Married, ex-Baptist minister to become Catholic priest

I'm not a huge fan of Thomas Merton because I find his views too liberal for my taste. However, I don't think you will find anyone among the ranks of Baptists who can come close to either of these men--Thomas Merton and Saint John of the Cross--in their influence on matters concerning contemplative prayer.

 

I've done research in this area for a number of years and I believe that mysticism leads people away from the Bible.

Merton thought Buddhism was great and that Chogyam Trungpa, a Tibetan Buddhist leader who started a following here in the U.S. was a great spiritual leader. In fact, Merton wanted to start a Buddhist meditation center in the US when he returned from Asia but never did due to his sudden death. I myself practiced eastern meditation for about 15 yrs. before becoming a believer. Merton believed in using Eastern techniques and this influenced Thomas Keating and Fr. Menninger, who started the modern contemplative prayer movement. I have heard Keating speak in person and I spoke with him privately 3 yrs. ago. Most evangelicals would be deeply concerned to have heard what I did from him, and to know what he says in his books.

I was involved for awhile in Chogyam Trungpa's teachings and I can tell you that Buddhism and particularly Tibetan Buddhism are pure evil. In fact, it is more like sorcery than anything else, honoring other gods and evoking them through various practices, including meditation exercises.

Mysticism always exalts subjective experiences, believes that one can "evoke" God (they say "encounter") God through an experience brought about through techniques (this is a very pagan way of thinking), and undermines doctrine. The medieval catholics who did this did not have the Bible and were depending on rituals and inner experience for revelations from God. In fact, many of these mystics were not officially accepted even by the Roman Catholic church as valid.

Instead of writing more here, please see my articles on this topic, an area about which I have deep concerns:
http://www.christiananswersforthenewage.org/Articles_ContemplativePrayer1.html

http://www.christiananswersforthenewage.org/Articles_MeditationPsalm.html

I believe that I solidly support my views with scripture. Both of these articles were published and I have spoken on Christian radio about this topic.

 

Marcia, you are a lot more articulate than me in these matters. Instead of too liberal, I should have said that Merton is to Eastern or too New Age oriented for me. It's not really my cup of tea but the fact remains that the influence of both these men has been huge.

By the way, your website is amazing. Anyone reading this post, you will do well to go back to Marcia's post and click on her link.

 

Hey, thanks, Zenas! I appreciate you looking at my site and your kind words! :wavey:

 

I don't think that Baptists themselves have any equivalent of S John of the Cross and, whilst it's fair to say that it's difficult to rival the Catholics and Orthodox for writers with such depth of spirituality, it's not that Protestantism is devoid of such writings. I'm thinking in particular here of the likes of John Owen. Like others here, I find Merton a tad too eclectic.

BTW, having read the article, I'm still not sure how he could be ordained as a married Baptist minister; I know that the Catholic Church ordains married converts who have been hitherto Anglican or Orthodox priests, but I thought that that was because both recognise episcopacy and apostolic succession and, since Baptists do neither, that must be one heck of an exemption!

 

Its always a tragic thing when a professing christian forsakes the truth for paganism, idolatry, goddess worship and all kinds of falsehood and error.

If he is born of the Spirit God will surely bring him back out of the muck in due time.


:godisgood:

 

Hey, once saved always saved, right?

In XC
-

 

It would indeed be tragic were that to be the case here...which it isn't

 

Who knows what will become of the man. But this much is certain, he has denied the faith of Christ.