Posted on 10/19/2013 8:50:26 PM PDT by 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
But John was already baptizing.
It is ALSO logical to assume that St. Jerome, who worked prior to the Muslim occupation of Palestine, had NO access to the codices now lost.
Choose whichever one floats yer boat.
What MUST we do...
No, the Church is not God. She is founded and sustained by God.
We simply don’t know what texts existed at the time of St. Jerome, and of course nothing can be argued from what we don’t know, while Textus Receptus and its derivatives are what we consider the Greek Original.
It was nice talking to you.
Evidentially so: not a single codex survived in complete form; scholars disagree on whether some passages, such as the Adulteress Pericope, are genuine.
The Church, however, the pillar and ground of truth, is doing just fine, by Divine design.
Not necessarily, -- for example, the Good thief on the cross defending Jesus from slander did not earn anything; nor did St. Joseph of Arimathea for his tomb, not St. Simon the Sirene for carrying the Cross; nor Abraham for crossing the desert. These were works of love, faith and self-denial and they contribute to our salvation.
Indeed, the Church teaches that works for wage do not bring any supurnatural reward (Matthew 6 in several places)
When the facilities allow for it full immersion is preferable. Interesting how Protestant heretics at the same time argue that baptism does not save, then get persnickety over the method.
At the same time, this episode suggests that the water was brought in, i.e was not a full immersion baptism:
[47]...Then Peter answered: Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Ghost, as well as we? [48] And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Acts 10)
Observe that the house was "by the sea side", yet the water that was used was of the kind that could be given or forbidden by the master of the house, i.e. household water in some vessel.
unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3)
Nicodemus is perplexed and Jesus explains:
unless a man be born of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. (Verse 5, "again" omitted)Note that neither water nor spirit are womb, of which Nicodemus inquired. Water and spirit are that second birth, baptism.
Metmom asked something similar.
St. John the Baptist's was not the Christian baptism that remits sin, it was merely a sign of penance. Ritual ablutions indeed were nothing new to the Jews even before St. John; it is not like Jesus taught us how to bathe.
By giving us an example of Himself being baptized, and God making the appearance, the Lord showed that baptism that He gives is the baptism that brings us into the sonship of God.
Note, too, that Jesus has no sin, and certainly had no lack of faith in His Father nor His own divinity, so His baptism is not for His own need, and not a sign of conversion, but for our edification, so that we know that baptism saves.
Well, since manuscripts were destroyed in great number by the Muslim — the Alexandria library was entirely destroyed, for example,— no, that is not logical, that would be quite improbable.
Then it follows that to reject some portion or group from among the ekklesia in whole or in part, is not exactly the same as rejecting Christ --- for they are not one and the same.
I've seen enough to be able to determine that the [Roman] Catholic church ecclesiastical community, has pattern and practice, teachings and dogmas not precisely as what was originally founded.
Singular "papacy" over all --- not in the original charter --- not by practice, not by scripture, not by history.
The "hyper" portion of the hyer-dulia afforded to no one but Mary --- is yet another "development", and was not taught for many centuries. Asking Mary to inhabit one's soul "heart", teaching that "Mary" has "sovereignty... over all hearts"
4) Implore Mary to lend you her heart so that you may receive her Son with her dispositions. Remind her that her Son's glory requires that he should not come into a heart so sullied and fickle as your own, which could not fail to diminish his glory and might cause him to leave. Tell her that if she will take up her abode in you to receive her Son -which she can do because of the sovereignty she has over all hearts - he will be received by her in a perfect manner without danger of being affronted or being forced to depart.
is absolutely not Gospel as Paul and others preached, but some other "thing".
Salvation [in part?] by works, or some sense of "fusing" works to grace, by which one can then "merit grace"? Utter nonsense. One cannot merit grace, not work to earn it, or it be no longer grace.
But you have the temerity to speak of heretics?
I'm not ashamed of not consenting to papacy and "Marianism".
About other "groups" I don't know. Rejecting the Catholic Church is rejecting Christ Whose Church she is.
The Church continues to teach today, because the Holy Ghost speaks through her, then and today and in the ages of ages. The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Catohlic Church; all your heresies will perish as many others have already perished. Instead of clinging to your heretical fantasies, come and learn, and be saved.
Your assertions are merely that. Assertions. They may be pleasing to many, but do not stand up all that well under critical scrutiny.
All my heresies shall perish? Of what heresies am I guilty of? (don't confuse myself with others --- show your work).
Here, let me help in this work or "inquiry" as it may be...is it;
Not agreeing with singular papacy? (or that there be be "papacy" at all). Not agreeing with Monfort, whom the Latin church ecclesiastical community has declared to be a "saint"? Perhaps the Lord accepts Montfort, that would be ok with me -- but I don't need accept Montfort's teachings.
I'm acquainted with the Lord. For reasons beyond my own understanding, it pleased himself to draw me towards Himself, and He has shown me personally and most directly that He will do so more completely, ultimately, beyond that which I have proper words to describe...
You say;
Do you really think the spirit of the Lord not be able to speak, beyond the limited understanding of yourself and others -- even those within [Roman] Catholic church ecclesiastical community?
It does seem to me that He has spoken often enough there (to various individuals) --- but there are other influences too, which are mistaken as being Him, drowning out even His own voice within that community at times, adding things not of Him, at others.
Then again, that condition is much the default condition outside of the narrower confines of the RCC, too. So -- it's not just "you guys" who can get a bit fouled up. If that's an consolation...
What blasphemy.
Christ dwells in our hearts through faith. Our bodies are the Temple of the Holy Spirit. We can grieve Him, but Jesus said *Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you."
This nonsense about Christ leaving our hearts because of some sin we committed is right from the pit.
This simple FACT has to be ignored by those who would usurp the very word of God with their traditions!
My little brother had this scary imaginary "monster" when he was about three or four. He called it the "Geen Gongee". We'd ask him, "What's a Geen Gongee?", and he would answer, "A Gonch.". So, we'd ask, "What's Gonch?", and he'd say, "A Geen Gongee!". We even asked him where a Geen Gongee lives, and he answered, "In a Gonch house!".
Sometimes, these "conversations" we have here remind me of that time. ;o)
Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they were saying:
“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!”
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!”
The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped. (Revelation 5:11-14)
And, Jesus was baptized with John's baptism and not the RC "right" formula of, "I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit". Ooops!
Yet, YOU were the one who added the word "again" - claiming Jerome said it so it was okay. Here's your comment along with the usual snide aside we've come to expect:
Jesus answered, and said to him: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. [4] Nicodemus saith to him: How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter a second time into his mother' s womb, and be born again? [5] Jesus answered: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. (John 3)
Have you forgotten that THAT was the point being argued? Jesus had to have been speaking of born of water - meaning the "flesh gives birth to flesh" - as a physical human birth, since He said so the very next verse, and NOT your erroneous insistence that He said "born again of water". If this is your way a conceding you were wrong, I accept.
In the Jewish religion, mikvahs are used symbolically for MANY purposes. Jesus going through John the Baptist's baptism was for His being set apart for His ministry beginning. Of course it wasn't to cleanse Him from sin, nor was it to bring Him "into the sonship of God", since He WAS the Son of God. The Christian ordinance of baptism was not even known about when that event happened.
Adjust your view outside of a pigeonhole idea of a word (i.e., baptism) and you'll be able to understand the concept and purpose of what baptism is really about.
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