Celebration of Discipline 40 Years of Influence!
First
published in 1978, Celebration of Discipline has had a massive
influence on Christianity. Unfortunately, the influence has helped
to saturate the church with mystical contemplative
prayer and the
New Age. Most likely, your pastor has a copy of this book
sitting on his library shelves. He may even have it sitting on
his desk for easy reach and reference. Richard
Foster, a Quaker and the founder of an organization called Renovare (meaning renewal), wrote the book and even he, I'm sure, had no
idea the impact this book would have. But nearly 30 years later, it is
still being read, and in fact, Christian leaders and organizations
are promoting the book like never before.
Foster said in the book, that we "should all without shame enroll
as apprentices in the school of contemplative prayer." (p. 13,
1978 ed.) In other books and writings he makes it very clear that
this "contemplative prayer" is the eastern style mantra
meditation to which mystic monk Thomas
Merton adhered. In fact, Richard Foster once told Ray Yungen
(author of A
Time of Departing) that Thomas Merton tried to awaken God's
people.
Thomas Merton, who said he was impregnated with Sufism and wanted
to "become as good a Buddhist"1 as he could be, believed that "God's people" lacked one thing
... mysticism and this is to what they needed "awakening." Of
Merton, Foster says: "Thomas Merton has perhaps done more than
any other twentieth-century figure to make the life of prayer
widely known and understood." (Spiritual
Classics, p. 17) And yet, Thomas Merton once told New Age
Episcopal priest Matthew
Fox that he felt sorry for the hippies in the 60s who were
dropping LSD because all they had to do was practice the mystical
(contemplative) stream to achieve the same results. (Interview)
We couldn't agree with him more. Both altered
states are the same, and neither lead to God.
Listed under "excellent books on spirituality," in some editions
of Celebration of Discipline, Foster says of Tilden Edwards'
book, Spiritual Friend that it helps "clear away the confusion
and invites us to see that we do not have to live the spiritual
life in isolation." And yet, Tilden
Edwards, founder of the Christian/Buddhist Shalem
Institute in Washington, DC, said that contemplative spirituality
was the "Western bridge to Far Eastern spirituality"(A Time
of Departing, p. 49). On the Shalem Institute website you
can find numerous quotes, references, articles, and recommendations
to pantheism, universalism, New Age, and Eastern thought.
In Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster tells us "we
must be willing to go down into the recreating silences, into
the inner world of contemplation" (COD,
p.13.) He goes on to say that the "masters of meditation beckon
us." Just prior to that remark, he quotes Carl Jung and Thomas
Merton.
Celebration of Discipline has helped to pave the way for
Thomas Merton's pantheistic belief system. It has opened the door
for other Christian authors, speakers, and pastors to bring contemplative
spirituality into the lives of millions of people. The late Henri
Nouwen, a popular contemplative who also followed the teachings
of Thomas Merton, made a telling statement towards the end of
his life: "Today I personally believe that while Jesus came to
open the door to God's house, all human beings can walk through
that door, whether they know about Jesus or not. Today I see it
as my call to help every person claim his or her own way to
God (emphasis added)."
Today, countless ministers and ministries are promoting and endorsing Celebration of Discipline. If they really knew what Foster's
"celebration" was all about, we think many of them would race
away from the teachings of Thomas Merton and Richard Foster and
back to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Those that Foster quotes favorably in
Celebration of Discipline:
Thomas
Merton
Morton Kelsey
Madame
Guyon
Evelyn Underhill
Elizabeth O' Connor
Thomas
Kelly
Fyodor
Dostoevski
Soren
Kierkegaard
George Fox
Agnes Sanford
Brother
Lawrence
Dallas
Willard
Those Who Have Been Quoting and Promoting
Richard Foster lately:
Focus
on the Family
Chuck
Swindoll
Christianity
Today
YWAM
C.S.
Lewis Institute
Youth
Specialties More on Celebration of Discipline
Quotes by Richard Foster: From
Renovare's Perspective Newsletter: "Spend some time this week
listening to contemplative music designed to quiet you, settle
you, deepen you. (Compact discs and tapes from the Taize
community, John
Michael Talbot, and the Monks of Weston Priory are especially
helpful)." "We
now come to the ultimate stage of Christian experience. Divine
Union.... Contemplatives sometimes speak of their union with God
by the analogy of a log in a fire: the glowing log is so united
with the fire that it is fire ..." (Prayer: Finding the Heart's
True Home, p. 159) "Christians
... have developed two fundamental expressions of Unceasing Prayer.
The first ... is usually called aspiratory prayer or breath prayer.
The most famous of the breath prayers is the Jesus Prayer. It
is also possible to discover your own individual breath prayer....
Begin praying your breath prayer as often as possible." (Prayer:
Finding the Heart's True Home, p. 122)
1. David Steindl-Rast, “Recollection of Thomas Merton’s Last Days in the West” (Monastic Studies, 7:10, 1969).