There are those who are using Corrie ten Boom’s name to promote the contemplative prayer movement. We believe if she were here today, she would be shocked at these efforts to do that to her name. In July of 2007, Lighthouse Trails reported:
Most Christians have heard of Corrie ten Boom’s book, The Hiding Place. It is the true story of a Christian family in Holland during WWII. The ten Boom’s loved Jesus and His Word. When Hitler began persecuting and murdering the Jews, this courageous family started hiding Jews in their old store-front home. Eventually, they were caught, arrested, and sent to a concentration camp, where most of them died. Corrie survived the Holocaust and told the story in The Hiding Place (also made into a movie).
Baker Publishing owns the rights to the book and recently came out with a 35th Anniversary edition. Lighthouse Trails was excited to see a new edition and decided to carry the book for its readers. When the first order arrived, we were dismayed to see three endorsements on the back cover of this edition. Those names were Philip Yancey, Jack Hayford, and Joyce Meyer. Yancey and Hayford are promoters of contemplative spirituality [Meyer is part of the word/faith movement]. It is disheartening to see Baker Publishing connect these two men who promote an anti-biblical belief system with Corrie ten Boom, who stood for truth and was an inspiration to believers. If she were here today, we believe she would be shocked to see this.
For us, we were not shocked because Baker Publishing has stopped standing for truth. Recently, they formed a publishing partnership with Emergent Village (the main representative website for the emerging church). The name of the new venture is Emersion, and a book called An Emergent Manifesto of Hope is one of its releases. You can read about that book in our article, “Emergent Manifesto: Emerging church coming out of the closet” and also in Faith Undone.
In the 35th Anniversary edition of The Hiding Place, Brother Andrew wrote the introduction. Andrew, also from Holland, is best known for his book God’s Smuggler, which tells of his mission to smuggle Bible’s into restricted countries. We think if Brother Andrew realized the spiritual dangers of contemplative spirituality, he would protest to Baker Publishing about his and Corrie’s names being connected with Philip Yancey and Jack Hayford. Contemplative spirituality goes against everything that martyred and persecuted Christians have stood for, which was the Word of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We pray that Baker Publishing will remove these endorsements from The Hiding Place. After all, the book is a classic and does not need to be endorsed by anyone.
A more recent instance of Corrie’s name being used to promote contemplative prayer has surfaced. Youth Ministry Today, a large Christian youth organization has posted an article titled “Lectio Imagio Divina.” The article begins: “Beware of the barrenness of the busyness of life.”—Corrie ten Boom. The article then goes on to give a defense of the contemplative practice lectio divina, referencing contemplative Dallas Willard and panentheist *Thomas Kelly (who said that within every human being there is a divine center). As we have explained in other articles, lectio divina is the practice where a Scripture is read slowly, then broken down into a word or a phrase and this word or phrase is repeated over and over in order to rid one’s self of mental distractions and thought.
First of all, we must challenge whether this quote used in the article posted by Youth Ministry Today is actually a quote by Corrie ten Boom at all. In our research, we cannot find where she is documented as saying this. If someone knows where that quote can be found, please let us know. Secondly, there is nothing in any of Corrie’s writings to even remotely suggest that she believed in practicing some type of repetitive prayer practice. Thus, Youth Ministry Today has misconstrued Corrie ten Boom’s words (if they are indeed hers) to reinforce their promotion of contemplative spirituality. We believe if Corrie were here today and knew this, she would rightly correct this youth ministry and point them back to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, not the “gospel” of panentheists and mystics.
It is worth noting that the lectio divina article was written by Archie Honrado in 2006. The article was originally published in the May/June 2006 issue of The Journal of Student Ministries. At the time, Honrado had been working with young people through Youth With A Mission in Los Angeles for 21 years and was a spiritual director, a speaker with the Urban Youth Workers Institute, and a member of the Youth Specialties’ Soul Shaper board. Honrado’s embracing of contemplative spirituality would certainly resonate with Youth Specialties, which is one of the most influential Christian youth organizations today and very tied into contemplative spirituality and the emerging church. Urban Youth Worker’s Institute would be of the same caliber.
Youth Ministry Today, where the article is posted with the “quote” by Corrie ten Boom, is a part of CYMT, the Center for Youth Ministry Training, a very pro-contemplative/emerging organization. Interestingly, they have been financial supported by the emerging church catalyst Lilly Endowment. In 2007, they received over $400,000 from Lilly.1 In 2008, Lighthouse Trails wrote an article titled Lilly Endowment Continues to Back Contemplative/Emerging Movement. Faith Undone by Roger Oakland documents Lilly’s role in another pro-emerging/contemplative group, Youth Specialties. We must also mention that one of the “faculty” members of CYMT is emergent leader Tony Jones, who rejects the biblical view of Christianity.
Corrie ten Boom is being used to propagate a dangerous, mystical spirituality. When people see contemplative names on the back cover of the new edition of The Hiding Place or they see her name being used on an article on lectio divina, some readers may end up believing that she would be an advocate for today’s “new spirituality.” But as we have shown in many articles, this new spirituality negates the Cross and ultimately rejects the essential tenets of biblical Christianity. And of such a spirituality, when it comes to Corrie ten Boom and whether she would have embraced it, we say NO WAY. And, because of the love she had for young people, she would be alarmed at seeing how contemplative/emerging spirituality is luring so many of them away from truth.
* It is Thomas Kelly who said that within every human being is a divine center, a holy sanctuary (from A Testament of Devotion). In Kelly’s chapter called “The Light Within,” Kelly refers to the “secret sanctuary” (p. 43). This “secret sanctuary” Kelly is speaking of is the “abiding Light behind all changing [life] forms.” Kelly says: “In that Current we must bathe. In that abiding yet energizing Center we are all made one” (p. 38).”
For those interested in The Hiding Place, Lighthouse Trails carries >an older edition that does not have contemplative authors on the back cover.
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