connection to the contemplative practices.
Kent also brings into our article priest, the Roman Catholic priest Richard Rohr.
We need to know what we're dealing with.
Richard Rohr, who is in the same camp as someone like Matthew Fox, who speaks about
the coming of the cosmic Christ.
Who is in the same camp as Thayla de Chardin, the Jesuit.
All these people.
And then she has no problem with the Jesuit priest, Paul McAteno, who says,
how big is your God?
This is Willow Creek.
Let's have a look at these people.
Who are you?
Richard Rohr, who are you?
Well, this comes from a Roman Catholic webpage.
He's, of course, a Roman Catholic priest.
Bongos, dancers, Father, Mother, God.
Richard Rohr mass at the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress.
Rohr changes some of the prayers of the liturgy of the Eucharist, opening the
preface as he prayed, Father, Mother, God, before the consecration of the host.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Following the consecration, Rohr said, The Christ's blood will be poured out for
you and for all, so you will know your sins are forgiven.
In prayer for the departed, he referred to them as especially your own beloved who
are already with the Lord.
Here we have Roman Catholic doctrine.
Roman Catholic Jesuit-trained individuals running the spiritual aspects of Willow
Creek.
And then there are institutions of repute who send thousands of people for education
and training so that they can give spiritual direction within the church.
And we're all over the world.
These spiritual directors are popping up to train people in all the churches of the
world as to how to obey your spiritual director.
A cadaver like a corpse.
Rohr prefaced the Our Father by saying, And now, knowing we are more than we are
many, though we come from different places and races, we all share the same Father,
Mother, God.
Excuse me, I don't have a Father, Mother, God, so I don't know who you're
sharing yours with, but definitely not with me.
Here is their magazine, Willow Creek Magazine, rediscovering spiritual
formation from monastic communities to the emergent church.
Spiritual formation continues to shift and change a whole new generation of
Christians.
So now suddenly we must all be changed and we must experience this spiritual
formation.
Thirty years ago, most evangelicals had never even heard the term spiritual
formation.
Today it is the subject of Christian conferences, retreats, even the emphasis
in countless seminary programs.
Scott McKnight, New Testament scholar, author, professor of religious studies at
North Park University says, Even the acceptance of the term spiritual formation
represents a shift in thinking, especially amongst evangelicals.
Richard Foster's 1978 bestseller, Celebration of Discipline.
Who are these people?
These people are people who believe in this cosmic Christ who will come,
this New Age entity that will finally fuse everyone into one inrecognizable blob.
And then he talks about how we do this.
We reintroduce the evangelicals to classical spiritual disciplines.
Please note the words.
Reintroduce to classical spiritual disciplines.
What are they?
Solitude.
Who spent their time in solitude?
Monks?
They went and sat in a cell and there they had to perform their spiritual exercises.
Silence.
Fasting.
A more contemplative approach to Scripture and prayer.
So now I have contemplative approaches.
Visualizing.
Who practiced that, by the way, and who taught it?
Ignatius Loyola.
This is a Jesuit strategy to replace faith with this material.
Such spiritual disciplines have been part of the Catholic tradition.
This comes from whose webpage?
Willow Creek.
Such spiritual discipline has been part of the Catholic tradition for a long time,
although they were often practiced primarily within the walls of monastic
communities.
Faster and Willard brought them to the evangelical community, although it took a
while for mainline and evangelical churches to embrace them.
Marvelous, we're back to what Martin Luther condemned as a horrendous travesty
of justice.
The monks all came out of the woodwork, married and became normal.
You need a wife to be normal, gentlemen.
Excuse me.
Not these people, they're going back to monasticism.
Eventually these became accepted and even more institutionalized.
Evangelicals began to think out loud about these things.
Many of that has happened even in the last five years, says so-and-so, who formerly
led the spiritual formation ministry in Willow Creek.
So what is happening in these institutions is the spiritual exercises of Loyola being
foisted upon a new generation of pastors and mentors and coaches and spiritual
advisors.
And then it is brought into the Christian church and we've regressed back to
Catholicism.
Mentoring goes mainstream.
McKnight sees a trend towards a wider acceptance and use of spiritual directors,
which in the past were mostly a part of the Catholic tradition.
Mentoring was done informally in the discipleship process years ago,
but this is much more conscious and intentional.
You know, it's books like Alice Freiling's The Art of Spiritual Listening,
Margaret Gunther's Holy Listening, The Art of Spiritual Direction.
I need some guy to tell me how to run a relationship and what to believe.
What else are they saying?
They're saying things are going to change.
We need a seismic shift.
We need rediscovering spiritual formation, stemming the tide, changing the face of
worship, shifts, mission set, mindset, change or die.
This is magnificent.
We're going into a mega change.
This is the final thrust for changing the whole of Christianity into what was
mystical, occult Catholicism.
Here they write, seismic shift.
The winds of change are blowing.
Leaders and entire congregations are making the choice to try something new.
They are looking at the world culture, norms and trends.
They are daring to take a chance, venture a risk, find another way.
These pacessers are not compromising the teachings of the Bible.
They are embracing them in a way that will reach a new generation.
What a deception.
These courageous pioneers are not fleeing from the historical Christian faith and
the gospel of Jesus.
They are discovering innovative and spirit anointed ways to make the message connect
to an emerging generation.
Is this generation ready to see this?
A whole new cadre of leaders are being raised up and they understand that the
form, style, structures that have served the church so well in the past are not
sacred or sacreding away with them.
We need something new.
This seismic shift is shaking things up.
And then he talks about this lady and how she had to get accustomed to the new music
and the new styles.
And eventually what we have is mantric music being played in the churches.
Change or die.
It's really very simple.
If the local church refuses to change, it will die.
And this sad reality is being experienced all over the world.
So everybody is jumping onto this bandwagon.
I have news for you.
Preach truth and the church will be full.
Alright?
So we have all the elements of the spiritual exercises of Loyola.
And all the names associated with Jesuit theology associated with Willow Creek.
Where many, many people go for this training.
Let's take it one step further.
We're going through the progression.
These are the last events in the history of this world.
We are one step away from heaven.
Rick Warren.
He's a global strategist, theologian, pastor, philanthropist.
The media has often named him America's most influential spiritual leader.
He's America's pastor.
As a global strategist, Warren advises leaders in the public, private and faith
sectors on leadership development, poverty, health, education and faith in
culture.
He has been invited to speak at the United Nations, the World Economic Forum,
the African Union, the Council of Foreign Relations, Harvard's Kennedy School of
Government, Time's Global Health Summit.
I mean, this is an important man.
Where did he receive his training?
Also from Robert Shuler.
Warren says, as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Oxford Analytica,
I might know as much about the Middle East as you, responding to some notion that he
might not know what's going on.
This comes from World Net Daily.
Oh, so in a moment of defensiveness, he says he's a member of the Council of
Foreign Relations.
That's interesting.
And he's a member of Oxford Analytica, where all these Oxford professors,
Hobnobbit, including those who don't believe that God even exists.
No, no, no, I'll correct that.
Almost certainly does not exist.
Oxford Analytica, what is that?
It's an international independent consulting firm drawing on a network of
over 1,000 senior faculty members of Oxford University.
And these are the insider Oxford groups.
Now let's look at some of his statements.
It is my deep conviction that anybody can be one to Christ if you discover the key
to his or her heart.
It may take some time to identify it, but the most likely place to start is with
the person's felt needs.
Let's go and satisfy the needs, and then you can start over there.
God won't ask about your religious background or doctrinal views.
The only thing that will matter is, did you accept what Jesus did for you,
and did you learn to love and trust Him?
It doesn't matter what you believe.
You can believe anything.
It doesn't matter about your doctrinal views.
So if he says, if you love me, keep my commandments, and that's part of
your doctrine, who cares?
The last thing many believers need today is to go to another Bible study.
They already know far more than they are putting into practice.
Have you noticed that?
Did you see that little video I put up where we asked the people in Germany,
and the one says, I'm a Protestant, but I've never read the Bible.
And the other guy said, the Bible is something you don't read, it's just
something you have.
They know far more than they need already.
Don't need a Bible study.
Nah.
Forget about a Bible study.
Warren advocates breath prayers.
Many Christians use breath prayers throughout their day.
You choose a brief sentence or simply a phrase that can be repeated to Jesus in
one breath.
So now we're into mantras.
That's akin to the Muslim with his beads and the Roman Catholic with his beads.
Just having reduced it from having to know the whole Hail Mary to a little breath
mantra.
A typical breath prayer would be breathing in saying, Yahweh, Yahweh, Shalom,
Yahweh, Shalom, Yahweh, Shalom.
What idiocy!
Until you're finally so hypnotized that your eyes are going around in circles,
and then you can see whatever you want to see in your imagination.
That's a breath prayer.
He says, that's just great.
If you want Jesus to come back sooner, focus on fulfilling your mission,
not figuring out prophecy.
So forget about the Bible.
Forget about prophecy.
Practice your little breath prayers.
The spiritual formation movement had a vital message for the church and has given
the body of Christ the wake-up call, he says.
Wow, so he's also into spiritual formation.
Saddleback pastor Lance Whit writes about the contemplative prayer visualization in
his article titled, Enjoying God's Presence in Solitude.
These are the spiritual exercises of Loyola.
This is Jesuit counter-reformation theology, and it has taken over the
Protestant churches.
We are designed to enjoy the presence of God, but that's easier said than done.
In the article, Whit uses Thomas Merton as an example of someone who knew about
solitude.
But Merton's solitude was connected to Buddhist sympathies.
That's fascinating.
Whit finishes his article with, The goal of solitude is not so much to
unplug from my crazy world as it is to change frequencies so that I can hear the
Father.
Ah, so I need this direct contact.
I don't want to walk with God by faith.
He said I will take care of you, therefore He is taking care of me.
I want to hear Him.
I want to hear this voice.
Hello, my child, can you hear me?
Let me just turn up the phone a bit.
That's not faith.
It's no longer faith, and if it's not by faith, then it's sin.
According to the Bible, Rick Morin has promoted a book called, Sacred Pathways by
Gary Thomas.
In the new edition, A Time of Departing, Jungen quotes Warren, who says of Thomas'
book, Gary has spoken at Saddleback, and I think highly of his work.
He tells them how they can make the most of their spiritual journeys.
He places an emphasis on practical spiritual exercises.
Are you getting the terminology here?
Fascinating.
It is particularly difficult to describe this type of prayer in writing,
as it is best taught in person.
In general, our ever-centering prayer works like this.
Choose a word, Jesus or Father, for example, as a focus for contemplative
prayer.
Repeat the word silently in your mind for a set amount of time, say 20 minutes.
Brainwashing.
Until your heart seems to be repeating the word by itself, just as naturally and
involuntarily as breathing.
Here you go.
Repeating this thing over and over.
Listen to his New Age terminology.
Rick Warren speaking.
This is a time which calls for a critical mass, or transformational leaders,
who will commit to creating synergy of energy within their circle of influence,
so that new levels of social, economic organization and spiritual success can be
reached.
We have not, however, developed the leaders we need for this noble task.
To reach such heights, we will need to untap the leadership potential of skillful
leaders who are successfully directing various organizations and systems.
Some of these men and women, knowledgeable and committed to their profession,
will be the transformational leaders we need to create the needed synergy of
energy.
Is that religion, or hocus pocus?
This is not religion.
What does he say about ecumenism?
I really do feel that these people are brothers and sisters in God's valley.
I'm looking to build bridges with the Orthodox Church, looking to build bridges
with the Catholic Church, with the Anglican Church, and say, what can we do
together that we have been unable to do by ourselves?
On interfaith, the Church is bigger than any organization in the world.
Then you add in Muslims, you add in Hindus, you add in all the different
religions, and you use those houses of worship as distribution centers,
not just for spiritual care, but for health care.
We're shifting the emphasis to needs-based theology, man's needs.
But theology is about God.
Theos, God.
I go to church to worship God.
If you come to church to get your stomach full, you're a bread and fish Christian.
If you come to church to worship God and your stomach gets fed, that's faith.
Turn it around, it's presumption.
And then he goes into his peace plan.
Peace plan.
Now this is fascinating.
The peace plan is a massive effort to mobilize one billion Christians around the
world into a church-to-church outreach effort.
The peace plan is an effort led by small group teams.
Did we speak about them last time?
Teams to attack the global giants of our day.
And what are the global giants that we have to attack?
Spiritual emptiness, corrupt leadership, poverty, disease, illiteracy.
Well, excuse me, that's a social program, that's not religion.
If you want to teach people about Jesus Christ and salvation by him, then please
use the Bible.
And this is the peace plan, this is the ultimate plan that unites the United
Nations and all the churches of the world into the last mega drive called peace.
And my Bible says, when they say, peace, peace, sudden destruction.
Well, let's carry on.
These global giants are attacked in a holistic manner.
First in the church's local community, which he calls Jerusalem.
Nearby community, which he calls Judea.
Regional areas, crossing cultural barriers, which he calls Samaria.
And globally to the entire world.
Rehwaran said repeatedly, this is why God made me.
Everything else I have done was simply preparation for the peace plan.
This is how you get to God's heart for the world.
Let's look at this peace plan, this is fascinating.
At a purpose-driven conference, he stated, the peace plan will be a
revolution for global Christianity.
And I'm looking at a stadium full of people who are telling God they will do
whatever it takes to establish God's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
I have a problem with that.
Whose theology is that?
That's Roman Catholic theology.
That's not biblical theology.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Yes, we're looking for the kingdom of God.
But the kingdom of God will only come when the empires and structures of this world
have been swept away.
And we won't have a kingdom of God ruled from Jerusalem here on this planet.
Rick Warren's peace plan, number one.
P stands for plant churches.
E, equip leaders.
A, assist the poor.
C, care for the sick.
E, educate the next generation.
What's missing?
There's no mention of Christ.
There's no mention of the gospel.
This is a social program.
We don't need to call this worship.
This is not worship.
The UN Millennium Development Goals.
Let's have a look at them.
Match the five points of the peace plan.
Pastor Warren lays out the global plan.
In the 21st century, we are going global, mobilizing the American church to help
internationally.
President Kagan will welcome us to Rwanda for a joint project amongst the
government, business, and the church.
Where did we hear that before?
Who was here for the lecture?
The beamable, sustainable princes.
Did we hear something like that?
That's fascism.
Here we have fascism in progress.
How will Saddleback tackle these huge problems?
With our peace plan.
P is... and then he goes through that ritual again.
And Q, what is your greatest hope for all of this?
A second reformation.
The first one was about belief.
This one will be about deeds.
It is about what the church should be doing in the world.
We will lay all this out for our people, purpose, community, world.
So this is a new reformation.
And so I thought, you know, they're having a peace plan.
And we should have a new reformation too.
And this is where this idea came from.
Now look at the Millennium Development Goals and the Peace Plan of Warren.
Plant churches.
Develop global partnerships for development.
These churches are partnerships for development.
Equip servant leaders.
Lifelong learning.
Assist the poor.
Eradicate extreme poverty.
Care for the sick.
Reduce child mortality.
Improve maternal health, combat HIV, etc.
Educate the next generation.
Achieve universal primary education.
They're identical.
Why?
Because they have the same author.
And who runs them from their crown temple?
The Jesuits.
So this is a Jesuit megathrust counter-reformation.
Here is the UN Millennium Development Goals.
High-level event in the Millennium Development Goals.
When is it taking place?
25 September 2008.
All the mega-leaders came together.
This is now!
The eight Millennium Development Goals, which range from having extreme poverty,
halving extreme poverty, to halting the spread of HIV, all of these must be
reached by 2015.
We're in the home straight.
We have everybody on board.
The church is going to play its role, and the governments are going to play
their role, and big industry is going to play its role, and together we'll conquer
the world.
Four steps.
The final genesis.
This is the fourth step.
Spiritual formation.
Now let's talk about spiritual formation.
Spiritual formation is the vogue.
Spiritual formation is coming to your town, and it's coming to your church.
And forewarned is... what does it say?
Forearm.
Let's have a look at spiritual formation.
Let's go to Taylal al-Shahdin.
First let's establish his credentials.
What was he?
Jesuit.
He was the mega-man at the UN.
He is responsible for its spirituality, which is Jesuit spirituality.
Taylal and the Future Humanity, edited by T.R.
Meinert, this is a book about Taylal, brings together essays by leading experts
from a range of disciplines and perspectives who reflect on Taylal's
legacy for today's globalized world.
These people were mega-thinkers in this direction.
Taylal dreamed of a humanity merging into God, and each realizing his own godhood at
the omega point, this belief has inspired many of today's New Age leaders,
and he is the most quoted New Age leader in the world.
Pantheism.
That will be the omega of apostasy, and spiritual formation is part of that
omega apostasy.
Listen to his terminology.
And when you hear this terminology, and when these buzzwords start falling,
let your ears prick up.
Taylal Deshardin spoke of value genesis.
He spoke of collective co-creation.
Combined effort.
The omega point.
The final stages of earth and of man.
Cosmogenesis.
These are all interesting words.
Cosmos coming together.
New genesis.
Minds coming together.
The point of union, of pantheistic fusion of all things, is omega.
Through Teilhard we hear about whatever does not merge is evil.
This is the new spirituality.
We are being herded like cattle into a common corral, driven by Hegelian
dialectic, Teilhardian philosophy and fear.
Let's go.
New genesis.
You will have to change your exclusive separatist ways.
You will have to fuse into this multifaceted new monster.
In multiculturalism, every faction retains its identity, yes, merges into a cosmic
fusion.
The Muslim, the Jew, the Christian, the black, the white, the Hispanic,
the Asian, they all integrate in one culture, without one culture dominating
the other.
And then we need a new Christ, divested of his biblical identity,
to rise from the ashes to satisfy them all.
Here's a book, Brainwashing, a synthesis of the Russian textbook on
psycho-politics.
Notice what they used in politics.
Man is already a colonial aggregation of cells.
Cells.
Cell groups.
Man is an aggregation of cells.
Where does that cell come from?
Where does the word cell come from, by the way?
Who used it first?
In the biological sense, it was used by Robert Hooke, who looked into the
microscope and he saw tissue and he said, ooh, that looks like a cell.
And he called it a cell.
And what did it remind him of?
Monastic rooms.
Monasticism.
Monks sit in cells.
Okay.
Considering him an individual would be an error.
Sickness could be considered to be a disloyalty to the remaining organism on
the part of one organism.
We can see with ease that the revolt is death.
That the revolt of any part of the organism results in death.
Thus we see that there can be no compromise with rebellion.
That's why in a cell group, no rebellion is allowed.
You must be subject to your spiritual director.
And you must obey him as though you were a corpse.
Anyone refusing to be herded must be amputated for the common good,
Augustine argued.
A horticulturist prunes a rotten branch to save a tree and a doctor amputates a
diseased limb to conserve life.
Even so may the erring be constrained.
This is Roman Catholic theology.
That's why you may not speak or think or say anything.
Tyler de Chardin declared, The outcome of the world, the gates of the future,
the entry into the superhuman will open only to an advance of all together.
In a direction in which all together can join and find completion in spiritual
renovation of the earth.
All together.
Once complete, unity has been achieved.
Christ who will be the omega point will appear.
Man will be more than man.
What will be what Teilhard called ultra-human.
The cosmos will be transformed and the glory of it all will be established.
Malachi Martin, he should know.
He writes that this is Teilhard's philosophy.
As we know, Teilhard merges pantheism with his Christian doctrine.
He says, as we know, the belief that the human individual cannot perfect himself or
fully exist except through the organic unification of all men in God is essential
and fundamental to Christian doctrine.
We have to have this pantheistic fusion.
Thus, perfection for Teilhard is not by the individual becoming one with Christ in
absolute self-surrender, forsaking all others.
No, Teilhard says that the individual cannot perfect himself except through the
organic unification of all men in God.
It's pantheism.
Thus, all human minds must be joined in what he calls a super-organism.
We need consensus theology.
Remove that which is divisive.
Please don't preach about the errors of this doctrine or the errors of that
doctrine.
That's divisive.
We'll even make laws.
We'll call it hate speech.
A general convergence of religions upon a universal Christ who satisfies them all?
That seems to me the only possible conversion of the world and the only form
in which a religion of the future can be conceived.
There is a Jesuit's thinking.
Here's Matthew Fox, who's quoted on all those webpages of all these organizations
training these new mentors.
And he calls it the cosmic Christ, the coming of the cosmic Christ,
Matthew Fox.
It's replete with pantheism.
Modern Christianity has been molded by Jesuit encounter theology and spiritual
formation.
Guided by Ignatian spiritual direction until the soul is fragmented, encounter
dependent and subservient to the church.
You become a moron walking after whatever some leader has to say.
It's horrendous.
Document Vatican II.
Now let's look where it comes from.
In forming their consciences, the faithful must pay careful attention to the sacred
and certain teachings of the church.
For the Catholic Church is by the will of Christ the teacher of the truth.
Don't ever speak against the church.
The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are
subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own
judgment and to reject authoritative teaching.
That's Vatican II.
That's why in all of these groupings you may not go outside of consensus theology.
You may not make a point and you will not stick your head above the others and say,
but doesn't this Bible verse say...
No, you're not allowed to.
So what is spiritual formation?
What does it mean?
Does the Bible know anything about spiritual formation?
No.
Romans 12 verse 2.
We need a transformation.
The old man of sin must die.
Conformed.
What does that mean?
To fashion alike that is conformed to the same pattern, conformed to fashion self
according to whom?
According to Christ.
The Bible speaks of Christ formed within you, not having a form without.
But little children of whom I travail in birth again until Christ is formed in you.
True Christianity follows the pattern man.
And the pattern man is Jesus Christ.
Not some spiritual director who has his own problems.
The pattern man is always Jesus.
And here is my guide.
As I said before, I can exchange ideas and I can learn from those who have more
experience than myself.
Yes, I can.
But I may never, never let such an individual overshadow me.
The Bible remains my standard and nothing else.
Now let's have a look where this leads.
Opus Dei.
Remember these are the people that wear the little anklets and the little pain
inducers.
Like Ignatius Loyola said that your penance must be internal but external as
well.
You must chastise yourself with pain inducers and whips.
But just make sure you don't kill yourself in the process.
Here is Opus Dei.
By the way, a collection of 999 religious maxims published by Escriva.
Sorry, Saint Escriva.
The founder of Opus Dei.
999?
Turn that upside down, what is that?
606.
And this is what he says.
The true Christians must be disciplined and obedient to their spiritual directors.
Point number one.
In my previous lecture did I show you in the Protestant notes and handbooks on
spiritual direction that the same prerequisite was required?
Yes or no?
Absolutely the same.
So this has been brought into Protestantism.
Opus Dei and formation.
Maxim 377 of those 999 states, And how shall I acquire our formation?
How shall I keep our spirit?
By being faithful to the specific norms your director gave you and explained to
you and made you love.
Be faithful to them and you will be an apostle.
Oops.
So spiritual formation literally means being brainwashed to the point where you
obey mindlessly to whatever your church leaders have to say.
God forbid if we get to that point of brainwashing.
35th Jesuit General Congregation at the Vatican in 2008.
These are the electors, the inner circle, the outgoing and the new all together.
And their spiritual formation, spiritual direction has infiltrated the
whole world.
This is the text of the homily of the papal legate, Cardinal Frank Rode,
CM, Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and
Societies of Apostolic Life, given at the opening of the GC35 in Rome.
This is the general congregation of the Vatican of the Jesuits where they just
voted in the new Jesuit General.
And what was the speech about?
Could you enlighten us, sir?
This is his speech to these electors.
Certainly and necessarily during this congregation you are carrying out an
important work, but it is not a distraction from your apostolic activity.
As Saint Ignatius teaches you in the spiritual exercises, you must,
with the same vision of the three divine persons, look at the entire surface of the
earth, crammed with men, listening to the Spirit, the Creator, who renews the world
and returning to the fonts to preserve your identity without losing your own
lifestyle, the commitment to discern the signs of the times, the difficulties and
responsibilities, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then he says, now, the vision becomes broader.
It is not only for your own Jesuit brother that you provide a religious and apostolic
formation.
There are many institutes of consecrated life who, following an Ignatian
spirituality, pay attention to your choices.
There are many future priests in your colleges and universities who are
preparing for their ministry.
There are many people from both within and outside the church who frequent your
centers of learning, seeking a response to the challenges which science, technology,
globalization pose to humanity, to the church and to the faith,
with the hope of receiving a formation which will make it possible for them to
construct a world of truth and freedom, of justice and peace.
Who's behind formation?
The Jesuits.
And they were reminded of their duty to introduce this to every single institute
that falls under their influence.
Your work must be eminently apostolic, with a universal human ecclesial and
evangelical fullness.
You will do this everywhere.
It must always be carried out in the light of your charism, in such a way that the
growing participation of laity, that's all these trained spiritual
directors who will tell you what the boss wants you to believe, in your activities
does not obscure your identity but rather enriches it, with a collaboration of those
who, coming from other cultures, share your style and objectives.
The church is waiting for a light from you to restore the census ecclesiae.
This is the speech before the election of the new Jesuit general.
The spiritual exercises of the St. Ignatius are your speciality.
The rules of sentier cum ecclesiae from an integral and essential part of this
masterpiece of Catholic spirituality.
They form, as it were, a golden clasp which holds the book of spiritual
exercises close.
And it's based on Scripture and tradition.
The doctrinal diversity of those who at all levels by vocation and mission are
called to announce the kingdom of truth and love.
Here's the mission.
To the Jesuits themselves.
Push this issue.
Bring the world on board.
And even our final enemy, overcome him with spiritual formation.
Who are the leaders of spiritual formation in the world today?
Let's see if they have Jesuit connections.
These are the ones who are being quoted in all churches of the world.
Should I repeat that word?
All churches of the world.
Richard J.
Foster, Christian psychologist.
Interesting connection.
International famed founder of Renovare.
Foster is the founder of an organization called Renovare, which has powerful,
influential support from Christian world leaders.
The co-director is William A.
Waswick, a former Lutheran pastor.
Renovare from the Latin meaning to make a new spirituality.
So the spirituality that has kept Christians alive for the last 2,000 years
is finally at the point where it must be scrapped.
It's promoting the revival of meditative and contemplative traditions of the
Catholic mystics, Zen Buddhism and psychotherapy.
Let's have a look.
Here's their own webpage.
Bringing the church to the churches to balance spiritual life.
What are they teaching?
Contemplative, the prayer-filled life.
Interesting word.
That's visualization.
That's Ignatius Loyola, theology.
Social justice, the compassionate life.
Holiness, the virtuous life.
Incarnational, the sacramental life.
Charismatic, the spirit-empowered life.
All of this is experiential theology.
Evangelical, the word-centered life.
I will believe that when I see it.
How is it with your soul?
The Renovare movement fosters spiritual development as the heart of social
justice.
How is it with your soul?
The name Renovare means to renew.
And what are we going to deal with?
Spiritual formation.
Spiritual exercises.
Spiritual gifts.
Acts of service.
This is a new religion.
But it's really an old religion.
It's an old occult counterfeit.
His book, Celebration of Discipline, there it is.
Celebration of Discipline, there is the man.
The Path to Spiritual Growth is available with a study guide and also a 13-session
video-based curriculum designed to help Christians experience authentic
transformation through engagement with classical Christian spiritual disciplines.
What do you have in mind for us, sir?
How do we do this?
He says, enough water has gone under the bridge of spiritual formation.
It's become a household term.
Everybody knows what it is now.
We've moved away from this not knowing where it comes from.
References in relation to Catholic orders.
Today it is a rare person who has not heard of the term seminary courses in
spiritual formation proliferate like baby rabbits.
You're right, my friends.
Huge numbers are seeking to become certified as spiritual directors to answer
the cry of multiplied thousands for spiritual direction and more spiritual
formation.
A pastoral letter by Richard Foster.
Let's go.
We need this in the world.
Quaker minister, that's what he was, Richard Foster, published this work,
Celebration of Discipline, The Path to Spiritual Growth, hailed by none other
than Christianity today as one of the ten best books of the 20th century.
I want to know what we're dealing with.
Voted by the readers of that magazine as the third most influential book after the
Bible.
That's pretty powerful stuff, would you agree?
Pretty powerful stuff.
Let's read what Albert James Dagger of Media Spotlight comments on this.
He says, Unfortunately, all these exercises serve to do is open the person
to demonic influences that assuage his or her conscience with a feeling of euphoria
and even love emanating from the presence that has invaded their consciousness.
This euphoria is then believed to validate that the person is on the right spiritual
path.
It may result in visions, out-of-body experiences, stigmata, levitation,
even healings and other apparent miracles.
This is where we're going.
What does Richard Foster teach?
Quotes from him.
The inner world of meditation is most easily entered through the door of the
imagination.
Where did we read that?
In the spiritual exercises of Loyola.
Okay.
This is the third most influential book after the Bible.
We fail today to appreciate its tremendous power.
The imagination is stronger than the conceptual thought and stronger than the
will.
In the West, our tendency to deify the merits of rationalism, and it does have
merit, has caused us to ignore the value of the imagination.
So let's go into contemplative in an imagineless void.
Let's go into this kind of thing.
Rooted in the senses, Jesus taught this way, making constant appeal to the
imagination and the senses.
In his autobiography, oh, this is fascinating.
C.G.
Jung describes how difficult it was for him to humble himself and once again play
imagination games of a child.
Here we're going into psychology, spiritual exercises, demonology.
And then whom does he praise?
Richard Foster says Ignatius of Loyola, in his spiritual exercises, constantly
encouraged his readers to visualize the gospel stories.
Who are these people?
They are Jesuit-trained individuals, or Jesuits themselves, who are bringing a
new spirituality to all churches in the world.
This is the enemy of Christ working to destroy true Protestant Christianity.
Every contemplation he gave was designed to open the imagination.
Is he against Ignatius Loyola here?
No, he's for him.
He even included a meditation entitled, Application of the Senses, which is an
attempt to help us utilize all five senses as we picture the gospel events.
So you sat there in your room, you said your mantra, with your stupid
little breath prayer, until your eyes start going round and round and round,
and then you visualize the place, you see where you are, and then you touch
it, you taste it, you smell it, you see it, until it permeates your entire
being, and then it becomes a reality, and you speak with the entity that appears
to you, and it tells you whatever it wants to put into your hypnotized mind.
Celebration of Discipline introduces to the church the so-called Masters of the
Interior Life.
Excuse me, who are the Masters of the Interior Life?
As Foster likes to call them, Medieval Mystics.
He declares that they alone have discovered the key to true spiritual life.
And who are these exemplary ones that we have to follow in our spiritual
contemplations?
Besides Ignatius Loyola, he quotes Meister Eckhart.
Meister Eckhart is the ultimate example, besides Loyola, of course.
A Dominican monk who lived in the 13th and 14th century, and he ranks with the great
Roman Catholic mystics such as Teresa, Avila, John of the Cross, Julian Norwich,
etc., Thomas Merton, Foster cites and quotes Merton on at least nine separate
occasions in Celebration of Discipline.
He was a 20th century Roman Catholic who emerged himself in Buddhism and
contemplative imagination, and unity with the cosmos in Nirvana.
This is a new religion.
The final category of discipline is the corporate.
Foster states that the first corporate discipline is that of confession.
Foster supports the position of the Roman Catholic Church complete with penance and
absolution.
So you have to do penance.
We're going into the complete spiritual exercises of Ignatius Loyola.
I hope you don't start hanging yourself up on hooks and beating living daylights out
of yourself soon.
And then, why not?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer assures us that when I go to my brother to confess, I'm going to
God.
And Foster wants us to know the assurance of forgiveness is sealed in the Spirit
when it is spoken by our brother or sister in the name of Christ.
So now, in the cell groups, you are encouraged to confess to your mentor.
He becomes, because it's a twelve around one group, the alter Christos.
We have Roman Catholicism, and we have generated a multitudinous pack of priests
who call themselves spiritual directors, control your mind, make sure you don't
rise up and think for yourself, and crush underfoot anything that looks
like dissent.
Once when receiving the confession of a lady, she looked at me and saw
superimposed upon my eyes the eyes of another who conveyed to her a love and
acceptance that released her to unburden her heart.
That is sin.
The Bible says, confess your faults one to another.
In other words, I go to my brother and I say to him, Brother, I am sorry that I
hurt you.
I'm sorry that I did this and this to you.
Will you forgive me?
That's fine.
I can also go to a friend and say, You know what?
I'm really struggling with my temper.
Can you pray for me?
That's fine.
But the New Translations don't say faults.
What do they say?
Confess your sins one to another.
I have a mega problem with that.
Take your sins to Jesus.
He's the only one who can forgive you your sins.
So this falls right nicely into this package deal.
His last discipline is celebration.
Here we are to express joy in all that we have learned thus far in the book,
even participating in holy laughter.
Let's have a cackle together.
The third most influential book.
As you enter the story, now please notice what he's saying.
You can bring Jesus into your presence.
As you enter the story, not as a passive observer, but as an active participant,
you've imagined yourself into the scene.
Remember that since Jesus lives in the eternal now and is not bound by time,
this event in the past is a living present tense experience for him.
Hence, you can actually encounter the living Christ in the event.
Be addressed by his voice and be touched by his healing power.
He can be more than an exercise of the imagination.
He can be a genuine confrontation.
Jesus Christ will actually come to you.
What have we got there now?
This is occult to the highest degree.
And this is what you do in the occult world.
You conjure up the spirit.
Jesus said, I go to prepare a place for you and I will come again so that you can
be where I am also.
Not I'm going to play hocus-pocus with your mind.
By faith, you accept that he is there.
His book, Celebration of Discipline, originally had the words New Age on page
170, but this was changed to avoid criticism.
We of the New Age can risk going into the tide became changed to we who follow
Christ can risk going against the tide.
He encourages astral travel.
The fourth form of meditation has its objective to bring you into a deep inner
communion with the Father.
Where you look at him and he looks at you in your imagination.
Picture yourself walking along a lovely forest path.
Take your time, allowing the blaring noise of your modern megalopolis to be overtaken
by the sound of rustling leaves and cool forest streams.
Then he says, after a while there is a deep yearning within you to go into the
upper regions beyond the clouds in your imagination.
Allow your spiritual body, shining with light, to rise out of your physical body.
Look back so that you can see yourself lying on the grass and reassure your body
that you will return momentarily.
I practiced that when I did this under the New Age training of my father-in-law.
It's called Oob.
It's a cult.
You come out of your body, you go up into the heavens, you experience whatever you
will.
You walk through walls.
It's a hypnotic implant.
It's not a reality.
It's a lie.
It's a hypnosis.
And he's saying, do this and this is your new spirituality.
I don't even want to read it.
It makes me sick.
Then he teaches New Age mysticism and pantheism.
After you have gained some proficiency in centering down, add five to ten minute
meditation.
Didn't Oprah Winfrey say the same thing?
On some aspect of creation, choose something in the created order,
tree, plant, blah, blah, blah.
And so you carry on and you become part of everything.
It's this cosmic fusion.
A large part of Renovare's spiritual discipline involves meditation on the
writings of selected spiritual masters.
Now, who are these spiritual masters?
And there they are, from their own webpage.
St. Francis, St. Catherine, St. Teresa, the other St. Teresa and St. John of the
Cross.
Those are your examples of Christianity.
We're back to Roman Catholicism.
This is the counter-reformation.
This is Jesuitism at its work.
Now, let's make absolutely sure, I'm not guessing.
We have to be thorough in our research, because the criticism level will be
severe.
This is the Jesuit webpages, and who do they promote?
They promote Richard Foster.
This is for www.jesuitvolunteers.org.
So, volunteers to the Jesuit Order, what must you read?
Please read the following books.
Simplicity, The Art of Living, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger.
This is a very challenging and readable book filled with facts and figures about
global greed and waste.
This is all social doctrine.
Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster.
The Jesuit webpages tell their Jesuit students, read Richard Foster.
Thank you very much.
That tells me, don't read him.
Be Still DVD was released in April 2006.
Quote from the DVD, One of the great things silence does is gives us a new
concept of God.
Sit there like a Buddhist, cross your legs, empty your mind and become
brainless.
And when you are totally brainless, listen for the voice.
It will start speaking.
The wonderful thing, says Richard Foster about contemplative prayer, is that it can
be found everywhere, anywhere, anytime for anyone.
We become a portable sanctuary so that we are living our life wherever it is,
aware of the goodness of God, the presence of God.
Oh, Divine Master, teach me this mute language which says so much.
Saying nothing, emptying your mind, says it all.
William Waswick, co-director with Richard Foster.
Comment from Albert J.
Dugner.
Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation, Washington.
This is interesting.
They are all working together.
Comment.
The objective is to move from conscious communication with God to being in the
presence, as Bill Waswick puts it.
The Buddhist equivalent of being in the presence would be to reach total
enlightenment and eventually nirvana.
You don't have to read anymore.
This is Zen meditation.
This is an ancient occult practice.
No wonder we have to link up these religions and why Buddhism and all its
contemplative and other activities must become mainstream.
Bob Benedict with Buddhists, April 17, 2008 at the interfaith meeting.
Notice that he's also doing the same things.
And Prince Charles does the same things.
Here we are receiving these new ideologies, new thoughts.
Who created these thoughts in the first place?
Who is behind the Dalai Lama?
Who gives him his power and his authority out there as an exile?
None other than these organizations themselves, the Roman Catholic Institutes.
Please note, here's a Buddhist gathering.
Here is a statue of Buddha.
And please look at that little picture down there.
Who is that individual bowing down to a statue of Buddha?
There she is enlarged.
Who is she?
Mother Teresa.
She has no problem bowing down to a statue of Buddha or a statue of Christ as long as
it's an icon and not the real thing.
And here's a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, whatever.
And he packed the stadium at what university?
Loyola University.
Fascinating to initiate students in Buddhist exercises.
Catholic priest prays in a Buddhist monastery.
Let's get this spirituality into the world.
And this nice gentleman is a Jesuit Catholic priest, Father Saju George from
India, and he performs a Hindu dance called Bharatan, and he claims that he
gives momentum to God's word in tangible form.
So now, if we can dance while we're doing our spirituality, then it all becomes
tangible and touchable, and everybody gets so excited in the spiritual world that it
will enhance your spirituality.
And so the nuns go, and we come into tune with Vatican II, and we have transformed
what used to be in the old days to something new.
Now let's go to the Shalem homepage.
Did you know that some of these institutes are the only places where you can be
trained to be a spiritual director?
You can't go to your own church to get your training, because that's not good
enough.
We need specialist Jesuit-trained people to train you how to be a good formation
leader.
So let's see what they teach at Shalem Institute, where most of the spiritual
directors are being trained.
Consists of spiritual guide training, retreat leader training, spiritual
deepening programs, group spiritual direction, sacred listening, contemplative
leadership, flowing together.
Can you see all this new-genesis and oo-genesis?
I nearly said something I shouldn't say.
Anyway, here is this pleasant gentleman who is the founder of these organizations,
dressed in appropriate black.
Some thoughts from the Shalem founder.
I'm not going to read this.
The heart is a dangerous place to our minds, because there we depend upon
something, someone beyond our control and mental grasp.
Our constricted ego self is rationalized.
La, la, la, la, la.
Hello!
Please preach, Jesus!
Shalem's work also involves the chant, the body prayer practice.
Fascinating.
This is like Reiki and Quakerism.
Traditional Reiki master will align and tune in the energy centers of the
students.
After this process is completed, the universal life force becomes amplified
when drawn through the hands.
This is a cult!
Our bodies have a vocabulary.
Simple breath prayer, simple body prayer, body blessing.
Can you imagine this?
Please note these buzzwords.
You will hear them.
They're coming to us in a powerful way.
This is how body prayer works.
Listen to this.
May your body be blessed.
May you realize that your body is faithful and beautiful friend of your soul.
And may you be peaceful and joyful and recognize that your senses are sacred
threshold.
May you realize holiness is mindful gazing, feeling, hearing, touching.
There you sit and you go through all of these things.
Here's the website of Unknowing.
Is devoted to Christian mysticism, interfaith, spirituality, Celtic wisdom,
emergent theology.
Shalem Product, Carl McCullman, teaches contemplative prayer, propagates
mysticism in religion.
This is where it comes from.
Abandonment of Protestant principles.
Let's get to something else and let's get into sacred dance.
Are we getting that more and more in our world?
The whirling dervishes of Turkey, the sacred dance of the Mebley Sufis.
What does it do?
Opens up the channel for this activity.
Now here you have a Muslim variety.
Notice the dress.
The white robes, the beautiful movement, and all of these things.
The real reason why some evangelicals dislike contemplative prayer, says this
webpage.
Here's an interesting article from the Louisville, Kentucky Courier-Journal.
David Harris, a former Baptist minister, next month will be ordained a Catholic
priest.
Why?
Because contemplative prayer changes your mind.
Ex-married, ex-Baptist minister to become Catholic priest, married former Baptist to
be a priest.
He never considered his conversion to Catholicism six years ago by the rejection
of the Baptist faith that nourished him from childhood, etc.
He practices these things and you merge.
Shalom Center propagates sacred dancing, multi-religious interaction, dances of
universal peace.
And you have all these reverend doctors, so-and-so, dancing universal peace into
the world.
And we become the tent of Abraham, Hagar and Sarah.
What does that mean?
All religions jump into the same pot.
And we have religious dialogue and we have coalitions for social action.
And we have a social gospel and we've ripped the heart out of everything that's
in the Bible.
Sacred mission, our sacred guild, sacred dance guild promotes sacred dances,
prayer, means of spiritual growth, connecting to the divine, integration of
mind, body, spirit.
I mean, it's fantastic.
And who will be the mega-dancer on the world?
The Pope.
Here is his team of dancers.
Imagine this.
Rome's Olympic Stadium, a group of 1,200 young women performed synchronized dancing
in front of John Paul II during the Vatican-sponsored sports jubilee.
An estimated 100,000 people were in the stadium to greet the Pope.
And so we have St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Rock Church.
We have the sacred dancing, dancing on the altar, dancing in Luxembourg.
The churches of Fulibert, the dancing girls of Archbishop Niederhauer.
And this is the dance that took place when Pope Benedict had the Mass in the United
States, in the Yankee Stadium.
Spiritual dancing.
Where does all this stuff come from?
The Methodist Center for Spiritual Formation.
And now I want you to wake up.
Now let's go to a Protestant webpage and see how far the rot has gone.
Is that fair enough?
This is the Methodist webpage.
Spiritual formation, formation gatherings are the day or weekend retreat designed to
meet the interests and needs of those seeking a deeper walk in their spiritual
journey.
Now what are they going to train us for?
Please note the programs are for what years?
2008 and 2009.
That's now.
Prayer Labyrinth.
Encountering the Holy Spirit on the journey within.
Learn about the history of the labyrinth and join fellow sojourners on the
labyrinth prayer.
A Methodist webpage.
John Wesley wouldn't turn over in his grave, he'd spin if he could.
Methodist.
Monastic spirituality.
Monasticism and spirituality have always been two sides of the same coin.
In the last several decades many monastic communities have sprung up as people have
tried a formal religion and sought a closer communion with God.
We're becoming monks and nuns.
Thais worship.
Thais in many things in a small village in southwest France.
The name of its residential ecumenical monastic community.
You go there and you sing the Thai chants.
Methodists.
An introduction to iconography.
We need icons in the church.
We need little statues.
We've lost our identity.
Explore the ancient tradition of icon through the eyes of iconographer and
artist as well as understanding and experience how icons can be aged to
contemplation and prayer.
What does the second commandment say?
It forbids this.
Now is this a Roman Catholic or is this not?
Is it Jesuit controlled or is it not?
Journaling through active imagination.
Have you ever thought that you would like to journal but always end up starting in a
blank sheet of paper?
So now let's get this active.
Wellness and health.
It's also part of it.
The New Ages are better at it than we are.
Let's look at the Presbyterian webpage.
What is spiritual formation?
Spiritual formation is the activity of the Holy Spirit which molds our lives into the
likeness of Jesus Christ.
This likeness is one of deep intimacy with God and genuine compassion for all
creation.
Sounds good?
The Spirit works not only in the lives of individuals but also in the church,
shaping it into the body of Christ.
We cooperate with this work of the Spirit through certain practices that make us
more open and responsive to the Spirit's touch.
Disciplines such as Sabbath keeping.
Works of compassion and justice.
Discernment.
Worship hospitality.
Spiritual friendships.
Contemplative silence.
Presbyterians.
Calvin will freak.
Walking the sacred path.
Join so-and-so with a wonderful journey into the heart of the sacred center.
And we'll go to the cathedrals through a series of workshops, training of your
choosing.
We'll explore historical archetypes.
We'll go to those holy people of the past who were all Roman Catholic saints.
The labyrinth as a tool.
Labyrinth facilitation.
Engage in ritual meditation, lecture, art, music, sacred circle.
What does all this nonsense mean?
Let's go to sacred circle.
Here is the labyrinth.
You walk in the labyrinth.
And you find your spirituality by not knowing where you're going.
And you light your little candles.
And you have your little prayer beads.
Who uses prayer beads like this, by the way?
Roman Catholic Church.
The Sacred Circle Company.
That's what the Presbyterians want to take you to.
It's an exciting, innovative partnership offering the essential material,
guidance and information for nurturing spiritual wholeness.
We specialize in resources for care for the soul, labyrinth, small group studies,
retreats, workshops, aids to meditation and prayer, as well as mentoring for
individual pilgrimages.
Are these people crazy?
The 12 heavenly practices of a new church.
Stillness.
Detachment.
Humility.
Silence.
Discernment.
Healing.
Solitude.
Devotion.
Holiness.
Simplicity.
Delight.
Heavenliness.
Is there anything about salvation in Jesus Christ here?
God is doing a new thing now.
God is creating a new church for the new age now.
And we have to be part of it.
We need spirituality in practice.
They quote the Presbyterian Office of Spiritual Formation.
Good definition, many resources offered.
Go and study what these people are saying.
Sealing versus formation.
Revelation 7.3.
Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed
the servants of our God in their foreheads.
Isaiah 8.16.
Bind up the testimony, seal up the law amongst my disciples.
I quote to you from a book called Maranatha.
Just as soon as the people of God are sealed in their foreheads, it is not any
seal or mark that can be seen but a settling into the truth, both
intellectually and spiritually, so they cannot be moved.
Just as soon as God's people are sealed and prepared for the shaking, it will
come.
Indeed, it has begun already.
The judgments of God are now upon the land to give us warning that we may know what
is coming.
The days are fast approaching when there will be a great perplexity and confusion.
Satan clothed in angel robes will deceive, if possible, the very elect.
There will be God's many and Lord's many.
Every wind of doctrine will be blowing.
I want to suggest that spiritual formation is the counterfeit to the sealing of God,
the settling into the truth, so that you cannot be moved.
And we need to study the Bible as we have never studied it before, and we need to
cling to what is truth and righteousness, and we need to cling to the testimonies
given by God so that we don't fall into these traps.
And these traps are being prepared all over the world.
I don't need some hocus-pocus spiritual mumbo-jumbo formation.
I need a walk with Jesus Christ, and that is all I need.
Alice A.
Bailey foretold of what she termed the regeneration of the churches.
Her rationale was this.
The Christian churches and its many branches can serve as a St. John the
Baptist, as a voice crying in the wilderness, and as a nucleus through which
illumination may be accomplished.
I don't need that kind of illumination.
I'm crucified with Christ, says Galatians.
Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.
And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of
God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
The Jesuit counter-reformation is almost complete.
It has a few, very few loose ends that it has to wrap up.
Be careful that we are not wrapped up in amongst those loose ends.
Isaiah 64 verse 8, Yet, O Lord, you are our Father, we are the clay,
you are the potter, we are the work of your hand.
You belong to God.
You don't belong to anyone on this earth.
You don't belong to your husband.
You don't belong to your wife.
You belong to God.
You are accountable to God for what you believe and what you practice.
And nobody, nobody has the right to merge someone else's character into his.
That is control.
Control freaks do that.
They use neuro-linguistic programming, whatever technique they use.
It's not from God.
Jeremiah says in 18 verse 6, O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this
potter, said the Lord.
Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so you are in mine, in mine hand,
O house of Israel.
Our spiritual formation is a transformation that has to take place
under the hands of the only one you can trust yourselves to.
And don't let anyone rob you of your sealing.