Christian Musicians and Contemplative Spirituality

Christian Musicians and
Contemplative Spirituality

"In my music, silence is just as important as the notes. There is an aspect of music, of sacred music, that can speak the unspeakable," he says. "The only other style of music that attempts to go to the deeper place of the silence that is music is New Age music." —John Michael Talbot,
Interview with Christianity Today 10/22/2001

News Alert:
Christian music veteran, John Fischer, is Senior Writer for Purpose Driven Life website.

"As we find ourselves caught up in this meditation, we soon enough realize another change has occurred. We have almost effortlessly been transported over into a passive "contemplation" beyond thoughts, emotions, images, forms, or words."—John Michael Talbot
Christian Meditation

"I began practicing meditation, specifically breath prayer, once again. I integrated the use of Tai Chi and yoga ...
Slowly I began to mend." From Come to the Quiet
John Michael Talbot

Michael W. Smith promoting and endorsing Brennan Manning's book, Above All

The Biblical God Does Not Exist
Says Brennan Manning
In Discipleship Journal Issue 100 1997 page 78 in an interview, Brennan Manning recommends William Shannon's book, Silence on Fire and Thomas Keating's book on centering prayer, Open Mind, Open Heart. In Silence on Fire, 'Shannon blasts the Christian, Biblical God. Page 109, 110 "This is a typical patriarchal notion of God. He is the God of Noah who sees people deep in sin, repents that He made them and resolves to destroy them. He is the God of the desert who sends snakes to bite His people because they murmured against Him. He is the God of David who practically decimates a people ... He is the God who exacts the last drop of blood from His Son, so that His just anger, evoked by sin, may be appeased. This God whose moods alternate between graciousness and fierce anger.
This God does not exist."
Please note Manning uses this quote nearly word for word in his book Above All [pg. 58]
(foreword by Michael W. Smith)

Michael Card
Favorably Quoting Contemplatives, Mystics, and Emergents:

Annie Dillard
Julia Cameron
Daniel Goleman (see A Time of Departing)
Madeleine Le' Ingle
Dan Allender
Walter Brueggemann
Larry Crabb
Eugene Peterson

In Michael Card's album Present Reality he has a song called The Eucharist, which is the Catholic term for the communion being the actual body and blood of Christ, wherein Christ must be re-sacrificed over and over again.

In Card's own bio on his website he favorably quotes Thomas Merton. Merton, who said he was impregnated with Sufism (Islamic mysticism), promoted interspirituality and contemplative. Also on Card's site, he touts Brennan Manning as someone "he has had the opportunity to learn from and grow with both personally and professionally throughout his career."

This December (2006) Michael Card will be performing at a Catholic monastery with Catholic contemplative, John Michael Talbot.

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