Our Daily Bread (i.e., Radio Bible Class) Still on the Contemplative/Emergent Path

It was ten years ago that Lighthouse Trails wrote its first article about Radio Bible Class ministries (now called Our Daily Bread Ministries). That article shocked many readers because Radio Bible Class is a ministry that has been around since 1938 when Dr. Martin DeHaan founded it in 1938. It has been considered a staple of Christianity with the highly popular Our Daily Bread booklets. According to one source, 10 millions copies of the booklets are published per issue in 37 languages. 1

Our Daily Bread Ministries also has two universities: Our Daily Bread Christian University and Christian University GlobalNet. There is also a publishing arm of Our Daily Bread Ministries, Discovery House, plus radio and television programs. If you add up the years, the printings, and the programs, it is safe to say that Radio Bible Class/Our Daily Bread has influenced hundreds of millions of people.

We’ll get to the point. When Dr. Martin DeHaan ran the ministry until 1965, there were no signs that things were amiss. When his son Richard DeHaan took over running it until 1985, things did begin to change. But the biggest change (from a negative point of view) began to take place when grandson Mart DeHaan began running the ministry. He was replaced by his brother Rick in 2011, but sadly the emergent/contemplative focus that came in during Mart’s watch has remained today as one of our readers reminded us this month.

You can read our previous articles here to get a recap on what has been taking place:

(2007) “Radio Bible Class – Influenced by Contemplative?”

(2008) “Radio Bible Class and New Ager M. Scott Peck”

(2013) “Radio Bible Class Promoting Contemplative/Emerging Philip Yancey in Easter Booklet – Implications Not Good,”

(2013) Radio Bible Class Reader Challenges Lighthouse Trails Article – RBC Not Really Going Contemplative, He Says

(2014) “Letter to the Editor: Radio Bible Class – Continuing to Go Contemplative – And Pushes ‘As Below, So Above’”

Today, Our Daily Bread, continues down the Spiritual Formation/emergent path. Yet, tens of millions of people are reading or watching material from this ministry, trusting them for biblical truth. Below are a few examples  to show where Our Daily Bread is at today.

Our Daily Bread Christian University has a large focus on Spiritual Formation. Lest some reading this think that Our Daily Bread is teaching a “good” Spiritual Formation (of which none exists), take a look at two of the Spiritual Formation courses at their university: 1) Divine Encounters: Mapping Your Spiritual Life. In the course syllabus, you will find books being used by Thomas Merton, Richard Peace, and St. John of the Cross (using his book Dark Night of the Soul). 2) Discipleship in Community: Spiritual Formation in the Church. In that course, the professor is using textbooks by Dallas Willard, and under the heading Mysticism/Contemplative Spirituality, he is recommending four books on mysticism including one by Thomas Merton. He is also using a number of other contemplative authors including Richard Foster.

As you can see in this Our Daily Bread entry, contemplative proponent Philip Yancey is still a writer for the publication. Here is a list of Our Daily Bread’s other authors: https://odb.org/all-authors/. At least one of them, Joe Stowell, is another contemplative advocate.

Long-time contemplative advocate, Larry Crabb, is one of the professors at the Our Daily Bread Christian University.

If you know someone who is reading Our Daily Bread or taking one of their online classes at the University, please warn them to use discernment.

We have added Our Daily Bread Christian University to our list of contemplative-promoting colleges.

To understand the contemplative prayer/Spiritual Formation movement, we encourage you to read one of the resources Lighthouse Trails provides on this vital issue.