LTRP Note: Contemplative prayer has entered the Christian church vigorously through the Spiritual Formation movement. The following article by Ray Yungen shows how contemplative prayer is the same as New Age, occultic meditation. To order copies of 5 Things You Should Know About Contemplative Prayer in booklet format, click here. By Ray Yungen It is fair … [Read more…]
Richard Rohr: A Catholic New Age Priest, His Cosmic Christ, and Young Evangelicals is our newest Lighthouse Trails Booklet. The booklet is 18 pages long and sells for $1.95 for single copies. Quantity discounts are available. Our booklets are designed to give away to others or for your own personal use. Below is the content of … [Read more…]
Nearly eight years ago researcher Ray Yungen passed away at the age of 64. As regular Lighthouse Trails readers know, it was through Ray’s work that Lighthouse Trails began 22 years ago. Since Ray’s passing, Richard Foster’s contemplative prayer has infiltrated countless numbers of churches throughout North America. It is the late Dallas Willard who was the man who … [Read more…]
Neglecting to Test the Spirits—A Tragedy of Enormous Proportions by David Dombrowski and the Editors at Lighthouse Trails is our newest Lighthouse Trails Booklet. The booklet is 14 pages long and sells for $1.95 for single copies. Quantity discounts are available. Our booklets are designed to give away to others or for your own personal … [Read more…]
Dear Lighthouse Trails: Thanks again for all your effort and time that you put into this; it is greatly appreciated by many of us. There was a friend in our Bible study who was very much connected with contemplative spirituality and New Age. I gave her a copy of A Time of Departing for her consideration, … [Read more…]
Today, the Wall Street Journal released an article titled, “Ailing Pope Francis Hurries to Bolster His Progressive Legacy.” Lighthouse Trails has addressed several issues regarding the Catholic Church’s current pope since his inception in 2013. Pope Francis (aka: Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina) is a Jesuit, and as we wrote about in March of 2013, … [Read more…]
Editor’s Note: Lighthouse Trails wrote this report in 2014. Since then, we have watched “Spiritual Formation” explode within the church. After over twenty years of warnings, to our dismay, the issue has not been challenged or even questioned by most of today’s Christian leaders and pastors. By Lighthouse Trails Editors Is your church involved in … [Read more…]
By the Editors at Lighthouse Trails Over the past several years, a number of our readers have asked us why we have not written about the theologian A.W. Tozer and warned our readers about his often quoting and referencing medieval-period and other mystics (many of them Roman Catholics). Thus, we have known about Tozer’s affinity … [Read more…]
“The Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will be nothing.”—mystic Karl Rahner With the Asbury “revival” spreading into various other colleges and universities (and even churches), and with so much talk about revival today, one question that needs to be asked is, what kind of Christian will the majority of today’s … [Read more…]
According to one definition, Lent is: While the Bible does not give any instruction to practice or participate in Lent, many churches do. In fact, since the contemplative prayer movement has come into full swing, more and more churches are observing Lent. And, in fact, Lent is often being used as the open door to … [Read more…]
LTRP Note: Please see editors notes below this letter. Dear Lighthouse Trails: Today my neighbor who’s in an emergent church . . . told me his church started a sermon series called “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.” Hmm . . . I’ve left enough emergent churches to know a sermon series probably has a book. … [Read more…]
By Ray Yungen Contemplative advocates propose that something vital and important has been missing from the church for centuries. The insinuation is that Christians have been lacking something necessary for their spiritual vitality; but that would mean the Holy Spirit has not been fully effective for hundreds of years and only now the secret key … [Read more…]
By Ray Yungen Two authors from Great Britain portray a stunningly clear picture of New Age spirituality. They explain: [T]he keynote of it appears to be a movement for synthesis derived from an understanding of the underlying unity behind all things and the sense of oneness that this brings. This oneness of all life is the … [Read more…]
LTRP Note: The following letter to the editor is one we received a few years ago, referring to a book review about Brennan Manning’s book, The Signature of Jesus. The review was written by John Caddock and was the first piece we ever read on the Internet refuting contemplative prayer shortly after we met Ray Yungen and … [Read more…]
By David Dombrowski The expression “Where are we going?” is not an uncommon one, but whether it be a child asking a parent or a fellow traveler posing the question, it usually denotes a sense of being lost and one of concern. Then, of course, posing the question to a stranger could be one of … [Read more…]
By Roger Oakland There is no question about it, the world is in serious chaos, with poverty, sickness, and disease afflicting millions and millions of people. Suffering seems to be at an all-time high level. Understandably, the world is looking for answers. Many religious leaders (including New Agers) believe we need a new reformation. Neale … [Read more…]
By Lighthouse Trails Editors Is your church involved in a Spiritual Formation program? If so, you might want to ask the question, what exactly is Spiritual Formation? It’s a fair question, and one that, if not asked, could end up surprising you when your church changes in ways you never imagined. A Christianity Today article states: “Spiritual … [Read more…]
By Ray Yungen Contemplative advocates propose that something vital and important is missing from the church for centuries. The insinuation is that Christians have been lacking something necessary for their spiritual vitality; but that would mean the Holy Spirit has not been fully effective for hundreds of years and only now the secret key has … [Read more…]
By Judson Casjens Where have all the soldiers gone, long time passing?Where have all the soldiers gone, long time ago?Where have all the soldiers gone?Gone to graveyards, everyone.Oh, when will they ever learn?Oh, when will they ever learn? So went one of the stanzas of the 1970s song by Peter, Paul & Mary about social … [Read more…]
By Ray Yungen Two authors from Great Britain portrayed a stunningly clear picture of New Age spirituality. They explained: [T]he keynote of it appears to be a movement for synthesis derived from an understanding of the underlying unity behind all things and the sense of oneness that this brings. This oneness of all life is … [Read more…]
There’s a lot of talk about it today; umpteen books are published and more are on the way about lectio divina; and an increasing number of evangelical/Protestant figures are writing about it, endorsing it, and teaching it. Some people think lectio divina simply means to read a passage of Scripture slowly (or “praying the Scriptures”) … [Read more…]
For nearly 18 years, Lighthouse Trails has been reporting on the slide that evangelical colleges, universities, and seminaries have been taking into the contemplative/emergent/ecumenical river. It would be great if we could say there’s been a real turn around and things at these colleges are getting better. It would be great if we could say … [Read more…]
Mike Oppenheimer and Ray Yungen discuss mysticism and the emgerging church movement in comparison to God’s Word.
Contemplative prayer is hearing the word of God … Contemplative prayer is silence.—Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1994 edition, p. 652 LTRP Note: Since 2002, Lighthouse Trails has continued to issue warnings about contemplative prayer. We began our warnings after meeting Ray Yungen in the year 2000 and examining his extensive research. One of the … [Read more…]
If there is one thing we don’t hear much about from today’s Christian leaders and pastors, it is the importance of testing the spirits. The idea comes from the Bible in 1 John 4:1, which states: Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try [test] the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets … [Read more…]
In 1922, liberal pastor and theologian Harry Emerson Fosdick stated the following words in his sermon titled “Will the Fundamentalists Win?”: “It is interesting to note where the Fundamentalists are driving in their stakes to mark out the deadline of doctrine around the church, across which no one is to pass except on terms of … [Read more…]
LTRP Note: The following letter to the editor is posted with permission. It is written by a graduate student of a Christian university. We find the professor’s remarks to this student provocative, especially considering what we discovered after reading the professor’s post. Please see our comments after the two posts below. Dear Lighthouse Trails: I … [Read more…]
By Ray Yungen From a theological viewpoint, there now exist two branches (so to speak) of the Catholic Church—the traditional (as defended by someone like Karl Keating in his book Catholicism and Fundamentalism) and the progressive or contemplative* element (as exemplified by Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen).1 And while these two branches (or movements) can … [Read more…]
Nick Hall’s Together event is back again (October 20-21), this year as Together 2018 at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas (which can hold around 1/2 million people). On the event’s Facebook page, it reads: Love Matt Chandler? See him and many more for free on October 20-21 as we bring the nation … [Read more…]
Roma Downey, who has never renounced her extensive New Age involvement, is now firmly entrenched and aligned with contemporary Christian leadership. A number of Christian leaders such as Rick Warren and Greg Laurie* will be speaking at an event in 2019 called Proclaim 19, and Roma Downey is also one of the speakers. While some … [Read more…]