A Time of Departing by Ray Yungen
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| Book Information: ISBN 0972151206 Retail - $12.95 Softbound 248 Pages Description: A revealing account of a New Age spirituality that has infiltrated much of the church today. Exposes the subtle strategies to compromise the gospel message with Eastern mystical practices cloaked under evangelical terminology and wrappings. Topics include: • Contemplative Prayer • Yoga • Labyrinths • Spiritual Directors • Reiki • Desert Fathers • Spiritual Formation • Spiritual Disciplines • Purpose Driven and the Emerging Church Author Bio: Ray Yungen, author, speaker and research analyst has studied religious movements for the last twenty years. Questions this book answers ...
1. Is Rick Warren's Purpose Driven paradigm promoting the
contemplative prayer movement? 2. How and through whom is great delusion moving into the majority of churches today? 3. What is wrong with "Christian" yoga? 4. What is the emerging church really all about and why is it a dangerous spirituality? Also find out about practices such as the labyrinth, reiki, meditation, breath prayers, spiritual directors and much, much more. |
Spiritual directors or (in the Celtic tradition) soul friends, have been part of Christian spirituality for centuries; there's nothing especially New Age about them at all.
ReplyDeleteC.S. Lewis, notable - hardly a New Age devotee, and before the modern trend came along - had a spiritual director.
Likewise, contemplative prayer has always formed part of the Christian tradition.
Reiki and Yoga while ostensibly coming from Far Eastern faiths, in their Western form have about as much in common with the authentic practices as Chicken tikka masala has to do with Indian food. But Christianity doesn't need them.
There is a long standing tradition of a ministry of Christian healing, with anointing of oil, which can still be seen today, most notably in the work of the Guild of St Raphael (an Anglican healing Guild). Where it differs from Reiki is that the focus is on God healing rather than some vague notion of "energy".
You have hit the nail on the head - "God healing". The thought process put me is this - "Where does Reiki come from? Does it come from God via Jesus?". "No". "So it comes from the devil then".
ReplyDeleteNo. I think that's an easy dualism. That again is part of the problem with some evangelicalism; it tends to move towards a gnostic / dualist picture of the world as a battle field between God and the Devil.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with New Age emphasis on "energy" and Reiki is not that it is demonic but that it is a false idol, with pseudoscientifc dressing ("energy" "vibrations", and like all idols, just as much as a wooden idol, it takes from people in money and time and gives nothing in return.