KEN SILVA, Director of Apprising Ministries , General Editor of the Christian Research Network and pastor of Connecticut River Baptist Church in Claremont, NH, a congregation in the Southern Baptist Convention, will address the theme: "MYSTICISM'S INFILTRATION INTO MODERN EVANGELICALISM."The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "mysticism" as "the belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience (as intuition or insight)", and also defines it as "vague speculation : a belief without sound basis," and "a theory postulating the possibility of direct and intuitive acquisition of ineffable [indescribable, unspeakable] knowledge or power."
This being so, isn't the belief in and practice of mysticism a violation of the Reformation principle of "Sola Scriptura": that the holy, inerrant and God-breathed Scriptures ALONE are the church of Christ's ONE infallible and sufficient authority in matters of theology and practice? And if this is true, why are so many who profess to be Evangelical being seduced by this phenomenon?
According to our guest Ken Silva,
"Due to the importance of the issues concerning the influx into evangelicalism of corrupt Contemplative/Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) and its so-called 'Christian' meditation of Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP)—which flowered in the antibiblical monastic traditions of apostate Roman Catholicism, i.e. no longer Christian—Apprising Ministries is doing all we can to bring this to the attention of the Body of Christ. And one of the primary sources—if not the primary source—for this reimagined neo-pagan 'Christian' mysticism infecting postevangelicalism and the Emerging Church is The Cult of Guru Richard Foster...
...You need to know that this CSM has now also slithered into evangelicalism as well because right now Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic 'Roshi' Richard Foster, with an able assist from ordained Southern Baptist minister Dallas Willard, is conditioning more and more mainstream evangelical pastors, leaders, and ministers (think frog in the kettle) through spurious Spiritual Formation (SF) courses in college and/or seminary to see this CSM as a viable approach to God. And AM reminds you that primary among the textbooks used in these SF classes, not only in SBC seminaries but in most evangelical schools, are works by Foster and Willard from which their so-called 'spiritual disciplines' largely culled from heretical Roman Catholic and Quaker mystics is then taught..."
Listen to this broadcast and hear more about how and why Mysticism is gaining great popularity among a growing number of Evangelicals today, and specifically why many biblically orthodox Christian apologists like Ken Silva are sounding an alarm about this phenomenon, which they view as being spiritually deadly, damning and demonic.
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