Is God’s Love Enough?
From Henri Nouwen’s journal:
You must believe in the yes that comes back when you ask, “Do you love me?” You must choose this yes even when you do not experience it.
You feel overwhelmed by distractions, fantasies, the disturbing desire to throw yourself into the world of pleasure. But you know already that you will not find there an answer to your deepest question. Nor does the answer lie in rehashing old events, or in guilt or shame. All of that makes you dissipate yourself and leave the rock on which your house is built.
You have to trust the place that is solid, the place where you can say yes to God’s love even when you do not feel it. Right now you feel nothing except emptiness and the lack of strength to choose. But keep saying, “God loves me, and God’s love is enough.” You have to choose the solid place over and over again and return to it after every failure.
The first line = wow. This speaks volumes to the marriages I am seeing every day. The opposite seems to be in effect.
The last line = wow. It’s the only place we have to go to.
Jim Mac
This washes over me with healing, cleansing power. Saying “Yes!” to God’s love even when you don’t feel it.
so, since you are touting and promoting the writings of Henri Nouwen, let it be known that you are promoting the writings of Thomas Merton–they are one in the same. They both believed in the importance of eastern-style meditation, and they both came to believe there were many paths to God and divinity dwelt in all things and people. Not only are Nouwen’s books evidence of this, but there is record of nearly thirty years of journals, articles, forewords to others books, talks, and interviews where Nouwen espouses the path of mysticism”
Do you really agree with Henri Nouwen despite the scriptures warning against this and other new age practices?
I’ve read about every book Nouwen ever wrote. He was Christian to the core. And one of my life’s heroes.
One of my favorite Nouwen sermons:
http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/nouwen_3301.htm
Brotherly,
JP
PreacherMike,
Do the Church of Christ Universities know you believe Nouwen was a christian to the core and promote his material as well as other mystics? In particular i’d be interested in knowing if you have shared views with anyone at Oklahoma Christian University? Any Bible Professors at OCU? How about Dr. McMillon?
I definitely want to give you a congratulations for honesty award. I only wish more CoC preachers, biblical professors, university presidents would simply state what they believe and how involved they are with the emergent movement. I could atleast respect honesty rather than sending people off to various leadership training and come out as “change agents” and learn how to hide the true intent of their change movement. Don’t you think it’s about time to “out” all these people. Isn’t it time for them to come out of the closet? I’d really appreciate your help – you could even e-mail me privately although that’s still secretive. If these people believe in so much of the emergent church, i’m sure they won’t even mind if you share this information.
I’d like to share some interesting videos by Dr. Robert Morey who gives sthe complete history of the Church of Christ complete with documentation. They are numbered 1-14 I think and i’m sure you and some of your friends might find it interesting. Perhaps you are already aware of this and even watched them. I feel a heartfelt need to share these .
http://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=A0SO8Z20cvlNMVoAvBX7w8QF;_ylu=X3oDMTBncGdyMzQ0BHNlYwNzZWFyY2gEdnRpZAM-?p=dr.+robert+morey+on+water+baptism&ei=utf-8&n=21&tnr=20&y=Search
The topic is water baptism or baptismal regeneration but he deals with the history of the CoC and the restoration movement. Again, they are all extremely interesting and enlightening.
Sorry, I did not know this link was so so long. Try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LlsWYf0PEc
Those videos are freaky.
I thought they were enlightening about the Church of Christ and I plan on checking out the resources he used for the true Hx. of the Church of Christ
Still waiting for some response from PreacherMike ( I don’t know him personally) for feedback to my questions – I know he’s busy, so i’ll just check back time to time.
Gina,
As you might know the Churches of Christ are autonomous in nature and thus differ in their thoughts on baptism and its relation to salvation, and even the design of salvation itself (as a moment in time, or a process). They also differ in their sectarian vs. ecumenical ways. I am afraid the videos you have directed us to are not aware of these nuances, and perhaps are offering polemic against a straw-man representation of the Churches of Christ that does not do justice to the church’s diversity of opinion.
For a more nuanced understanding of the Churches of Christ and baptism I would refer you to John Mark Hicks and Greg Taylor’s “Down By the River to Pray.” Having said that, we (the churches of Christ collectively) are guilty of much bad theology, but we have lots of good company throughout the Christian world.
We would do better to listen to each other and celebrate our experiences of God and the work of God, then to argue against one another in an “I am right, you are wrong” kind of way.
Thank you for your love of Jesus. May we busy ourselves with his works of mercy. And may we experience justification, sanctification, and glorification as we come to know the salvation he brought us.
Brotherly,
JP
Gina -
“Do the Church of Christ Universities know you believe Nouwen was a christian to the core and promote his material as well as other mystics? ”
What other mystics? What do you mean by mystic? If Nouwen is a mystic, I want to be. But I seriously doubt that he was anything like what you’re hinting at. Do the other universities know? I have no idea. I’m at a Christian university right now looking at a prized photo of the provost with Henri Nouwen.
“In particular i’d be interested in knowing if you have shared views with anyone at Oklahoma Christian University? Any Bible Professors at OCU? How about Dr. McMillon?” No, no, and no.
*chuckle*
Nouwen’s _In the Name of Jesus_, in all its brevity, may be one of the most profound works concerning discipleship to Christ that has ever been written.
Wow…just wow, Gina.
qb
Thank you for answering my questions. I was raised in the CoC and graduated from OCU but no longer do I believe their theology – however, since I still know many people in the CoC , specifically people associated with OCU, I noted a high involvement with the “emergent church.” I am a member of a small church that I believe has a solid theolgy of born again believers. (obviously not the point of my post – but a little background)
I don’t understand your definition of a mysticism or a mystic. Could you give me one? In my definition Nowen is a universalist who practices and recommends mystic contact with God. I do know that Nowen, in his own words, stated in clear terms that he approached God from a universalistic view.
“Today I personally believe that while Jesus came to open the door to GOd’s house, all human beings can walk through that door, whether they know about Jesus or not. Today I see it as my call to help every person claim his or her own way go God”
Nowen endorced a book by a Hindu spiritual teacher, Eknath something, who taught mantra deditation and Nowen stated “the book helped him a great deal.
He also wrote a foreword to a book that mixes chritianity with Hindu spirtuality. “The author shows a wonderful openness to the gifts of Buddhism, Hinduism and Moslem religion. Nowen advised his readers in the book The Way of the Heart to 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.”
These are just a few samplings of a mystical approach to God. I don’t kow what God Nowen is talking about , do you?
This is just a sampling
Mike, are you at Pepperdine?
My nephew by marriage, Dr. Richard Wright, is speaking this week. He does every year. Also if you know or happen to run into Darryl Tippens say “Hi” from (maiden name Greta Lawson) for me. I was his sister’s roomy in college and we are still friends despite my leaving the CoC. lol
I just talked to Kathy Wright (Kathy Tippens) and she said you and Darryl were great friends! A small world, isn’t it?
This type of psycho-babble is also quite reminiscent of Norman Vincent Peale disciple Robert Schuller as well. In fact Hernandez himself even sounds like something straight out of Schueller’s Self-Esteem: The New Reformation in his agreement with counselor Ray Anderson that the “recovery of the self, Anderson adds, is what is promised in the Gospel” (20). But you should be able to see this is in contradiction to Scripture and a pelagian view of the fall. In addition this false teaching is also right in line with CSM speculations about our alleged good “true self” as opposed to our bad “false self.” For a more in-depth discussion on that I will refer you to The Real Truth About Your “True Self”.
And this leads us into what Nouwen meant by his use of the “heart” in his writings. Hernandez explains that the “deep experience of ourselves” in CCP:
captures the nature of our inward journey. Henri Nouwen himself embarked on what journalist Philip Yancey calls a form of “inward mobility” wherein “[h]e withdrew in order to look inward, to learnn how to love God and be loved by God.” Such movement is best realized in the context of solitude [i.e. meditation]. In solitude, we can pay close attention to our inner self and consequently become present to our own experience… reaching inside our inmost being connects us to the reality of our own soul—that mystical reality that Henri Nouwen simply calls the heart.
What other scholars tend to distinguish as “soul,” “self,” “spirit,” or “will,” Nouwen preferred to lump together in his uncluttered thinking as the “heart”… The challenge [of CSM], therefore, is for us to connect deeply within our own hearts and there discover who we really are. The inward journey [of CCP], then, as it was for Nouwen, is a heart-centered movement into one’s innermost self—a journey of self-discovery toward wholeness. (22, emphasis his)
In closing this for now perhaps for the first time the light may have just come on as to why advocates of this spurious CSM have far more affinity with Zen Buddhism than they do with proper Biblical theology. You see, through meditation the Buddhist looks within toward self-perfection while the regenerated Christian is taught by God to look outside himself to the Cross of Jesus Christ, which is the only real hope the human being has to be saved from his spiritually dead “true” self. For you see, in Scripture there is no distinction between some supposed true/good self and a false/bad self within mankind—there’s only wicked.
As it is written — The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9, KJV). And under the direct inspiration of God the Holy Spirit the Apostle Paul wrote:
For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.
For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. (Romans 7:14-25, NASB)
Men and women, this is the reality of mankind’s authentic self i.e. his true nature, And when one is regenerated by the Holy Spirit the above should be his own reaction as well while the Lord helps him journey within to see just who he is apart from the grace of God in Christ. But what is shocking is the amount of professing evangelical “Protestants” who believe the quasi-Buddhist lies of CSM teachers like Henri Nouwen. And Lord willing, another time we’ll give you the actual facts related to Contemplative/Centering Prayeras opposed to RZIM’s skewed and romanticized revisionist history.
But for now, with RZIM praising these stupid speculations of Henri Nouwen and his spiritually bankrupt CSM we now have very good reason to want to take a much closer look at what Ravi Zacharias himself teaches concerning the nature of mankind.
RAVI ZACHARIAS, HENRI NOUWEN AND CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY/MYSTICISM (PT. 2) : Apprising Ministries
I like to actually use my spiritual discernment, not what my “heart” thinks but rather is this of God who reveals much of who He is in the inspired Word of God.
Gina,
It appears that you are reading what other people say that Nouwen says rather than reading him yourself. Second, even if there is “chaff” in his writings–there is very much “wheat”. I would encourage you to read Nouwen for yourself and using scripture discern whether you agree or disagree. Pray to the the Father asking for His Spirit to aid you.
Blessings!
Have you read The Way of the Heart? Nouwen advised his readers: ” 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”
Is this Biblical? What heart? an unregenerated a heart? Nouwen also said Prayer is “soul work” because our souls are those sacred centers where all is one. It is in the hearat of God that we can come to the full realization of the unity of all that is”
Note Nouwen did not say all Christians are one: he said “all is one, ” which is a fundamental panentheistic concept of God – the God in everything unites everything. Nouwen’ intent was to make mystical prayer a pervasive paradigm within all traditions of Christianity. ” it is to this silence that we all are called.”
Nowen said in his autobiographical book Sabbatical Journey of his encounter with Andrew Harvey in 1996 that he “had the deep sense of meeting a soul friend” Harvy is a world-renowned advocate of interspirituality thru mysticism. Harvey states “that we are all essentially children of the Divine and can realize that identity with our Source here on eaarth and in a body.”
Try checking out The Living Spiritual Teachers Project and what they promote and who they admire.
Nouwen was a mystic and i’ve tons more facts on Nouwen because I do have a little book here at home and I also , as you can find, tons of documentable sources available on the internet.
I mean, if you agree with these mystic practices, just say “no problem’ Just becausse it’s called panentheism , not pantheism does not give it Biblical credibility
The HS did aid me as well as the associations, book endorcements and Nouwens own words. The Scripture condemns these pagan and mystical practices. Would you like the verses and and historical Biblical studies of various people who were enticed by seducing spirits?
http://www.nouwenlegacy.com/mysticwill.pdf
So very thankful for Nouwen, his Christian focus, and yes, his emphasis on mysticism (living in the embrace of God’s presence).
al, that’s the work of the Holy Spirit that all believers receive upon faith in Christ. The “living in the embrace of God’s presence” that you support is paganism mixed with christianity. Never a good idea and that God you feel is embracing you might not be the Holy God of The Scriptures.
But atleast you’re owning it. I appreciate that much.
Gina,
You say that you are a fundamental baptist now–In what way does that make your beliefs differ from those of the mainstream church of Christ?
And were you saying that you saw emergent church teaching at OC or at the church you attended while at OC?