Sad News About Charles Stanley’s In Touch Magazine

http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=12341 ^ | July 25th, 2013 | Ligthouse Trails Editors

[jodyel]

Lighthouse Trails has watched in dismay over the past few years as Charles Stanley’s In Touch magazine has made the decision to promote contemplative/emergent names. When our editors picked up a copy of the August 2013 issue and saw a feature article written by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, we decided to call In Touch Ministries to find out who was responsible for the content in the magazine. Sadly, the response we received from the editorial department at In Touch left us with a sinking feeling that the evangelical church has been seduced and there was no turning back.

We’ll talk about the phone call in a minute but first a look at Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove.

In June of 2011, Lighthouse Trails free lance writer Mike Stanwood wrote “Contemplative Spirituality Lands on Charles Stanley’s In Touch Magazine . . . Again.” In this article, it was revealed that in the January 2011 In Touch magazine issue, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove was featured in an article written by In Touch Managing Editor Cameron Lawrence. That article, titled “The Craft of Stability: Discovering the Ancient Art of Staying Put,” highlighted the “ intentional Christian community” at the Rutba House (Wilson-Hartgrove’s home) and their “daily prayer routine.” The In Touch article stated that Rutba House is an evangelical community rooted in the Protestant tradition and that Wilson-Hartgrove is an ordained Baptist minister, yet it also reported that Rutba’s community principles are borrowed from Benedictine monks and that all of their efforts are based on St. Benedict’s “rule of life.”

In Stanwood’s article, he points out that Wilson-Hartgrove is part of the “New Monasticism” movement within the emerging church. To help you understand just how serious this situation is with Charles Stanley and his ministry, read this following section of Stanwood’s article:

Wilson-Hartgrove is most recently known for co-authoring Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals with new monastic activist Shane Claiborne. Other books he has authored may also fall into the emerging/contemplative category. For example, one such book called New Monasticism: What It Has to Say to Today’s Church (1) has been endorsed by mystic proponents Brian McLaren, Phyllis Tickle, Tony Campolo, and Catholic priest and centering prayer advocate Richard Rohr. The mystics resonate with the “new monasticism” – this is plain to see.

On the surface, the new monasticism may look OK with its many good works of helping the poor and the needy. But the underlying belief system does not line up with biblical doctrine; rather it is about establishing an all-inclusive kingdom of God on earth now where individual salvation is replaced with a community salvation for the whole world. Atonement has less emphasis on Jesus Christ as the only atonement for man’s sins and instead becomes an at-one-ment where all of creation is “being” saved by coming together as one (and yes, seeing the divinity of man). This is the kind of “atonement” that McLaren, Tickle, and Rohr would resonate with.

It is important to see that they don’t just resonate with the good works coming out of the new monasticism; born-again Christians have been performing good works by helping the poor and needy for centuries and continue to do so. While this new monasticism supposedly distinguishes itself by its good works, in reality it is mysticism and the foundational beliefs of mysticism (i.e., panentheism, kingdom now, etc) that distinguish it. And it is that element that Tickle, McLaren, and Rohr embrace.

Additional resources on Wilson-Hartgrove’s website include a DVD called Discovering Christian Classics: 5 Sessions in the Ancient Faith of Our Future, a five-week study with contemplative advocate Lauren F. Winner (Girl Meets God) for high school or adult “formation.” A description of this DVD states:

“You will discover the meaning of conversion and prayer from the Desert Fathers and Mothers; how to love from the sermons of St. John Chrysostom; St. Benedict’s Rule of Life and how it became one of the foundations of Western Christian spirituality; how to have an intimate relationship with God according to The Cloud of Unknowing; and what it means to ‘pick up your cross” in the Imitation of Christ by Thomas A. Kempis.’”

Another book Wilson-Hartgrove has authored, called The Wisdom of Stability: Rooting Faith in a Mobile Culture, refers readers to the wisdom of Lao-tzu, the desert monastics, Thomas Merton, Benedictine spirituality, panentheist and interspiritualist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and Benedictine nun Joan Chittister.

In a Beliefnet interview one year ago, Wilson-Hartgrove shared how “we need the wisdom of those who’ve gone before us.” This wisdom he is referring to comes not from the Bible, but from the contemplative “Benedictines (who) taught us to start the day with common prayer.”1

After seeing what is at the core of Wilson-Hartgrove’s spiritual wisdom, it is not surprising to learn that he recently made an appearance at the [very emergent] Wild Goose Festival .2 According to an article in the Christian Post, the Wild Goose Festival was a “four-day revival camp in North Carolina featuring music, yoga, liberal talk and embracing of gays and lesbians.”

The fact is, anyone who is drawn to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, as Wilson-Hartgrove is, has got to be following a different spirit and another gospel or at the very least greatly deceived. Chardin, who is attributed to the term “cosmic Christ,” did not hide the fact in his writings that he believed, not in the Christ of the Bible, but a christ consciousness in every human being.

While we do not challenge Wilson-Hartgrove’s sincerity or concern for the poor and needy, we must challenge his consistent promotion of contemplative mystics and emergent leaders, and he certainly does not seem like a proper fit with In Touch Ministries, that is unless In Touch is going emerging. The reason we say this about Wilson-Hartgrove’s sincerity has to do with the phone call we had with two editors of the editorial staff of In Touch magazine on July 24, 2013. One of the editors we spoke with was Cameron Lawrence, the Editor in Chief (and also the one who wrote the 2011 In Touch article featuring Wilson-Hartgrove). Lawrence asked us if we had ever spoken with Wilson-Hartgrove personally, suggesting that he was a sincere man who lived out the Gospel by helping the needy. We answered him by stating that the issue at hand was not a private matter but rather a public issue because Wilson-Hartgrove is a public figure (books, conferences, articles, etc). We said that it did not matter what he might say in a private conversation, but it did matter what he was teaching others. And it mattered greatly that In Touch was promoting him.

When we spoke with Cameron Lawrence, we told him we wanted to know who was responsible for putting the article by Wilson-Hartgrove in the magazine to which he told us “the entire editorial staff” made the decision. We asked him if he would be interested in seeing some of our documentation to which he answered, “I have been on the Lighthouse Trails website, and I didn’t find it helpful.” The other editor we spoke with, who wished to remain anonymous, said it sounded like we were on a “witch hunt” to which we responded, “No, we are part of a Gospel-protection effort.”

At times like this, it is difficult not to become discouraged by the lack of interest in Christian intelligentsia and leadership regarding the contemplative/emerging issue. What more can we say to show them what seems so obvious to ourselves and many other Bible believing contenders of the faith? A number of years ago, when the Be Still DVD (a contemplative infomercial) came out and we saw Charles Stanley’s name in the credits as someone who supported the DVD, we contacted his ministry and spoke with a personal assistant. He accepted our offer for a free copy of A Time of Departing but said that Charles Stanley would be too busy to read it.

If the mystics whom Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove gravitates to are right, then Jesus’ words that He is the only Way to the Father are wrong. You can’t have it both ways. The opposite view – the contemplative – is that God is in all things, including all people. This is what all mystics believe, across the board. And if that were true, then the need for a Savior would vanish, and there wouldn’t be any need for ”one way” to God because man is already indwelled with God and a part of God.

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. John 14:6

Endnotes: 1. New Monasticism & The Emergent Church: FS Talks with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove: http://blog.beliefnet.com/flunkingsainthood/2010/06/new-monasticism-the-emergent-church-fs-talks-with-jonathan-wilson-hartgrove.html.

2. Learn more about the Wild Goose Festival here: Left-Leaning ‘Wild Goose’ Festival Draws Ire of Evangelicals

[annalex]

Christ’s works are imputed to the believer

They are "imputed" -- here's a Protestant weasel word -- if the believer does them, and not if he doesn't.

[annalex]

...done insisting, "An ignorant heathen can, perhaps be saved through ignorance and good works alone..."

Both salvation by faith alone -- for example, of a baptized baby, and by works alone -- for example of a righteous ignorant heathen, -- are possible, but as a general rule, membership in the Catholic Church through baptism, the Holy Eucharist, works of faith love and penance is necessary for salvation.

But NOWHERE does God tell us that our works - our own efforts, merits, deeds - can save us.

Indeed, nor is it what the Holy Church teaches. When we choose to do good works, that is because our faith has matured enough to compel us to them, and it is through the sacrifice of the Cross that our works become salvific for us:

let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me (Matthew 16:23)

[annalex]

ONLY the Catholic Bible (Douay-Rheims) has that misquote

It is how St. Jerome rendered it: "renatus fuerit" instead of "natus fuerit" as in Greek "γεννηθη"; it is indeed an extrapolation compared to the codices extant to us. However, we don't know if Jerome worked off texts now lost. In any event. "γεννηθη εξ υδατος και πνευματος" is a single grammatical group in the sentence referring to the single act of birth "εξ υδατος και πνευματος", from water and spirit. Your meaning would be rendered by "γεννηθη εξ υδατος και εξ πνευματος". Note that baptism as a saving sacrament is also linked to water by St. Peter in 1 Peter 3:21, and besides the very word suggests water.

OBVIOUSLY others are reading the very Bible they are quoting!

You are trying. Try harder.

[annalex]

"Whenever" is a curious translation. Did you make it yourself?

ὁσάκις [α^], Ep. ὁσσάκι , as always in Hom.; also ὁσσάκις , Tab.Heracl.1.132, Call.Epigr.2.2: (ὅσος):—

A. as many times as, as often as, Relat. to τοσσάκι, Il.21.265,22.194, Od.11.585 ; Att. form in Th.7.18, Lys.25.9, Pl.Tht.143a, X.Mem.3.4.3, 1 Ep.Cor.11.25, etc.:—also ὁσα^κισδήποτε , Dosith.p.409 K.; ὁσα^κισοῦν , Nicom.Ar.2.17.

Henry George Liddell. Robert Scott. A Greek-English Lexicon. revised and augmented throughout by. Sir Henry Stuart Jones. with the assistance of. Roderick McKenzie. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1940.

The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.

Scott-Liddell

Links work at source.

Additionally, there would be no need in 1 Cor 11 to insert any adjective if the Eucharist were to be received at a known feast once a year. The Passover is not described by "whenever" either.

Additionally, the Eucharist is a meal (John 6:56), and people eat every day, not once a year.

A good illustration of what a flight of fancy Mormonism is compared to Catholic Christianity.

[imardmd1]

I have read from the Bible a time or two, but reading it into the intellect, and even memorizing it, does not necessarily demonstrate understanding it. The passage you are quoting here is from the DRB translation, and that is fine; it is almost identical to the AV. However, here is the comport of this passage, which is about comparing two births:

Table Illustrating Symbolism of Jn. 3:3-8 (DRB)

Birth order . . . Substance . . . Result produced . . . Symbolism . . . Growth medium

First birth . . . . of the flesh . . . a new fleshly infant . . . water . . . amniotic fluid

Second birth . . of the Spirit . . a new spiritual infant . . Spirit . . . Spoken Word (hrema)

The analogy that Jesus offers Nicodemus is in the same mode as the thought predicament Nicodemus suggests to Jesus. Jesus' connection of literal with figurative is obvious and straightforward.

It appears to me that if you try to attach water baptism to spiritual birth, your teachers are greatly confused, and still more spiritually ignorant than Nicodemus was before he was shown a great truth.

Do you understand the above table? One would have to make oneself blind to miss it. But Nicodemus' spiritual eyes were opened by the entry of the Spoken Word, and he saw it.

[imardmd1]

“Born of water and spirit” is a reference to baptism, same as in 1 Peter 3:21.

That's a really dumb comparison, IMHO. 1 Peter 3:20 and God's instruction to Noah (Gen. 6:14-18) must be considered. The water analogy is an antitype, not a similarity.

In fact, Noah and his family were NOT saved by the waters; thgey were saved by the boat! by obeying God's instructions! The water killed every other land-bound animal. Noah and family (and every variety of animal) were preserved through the waters, they never went into the flood; and the flood experience did not give them a new life--merely that the life they already had was preserved through the waters.

Similarly, the disciple's baptism of the NT is a rite of induction admitting the baptized one into the fellowship of disciples--the local church. To be baptized one has to be able to at least profess a saving belief before being immersed (the only Biblical baptism for Christ-followers).

[imardmd1]

I forgot to mention an extremely important thought. Noah was saved by his total persistent trust in Christ, the only way anyone is ever or will ever be saved from perishing. The works he did afterward were implemented by the prerequisite of pleasing God/Jehovah/Jesus before he got the instruction that a flood was coming, and to build the boat. QED

[imardmd1]

You need to rethink as to whether or not you ought to make appearance at the assembly on the first day of the week, and whether or not the assembly has been ordered to remember the Lord then with breaking of bread. It is in that remembrance/sacrificial worship that His death is rehearsed and demonstrated, to ourselves and to the world, and that our remembrance ought to be visible, voluntarily obedient, and often. Such times ought always to be preceded by attention to 1 John 1:9, else we would participate unworthily.

In fact, in the early churches the weekly expectation of the breaking of bread was so universal and understood, as was the reservation of the Sabbath from Adam's time, that any variation from it was not even discussed, and personal examination to discern if oneself be "in The Faith" was a prerequisite to the Remembrance. Such frequency is not overtly commanded because the pattern was inherited from the God-ordered frequency given in the desert (manna), and which stretched backward throughout the history of mankind.

I do not believe the Romans passage applies to the issue here at all, to the matter of assembling on the first day of the week. The Romans text addresses extraordinary, voluntary commitments which ought not to be sources of division.

On the other hand, the day of assembly and its objective ought to be understood, and not a source of divisions either. The primary Scriptural reason to assemble ought to be to show forth His death, and it ought to be the focus of the observance, to preach by example what Paul voiced that he came to the Corinthians determined to know nothing but Jesus, and Him crucified.

In Acts 20:7, the disciples were habitually convening the first day of the week to break bread. Here the Koine grammar takes first place above your opinion. The verb convene is in the perfect tense (once established, with continuing result), passive voice (the convention time was imposed on them), and the participle mode (convening). And the habitual special reason since it was established when the risen Christ appeared (Jn. 20:19) on the first day of the week, was afterward was set to be the day and purpose for breaking of the bread loaf. Paul again emphasized that this day of assembly was also a day to bring gifts for the missions (1 Cor. 16:1-2).

I do not believe the entire context of the Bible allows us in this later age, after centuries of compliance, to have a choice in this matter, and I believe that churches are failing because of disobedience to this primary imperative, "Do this in remembrance of Me.".In 1 Cor. 11:24 and 25, the emphasis is not "as often as" (which ought to be very often), but on the command itself, where "do" is in the present, active, imperative sense, that is: "You all (the assembly addressed) be constantly/persistently doing this!"

One of the reasons for making communion observance infrequent is because of the danger of frequency making it trite. And that can happen when a denomination, like the Romanists, conduct a mass every time they turn around, completely missing the significance of meditation and contemplation with guidance by the Spirit, rather than just mechanical ritualizing and going through the motions of partaking, thinking this is a means of swallowing Jesus and grace every repitition.

The Plymouth-type brethren escape this, by the mode of conduct in the weekly observance. The flow is always Spirit-led and unsearchable (but the finalization is not)--a song, a prayer, an observation of cross-related scripture introduced by one brother, built on by another likewise prepared by the Spirit to complement the first thought, then another, then adventitiously a hymn speaking to the theme appearing, perhaps another prayer, then at a clearly propitious time the passing of the bread loaf and then the wine, concluding the moment of peace with The God and Father, Who administered His punishment for our reconciliation.

This is worship. The (ordained) teaching time is scheduled for a bit later.

The mistake of Catholic-derived churches (Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran), as well as the typical Baptist and other congregations is to reserve the service for the conduct of the preacher and his particular liturgy, and giving the parishioners/lay people no involvement nor leading by the Spirit other than just a fraction of a minute of ingesting the elements. This makes the whole thing a rather wooden performance, quite unlike the original drama that we ought to be mimicking. Well, you can see the result.

I understand that you wish to disagree at this stage of your understanding, but I would beg you to reconsider your position, and apply a greater effort and an open mind with the Bible's instruction in this matter, including the habits of the Apostles.

[metmom]

Credited to our account is not earning them. The imputation is done solely by God.

Hence, there is no need to do them by the believer.

God simply adds it to our account, declaring us righteous in His eyes with NO contribution on our part.

[Syncro]

I got scripture supporting the Catholic dogma. For example, a good half of the second chapter of St. James' epistle covers it fully and Catholically. You? (no quotes huh?)

I've got scripture countering your dogma, the whole New Testament. You?

[Elsie]

"Whenever" is a curious translation.

PASSOVER is not curious, and neither is THIS meal.

[annalex]

I understand your theological fantasy, but I read the text as written (either renatus fuerit or natus fuerit) and see a reference to second birth: of water and spirit. I see the same in 1 Peter 3:21, and in the fact that water was necessary for baptism in all recorded history of the Catholic Church:

Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized (Acts 10:47)

See, here is water: what doth hinder me from being baptized? (Acts 8:36)

If baptism was somehow opposed to birth "of water" why try to get water in an arid climate?

And why would Jesus speak in a riddle when Nicodemus asked a direct and honest question? If He meant birth by womb and birth by spirit He could say so plainly, since Nicodemus' reference was to the "womb" and not to "amneotic fluid". Why did Our Lord bring up "water", Himself was baptized in water, and as we see in the Acts, the Apostolic Church baptized in water?

[annalex]

really dumb comparison

Dumb or not, St. Peter made it. If you find the Holy Bible dumb, why do you pretend to argue from it?

[annalex]

The works Noah did afterward were implemented by...

Noah did the works. He had a choice not to. Were Noah a Protestant he would probably sit and wait till God delivered the boat. That would be faith alone.

[annalex]

God simply adds

Imputes, shmiputes, adds, shmadds. No works, no "account". Word it as you please. I am interested in what the Holy Scripture says.

[stevio]

I always like Charles Stanley myself. Thought he was a true man of God. Then I heard he got divorced, it really shook me up. Made me realize not to put faith in man but in God alone. I wish Mr. Stanley the best and God’s blessings.

[GeronL]

If he were Catholic he would ignore God and pray to dead mortal humans and rub some beads and bow to an icon.

[annalex]

No you don’t. You read the Bible and imagine things not in it. I read the Bible and see my Church in every verse.

[annalex]

No, but “passover” and “this” are correct translations of the corresponding original, and your Mormon “whenever” nonsense isn’t.

[annalex]

I am trying to converse with adults about the Holy Scripture. Do you mind?