by Gary Gilley
Southern View Chapel

[Leighton Ford] is best known as an effective evangelist who has been closely associated with Billy Graham. Throughout his long ministry (he is now approaching 80) he has had the reputation of one who preached an uncompromising gospel message….

The Attentive Life gets top-billing in the recent advertisement release by InterVarsity Press promoting the formatio series of books which they claim “follow the rich tradition of the church in the journey of spiritual formation” (p. 229). What is really taking place is that, under the banner of “spiritual formation,” formatio is flooding the evangelical world with Roman Catholic practices and theology….

Ford’s contribution is to promote the Benedictine Hours and Rule of Life as created by St. Benedict in the fifth century. The “Divine Hours” are eight time periods for prayer scattered throughout the day that have been practiced by Catholic monastic orders for centuries (pp. 21, 205-210). Ford was introduced to the Benedictine Hours when he participated in a retreat at Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina. It was there that he first experienced what he calls the attentive, or contemplative life (p. 23), of which Ford says, “Paradoxically, attentiveness may be just the opposite of ‘fixing our attention.’ Instead it involves a letting go of our usual need to control, and opening of ourselves to what we are being told or shown” (p. 25). Later he remarks, “Attentiveness means a willingness to listen for God’s voice–and readiness to obey” (p. 38). In practice attentiveness looks like this: “I will sit in a favorite chair in my study with a cup of coffee with classical music playing, not trying to form a prayer with words but waiting, listening, until perhaps I sense the Spirit bringing to the surface a word from God. Then I offer just a simple ‘Thank you’” (p. 77). As can be readily seen, The Attentive Life is not biblical teaching on prayer, the study of God’s Word or meditation, but is a wholly mystical approach in which the mind is actually disengaged while one waits for an extra-biblical word from God.

If there is any doubt about the above critique, Ford removes it in a number of ways. First, he equates his attentive practices with centering prayer as explained by Roman Catholic mystic Thomas Keating, “We wait quietly in God’s presence, perhaps repeating a ’sacred word,’ [mantra] and let go of our thoughts…. Centering prayer is not so much an exercise of attention as intention.” Click here to read this entire book review by Gary Gilley.

Related:

Zondervan Introduces Contemplative Leighton Ford

New Emerging Network/Alliance: From the Frying Pan into the Fire

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