“Christian” Mysticism

Audio Downloads:  Mysticism in the Church

GREEN = Quotes that reflect my perspective.
RED = Quotes I believe reflect an unbiblical perspective.
BLACK = My occasional commentary. 

When the LORD your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, “How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.” 
— Deuteronomy 12:29-32 

“Christian” Mysticism utilizes mantras or rhythmic breathing to achieve transcendent levels of consciousness whereby one opens themselves to an unmediated encounter with God.  The goal of the Christian mystic is to have a life enhancing spiritual experience and these experiences may have little or nothing to do with the Bible. Seeking hidden knowledge through voices or visions is a form of divination.  Unlike biblical examples where God initiates special encounters; in mysticism it is the person who initiates the encounter with a method never prescribed by God.  The normative method of guidance for the Christian is through God’s written revelation which, when applied, renews the mind and transforms the heart so that our lives manifest the will of God.
— Mark Witte  

[Mysticism is the path] by which one may achieve personal union with the divine, as if it was an ascent up a ladder or mountain, or down into the labyrinthine depths of the soul. / In the mystical life one passes from one layer to the next in an inner or downward journey to the core of the personality where dwells the great mystery called God. / This is the never-ending journey which is recognizable in the mysticism of all the great religions. / Wherever it occurs it simply adapts itself according to the religio-cultural situation in which it develops.
— Alan Morrison, The Evangelical Attraction to Mysticism  

There is a primacy with respect to order and a primacy with respect to importance.  With respect to order, the primacy is the mind.  God has created us so the conduit to the heart is through the mind.  And you can’t have it in the heart if you don’t first have it in the mind.  But the primacy of importance is the heart.  The most important thing is that our hearts are right with God. Mindless zeal has no virtue to it whatsoever.  And knowledge apart from zeal will lead to arrogance and can be a detriment if it is isolated from the heart.  The ultimate goal of knowledge is never an end in itself.  Therefore the more I know God the more I love Him.         
— RC Sproul, White Horse Inn radio interview, 09-03-2006  

We are probably living in the most anti-intellectual period in the history of the church.  Not anti-scientific.  Not anti-academic.  But anti-intellect, anti-mind.  The Bible tells us that we are called as Christian people, not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed.  And the way of that transformation is through the renewing of the mind.  We have been made by our creator to have a direct line from the brain, or from the mind, to the heart.  And so for the Scripture, the new mind brings with it always a new heart.  But you can’t bypass the mind in an attempt to have a renewed heart.  And that’s what people are trying to do today.  I don’t want to learn, I don’t want to study the Word of God.  I want to have a feeling.  I want to have some kind of mystical experience, and let that supplant or replace the hard study of the content of the Word of God.  But the Scripture says the way life changes, is when the mind changes.    
— RC Sproul, The Truth Project, Lesson 2 

Right doctrine naturally leads to right devotionality. There is no point in attempting to compensate for perceived spiritual dryness by indulging in mystical practices. For mystically-induced religious experiences are at least as bad as spiritual deadness.        
— Alan Morrison, The Evangelical Attraction to Mysticism, p.26

Systematic theology devoid of heart religion is bad enough. But a heart religion which is devoid of systematic theology is a scourge.          
— Alan Morrison, The Evangelical Attraction to Mysticism, p.14

There is a deep sense of frustration with organized religion today which is merging with a renewed yearning for the sacred, and the result is an explosion in these personalized, customized spiritualities. This appears to be not only an American phenomenon but one that is found throughout the West. In a study that was done in Britain in 2000, for example, it was discovered that during approximately the final decade of the twentieth century, regular attendance at church dropped from being a practice of 28% of the population down to 8%. During this same time, however, those who described themselves as spiritual, or who had had spiritual experiences, rose from 48% to 76%.   
— David F. Wells, Above All Earthly Pow’rs – Christ in a Postmodern World, pp. 113-14

Mystics seldom write from the position that justification by the grace of God alone through faith alone in Christ alone is a prerequisite for communion with God. For that matter, Catholic mystics develop their spirituality in a tradition which officially rejects this doctrine.     
— Donald S. Whitney, Doctrine and Devotion: A Reunion Devoutly To Be Desired 

Medieval Roman Catholic mysticism has been dusted off and offered as the newest and best thing in spirituality.  But there is one little problem.  If this is how God wanted His followers to connect with Him why didn’t He bother to say so in His Word?  If contemplative prayer is the key that will unlock this greater dimension of spirituality, as we will see is being claimed, why did God not give us instructions on how to pray in this manner?       
— Gary E. Gilley, Mysticism – Part 1 

A fourth form of meditation has as its objective to bring you into a deep inner communion with the Father where you look at him and he looks at you. …After awhile there is a deep yearning within 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 in the grass and reassure your body that you will return momentarily. Imagine your spiritual self, alive and vibrant, rising up through the clouds and into the stratosphere. Observe your physical body, the knoll, and the forest shrink as you leave the earth. Go deeper and deeper into outer space until there is nothing except the warm presence of the eternal Creator. Rest in His presence. Listen quietly, anticipating the unanticipated. Note carefully any instruction given. With time and experience you will be able to distinguish readily between mere human thought that may bubble up to the conscious mind and the True Spirit which inwardly moves upon the heart. … When it is time for you to leave, audibly thank the Lord for His goodness and return to the meadow. Walk joyfully back along the path until you return home full of new life and energy.
— Richard Foster, The Celebration of Discipline, pp.27-28 

 Eugene Peterson describes it in the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Celebration of Discipline, “Like a child exploring the attic of an old house on a rainy day, discovering a trunk full of treasure and then calling all his brothers and sisters to share the find, Richard J. Foster has ‘found’ the spiritual disciplines that the modern world stored away and forgot, and has excitedly called us to celebrate them.  For they are, as he shows us, the instruments of joy, the way into mature Christian spirituality and abundant life” (p. 206). 
Even more to the point, the dust jacket of this edition assures us “that it is only by and through these practices that the true path to spiritual growth can be found”.  If spiritual growth is dependent upon the spiritual disciplines described in Foster’s book, should not we have expected to find this truth in the Scriptures?  Why did God reveal them, not to the Apostles but to apostate Roman Catholic mystics, and then to Richard Foster as he studied the mystics and used occultic techniques of meditation?  We need to tread very carefully through this spiritual minefield.  If this is in fact one of the ten best books of the twentieth century, I am not too anxious to read the other nine.    
— Gary E. Gilley, Mysticism – Part 2 

Many of the mystics invoked by evangelicals today are post-Reformation Catholics, including Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Francis de Sales, Madame Guyon, Francois Fenelon, Therese of Lisieux, Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, etc. Why do we want to send our hungriest disciples to those who do not preach justification by faith alone, who pray to Mary and the saints, and who believe that the Bible is not the only source of God’s infallible truth? I am not saying that there is nothing we can learn from these writers. I am wondering why, if our time for reading is so limited, should we go to the mystics first? 
— Donald S. Whitney, Doctrine and Devotion: A Reunion Devoutly To Be Desired 

[Winfried] Corduan sounds an important alarm.  Mysticism, both ancient and modern is chocked full of supposed revelations from God.  As a matter of fact, this is the draw – God will personally meet you in the center of your soul and communicate to you matters far beyond anything found in Scripture.  “Christian meditation, very simply is the ability to hear God’s voice and obey his word,” [Richard] Foster tells us.  This is no slip of the pen.  Foster is not advocating listening to the voice of God in the written revelation of God.  He is not even equating “his word” with the Bible.  He is speaking of hearing God’s voice outside of the Scriptures, and obeying that revelation.  This is one of the greatest dangers of mysticism.
— Gary E. Gilley, Mysticism – Part 3 

The direct experiences with God encouraged by mystics are distinguished from those which the Holy Spirit mediates through Scripture. Rather than beginning with a specific passage of God’s revelation of Himself and a reasoned understanding of and reflection upon that, mystics often find greater depth and spiritual riches in meditative experiences which spring from a sanctified imagination. In spiritual matters, the intuitive experience begins to take priority over the cognitive one. The inevitable result of this kind of spirituality is that the importance of the Bible is to some degree depreciated, despite assurances to the contrary.          
— Donald S. Whitney, Doctrine and Devotion: A Reunion Devoutly To Be Desired 

God speaks through a variety of means. In the present God primarily speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church. These four means are difficult to separate.         
— Henry Blackaby, Experiencing God (workbook), p.83 
Mr. Blackaby is saying, rather than the Bible being uniquely authoritative; it is merely one of a variety of means through which God ‘speaks’ to us.  The Bible should not be “difficult to separate” from the other three. — Mark Witte 

Quakers founder George Fox, who was himself prone to mysticism, wished for a “personal” approach “to God” that ended up being “apart from the Bible.” As such Fox began with his theology already turned backward by believing that it is man who seeks after God and as a result the Scriptures were forced to take a back seat to his own way of approaching the Lord. We need to carefully consider the above information. Fox is seeking a “direct” and “mystical experience” with God. Admirable yes; but it is the LORD God Almighty–the glorious and transcendent Creator of the universe–Who set the prescribed means of interacting with us through prayer and His Words in Holy Scripture.         
— Ken Silva, Do You Know Where Your Mystic Teaching Comes From: Richard Foster, (article) 

Prayer is two-way fellowship and communication with God. You speak to God and He speaks to you. It is not a one-way conversation. …If the God of the universe tells you something, you should write it down. When God speaks to you in your quiet time, immediately write down what He said before you have time to forget. 
— Henry Blackaby, Experiencing God (workbook), p.87 

 Many people do not fully believe that God speaks today. If we think we get direction only through Scripture, then we miss out on much of what God has to share, because He will speak so often through His Spirit, circumstances and other people. We must make absolutely certain that we are fully convinced and persuaded that God does speak to us personally…
— Charles Stanley, How to Listen to God, p.128 

I learned to wait upon “the word of God” to come to me… I also learned to expect his speaking to come through me to others.           
Today I continue to believe that people are meant to live in an ongoing conversation with God, speaking and being spoken to. Rightly understood I believe that this can be abundantly verified in experience. God’s visits to Adam and Eve in the Garden, Enoch’s walks with God and the face-to-face conversations between Moses and Jehovah are all commonly regarded as highly exceptional moments in the religious history of mankind. Aside from their obviously unique historical role, however, they are not meant to be exceptional at all.         
— Dallas Willard, Hearing God, p.16,18  
In Numbers, Miriam and Aaron opposed Moses for the special relationship he had with God.   
“’Has the LORD spoken only through Moses?’ they asked. ‘Hasn’t he also spoken through us?’” [And God said,] 6 “Listen to my words: ‘When a prophet of the LORD is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams. 7 But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. 8 With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?’”   Num. 12:2, 6-8.    
God’s judgment was to make Miriam leprous and she was expelled from the camp for seven days. To Mr. Willard, as with Miriam, Moses’ encounters with God were not exceptional at all.  Mr. Willard says “ongoing conversations” are meant for everyone today. Would he also suggest that, like Moses, believers should learn to “see the form of the Lord”, and with Him “speak face to face”?  Deu. 34:10  Since that time no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face.  — Mark Witte  

To many Christians, guidance is a chronic problem.  Why?  Not because they doubt that divine guidance is a fact, but because they are sure it is.  p.209                     
Their basic mistake is to think of guidance as essentially inward prompting by the Holy Spirit, apart from the written Word. p.212   
The idea of a life in which the inward voice of the Spirit decides and directs everything sounds most attractive, for it seems to exalt the Spirit’s ministry and to promise the closest intimacy with God; but in practice this quest for super-spirituality leads only to frantic bewilderment or lunacy.  p.213     
The true way to honour the Holy Spirit as our guide is to honour the Holy Scriptures through which He guides us.  p.214   
— J.I. Packer, Knowing God 

…the mystical experience …becomes a source of revelation, a private avenue of insight into God and his workings.  If so, the evangelical commitment to Scripture as the sole source of revelation becomes undermined. The Scriptures nowhere teach that God gives us any knowledge through ‘spiritual experience.’  Knowledge of spiritual matters is always linked to God’s propositional revelation, the written Word.         
— Gary E. Gilley, Mysticism – Part 3 

…using the term more loosely as represented by this quote from John MacArthur, “The mystic disdains rational understanding and seeks truth instead through the feelings, the imagination, personal visions, inner voices, private illumination, or other purely subjective means.” By this rather loose definition Blackaby is indeed a mystic. This type of mysticism, which I believe to be a functional denial of sola scriptura, is running rampant throughout the Christian community with devastating consequences.  But in the more technical, official sense MacArthur’s definition is inadequate.  Classical mysticism, which is now making a strong return to Christianity, goes far deeper.  Mysticism is the search for unio mystica, personal union with God.  But what does this union encompass and how is it attained?  Here things get sticky, for as Georgia Harkness tells us in her book, Mysticism, there are at least twenty-six definitions of mysticism by those who have studied it carefully. 
Winfried Corduan, in his ‘Mysticism: an Evangelical Option?’ boils it down to the essentials when he writes, “The mystic believes that there is an absolute and that he or she can enjoy an unmediated link to this absolute in a superrational experience”.     
— Gary E. Gilley, Mysticism – Part 1 

The quiet repetition of a single word can help us to descend with the mind into the heart / This way of simple prayer / opens us to God’s active presence.
— Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart, p.81 

This book changed my perspective on life and religion.  Eric Butterworth teaches that God isn’t “up there”.  He exists inside each one of us, and it’s up to us to seek the divine within.
— Oprah Winfrey, endorsement on front cover of “Discover the Power Within You” by Unity minister Eric Butterworth  

Generally speaking, false teachers couch their teaching in language, often carefully chosen, in order to preserve the aura of respectability and faithfulness to the divine revelation, while at the same time moving away from it.  So in an underhanded way they smuggle in destructive heresies. 
— S. Lewis Johnson, 2 Peter 2:1-3 (audio) 

By using Eastern mystical techniques such as the repetition of words (mantras) and the emptying of the mind, professing Christians are testifying to powerful experiences in the spiritual realms. In Christian circles these techniques are being called: the silence, breath prayer, centring prayer, or contemplative prayer. Through these mystical prayer practices the church today has opened its door to a subtle abandonment of the gospel… Like two rivers merging together, Eastern and Western religious thought are joining together, thus gaining momentum towards a one world religion in which all paths lead to God.” Through these mystical [contemplative] prayer practices the church today has opened its door to a subtle abandonment of the gospel… Like two rivers merging together, Eastern and Western religious thought are joining together, thus gaining momentum towards a one world religion in which all paths lead to God.  
— Ron Comer, Foreword to Ray Yungen, A Time of Departing, p. 15

[Mysticism is the path] by which one may achieve personal union with the divine, as if it was an ascent up a ladder or mountain, or down into the labyrithine depths of the soul. / In the mystical life one passes from one layer to the next in an inner or downward journey to the core of the personality where dwells the great mystery called God. / This is the never-ending journey which is recognizable in the mysticism of all the great religions. / Wherever it occurs it simply adapts itself according to the religio-cultural situation in which it develops.
— Alan Morrison, The Evangelical Attraction to Mysticism, (article) 

There is a difference in understanding that the Holy Spirit indwells us when we accept Jesus Christ and the occult meaning behind the concept of “the god within”, “the light within” or “the Christ within.”      
— Vicky Dillen 

 [Transcendental Meditation] views man as an extension of Being rather than as a creature made in the image of God. Thus, his problem is one of metaphysical separation, not moral separation as in Christianity. Maharishi teaches that proper meditation takes one out of “the field of sin” and leads to union with Being. The Bible, on the other hand, teaches that man’s moral guilt before a personal, righteous God must be paid for. No method of self-salvation (e.g., meditation) is adequate, because a sinner cannot atone for his own sins.           
— Kenneth Boa, Cults, World Religions and You, p.164 

Contemplatives sometimes speak of their union with God by the analogy of a log in a fire: the glowing log is so united with the fire that it is fire…   
— Richard Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home
The glowing contemplative is so united with God that the Contemplative is God? — Mark Witte 

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.
— Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilt Bystander, p.157-58 

[speaking of human nature] This basic core of goodness is capable of unlimited development; indeed, of becoming transformed into Christ and deified.
— Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart, p.127 

With God working through me, I can do anything God can do.    
— Henry Blackaby, Experiencing God (workbook), p.19 

“What is the goal of Contemplative Prayer?…union with God. / our final goal is union with God, which is a pure relationship where we see nothing.” 
— Richard Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home
According to Foster (and Thomas Merton?) the use of imagination is a beginner’s technique for connecting with God. To “see nothing” moves beyond using the tool of imagination. — Mark Witte 

Of the most treasured books in my library are our prayer path journals. …What jumps off these journal pages is the challenge for each participant to put their personal experience into words—to translate what has happened in their heart and soul as they walked alone on the prayer path [the labyrinth], yet together, in a mysterious community of fellow journeyers.  Here is a peek inside the journals as participants attempt to translate their prayer path experience into words:    
(1) Oh my word—that was amazing.  Who knew that an hour on a tarp could completely give someone a religious shock charge?  In a world like today’s, nothing should make me so mellow and have me just sit still. …The prayer path was amazing, and now I feel 10 times closer to God.  
(2) This was a wonderful experience.  I couldn’t think of a better way to connect.  I hope (and wish) to be able to go through this experience again!  I feel that I have never been able to focus as well as I did here today. …This experience is definitely going to further improve my relationship with God.  Thank you…for such a deep and wonderful experience!         
— Adele Ahlberg Calhoun, Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us, p.237 

You will be gradually able to tune into God’s presence … you will have a sense of slow, vibrant, deep energy surrounding you / Let yourself flow with this energy, it is the Presence of the Lord … As you continue to dwell in the Presence, the intensity will grow. It is extremely pleasurable to experience.
— Ken Kaisch, Finding God: A Handbook of Christian Meditation, pp.63,64 

Suppose I decided to pursue a more mystical method. I want to spend some time in meditation, and, being a good evangelical, I do some Bible reading first, maybe even reading Colossians chapter three before I begin to meditate. But instead of meditating on what the Bible says about Christ in Colossians 3:4, however, I decide simply that I want to meditate on Christ and experience Him directly. Is this possible? Certainly. Is this ever valid? Yes. One more question, though. What will guide my meditation? I can’t meditate on Christ unless I know who He is and what He is like. That information must come from my mind, and my mind must have acquired it from the Bible. Otherwise my meditation is feeling in the dark of my imagination, looking for a “Christ” about which I know nothing. In fact, I may have a mystical experience that is out of this world, and believe that I’ve encountered Christ. But how will I know what or whom I’ve encountered? By what standard will I interpret and understand the experience? We are ultimately cast back upon Scripture and Spirit-illuminated reason, not just a sanctified imagination.  
— Donald S. Whitney, Doctrine and Devotion: A Reunion Devoutly To Be Desired 

For those who talk about internal experiences they have had, we are not in any position to question their experience. But there are some things we need to remember, and they need to remember this too. When we have an internal experience, that experience does not come self-interpreted. You have to supply the interpretation because the experience itself does not do that.  Also, when we have an internal experience we think might have some spiritual significance, there are three possibilities for what that experience might connect with.  First, you might simply be experiencing your own thoughts rather than anything foreign to you. A second possibility is that you have actually had an experience with something supernatural. But remember, God is not the only supernatural entity out there. So be on guard about experiences.
— Steven Hein, KFUO Issues Etc. Radio Interview (paraphrased)
[Your experience may be of God, and it may be a deception. We have an enemy who “disguises himself as an angel of light” (2Cor 11:14) to draw us away from the God we know through Scripture.] — Mark Witte 

An outside God, such as we find in biblical faith, is comprehensible because he is self-defined in his revelation; the inside god is not. The inside god is merged into the psychological texture of the seeker and found spread within the vagaries of the self. The outside God stands over against those who would know him; the inside one emerges within their consciousness and is a part of them. Religions have their schools of thought and their interpreters, and always the debate is over who most truly understands the religion. Spirituality, in the contemporary sense, spawns no such debate because it makes no truth claims and seeks no universal significance. It lives out its life within the confines of private experience. “Truth” is private, not public; it is for the individual, not for the universe. Here is American individualism coupled with some new assumptions about God which are being glossed off with infatuations about pop therapy, uniting to produce varieties of spirituality as numerous as those who think of themselves as spiritual.        
— David F. Wells, Above All Earthly Pow’rs – Christ in a Postmodern World, p 130-31