Muslim and Vatican officials are holding historic talks in Rome to establish a better inter-faith dialogue and defuse any future tensions.
Catholic-Muslim ties soured after Pope Benedict XVI’s speech in 2006, in which he linked Muslims with past violence.
The speech provoked Muslim outrage and triggered violent protests.
It also prompted leading Muslim scholars to launch an appeal to the Pope for greater theological dialogue, called the Common Word.
The manifesto now has more than 250 signatories.
Muslim leaders say protests against the Pope’s speech – and also the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper in 2005 – might have been avoided if Christian and Muslim leaders had spoken out together against such violence.
[...]Muslims, who now number about 1.3 billion, recently overtook the number of Catholics worldwide for the first time.
http://www.religionnewsblog.com/22896/catholic-islam-interfaith-dialogue
Here’s more on the story from Lighthouse Trails blog:
First-ever Catholic-Muslim forum to open at Vatican
Category: * Interspirituality
Source: Miscellaneous News Source
VATICAN CITY (AFP) – The Vatican’s first-ever Catholic-Muslim forum kicks off Tuesday, two years after Pope Benedict XVI sparked outrage among Muslims for a speech seen as linking Islam with violence.The three-day forum opens “a new chapter in the long history” of dialogue between the two faiths, the head of the Catholic delegation, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, told the French Catholic daily La Croix.
Benedict will meet with the delegations on Thursday.
The Muslim side is led by the mufti of Bosnia, Mustafa Ceric, whose spokesman Yahya Pallavicini told AFP the delegates “represent no state and no ideological tendency.”…
Muslims and Christians differ in their concept of God, and follow “different paths to reach this God,” said Tauran, the Roman Catholic Church’s pointman for dialogue with Islam. Click here to read more.
“Vatican officials and Muslim scholars will begin talks on November 4: the fruit of the ‘Common Word’ initiative by 138 Islamic scholars and the direct result of a papal invitation.”1
Related Information:
Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, and other Christian Leaders Invite Muslims to Share “Common Love for God”
Archive for the ‘catholic church’ Category
Rome hosts Vatican-Muslim summit
November 5, 2008Beware the Teachings of IHOP KC – New Age Contemplative Spirituality
August 10, 2008Beware the Teachings of IHOP
This is the first in a series of teachings that I will be doing to expose some of the false teachings coming out of IHOP KC. It is of great concern to me that Mike Bickel has been promoting “contemplative” or “centering prayer” for some time. Now that Lou Engle has relocated to Kansas City and is on staff at IHOP KC he is using TheCall to recruit young people into the IHOP internship. We need to be aware of what is going on there and pray for the young people who are involved.
Let me start by defining “Contemplative Prayer”:
“Contemplative Prayer—A mystical prayer practice that leads one into the “silence” but in actuality leads away from God.
Definition of Contemplative Prayer: As it is expressed in a modern day movement is mystically (i.e. based on a technique or method) in which one empties the mind of thought through repetition, usually of a word or phrase or focus on the breath. In this case the silence would be an absence of thought, all thought.
The purpose of contemplative prayer is to enter an altered state of consciousness in order to find one’s true self, thus finding God. This true self relates to the belief that man is basically good. Proponents of contemplative prayer teach that all human beings have a divine center and that all, not just born again believers, should practice contemplative prayer.
“Contemplative consciousness,” says [Thomas] Merton, is “a trans-cultural, trans-religious, trans-formed consciousness … it can shine through this or that system, religious or irreligious”(Thoughts on the East, p.34)” (1)
Ray Yungen further defines contemplative prayer in his book “A Time of Departing”:
“What contemplative prayer actually entails is described very clearly by the following writer:
When one enters the deeper layers of contemplative prayer one sooner or later experiences the void, the emptiness, the nothingness “the profound mystical silence “ an absence of thought.
To my dismay,(says Yungen) I discovered this ‘mystical silence’ is accomplished by the same methods used by New Agers to achieve their silence the mantra and the breath! Contemplative prayer is the repetition of what is referred to as a prayer word or sacred word until one reaches a state where the soul, rather than the mind, contemplates God. (see Mike Bickel’s own teachings on this below) Contemplative prayer teacher and Zen master Willigis Jager brought this out when he postulated:
Do not reflect on the meaning of the word; thinking and reflecting must cease, as all mystical writers insist. Simply ’sound’ the word silently, letting go of all feelings and thoughts.” (2)
Jocelyn Andersen in her article “ Mike Bickle On Contemplative Prayer (part 1)” states the following:
“Mike Bickle, director of the International House of Prayer (IHOP) in Kansas City, and a well-known leader in the Prophetic Movement, claims that God is restoring contemplative prayer to the church. He goes on to claim that contemplative prayer is a God ordained means of entering into the fullness of God, and that the brightest lights in church history have been Roman Catholic mystics who lived during the dark ages. He went on to say the western church had much to learn from these mystics.
According to him, evangelical Christians are a pathetic and ignorant bunch. He says of us:
· “The Protestant wing of the western church, which is a tiny percentage of the Body of Christ…, is nearly completely (98%) unaware that the Holy Spirit is restoring contemplative prayer—center stage—to the church… The Holy Spirit is restoring this precious jewel (contemplative prayer) to the body of Christ. This is the God ordained means of attaining the fullness of God.” ( from the audio message Contemplative Prayer pt1 by Mike Bickle on the Mike Bickle Teachings blogspot)
He quotes from the contemplatives (his word for mystics) and announces that he will be teaching from the Sacred Pathways (which promotes the carrying of symbols or icons, choosing a mantra and visualizing God). Each one of these things is contradictory to the Word of God, which forbids imagery and vain repetitions in prayer.
He insists we need to study the lives and writings of the Roman Catholic mystics, and because the bookstore chain of Barnes and Nobles has carried so many books in this regard, he says (in all earnestness) that B & N is prophesying to the church that we need the mystics, and he wants to know why the church isn’t picking up on the fact that God is calling the entire Body of Christ to live lifestyles of contemplative prayer?
Below are quotes from Mike Bickle on contemplative prayer:
· “Every one in the Body Of Christ is called to live lives of contemplative prayer...”
· “Everybody is called to live in the contemplative lifestyle. Everyone! Everyone! Everyone! That’s one of the great strongholds we have to overcome (resistance to contemplative prayer).
· “…contemplative prayer, you gotta get over that hurdle! Barnes & Noble is prophesying it! Hurtle one we gotta understand it’s for everybody! Everybody is called to the fullness (contemplative prayer). We’re all going to go into this thing!” (audio message Contemplative Prayer pt1 by Mike Bickle on the Mike Bickle Teachings blogspot )
Bickle says the most inspiring light in all of Christianity came from the Roman Catholic mystics during the dark ages. Below are quotes from Bickle on the mystics:
· “mystics is a legitimate term… I don’t want to fight the war…so I’m just saying contemplative prayer, but I mean the mystics—even here at IHOP I say, lets just stay with contemplatives …I don’t have time to argue… so I call them the contemplatives…. I don’t want to go into the semantics, the debates…so, I’m calling it the contemplatives… I don’t have time to argue… but I need the mystics.”
· “[They are] Some of the brightest lights in all of history… there has been the brightest lights in all history for men and women of abandonment in the dark ages… somewhere we have to say the dark ages were the luminaries in the grace of God…they were Catholic priests.”
· “…a study of the lives of the mystics, the contemplatives, through history, and clearly the most inspiring, compelling examples of history, in my world, have come out of the Catholic dark ages. I can’t find anything like it in modern times, in America, in the protestant world.”
· “…we need a little Holy Spirit catalytic jump start. We need to see where a few have gone before us, and say if they did we can, and we can go further… and if you’re going to go deep into that well, I’m sad to say, the vast majority of them are going to have Catholic roots in history.”audio message Contemplative Prayer pt1 by Mike Bickle on the Mike Bickle Teachings blogspot
Bickle heavily promotes Bernard Clairvou (who he claims was a just a quiet little monk who only wanted to stay in his hermitage, praying and reading The Song of Solomon). He is clearly impressed with Clairvou’s healing ministry but leaves out the part where Clairvou travels extensively as a major instigator of the second crusade. He says, “Bernard Clairou became my most inspiring life outside the Bible.”
The writings of Father Thomas Keating (the modern day Father of contemplative prayer) are also promoted.
Bickle says these two men are examples, for us, of, “a way to a deeper life in God.” He went on to say, “The protestant world is in great need of examples (like these) that will beckon us to the fullness of God.” audio message Contemplative Prayer pt1 by Mike Bickle on the Mike Bickle Teachings blogspot
Mike Bickle is telling the Body of Christ that we are woefully deficient in having lost God’s fullness and need to look to New Age, Eastern philosophy and to Roman Catholic mystics as examples in how to restore it!
And his advice to questioning, spiritually languishing and anguishing souls (who didn’t know their real problem was that they wanted more of God—until he told them so) is this, “Don’t evaluate yourself, don’t evaluate others. Just keep going after it.” (audio message Contemplative Prayer pt1 by Mike Bickle on the Mike Bickle Teachings blogspot )
In plain language that means don’t read or listen to anything discerningly or analytically. Don’t question anything or anybody—not even yourself (except evangelicals of course). Just go with what feels right.” (3)
On IHOP’s website they give instructions on how to pray contemplative prayers:
“Contemplative Prayer
Communing with the Holy Spirit who lives within you
I. Know He Lives Inside of You
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes…
— Ezekiel 36:26–27But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.
— John 4:14
II. Pray the Scripture
Method #1
- Choose a short phrase in Scripture.
- Begin slowly praying the Scripture in silence.
- Focus your prayer toward the Spirit who lives inside you (John 7:38).
- Remain on the phrase as long as you feel the Lord’s presence on it. Then move with Him, slowly praying through the passage phrase by phrase.
Method #2
- Choose a short story in Scripture.
- Read through the story several times silently.
- Close your eyes and acknowledge the Spirit who lives in you.
- Use your imagination to imagine yourself as one of the story characters or as an onlooker.
- Play out the story in your mind applying all five of your senses.
Method #3
- We call this “Beholding the Spirit Within.”
- The goal is to search for and feel God’s presence inside you, not necessarily to gain more understanding in God’s Word as with the first two methods.
- Begin by gently praying a short passage of Scripture in silence while focusing on the indwelling Spirit. The Scripture is used to quiet the clamoring of your soul and draw you to God. It is the connection point, the springboard into the spiritual realm.
- Once you feel God’s presence, focus on it in a concentrated way.
- You will be able to notice His presence now; He has always been there, but now your attention is on Him within you. The outward senses are quiet and your surface thoughts are gone. You are beginning to be consumed by the Spirit.
- In this time, feel the freedom to stay quiet. Silently ask the Spirit to show you a vision, or slowly and silently say to Him, “I love You. I love You. I love You.”
Overcoming Distractions
Your mind will have to be trained in practical ways to not wander and think on other things. To overcome a wandering mind, simply begin thinking on the Scripture you have been meditating on, and focus your prayer to the Spirit within you. The Lord sees your heart as it searches for Him, and He is smiling upon you. You may become sleepy during prayer. To overcome, sit up straight instead of slouching and do not lie down. You can also begin speaking the Scripture you are meditating on under your breath until you feel the drowsiness subside, then return to the silent prayer.
Diligence in Prayer
In time these methods of praying will become easy. You will find the Spirit who lives in you if you search for Him with all your heart, but it will require time and your whole heart.
Keys to Progress
Humility—the high and lofty One dwells with the lowly in heart (Isaiah 57)
Disciplined life of prayer, fasting, giving and loving your enemies (Matthew 6)
Total abandonment in love to Jesus and loving nothing of this life (Matthew 7:14)” (4)
Derek Prince in his article “Protection from Deception” correctly addresses the deception behind contemplative prayer or “praying to the spirit within” when he says:
“God the Holy Spirit is the Servant of the Father and the Son. This does not demean Him or make Him less than God. But it is a fact that we have to recognize about Him, which directs His activities and the things He does. In John 16:13-14 Jesus gives us a glimpse of the Holy Spirit’s ministry and activity: “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth: for He will not speak on His own authority [literally: from Himself] but whatever He hears He will speak: and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.” So we see: the Holy Spirit does not speak from Himself; He has no message of His own. Isn’t that remarkable? He only reports to us what He is hearing from the Father and the Son. Secondly, His aim is not to glorify Himself, nor to attract attention to Himself, but always He glorifies and focuses attention on Jesus. (and Jesus the Messiah has been raised and seated in heavenly places according to Eph. Chapter 1) That is the second important way to identify the Holy Spirit.
Now, I want you to listen to this carefully, because it is revolutionary. Any spirit that focuses on the Holy Spirit and glorifies the Holy Spirit is not the Holy Spirit. It is contrary to His whole nature and purpose. Once you have grasped that, it will open your eyes to many things which are going on in the church that are otherwise difficult to understand. …… The Holy Spirit never does glorify His own name. His purpose is to glorify the One who sent Him.
Let me make another statement which may surprise you. I have not found in the Scripture anywhere an example of a prayer addressed to the Holy Spirit. So far as I can understand, no one in the Scripture ever prayed to the Holy Spirit. You probably would do well to check that for yourself, but I have looked carefully and have not found one example. You might ask, “Why so?” And I would give you this answer: It is a question of heavenly “protocol.” There is so little respect nowadays for protocol on earth that we sometimes do not realize that there is protocol in heaven. It is protocol relating to a master-servant relationship. In such a relationship, when you are dealing with a servant, you do not speak to the servant, but to the master. You ask the master to tell his servant what to do. It is wrong to directly address a servant when his master is available for you to speak to. I believe that is heaven’s protocol. When you recognize the relationship of the Holy Spirit to God the Father and God the Son, you understand that we never give orders to the Holy Spirit. When we want the Holy Spirit to do something, we address our request to the Father or to the Son.” (4)
Footnotes:
- http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/cp.htm
- http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/contemplativeprayerraybook.htm
- http://www.hungryheartsministries.com/id419.html
- http://www.ihop.org/Publisher/Article.aspx?id=1000000385
- http://www.revivalschool.com/dprince.html
Reiki Found at Many Catholic Convents – The Near Future for Evangelicalism
August 10, 2008Reiki Found at Many Catholic Convents – The Near Future for Evangelicalism
Source: Editors at Lighthouse Trails
From: http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com
An example of Reiki being used in convents is the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati. Their Spirituality Center offers Reiki, labyrinths, and spiritual direction (contemplative). The center believes that “all life is sacred,” which is another way of saying that divinity or God is within all things and all people. Sister Mary Fran Davisson, one of the sisters at the Sisters of Charity is a Reiki Master. Their website describes their Reiki sessions:
It is the God-consciousness, REI, that guides the life energy, KI, in the practice of Reiki. A person is fully clothed during a session. He/she may experience an opening of blocked energy, a sense of balance and centeredness, an awakening of the body’s natural ability to heal itself, and a sense of personal well-being and peace.
Another convent that incorporates Reiki is the Sisters of St. Benedict, also in Indiana.1 A First Degree Reiki course is being held on August 9th at that convent. Sister Anita Louise Lowe is a Reiki Master and has been practicing energy healing since 1995.
Another convent that includes Reiki is the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville (Kentucky). Reiki is being taught during their 2008 summer program.2 And there is the Racine Dominicans (Wisconsin) where two of the sisters provide Reiki instruction.3
Contemplative spirituality is strongly integrated into Catholicism (largely credited to monks Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating, and Basil Pennington); and considering the connection between contemplative and Reiki, it is little wonder that this move to bring Reiki into the convents is taking place. And with the closing gap between Catholicism and evangelicalism (largely credited to Richard Foster, Chuck Colson, Rick Warren, and the emerging church, et. al.), it is just a matter of time before Reiki becomes an integral part of evangelical churches begin as so many have already brought in contemplative spirituality (and yoga). In view of the following statement about Reiki, discerning, biblical Christians should find this growing acceptance of Reiki very troubling:
Reiki came to the United States (from Japan) in the mid 1970s. It took about twenty years for this particular practice to reach 500,000 practitioners. This number is comparable to those who were serving in the entire U.S. Army at that time. By the year 2005, the number skyrocketed to an astonishing one million practitioners in just the U.S.! … Reiki is in line with all the other New Age transformation efforts. It changes the way people perceive reality. Most practitioners acknowledge the truth of this. A German Reiki channeler makes this comment:
It frequently happens that patients will come into contact with new ideas after a few Reiki treatments. Some will start doing yoga or autogenous training or start to meditate or practise [sic] some other kind of spiritual method….. Fundamental changes will set in and new things will start to develop. You will find it easier to cast off old, outlived structures and you will notice that you are being led and guided more and more….
Of all the New Age practices and modalities, Reiki holds the title to being the most intriguing and perhaps eerie one. This is brought out in the following observations made by one of the leading Reiki masters in the country. He reveals:
When I looked psychically at the energy, I could often see it as thousands of small particles of light, like “corpuscles” filled with radiant Reiki energy flowing through me and out of my hands. It was as though these Reiki “corpuscles” of light had a purpose and intelligence. (Ray Yungen, FMSC, chapter 6)
William Lee Rand, a New Age advocate for Reiki states:
Reiki can be defined as a non-physical healing energy made up of life force energy that is guided by the Higher Intelligence, or spiritually guided life force energy.
We believe this “Higher intelligence” reached during Reiki sessions is not a source of good universal energy as is stated by Reiki masters but rather is of a demonic nature.
Just as contemplative prayer and yoga have entered evangelical Christianity at a continually fast pace, Reiki will do the same. “The reason for this level of acceptance is easy to understand. Most people, many Christians included, believe if something is spiritually positive then it is of God” (Yungen). Unfortunately, Reiki, as with contemplative and yoga, is not spiritually beneficial, and as it is more and more accepted into the Christian faith, spiritual deception will grow exponentially stronger too.
From: http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com
Welcome to Truthspeaker's blog. I am a seeker of truth, a writer, a missionary and a teacher of the Word of God.
As a former spiritual mapper, involved in both the spiritual warfare and prayer movement, I have been doing research on history and current events for almost 20 years. I hope you will find interesting and useful information on this page.
Here I have put together various topics, and current events, on what is going on in the church and in the world. Please feel free to comment and leave feedback!
