Part 3 – A biblical appraisal of the Mosaic Congress held at the Mosaic Church in Fairlands, Johannesburg (4-5 Sept. 2009)

Session 2: Transfiguration: Up and down the mountain – Trevor Hudson

On the second page of their very smart and glossy programme booklet that was handed out to the congressional participants and public during the Mosaic Congress, there is a quote by Thomas Keating which reads as follows:

A new formulation of the spiritual journey for Christians is urgently needed today that will be faithful to the Scriptures and tradition but is expressed in contemporary language and understanding (Emphasis added).

Johan Geyser takes the relay stick from Keating’s hand and continues to run with the idea of a new formulation of the spiritual journey for Christians when he says:

Dear delegate

Our spirituality needs to be approached in a different way – a holistic manner – that encapsulates theology, psychology, neurology and the other disciplines that shape the world as we know it.

It needs to be based on the example of Jesus, be faithful to the Bible, and the traditions and heritage of the Church, that age-old entity embodying God’s plan. . . .

This Congress hopes to create a platform to engage in conversations to grow towards an integrated, holistic spirituality, where we as community can have an impact in a changing world (Emphasis added).

And then enters Trevor Hudson with a very feisty and invigorating exegesis (or is it eisegesis) of Jesus Christ’s transfiguration on the mountain (Matthew 17: 1-16). At first I was very hopeful and waiting in great anticipation for a sermon that in the beginning seemed to be more biblical and less contemplatively mystical. To my dismay, however, Trevor’s presentation, like that of Johan Geyser, wandered off into to the mysterious and dark corridors of contemplative thoughtlessness (aka Geyser’s advice to stop thinking). Toward the conclusion of his paper he elatedly and nearly breathlessly declares that Peter, James and John saw “everything in Jesus and Jesus in everything.” They saw a “Christ-shaped world.” on the Mount of Transfiguration. Here are his contemplatively gilded words when he described this spiritual journey:

As we go on this journey with Jesus into these experiences, we dis . . . — we use a big word here and just try and unpack it a bit — we discover the sacramentality of this universe — that this universe, this universe is like a sacrament; its like this whole universe is God’s holy land, because when they get up – you remember this – when they get up, what do they see? Do you remember? Go back to the story. You read the story! What do they see when they get up? They see Jesus only. They see everything in Jesus and Jesus in everything, huh?  . . . They see a Christ-shaped world (Emphasis added).

“Sacramentality” (the mysterious notion or mentality that everything is sacred or holy. Stephan Joubert holds to the same idea that everything is holy) is indeed a big word and I doubt whether the three disciples, Peter James and John, understood it in the manner Trevor Hudson describes it. Let’s just briefly rewind our conversation to Johan Geyser’s presentation “Holy Longing” when he said the following.

. . . she (Mary) had an insight that none of the other disciples had about the death, the meaning of the death of Jesus. Nobody could see it. The only person  . . . was a woman and it was Mary that did the sitting. The sitting prepared and helped her to listen to Jesus at a deep inner level and to hear things that other people couldn’t hear. And it inspired her to action, to love, to love. . . . (Emphasis added)

Because Mary had supposedly sat at Jesus’ feet in a contemplative mindset she moved beyond her reason and perceived and understood things about His death that no one else, not even the disciples, were able to fathom. And yet, her miraculously acquired knowledge by just sitting with Jesus and being induced with this higher knowledge was superseded by the disciples miraculously induced knowledge when they saw Jesus in everything and everything in Jesus on the mount of transfiguration and a Christ-shaped world. The meaning of his death was to them a complete mystery but his superhuman prowess to be in everything while He was still enshrouded in a physical body is something they understood perfectly well when they moved beyond their reason . . . huh? Indeed, a superhuman shift beyond one’s reason is an absolute necessity if you want to see someone who’s confined to a physical body in everything. Huh? If Jesus was able to permeate everything and if it were possible for everything to permeate Him while He was still living in a physical body on earth, it would have been unnecessary for Him to comfort his disciples with these words:

John 16:5-8 But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.

While He was still living in his pre-resurrected physical body Jesus could never indwell his believers. His presence nigh his disciples when He walked the earth was something very precious but there was something much better and more desirable than Him being NEAR his followers and that is to dwell IN them. This is precisely why He said “It is more expedient for you (his disciples and all the believers throughout the ages) that I go away.” If he’d not ascended to his Father in heaven, the Holy Spirit could not have been poured out on the Day of Pentecost and consequently indwell all Christ’s followers (believers). The notion that Christ is in everything and everything is in Christ implies that the Holy Spirit is in everything and therefore everything must be holy. Psychology is holy, Neurology is holy, meditation is holy, yoga is holy, all religions are holy; nothing is unhallowed, everything is holy. In Fact, the entire universe is sacramentally holy. Huh? I just wonder why God said: “ . . . touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you” (2 Corinthians 6:17). He must have been delirious when He said this. How can you touch an unholy or unclean thing when everything is holy?

I must admit it really takes some doing to see what the disciples saw on the Mount of Transfiguration. These kinds of strange contemplative eisegeses come to the fore, as I said in my comment on Johan Geyser’s presentation, when you add new meaning to passages in Scripture by placing emphasis on certain words and phrases over and above those that warrant greater importance. The most important lesson of Jesus’ Transfiguration on the mountain was not what the disciples saw but what they heard. In fact what they saw led them to a wrong conclusion. As a Jew Peter instinctively knew that the transfiguration pointed to the fulfilment of God’s Kingdom on earth. He saw in this event the fulfilment of the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles which looked back in hindsight to the wanderings in the wilderness for 40 years and forward to Israel’s regathering in their own land just prior to the establishment of Christ’s 1000 year Kingdom on earth. What Peter thought he saw was happening before his eyes was the actual inauguration of Christ’s Kingdom. His timing, of course, was wrong and God had to intervene. They heard his voice in a cloud that said Jesus is His beloved Son with Whom He is well-pleased AND THAT THEY SHOULD LISTEN TO HIM (OBEY HIM). Why should we listen to Him and obey Him? Well! because He is the Person Whom God anointed to fulfil all our needs. We need no-one and nothing else because He is all-sufficient for all our needs and yet Johan Geyser and his contemplatives have the audacity to say: “Our spirituality needs to be approached in a different way – a holistic manner – that encapsulates theology, psychology, neurology and the other disciplines that shape the world as we know it.” Imagine God the Father having so say: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am semi-pleased and to assist Him in His redemptive and sanctifying work I have sanctioned psychology, neurology and the other disciplines that will shape the world in the end-times. Listen to the psychologists and neurologists. Huh? . . .  huh?” In one of my many debates on the internet about the proposed fidelity of psychology in Christianity, I wrote the following:

Let’s examine a few things what a few psychologists have said of their own profession.

• “The Shaman . . . can be viewed as an early psychotherapist. (Herbert Bensen, M.D. Harvard professor)
• In 1986, at the AHP’s (Association for Humanistic Psychology) 24th annual meeting held at San Diego State university, several shamans (witch doctors) were the key speakers. Their objective was to teach participants how to develop or invoke shamanic altered states of consciousness conducive to contact with spirit beings.
• The basic model of man that led to the development of [Eastern] meditational techniques is the same model that led to humanistic psychotherapies (Lawrence LeShan, past president of the “Association for Humanistic Psychology {AHP}.
• The core of the problem, which psychological and psychiatric research has not resolved yet, and is unlikely to resolve, consists in a correct distinction between pathological behaviour of a psychic nature and demonic invasion (Eugenio Fizzoti, Professor The Psychology of Religion, School of Education, Pontifical Salesian University, Rome)
• When we think of religion, we usually think of a large institution . . . prescribed doctrines . . . a power of structure . . . dogmas . . . When I say “spiritual,” however, I’m trying to get back to the original experience that led to the development of religion in the first place . . . [through] altered states of consciousness . . . The exciting thing about transpersonal psychologies [is] . . . you don’t have to believe . . . some religious tract written hundreds or thousands of years ago [such as the Bible]. Techniques can be developed, whether they be meditation techniques or psychotherapeutic techniques or whatever that lead people back to the experiential basis that gave rise to religion in the first place. (Charles Tart, University of California Professor of Psychology)
• Although few psychologists accept all of Freud’s theorizing, his views on the presence of unconscious thoughts, wishes and feelings are now nearly universally accepted. (Bruce Narramore, leading Christian Psychologist).
• Under the influence of humanistic psychologists like Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, many of us Christians have begun to see our need for self-love and self-esteem. This is a good and necessary focus. (Bruce Narramore).
• Erich Fromm, an atheist, popularized the idea of self-love. He got it from Nietzsche. One of Fromm’s books was Ye Shall be as Gods. He took the lie of the serpent for its title. In his book, Man for Himself, he justified the idea that we all hate ourselves and we need to learn to love ourselves by saying Jesus taught it when He said, “love your neighbour as you love yourself” (Mt 12:39).
• It is indeed shocking that many, if not most forms of psychotherapy currently offered to consumers are not supported by credible scientific evidence. (R. Christopher Barden, psychologist, lawyer and president of the National Association for Consumer protection in mental Health Practices)
• Psychiatry has been willing to sanctify its values with the holy water of medicine and offer them up as the true faith of “Mental health.” It is a false Messiah. (E. Fuller Torrey, Internationally respected psychiatrist) (Emphasis added).

Why would any Christian want to follow a false Messiah? Beats me!

Nothing can be more obvious to see Jesus only after Moses and Elijah who had stood with Him on the Mount of Transfiguration disappeared  again suddenly. Their sudden disappearance happened when the three disciples lay face down in dire fear of God’s voice in a cloud and when they stood up from the ground they saw Jesus only. Its as simple as that. There is no need to attach a new mind-blowing (a movement beyond reason) and an esoteric meaning to the words “Jesus only.” Matthew could just as well have written “And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only because Moses and Elijah who appeared with Him had already departed” The million dollar question is: Why do the contemplatives do this? Why do they extract from biblical passages certain words and phrases and embroil an entire new eisegesis around it? The simple answer to this is: Because they want to promote their contemplative agenda at all cost.

What is the contemplatives’ agenda?  What do they aim to achieve? Well, in a nutshell, they aim not only to repaint, rehash, refurbish and  re-think the Bible; they also want to spread the Kingdom of God on earth that is allegedly already on earth. Hence their relentless efforts to persuade the Christian Church that everything is holy (according to Rob Bell), that the entire universe is like a sacrament and already God’s holy land, that Christ is in all and all is in Christ, and that we are living in a Christ-shaped world. The irony is that the so-called “Christ-shaped world” hates HIS guts and all HIS true followers or disciples (John 15:18). Surely, Jesus must have had a very quaint sense of humour when He said that His “Christ-shaped world” is steeped in the evil one (Satan) (1 John 5:19). If everything is already holy and Jesus Christ is in everything and everything is in Him, why do we need a biblical metanoia (a change of mind for the better in abhorrence of your past sins and rebellion against God)? Oh! but we do need a metanoia but let’s change its meaning and purpose by adopting Marcus Borg’s definition thereof who said that “metanoia means to move beyond your reason” while we all follow his example and happily reject Jesus Christ as the only Saviour. An unreasoning beast has more wisdom than that, especially when you take into account Balaam’s donkey that did everything in its power to stop the prophet from continuing on his maddening and cerebrally devoid spiritual journey.

If the Kingdom of God is already here; if everything is holy and the world is already Christ-shaped, surely we have no need to preach a Gospel of faith and repentance toward Jesus Christ and his finished work on the cross. Surely, there is no need for that when everyone is already in Jesus Christ and He is in everyone? Surely, Paul would then have been inspired by the Holy Spirit to write:

And be [not] conformed to this already Christ-shaped world: but be ye transformed by the moving of your mind beyond reason, that ye may rethink and rehash what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2) Huh?

In his book Quantum Spirituality: A Postmodern Apologetic on pages 65 and 66 Leonard Sweet writes:

“This is my body” is not an anthropocentric metaphor. Theologian/feminist critic Sallie McFague has argued persuasively for seeing Earth, in a very real sense, as much as a part of the body of Christ as humans.

We are all earthlings. Indeed, in the biblical view of creation human earthlings do not stand at the apex of God’s handiwork…nature has an identity and purpose apart from human benefit. But we constitute together a cosmic body of Christ.

The only thing left to do in our already Christ-shaped world, is to pour our lives out on behalf of others — the poor, the destitute, the outcasts etc. Let’s follow Mother Theresa’s exemplary example who poured her life out for the poor and the destitute in Calcutta, India but sent them into a Christless eternity because she never preached the unadulterated Gospel of Christ to them. She believed her task was to “help a Hindu become a better Hindu, a Muslim become a better Muslim, a Catholic become a better Catholic.” Brian McLaren reiterated the very same sentiments when he said:

I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu or Jewish contexts . . . rather than resolving the paradox via pronouncements on the eternal destiny of people more convinced by or loyal to other religions than ours, we simply move on … To help Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, and everyone else experience life to the full in the way of Jesus (while learning it better myself), I would gladly become one of them (whoever they are), to whatever degree I can, to embrace them, to join them, to enter into their world without judgment but with saving love as mine has been entered by the Lord (A Generous Orthodoxy, 260, 262, 264).

He could just as well have said: “It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu or Jewish contexts . . . despite their rejection and hatred of His substitutionary sacrificial death on the cross.”

The Hollywoodian nonsense “Heaven can wait” applies while the emergent contemplatives venture “to help Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and everyone else experience life to the full in the way of Jesus.” It is consequently no strange thing to see the emergent contemplatives embracing Eastern mystical practices, especially those steeped in Buddhism. The spiritual journey, therefore, is the journey of the Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and everyone else being miraculously infused with THE WAY OF JESUS. His example and not his doctrines (commandments) need to be induced into all religions. The light of Jesus needs to miraculously transfigure (transform) individuals of whatever religious persuasion so that we all may work in tandem (unity) to make this world a better place. And guess what the common denominator is in achieving this miraculously infused or induced spiritual way? — yep, you said it, MEDITATION. It doesn’t matter what brand of meditation you use, be it Yoga, contemplative or centering prayer, Christian meditation or any other kind, they all serve the same purpose — to receive enlightenment, a new gnosis which is miraculously induced (initiated) so that we may achieve our goals on this planet. Benjamin Creme, the self-appointed John the Baptist of the Maitreya (false Christ) has this to say about his own brand of meditation called “Transmission Meditation.” If you look closely you will see some correlation between Johan Geyser’s use of the word “induced” and Creme’s use of the word “transmission.”

Transmission – A Meditation for the New Age, Creme explains that the time is past to focus on one’s own spiritual progress without engaging in some form of service. Transmission Meditation, he says, is the simplest way to do both – at the same time.

Ah! that’s an enlightening statement, especially when you take into account Teresa of Avila’s eisegesis to combine Martha’s active life and Mary’s contemplative life (Luke 10:38-42) with the purpose of producing an industrious and fruitful contemplative follower of Jesus who not only sits in silence when meditating contemplatively but also goes into the world to pour his/her life out on behalf of others. They seem to have discovered that a full-blown contemplative life where you just sit and meditate in silence in a kind of Monastic ascetic lifestyle (the highest kind of life, according the The Cloud of Unknowing and Johan Geyser) is of very little value to others. Benjamin Creme noticed this when he said “the time is past to focus on one’s own spiritual progress (or journey) without engaging in some form of service.” He continues to say:

Transmission Meditation is a group service activity which ‘steps down’ the great spiritual energies that continually stream into our planet, focused by the Masters of Wisdom – our ‘Elder Brothers’. This process, which makes the energies more useful to humanity, is like that of electrical transformers that step down the power between generators and household outlets. These transformed spiritual energies, Creme explains, are gradually uplifting all life forms and changing our world for the better.

“What is unique about this work,” says Creme, “is its simplicity. It is a perfect vehicle for the aspirations of very busy people. It is safe, highly scientific, non-denominational, free of any charge, and unbelievably potent. It is a service in which we can involve ourselves for the rest of our lives and know that we are helping in the great transformation to a more just and compassionate world. At the same time I know of no other form of service which makes for such far reaching and fast spiritual growth.” (Emphasis added)

The best way to make spiritual growth and to pour your life out in service on behalf of others, according to Creme, is to participate in meditation that taps into the Masters of Wisdom’s spiritual energies and to have it transmitted (induced) onto your being through meditation

Whereas Johan Geyser explained the marrying of the contemplative and active lifestyles in terms of Martha (the activist) and Mary (the contemplative) in Luke 10:38-42, Trevor Hudson did so in terms of the transfiguration of Jesus on the Mountain (Matthew 17:1-8 and 14) which he entitles “UP AND DOWN THE MOUNTAIN.” He kicked off with a little interaction between him and the audience using a lit lamp and a jug and a glass of water.  He began by saying:

I wonder if we could just continue the conversation a bit. We’ve been using the language of the spiritual journey and I wonder what you think represents best this spiritual journey. Do you think that the spiritual journey is best represented by the light of Christ transforming us? Or do you think the spiritual journey is best represented by pouring a cup of water for someone who is thirsty? I wonder if we could just think about this carefully. Now, there’s no right answer. I just want you to relax but I want, I’m wondering, I’m wondering what you’re thinking. I’m wondering whether you think the spiritual journey is about this kind of inward transformation, the light of Christ filling our lives; we become the light of the world.  [or] is the spiritual journey essentially about the pouring out of our life on behalf of others? . .  I’m wandering how many of you really are drawn to this sense of interior transformation, becoming the light of the world? . . . How many of you feel that the spiritual journey is really about giving yourself, pouring your life out? . . .

We get a preliminary glimpse of Trevor Hudson’s contemplative mindset when he brings to our memory the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima on 6th August 1945. Very few people in the West seem to know that when the Western powers under the auspices of the Unites States of America decided to drop the bomb on Hiroshima, it was the very day when the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrated the Feast of the Transfiguration. Trevor Hudson relayed this horrible event as follows.

I want to draw your attention to something which historians when they tell the story of Hiroshima, often forget to tell us, that that bomb was dropped on Hiroshima when the Eastern Church celebrated the Feast of the Transfiguration and those of you who have been exposed to some of the treasures of our brother and sister Christ-followers from the East will know that the Feast of the Transfiguration is as important as the Festival of Christmas, the Festival of Easter, the Festival of Pentecost; that in the Eastern heart the Transfiguration is crucial. And I’ve often thought about this tragic insensitivity in the hearts and minds of those who made that decision. . . . My homespun theory — I’ve got no empirical research for this — my homespun theory is that somehow those in the West who made this decision were simply unaware of the importance of the transfiguration; they were simply unaware. Its almost as if those of us in the West somehow, and we’ve been influenced I think by Western thinking, those of us who live in South Africa, somehow the events of the transfiguration flies below the radar. Huh? Can anyone of you really remember a strong sermon on the transfiguration? Huh? . . .  huh? We don’t know what to do with it. Its one of those events that kind of blows our category of thought. You know the West kind of emphasizes analysis, definition, rationality. [In] the East, by contrast, there is an emphasis on experience, on intuition, on maybe what sometimes gets called the mystical, and I think that’s why we sometimes lose the transfiguration in our thinking (Emphasis added).

Was Trevor Hudson suggesting that you need to enter into a mystical experience before you can understand the true meaning of the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ on the mountain, something similar to what Mary experienced when she sat at the feet of Jesus? It’s easy to find a connection between two apparent opposites when you put your mind to it and Trevor Hudson very skilfully found that connection when he married contemplative spirituality with the event of the transfiguration. However, contrary to Johan Geyser’s plea that we should stop thinking, he made a heartfelt appeal to his audience to descend with their minds into their hearts and to intuitively enter into the event of the transfiguration, not only as a past event but also as a present reality — “the Bible happened, the Bible happens . . .  and then maybe we will see what the spiritual journey in the company of Jesus looks like” he explained.

Before I elaborate a bit more on Hudson’s contemplatively transfigured Transfiguration, it is imperative that we briefly look at his homespun theory again. Indeed, it is a homespun theory without any empirical backup because his conjecture: “that somehow those in the West who made this decision were simply unaware of the importance of the transfiguration.” is simply not true. Was the Roman Catholic Church in the West simply unaware of the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki . .  or at least equally unaware as she was about Adolf Hitler’s plan to exterminate six million Jews? Vatican I’s statement that “While the state has some rights, she has them only in virtue and by permission of the the superior authority [of] the Church (The Catholic World , July 1870, Vol. xi, p. 439) is ample proof that governments rarely take decisions without the knowledge and the stamp of approval of the Roman Catholic Church. Dave Hunt in his book “A Woman Rides the Beast” on page 57 and 59 writes:

The antipathy of Roman Catholicism to basic human freedoms later created unholy alliances with the totalitarian governments of Hitler and Mussolini, who were praised by the pope and other Church leaders as men chosen by God. Catholics were forbidden to oppose Mussolini and were urged to support him.  . . .

Pope Pius XI told Vice-Chancellor Fritz von Papen, himself a leading Catholic, “how pleased he was that the German Government now had at its head a man uncompromisingly opposed to Communism.” (Franz von Papen, Memoirs, trans. Brian Connell, London 1952, p. 279). . . .

Most German Catholics were in a state of euphoria after the 1933 concordat between Hitler and the Vatican was signed. Catholic young men were ordered “to raise their right arm in salute, and to display the swastika flag . . .”

Any apparent difficulties to link the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of which the Catholic Cathedral was inadvertently “ground zero” for “fat man,”  soon vanish when we take into account that Harry S. Truman, a confirmed 33rd degree Mason, appointed many Roman Catholics to key positions in his government.

President Harry S. Truman was a minor ordinary Klansman from 1920 – 1922. His two year membership was not notable and somewhat lacking. He eventually had a major falling out with the KKK over his desire to appoint Roman Catholics to key political positions; something which all of the KKK opposed at the time. Some Klans now not only accept Roman Catholics but actively recruit them. The true Ku Klux Klan is however traditionally and rightfully opposed to Roman Catholicism and Papists influence over America. President Harry S. Truman was currying favor with Roman Catholic voters and was more interested in his political career than the Klan for the good of America. He severed all ties with the KKK and openly repudiated them. They didn’t call the arrogant upstart “give them Hell Harry”, for nothing. His family has tired to deny his KKK membership ever since, but has failed miserably since it is a well established fact of documented history (Read here).

Despite these historical facts Trevor Hudson forcefully blames the dropping of the bomb on the Western world’s lack of awareness of the mystical significance of the Transfiguration. Is it perhaps because he needed to colour in the Transfiguration with a distinct contemplative palette. Others in the Roman Catholic fold have already tried to repaint the Transfiguration using a contemplative palette. Read here. It is interesting to note that the author of this article uses the very same words Johan Geyser used to describe the necessity to let go of the false self.

Listening asks of us intention, attention, and letting go of the things that deafen us. Anything that destroys or limits presence is a form of deafness. The following are just a few examples:

• Holding on to the past – guilt, sins, regrets, disappointments, sorrow, and losses;
• Perfectionism, self-doubt, and self-hatred;
• Fear, anxiety, and the resulting need to control;
• Competition, comparison, expectation and judgments;
• Anger, resentment, and condemnation. (Emphasis added).

What does Trevor Hudson mean by “becoming the light of the world?”

Just a quick reminder what Trevor said.

I’m wandering how many of you really are drawn to this sense of interior transformation, becoming the light of the world? . . . How many of you feel that the spiritual journey is really about giving yourself, pouring your life out? . . .

The Bible never teaches that you “become” or “are becoming the light of the world.” The word “becoming” implies a gradual development into being the light which in turn implies that you must do something in order to become that light. Jesus said that His disciples ARE the light of the world (Matthew 5:14). They ARE the light the moment they receive Him (Who IS the essence of this light) as their personal Saviour. In the Barnes commentary the following explanation of the light is given:

The light of the world often denotes the sun, John 11:9. The sun renders objects visible, shows their form, their nature, their beauties, and deformities. The term light is often applied to religious teachers. See John 1:4 8:12 Isaiah 49:6. It is pre-eminently applied to Jesus in these places; because he is, in the moral world, what the sun is in the natural world. The apostles, and Christian ministers, and all Christians, are lights of the world, because they, by their instructions and examples, show what God requires, what is the condition of man, what is the way of duty, peace, and happiness—the way that leads to heaven (Emphasis added).

The main priority of Jesus being the Light of the world is to reprove mankind of its evil ways and to draw them to Himself so that they may see their evil deeds for what they really are.

John 3:18-21 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

Christians are beacons of light that illuminate the way to heaven by their preaching of the unadulterated Word of God and their sanctified lives. Like John the Baptist they ought to point to Jesus Christ and declare “There is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.” John the Baptist never performed any miracles and neither did he pour himself out on behalf of others to alleviate their suffering, poverty and misery. And yet Jesus hailed him the greatest prophet born of women because he never compromised the Word of God for the sake of a unifying spiritual journey. Also when Paul said that he was being poured out he was merely referring to his life that was nearing its end and not to a life of service to the poor and the destitute (2 Timothy 4:6). In the other instance where he mentions him being offered as a libation sacrifice, he did so on behalf of the faith of his brothers and sisters and not to ease their poverty and dire circumstances (Philippians 2:17). I’m not in the very least suggesting that they had no compassion for the poor and their suffering.

Throughout the Congress the speakers eulogized the need for experience, mysticism, intuition, thoughtlessness, silence, passive sitting, awareness while they downplayed rationalism, thinking, studying, understanding, i.e. everything that relates to man’s cognitive capacities. It predictably leads to the assumption that the transformation (transfiguration) of an individual is not accomplished through the cognitive learning, understanding or knowledge of certain doctrines. Biblical exposés such as “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind” are no longer tolerable in our post-modern enlightened society. Instead, the  “truth” is passively received by means of a mystical induction or infusion when the mind moves beyond reason through deep contemplative and silent meditation. You will recall that Johan Geyser said it is not acquired but induced by just sitting and being in a state of complete silence. Well of course, the expediency in this is that it eliminates disagreement, factions or divisions, conflicts and war because no one needs to defend the doctrines of a particular faith; we are all induced with a like-mindedness that has its origin in the same source — a generic god who is equally at home in Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism etc. etc. etc. You may also recall that in my previous comment I said “It is said that a guru is capable of transmitting his own state of being (love, compassion, empathy, intuition and aliveness) to the receptive pilgrims who sit with him at his feet.” In Buddhism this is called  TO BECOME ENLIGTENED.

You may ask: What has this all got to do with Trevor Hudson’s presentation? Well let’s again listen to him describing the spiritual journey.

When those guys are on the mountain they get a glimpse of who they can become, huh? They get a small glimpse of transformation, of change. Jesus is transfigured. Can I say this carefully. Jesus is not transfigured for his sake; I use to think transfiguration meant it was like proof of Jesus’ divinity. If that is true then Moses was divine because Moses also shone, huh? If you want evidence for the divinity of Christ, we go to the cross, we go to the resurrection. Jesus is transfigured for the sake of the disciples. Now they are able to see what a transfigured, transformed human  being looks like. Now they’re able to see what a human being, open to God, really looks like; now they’re able to see what happens when the light begins to shine. They can see it; they get a glimpse of who they can become, huh?

Was Jesus’ transfiguration really for the sake of his disciples — to get a glimpse of what they can become? The disciples had a tremendous experience on the Mountain of Transfiguration. There is no doubt about that and it is quite evident that Trevor Hudson wanted to call our attention to his reasoning that it was their experience that triggered their own transformation or transfiguration. Although it is often told that first-hand experience is the best tutor, it is often clouded in subjectivity. Peter greatly valued his own experience on the mountain but makes it abundantly clear that God’s Word is far more trustworthy and more necessary (2 Peter 1:19). It therefore stands to reason that we need to look to God’s Word and the correct understanding thereof in order to undergo a correct transformation. What does the more trustworthy and more necessary Word of God say in regard to the purpose of the Transfiguration on the mountain?

One thing that was uppermost in the Jewish mind during Jesus’ sojourn on earth was the Kingdom. The disciples knew that the Kingdom was yet future, that Christ himself would restore it and that He would restore it to Israel and not the church. When they asked Him: “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” He did not deny that the Kingdom was promised to Israel in particular (Acts 1:6). When He told them just prior to his transfiguration on the Mountain that some of them would see the Son of man coming in his Kingdom (Matthew 16:28), He was of course referring to this special event. Consequently, the Transfiguration could not have been an occasion to give the disciples a glimpse of what they could become, but a glimpse of Christ Jesus’ coming Kingdom on earth. It was not the Kingdom itself but a preview of which they were the eye witnesses. Furthermore, they were given a glimpse of the fact that the Kingdom cannot be established on earth without the personal and radiant presence of Jesus Christ. At the Last Supper He said that He would not eat of the Passover “until it be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God” and that He would not drink “of the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God shall come” which confirms that He must be personally present in his radiant resplendence before his Kingdom can be ushered in on earth. This is what the three disciples saw and it kind of blows away the Emergent Church’s pathetic socialized methods to usher in the Kingdom of God here and now.

From Quantum Spirituality: A Postmodern Apologetic (p.53) we have Leonard Sweet who tells us:

A surprisingly central feature of all the world’s religions is the language of light in communicating the divine and symbolizing the union of the human with the divine: Muhammed’s light-filled cave, Moses’ burning bush, Paul’s blinding light, Fox’s “inner light,” Krishna’s Lord of Light, Böhme’s light-filled cobbler shop, Plotinus’ fire experiences, Bodhisattvas with the flow of Kundalini’s fire erupting from their fontanelles, and so on.

What is a genuine biblical spiritual journey?

How is the way (a term the contemplatives love to use) or the true path determined in the spiritual journey? Well, first of all, Jesus’ claim that He IS the Way (the only way to His Father) must be taken very seriously because if you don’t you’ve already taken a wrong turn onto another way or path that leads you along a spiritual journey that is completely at variance with God’s Way. In fact, it doesn’t lead to life but eternal death (Proverbs 14:12). Sadly, many emergent contemplatives have already opted for the wrong turn and the wrong way and yet still believe they are following Jesus Christ. Listen to what Rob Bell says:

In Yoga one of the central tenets of Yoga is your breath needs to remain the same regardless of the pose. So whether you’re making the letter Q with your whatever . . . [laughter] . . . In Yoga one of the things you learn right away is not how difficult the pose is . . . . Its not how flexible you are; its not about whether you can do the poses; its not about how you can bend yourself; its can you keep your breath [breathes in and out] consistent [breathes in and out] through whatever you’re doing? And the Yoga masters say this is how it is when you follow Jesus and surrender to God [breathes in and out]. Its your breath being consistent, its your connection with God, regardless of the pose that you find yourself in. That is integrating the Divine into the daily. (Listen here).

Allow me to remind you, and it is on record, that Stephan Joubert with whom Trevor Hudson appeared on the same platform at the Mosaic Congress, once said that when Rob Bell opens his mouth it is the pure Gospel truth. The central tenet of contemplative spirituality (meditation, centering prayer, contemplative prayer, silence, sitting, Yoga) is to integrate (incarnate) the Divine into the daily, to follow Jesus and to surrender to God, and that’s called the Gospel truth? How is it possible that men and women who call themselves evangelical Christians can listen to such nonsense, that are clearly doctrines of demons (1 Timothy 4:1), and hail them as the pure Gospel truth? The Bible supplies the answer:

2 Thessalonians 2:9-11 The coming [of the lawless one, the antichrist] is through the activity and working of Satan and will be attended by great power and with all sorts of [pretended] miracles and signs and delusive marvels—[all of them] lying wonders—And by unlimited seduction to evil and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing (going to perdition) because they did not welcome the Truth but refused to love it that they might be saved. Therefore God sends upon them a misleading influence, a working of error and a strong delusion to make them believe what is false, (Emphasis added).

The moment you shun God’s way of approaching Him in his holy of holies in heaven through the blood of His Son (Hebrews 10:19-23) and devise all kinds of other ways to enter into his presence (such as contemplative or centering prayer, silence, just sitting and even Yoga) you immediately become a candidate for demonic deception and God’s righteous judgements. The most devastating thing about deception is that every person who follows after false apostles shall receive the very same punishment as they. (Revelation 2:20-23).

I’m sure the contemplatives will agree that our spiritual journey is inexorably linked to a particular mission and to really know what that mission is, we once again need to cast our eyes on the True Way (the Only Way), Jesus Christ. A person with a particular mission is one who has been sent by someone else to accomplish his (the sender’s and not the ambassador’s own) goals. When we understand this by putting on our thinking caps and not by sinking deep down into a muddle of thoughtlessness, it is not so difficult to understand why Jesus said: “For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak” and also “As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.” Ah, now we’ve reached the crux of the meaning of mission and spiritual journey. Both are determined and sustained by God’s spoken word, Jesus’ spoken Word that is in complete harmony with his Father’s spoken Word and the spoken Word of Jesus’ followers which in turn is in complete harmony with Jesus’ spoken Word. Once again, if we put on our thinking caps without having to sink down still deeper into the labyrinths of contemplative thoughtlessness, we will understand why Jesus said: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

Jesus’ spiritual journey, if you like, was not to make the world a better place; his mission was to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10) and to bring a sword of division (Luke 12:51). And yet, the emergent contemplatives have opted for a social Gospel which emphasizes service instead of the salvation of lost souls.

Addendum

Like most of the festivals celebrated in the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant churches the Feast of the Transfiguration had its origin in paganism. When the horrific persecution of Christians was terminated by Emperor Constantine the church entered upon an apostasy which led to the Roman Catholic Church and has lasted until the present time. [1] “Will Durant, a purely secular historian with no religious axe to grind, comments upon the marriage of Christianity and paganism that came through Constantine’s pretended ‘conversion’ and assumption of church leadership.” [2]

Paganism survived . . . in the form of ancient rites and customs condoned, or accepted and transformed, by an often indulgent Church. An intimate and trustful worship of saints replaced the cult of pagan gods . . . Statues of Isis and Horus were renamed Mary and Jesus; the Roman Lupercalia and the feast of purification of Isis became the Feast of Nativity; the Saturnalia were replaced by Christmas celebration . . . an ancient festival of the dead by All Souls Day, rededicated to Christian heroes; incense, lights, flowers, processions, vestments, hymns which had pleased the people in older cults were domesticated and cleansed in the ritual of the Church . . . soon people and the priests would use the sign of the cross as a magic incantation to expel or drive away demons . . . [Paganism] passed like maternal blood into the new religion, and captive Rome captured her conqueror.  . . . the world converted Christianity . . . [3]

The Catholic Encyclopaedia describes the origin of the Feast of Transfiguration as follows:

The Armenian bishop Gregory Arsharuni (about 690) ascribes the origin of this feast to St. Gregory the Illuminator (d. 337?), who, he says, substituted it for a pagan feast of Aphrodite called Vartavarh (roseflame), retaining the old appellation of the feast, because Christ opened His glory like a rose on Mount Thabor. It is not found however in the two ancient Armenian calendars printed by Conybeare (Armenian Ritual, 527 sq.). It probably originated, in the fourth or fifth century, in place of some pagan nature-feast, somewhere in the highlands of Asia.

It can only be a false Christ who would want to be associated with a pagan festival because the Christ of the Bible said:

2 Corinthians 6:14-16 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

[1] Dave Hunt: A Woman Rides the Beast, p. 203

[2] Ibid

[3] Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, , Vol. IV, p. 75; Vol. III, p. 657 as quoted in  A Woman Rides the Beast, p. 203 and 204 Dave Hunt.

Part 2 – A biblical appraisal of the Mosaic Congress held at the Mosaic Church in Fairlands, Johannesburg (4 – 5 Sept. 2009)

Session 1: Holy Longing – Dr. Johan Geyser

Dr. Johan Geyser has a doctorate in theology and educational psychology and is also a part time lecturer at the University of Johannesburg.

In the business world  and particularly in the estate agency business, referrals are one of the best ways to create a constant stream of new customers. It is one of the  quickest ways to advertise your expertise as a competent and successful seller of property. Referrals are not only applicable to the business world. In the ordinary and everyday life it has the tendency to either enhance your status as a citizen or to denigrate it, depending on the people with whom you like to associate. I suppose this is why people would rather refer to distinguished persons in society. The well-known saying “He that touches pitch will be defiled” explains this principle rather well. Referrals also have a lot to do with association. If you associate with all the right kind of people you may accomplish your goals much easier and quicker than usual because your association with the much esteemed and distinguished in society opens doors. Unlike the secular world where the latter principle applies, Paul exhorts God’s children to “condescend to men of low estate” (Romans 12:16) because God dwells in the high and holy place but also with those who are of a contrite and humble spirit (Isaiah 57:15). Who are the humble and the contrite in spirit? — those who tremble at the Word of God and abide by it in holy reverence of his righteous judgments (Isaiah 66:2). The question we need to ask then is: Did any of the speakers at the Mosaic Congress abide by His Word? Read the following critique and judge for yourself.

Post modern church clergy have perfected the “art” of referrals or references for they are forever referring to the maxims and sayings of scholars who unashamedly contradict God’s Word. Like Brian McLaren, Johan Geyser clearly has a high regard for Marcus Borg whom he quoted as saying  that the word “metanoia” means “to move beyond reason.” Should we be surprised that Marcus Borg explains the word “metanoia” in terms of the Eastern mystical concept of the mind rather than the biblical rendition thereof? No! of course not because Marcus Borg has rejected the doctrine of atonement and of the cross of Jesus Christ and therefore rejected the doctrine of repentance (“metanoia”) and the need for salvation. According to him, he together with all of mankind are already living in God (See the quote below). On page viii of his book The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion To A More Authenthic Contemporary Faith (there’s that magical word “beyond” again) he introduces himself as “a Christian of a non-literalistic and non-exclusivistic kind” which in simple layman’s terms means that he rejects any literal form of interpretation of the Bible and does not believe that Jesus Christ is the only Person through whom salvation may be  obtained. Indeed, their liberal and loose relationship with the Word of God forms the bedrock of their contemplative, mystical approach to the Bible. By the by, Marcus Borg is the guy who once said that Jesus Christ’s body was probably eaten up by dogs after his crucifixion. Although they sidetrack or even out rightly reject the core doctrines of Scripture they dare not give the impression that they disregard the Word of God entirely. They must at all cost give the impression that their spirituality is biblically grounded. In his opening words Johan Geyser, in explaining what the spiritual journey of the Mosaic Church encompasses, he said the following:

Of course its biblically based. I think all Christians’ spiritualities should be a biblical spirituality. But, its routed in the tradition. Now in the Afrikaans world we all embrace tradition but as Pentecostals we go back a hundred years and as Reformed we go back much further, we go back five hundred years . . . .And then we’ve got to take into cognizance the developments in theology, in biblical studies, in psychology, sociology, neurology. We try to integrate the three  movements of the spiritual life; between it we try to do it holistically.

Geyser’s acknowledgment and acceptance of Marcus Borg’s interpretation of the word “Metanoia (“to move beyond reason”) is a classic example of the Contemplatives’ prudish “biblical” spirituality. What they say and do are two fundamentally different things. On the one hand they say that all Christians should base their spirituality on the Bible but ironically agree with scholars like Marcus Borg who says that we should move beyond the literal meaning of biblical doctrines and embrace the more esoteric and mystical explanations thereof (such as his own). Johan Geyser explained Marcus Borg’s perception of the meaning of “metanoia” (“to move beyond reason”) with a bowl of fish he brought with him and displayed on a little table in front of his audience.

It was very interesting for me to discover that Marcus Borg, the new Testamentikus (sic) of our time said that the word metanoia means to move beyond   reason, move beyond  your reason. To explain that, the fishes might be a good way. (Pointing to the fishes he continued). I was just told, this is “I” and this is “djy” (a slang form of the Afrikaans word “jy’ meaning “you”). Its a mother and the little one.

One day the little one went to the mother and said “Mother, I hear all things about water. Everyone is talking about water. Tell me, what is water? Where is water?” And the mum said: “Its all around you; its in you; its difficult to explain. Look! This is water. He says: “But I don’t see it. I don’t understand it.” She says “Well there are three ways that I can think of now. One is to jump out of this bowl  . . . immediately you’ll discover what’s water. But there’s a problem, you know. it will also be the end. . . . But there’s another way. I can take some photos of you and then we can look at it together. I’ll show you; look, there’s  a movement, that’s water. that’s water going through there. We can reflect on it; I can open some textbooks for you. I can explain to you, its H2O and we, you know, can do some calculations. There’s a lot of ways that I can try to explain it to you so that you can understand what water is. Or djy, you can just hang-in there; just sit, just sit and let it flow through you. Don’t try to understand so much. Just become aware of the water that you’re living in.

This metaphor — in you, we live and move and have or whole being: Acts 17:28. He’s in us; he’s all around us. Its the air we breath, its the Spirit, its Ruah. He’s our life. He’s everything. It can be so difficult, you can miss everything. And we can be so busy with the photos all the time. You know, our thoughts about God, our feelings about God, our feelings for God, is not God. Its only about God. And we can be so caught up in just taking photos. So there comes a time when you should stop meditating, stop studying, stop thinking so that you can enter into the reality of God. Just become still, move beyond things of thinking (Emphasis added).

I can understand why the Mosaic church members feel comfortable with this kind of nonsense, for the Bible clearly says “Claiming to be wise, they became fools [professing to be smart, they made simpletons of themselves] (Romans 1:22, Amplified Bible). I can assure you that the Minister of Education, Blade Nzimande, would immediately fire Dr. Johan Geyser if he’d been a teacher in one of our schools and he stood in front of a class saying: “Now class, I want you to stop studying and stop thinking. Just sit and be aware of all the facts you need to know in your various subjects and let it flow through you.” The kids may burst out in ecstatic joy but, as I said earlier, Minister Blade Nzimande would immediately fire him. As a rebuttal to my statement, Dr. Geyser may argue that I am mixing spirituality with ordinary mundane things such as schooling and that children need to study and learn to think constructively to be eligible for a good job one day. May I then remind him him that he and his emergent buddies (like Rob Bell) have repeatedly stated that everything is spiritual and holy. If the spirituality in church is equal to the spirituality in secular life then the spiritual things in church such as the need to stop thinking and studying in order to enter into the reality of God may be equally applied to mundane things such as education in our schools in order to enter into the realities of everyday life. Marcus Borg wrote: “The sacred is not “somewhere else” spatially distant from us. Rather, we live within God . . . God has always been in relationship to us, journeying with us, and yearning to be known by us. Yet we commonly do not know this or experience this. . . . We commonly do not perceive the world of Spirit.” Well, let’s heed Johan Geyser’s good advice that all Christians’ spirituality should be a biblical spirituality and study God’s Word to see whether Marcus Borg’s and his own presupposition that we all live in God and that the air we breath is the Spirit (Ruah), is true. What does the Bible say?

Romans 8:9b But if anyone does not possess the [Holy] Spirit of Christ, he is none of His [he does not belong to Christ, is not truly a child of God].

If, according to Marcus Borg and Johan Geyser God is in everything and everything is in God (like the water in the the little fish bowl), then Paul lied when he plainly said that the Spirit of God is not in all people. In any event, Paul, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit Who is definitely holy, wrote “Study and be eager and do your utmost to present yourself to God approved (tested by trial), a workman who has no cause to be ashamed, correctly analyzing and accurately dividing [rightly handling and skilfully teaching] the Word of Truth (2 Timothy 2:15).

Johan Geyser’s spirituality, as well as of all the other speakers who spoke their abominable “truths” in “non-silence,”  is not based on the Bible but on the ECUMENICAL-PANENTHEISTIC-NEW AGE-INTERFAITH-CHRIST whom everyone can receive by merely breathing in the air (Ruah). It is not only a damnable rejection of the true meaning of the word “metanoia” but a denial of the ineffaceable substitutionary death of Christ as the only means of receiving the Spirit of Truth and of Life (the Holy Spirit). If anyone can breath in the Spirit (Ruah) because God is supposedly “everything,” then Jesus’ crucifixion was a waste of time. And yet Geyser audaciously substantiates his claims with the well-known passage from Acts 17:28: “For in Him we live and move and have our being; as even some of your [own] poets have said, For we are also His offspring.” The expression ”in him” most certainly does not mean that everyone is in Him but simply that everyone lives by Him. Him being the Fountain of all life, we do not only owe our existence to Him but He also sustains all things, animate and inanimate. “Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all  things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” (Hebrews 1:3).

The Emergent fraternity have an uncanny way of giving new meaning to passages in Scripture by placing emphasis on certain words over those that warrant greater importance. As you may recall, Johan Geyser said that one needs to just sit and allow the presence of God to flow through you. To explain his premise he quoted from Luke 10:38-42

I thought I’d focus on the contemplative dimension of the Gospel, and try to explain what that means, not by just giving a definition, I thought I’d use one of the key texts in the contemplative tradition in explaining what it looks like to be a contemplative, to live the contemplative life and to develop a contemplative mind. (Emphasis added)

He then continues to say that his exegesis of the above passage in Scripture is based on the writings of Theresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross and the “Cloud of Unknowing.” because “the understanding of this [contemplative] life comes from them.” Perhaps Johan Geyser should rather have just sat down first to contemplate (with a robust and active mind and not a mind clouded by the unknowing) the different meanings of “exegesis” and “eisegesis.” In the latter method of interpreting Scripture you superimpose your own premises or those of others on the biblical text so as to strengthen and validate your own agenda, which in this particular case is the contemplative life. This was precisely what Johan Geyser did; he used the eisegesis method of interpreting Scripture and not the exegesis method as he said. In layman’s terms it simply means that they are dreadfully compromising the Gospel of Jesus Christ to enhance and further their own false Gospel which is no Gospel at all.

In good faith with his own contemplative lifestyle, Johan Geyser then expounds in more detail what the contemplative life means. According to The Cloud of Unknowing, Martha and Mary typify two kinds of life — the active life and “the contemplative life where you let go of the normal ordinary way of living and you give most of your energy, your thoughts, your time just into being with God, in prayer” which, “according to the Cloud of Unknowing is the highest type of life you can live” and, according to Geyser, sparked off the development of early monastic life. Allow me to remind you, as a parenthesis, what happened throughout the monastic life since its early inception when monks and nuns renounced the normal and ordinary life for a life “wholly devoted to God” in contemplative prayer and solitude. Most of them were not able to bear the heavy load of celibacy and succumbed to their sexual desires, the result being that many nuns bore babies who were summarily aborted or killed after their birth. It is still happening today. (Read here and here).

The imposition of celibacy upon its priests was contrary to Holy Scripture and to nature. Indeed, it is a mark of the prophesied apostasy from God’s truth that was to come at the end of the present age. Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth, 1 Timothy 4:1-3.

Theresa of Avila ostensibly disagreed with the author of The Cloud of Unknowing that the contemplative life was the highest type of living and suggested that there was something much better to be accrued. This is how Johan Geyser explained Theresa of Avila’s rendition of the contemplative life.

She (Theresa of Avila) says, (now look at that Scripture): The Lord is not dissatisfied with Martha’s life, with what she is doing. But He’s upset by the way she is doing what she is doing. He doesn’t tell her: Martha what you are doing, is wrong. . . . you are anxious and you are upset . . . and He looks at Mary and He doesn’t tell Mary: Mary I’m totally satisfied with you. Mary, you’ve chosen the most important thing, but  . . . you’ve chosen the better part, there’s still a best thing to do. You’ve still got something else and Theresa’s idea was if you could live the active life contemplatively [it] would be the highest form of life that you can live.

Now, what does it mean? Let’s start with  Martha; we look at Mary then. Martha, salt of the earth, working, thinking, serving others all the time, but she is worried and upset and I looked at a Greek dictionary for those two words; she is torn apart and tossed around, torn apart on the inside. There is not a unity in her heart. She hasn’t got, in the old terms, a purity of heart, cause there’s a lot of things in her heart. There’s a lot of chaff, other stuff in her heart and, here’s the thing, she is totally unaware of her inner world. She is converted on the level of her psychological consciousness but not on the unconscious level of her motivation. She’s not aware that why am I doing what I am dong? And that is of a great essence for us. She thinks of, is it going to be on time, why aren’t they helping me, my plans aren’t working out. There’s a big need for control; there’s a big need for acceptance of what they are going to think of me. And she’s upset about it. And if you read the Scriptures and of course the early Christians took the teachings of Jesus about worry very seriously. You know, Jesus said, Don’t worry. If He says it, He means it. And He says, one of the big hindrances on your spiritual journey is worry. The cares of the world, Matthew 13. If you’re busy with just making money and the cares of the world, the Word that is sown in you will not grow. You cannot continue. You gotta get rid of it. That was one of the big motivations for joining the monastic life cause then you can get rid of it hat way.

A pelgrim (sic) came to a church father and asked him: What must I do to progress, and he said, well let’s start at the beginning my son. Are you a follower of Christ or do you still worry? [laughter in the audience) . . . Thomas Keating describes it [worry] as a construction of the false self. It is because of our basic needs, instinctive needs, that we are born with for security, for acceptance, for control that we construct a life for ourselves by fulfilling those needs in a certain way. That is the life that Jesus says I want you to give your life away, give that life away. That’s the self that you’ve got to crucify. Paul said I crucified myself and now I live with Christ, Galatians 2:20. So its about letting go of the false self. Its moving into your self, into the world that is in the inside and getting the purity of heart so that it is only God that is left.

She’s got mixed motivations she doesn’t know of; its for the Lord but its also to fulfil my basic needs of acceptance of security: that’s my motivation in life – even doing something great for the Lord. Can you see the manifestation of the false self? — worry, comparisons, how am I doing, that’s not fair, look at what he’s got in life, look at what I do. And then of course God gets a bit confusing. I do so much. Where are you God? Why don’t you help me? I don’t understand you God. You’re not helping me. It doesn’t work for me this thing. Control, loss of control, attachment to the outcome. You see the functioning of the false self in our life?

And now, the very interesting thing: where is it revealed? In ordinary life in the kitchen — in community, that’s where it is revealed. . . . Now here’s a big thing,  Jesus says, Martha, look at Mary. Do what Mary do (sic). The suggestion? That’s the way you will get rid of your worry. That’s the way that you work with your inside. That’s the way to go on this inner journey that you need. Sit with Me. Just sit with Me, like she does. The Dalai Lama said, the three pillars of Buddhism, practice of Buddhism is (sic), the teaching, the community and the sitting. I wonder what you would say, what’s the main non-negotiable practices and pillars of your faith and your walk with God?

I know of a certainty that Scripture does not count worry and depression as a hindrance in your following of Jesus. In fact, there are only two or three things Scripture mentions that can hinder Christians in their following of Jesus.

Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
Luke 14:27 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.

Yes, of course worrying can stifle and smother the inner working of God’s Word in your life and it may hinder your spiritual growth. Instead of pondering and meditating on His Word (with your active mind and understanding fully in tact) and thoroughly thinking through the profound depths of God’s Truth in his Word, you spend all of your energy and time on worrying. But then it is not an exhortation to start following Jesus again because you had supposedly stopped doing so that comes into play, but the wonderful assurance that He will never leave you and never forsake you and therefore you should be content with what you have and never worry (Hebrews 13:5).  Worrying or depression is not counteracted or eliminated by a method or a technique of moving into your self and obtaining a pure heart, but simply by trusting Jesus Christ and his infallible promises. If He promised that He would never leave or forsake you, then He will indeed never leave or forsake you. As soon as you start relying on certain practices, methods or techniques to counteract your worries and your depression, you have already lost the battle because there is nothing good or profitable in your fleshly efforts to overcome your worries.  The church father’s question: Are you a follower of Christ or do you still worry?” is therefore a nonsequitur. The church father should rather have asked the pilgrim: Are you a follower of Christ or do you still listen and adhere to the lies and deceit of people like Marcus Borg who shuns the doctrine of atonement and the cross of Jesus Christ and Thomas Keating who promotes the concept of God permeating the air as prana? You see my son, only those who know the voice of their Great Shepherd will follow Him in the way He wants them to follow Him and only then will they stop listening to the lies and deceit of other false pastors and shepherds.

Dr. Johan Geyser’s eisegesis of Luke 10:38-42 is fraught with unbiblical and anti-biblical statements. I aim to discuss them under the following headings.

Construction of the false-self.

Nowhere in the entire Word of God do we read that the self, let alone a false-self, is under construction. The need for construction implies that the thing to be constructed must of necessity be non-existent before it can be constructed. You cannot construct something that already exists; the least you can do then is to reconstruct the already existent thing. If the concept of a false-self is nowhere to be found in God’s Word, where does it come from? Well, Dr. Johan Geyser gave us a very good clue when he referred to the Dalai Lama and the three pillars of Buddhism, i.e. the “teaching, the community and the sitting.” Perhaps you have already noticed how subtle and craftily Johan Geyser linked Buddhism’s three pillars of “teaching, the community and the sitting” with Martha’s active community life and Mary’s choice of sitting and listening to Jesus. If you look closely you will clearly recognize the transition in importance from the teaching (cognitive understanding and studying of a given text) to the community (the active life personified by Martha) and the sitting (the contemplative life personified by Mary where the “false-self” is relinquished in order to obtain the best life, as Geyser mentioned).

Now, let’s return to the Buddhist concept of the self. The “self” in Buddhism is actually believed to be a non-existent entity and anything related to “self” (worry, acceptance, comparisons) are but a self-constructed “false-self.” Both Carl Jung and Carl Rogers assert that the “self” is not who we really are but is something we build up in ourselves. In fact, Carl Rogers calls our perceived sense of our “self” a “false self concept.” To overcome this “false-self” the pilgrim is encouraged to sit with his guru. The Gautama Buddha taught his followers that we all live in a dream world in which we had forgotten who we really are. Our experiences (karma) have severed us from our true being, causing us to develop a false view of “self” or “ego.” However these  experiences should not be ignored but faced head-on. The pilgrim must therefore acknowledge where he is at the moment and work it out with his guru at whose feet he chooses to sit. For some the genuineness of their present state of affairs, as created by their experiences, may lead to much tears as the hurt of being denied their true being starts to surface; others may become angry. This is, according to The Cloud of the Unknowing the “dark night of the soul” to which Johan Geyser referred. Only when “the dark night of the soul” has been thoroughly worked through will the pilgrim find what resides in all of us — love (compassion), empathy, intuition and aliveness. It is said that a guru is capable of transmitting his own state of being (love, compassion, empathy, intuition and aliveness) to the receptive pilgrims who sit with him at his feet. Mary did not sit at Jesus’ feet to be miraculously infused (or induced) with His love, compassion, empathy, intuition and aliveness or to practice a contemplative life. She sat at his feet to listen to his words which is spirit and truth. Have Johan Geyser, Stephan Joubert and the Mosaic Church in particular embraced and are they promulgating a Christianized Buddhism?

According to the Bible the self (ego) is not a constructed “false-self” but a veritable, already “constructed” self which we’ve all inherited from the first Adam. Its already there in every human being at his or her birth. In Psalm 51 and verse 6 David acknowledges that we’ve all been born in sin. Note that he does not say we are all born in “sins” but in “sin.” “Sins” are the the result or product, if you will, of “sin” (the sin nature we inherited from the first Adam). When a baby is born, it cannot commit any sins per se but it already has the capacity or potential to commit sins because it is born with a sin nature. When the baby grows up and develops its own reasoning powers to act and react on outside worldly impulses through his or her five carnal senses, it begins to implement his or her own inherited sinful nature which is manifested in self-worth, self-esteem, self-gratification, selfishness, self-aggrandisement and everything else that pertains to the self. Indeed selfism is the very core and originator of our rebellion against God. It lives and acts under the vain idea that we do not need God to be our Redeemer. It boasts its own way of salvation in whatever form or shape it may deem fit. It is therefore no surprise that there are so many different religions from which to pick and choose. Unfortunately the majority of human kind choose religions that oppose and reject God’s only Way of salvation — His Son Jesus Christ, the only Person Who was able to effectively deal with our sinful and selfish nature (the factory, as it were, of all our multitude of sins in thoughts and actions). Why? Because only an innocent, sinless, completely unselfish Person who had submitted Him unconditionally to the perfect will of God the Father was able to deal with our sinful “self”.” And this is precisely why Paul could declare that the cross of Jesus Christ is the wisdom and power of God (1 Corinthians 1:18. 24). “IT IS FINISHED (TETELESTAI- the account written against our sins and our sinful nature was paid in full)” There is no need whatsoever for any method, way or technique to rid ourselves of an allegedly self-constructed “false-self” — let alone a contemplative lifestyle that is steeped in Roman Catholic tradition.

Getting rid of the false-self

The “false-self” is supposedly the life we need to give away. Johan Geyser explained it as follows: “Thomas Keating describes it [worry] as a construction of the false self. It is because of our basic needs, instinctive needs, that we are born with for security, for acceptance, for control that we construct a life for ourselves by fulfilling those needs in a certain way. That is the life that Jesus says I want you to give your life away, give that life away. That’s the self that you’ve got to crucify. Paul said I crucified myself and now I live with Christ, Galatians 2:20. So its about letting go of the false self. Its moving into your self, into the world that is in the inside and getting the purity of heart so that it is only God that is left.

First of all I would like to remind you that Jesus and Paul never said the following:

• Jesus never said that we should give away or even crucify the life of the so-called false-self — a life represented by worry, security, acceptance, control or even our basic needs. How do you crucify your basic and daily necessary needs such as food, shelter and clothing? The prerequisite for the enjoyment of our basic needs is not the crucifixion of a so-called false-self, but the command to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and He will look after the rest (Matthew 6:33).
• Paul never said: “I crucified myself and now I live with Christ.” You cannot crucify yourself. Its impossible! He said: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” There’s a vast difference. The crucifixion of the self is an already accomplished reality and therefore the child of God can say with certainty “I am crucified with Christ.” When Jesus hung on the cross, He did not only take upon Himself your sins but you, the sinner, as well; when He died, you died with Him; when He was buried, you were buried with Him; when He was raised from the dead, you were raised with Him unto a new life; when He was seated at the right hand of God, you were seated with Him in heavenly places. Nevertheless, the process of denying yourself and taking up your cross (living in the reality of your already crucified self) must be maintained daily by reckoning (or reasoning) that you are indeed dead to sin and alive unto God (Romans 6:11). Here it becomes evident that Johan Geyser’s plea that you should stop thinking in order to enter into the contemplative life is entirely incompatible with Paul’s exhortation to use your God-given faculty of reasoning in order to live a new life in Christ Jesus. The word logizomai {log-id’-zom-ahee} deals with the reality of facts and not suppositions. In other word, if you should stop thinking (reasoning, reckoning, calculating) that you are already crucified with Christ, you are deceiving yourself. And indeed, the concept that we are constructing a false-self is highly deceptive because it is simply anti-Bible and unbiblical. There is no such thing as the construction of a false-self.

The most important thing — To go beyond your reason?

In their search for the best possible spirituality (highest type of life) on their relentless spiritual journey the emergent fraternity are very cautious not to belittle institutionalized church history although they may often put it down by laughing at the cerebral, cognitive and studious or intellectual features of the church with which we have grown accustomed to in South Africa. Johan Geyser explained it this way:

Now  how do we do it, today? How do we sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to his words?; how does that process work to transform us and to work with this inner world and the false self and all of that? Well, I was brought up in the Reformed tradition . . . It was called the quiet time, but its just metaphorically quiet. Its a very busy time. Some of us need music in the background and then you take your Bible and commentaries with you cause you’ve got to understand the Word. There’s some rules that you’ve got to learn – exegesis!!; only five hundred years old but if you don’t obey those rules you will miss God. You will not . . . No!  I don’t want to make jokes now.

That was the bedrock of the way that I grew up and it looks to me as if the main personality function through which and in which you do the sitting, is the cognitive of your inward capacity.  You’ve got to understand; you’ve got to think, and once you do that you can now [ask], ok, how do I apply this in my life and how do I do the will of God? That’s the main dynamic of the sitting. [In the contemplative realm] its moving beyond your thinking  and your feeling. Its moving beyond that. Gregory in the 6th century said its about resting; resting of thinking, resting of everything; its letting go of all your efforts. It just about being in God. That’s what’s its all about. its also called the prayer of quiet. You become still. John of the cross said God spoke a word in silence, only one word in the beginning, in silence. Its hearing that word — sensing it in your inside. To me it was like a conversion that happened in my life. It was very interesting for me to discover that Marcus Borg, the new Testamentikus (sic) of our time said that the word metanoia means to move beyond reason, move beyond  your reason.

I have already pointed out that Marcus Borg has rejected the doctrine of atonement and the cross of Jesus Christ and believes that Jesus’ body was probably eaten up by dogs after his crucifixion. Of contemplative prayer, Borg says:”

“I learned about the use of mantras as a means of giving the mind something to focus and refocus on as it sinks into the silence” (p. 125).

So Marcus Borg, like Johan Geyser, also believes in a quiet time with Jesus and just sitting with Him in an euphoric state of no mind and no thinking. There is no need for a true “metanoia” (repentance accompanied by a true abhorrence of one’s past sins and rebellion against God) in this abominable nothingness, unreasonable or non-reasonable, sitting with God and just being in Him. Anyone can do it, even those who reject the cross of Jesus Christ. And this life is supposed to be the highest life you can live, a life that Martha forfeited through her active life and Mary just about reached because she was living in the “better life” but needed to enter into the “best life” of moving beyond her reason?

As I mentioned earlier, Johan Geyser likened Martha’s active life, with which Jesus was not dissatisfied and did not categorize as being wrong, with Paul’s exegesis of the life that needs to be crucified in Romans 7. That’s just plain nonsense, because Paul emphatically declared that the carnal life which needs to be crucified, is not good or wholesome at all. In fact God is so intensely dissatisfied with the “self”-life that He allowed his only begotten Son to be crucified so that we may be rid of it. Listen again to Paul’s words in Romans 7: 18

For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot perform it. [I have the intention and urge to do what is right, but no power to carry it out.]

Martha’s active life cannot in any way be likened to Paul’s description of the “self” because her’s was not wrong but acceptable to the Lord although he was unhappy with the way she was doing it (as Johan Geyser explained), while Paul referred to a carnal life that was no good in every sense of the word. It is this life, the life centred around myself and yourself that is constantly priding itself in its own strength and expertise to please God, that needs to be handed over to the cross to be crucified. It clings like the stench of a cadaver to us and only the well-pleasing sweet savour of Christ’s death on the cross, our ultimate burnt offering, can rid us of the stench of the dead body of carnality (Romans 7:24). Jesus said: “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life (John 6:63). His spoken word gives life, and NOT silence, quietness or solitude (contemplation).

Toward the end of his presentation Johan again referred to St. John of the Cross (whose spoken words seem to be of greater importance to him than the spoken words of Jesus Christ) who said that the Dark Night of the Soul (a time of loneliness and desolation in your spiritual life) is God’s way of calling you into a deeper level, a new place, a new relationship with Him through contemplation and that you should never give up to enter into that place or position. During my daily studies of the Bible throughout the years I have never come across a biblical figure who had experienced the so-called “dark night of the soul” because of a midlife crisis or menopause. And even though some of them did experience a dreadful midlife crisis or a family crisis, like King David, none of it could separate them from God that necessitated contemplation. In fact, there is only one thing that separated them from God and that was their sins (Isaiah 59: 1-2). The unbearable “dark night of the soul” King David experienced was not brought about by a crisis in his family or by a midlife crisis but when he committed adultery with a married woman and had her husband, Uriah, murdered because he was an honourable soldier at war who refused to sleep with his wife during active service and thus robbed Kind David of the opportunity to say that the unborn baby was his child. King David refused to acknowledge his sin for a full year and only when he entered into the holy of holies in heaven by prayer (not silence or just sitting), and confessed his sins to the Lord did he find rest and forgiveness for his sins. Silence and sitting still which to the contemplative brotherhood is a blessing, was a to David a real curse. Listen to his lament in Psalm 32.

Psalm 32:1-5 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.

Johan Geyser continued with much excitement over Theresa of Avila’s assertion that there are many ways to water the garden of your soul. The one is to put a lot of effort in; hard work, discursive meditation (by reasoning in stead of intuition), one thought leading to another, and the reward will be consolation. But there’s another way: The rain will come, no effort, no effort; you sit, you sit and you just be, you just be — nothing to nothing. Its a gift of consolation. It is induced; it is not acquired. God gives it to you by his grace; gift of stillness, of prayer of quiet. He continued by saying:

Of course, the effect of this sitting is a transformation. Its not just to make you better. Look at what happened to Mary after her sitting. We get it in John 12, after the resurrection of Lazarus they’ve got a meeting; Martha the activist, its Simon the leper, it is Judas the thief, it is Lazarus . . . the ex-corpse; your typical Sunday morning congregation, you know. And she comes in and breaks the flask with the very expensive perfume and she anoints Jesus, and of course there’s this one argument that ends all arguments — the poor, you could have given it to the poor. And Jesus says, No! You do not understand what she did. She was preparing me for my burial. Two things: she had an insight that none of the other disciples had about the death, the meaning of the death of Jesus. Nobody could see it. The only person  . . . was a woman and it was Mary that did the sitting. The sitting prepared and helped her to listen to Jesus at a deep inner level and to hear things that other people couldn’t hear. And it inspired her to action, to love, to love. . . . Jesus said: because of what Mary did I am more prepared for my death. Because of what Mary did; the way that she loved and that she expressed her extravagant love for me I am more ready to die now. We can help to prepare each other for our death because if you love you are ready . . . Nobody would have been bothered if she did it after Jesus’ death, no problem, but to do it while He’s alive? She had this new capacity to love and she had this new insight. You see, she had a different presence. . .  It is not necessary doing this extravagant, extraordinary things. Its the ordinary but extraordinary ordinary. Out of being flows a new way of doing. The old tradition says, it has to do with unity with God and some people will say, no no, unity sounds like one with God against everything else in the world. Perhaps its more of unitive seeing; to see God everywhere in everything — to see God in everything.

I wonder whether Jesus would have been lesser prepared for his death if He had not been anointed by Mary with her expensive nard perfume? I have it on very good authority that Jesus’ obedient submission to the will of His Father fully prepared Him for his death. We see this in the Garden of Gethsemane when He prayed so fervently that He perspiration turned into drops of blood falling on the ground.

Luke 22: 41-44 And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

I agree that we should prepare each other for our death but it is fatally wrong to teach people to follow the journey of a contemplative lifestyle by supposedly just sitting and being in the presence of God and to see God in everything. Marcus Borg, to whom Johan Geyser reverently referred so often, believes this pagan nonsense of panentheism (God is in all and all is in God), while he vociferously denies the atonement of Jesus Christ and His cross. (1 Corinthians 1:18). There are only two alternative ways of dying. The one is to die IN Christ Jesus and the other OUTSIDE of Him. Jesus Himself explained it this way:

John 8:21 Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come.
John 8:24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.

Indeed, the only way to prepare others and ourselves for our inevitable death is to be anointed with the Holy Spirit (the life-giving oil of gladness and joy and of righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ). It simply means that you should receive the quickening power (from eternal death to eternal life) of the indwelling Spirit of God and there is only a single way to receive Him — by means of a true biblical metanoia through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. Indeed, to have your mind transformed from one of enmity and hatred for God and His Word to one of of eternal love, respect and obedience toward God and His eternal Word.

Sadly the contemplatives are not sitting at the feet of Jesus to receive His spoken words by faith but at the feet of people like St. John of the Cross, Theresa of Avila, Marcus Borg, Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating and others who are silently leading them away from Jesus Christ and a true biblical metanoia.

Wake up South Africa. You are being led astray into a kind of crush for cattle

that leads to destruction and death.

Proverbs 14:12

There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

Part 1 – A biblical appraisal of the Mosaic Congress held at the Mosaic Church in Fairlands, Johannesburg (4 – 5 Sept. 2009)

The new-old magical way to get in touch with God – “be still,” “be quiet,” “shut up,” “shhhhhhh”

The well-known song “Silence is Golden may have been a hit on the singles UK charts in 1967, but the refrain “Silence is Truth” has hit the Christian Church like a tsunami, carrying with it in it’s destructive wake many unsuspecting Christians. One of the major contributors to this utterly devastating “silent” storm is the Mosaic Church in Fairlands, Johannesburg.

As an introduction to my critique on the Mosaic Congress I would like to draw your attention to certain words and phrases that all the keynote speakers used throughout their presentations. A word that kept popping up like a well-watered toadstool in each of their corpulently worded lectures was the word “silence.”Bearing in mind that most of these speakers’ mentors and gurus have drunk from the wells of Buddhism (i.e. Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating etc.) it is no surprise that their entire spiritual journey revolves mainly around Buddhist spiritualities and not the cross of Jesus Christ. In fact, the only time they referred to the word “cross” was when they endearingly spoke of St John of the Cross, a Desert Father who coined the phrase “Silence is the first language of God.”

I attended the two-day Congress with Sarel van der Merwe and couldn’t help thinking what Paul would have said about the absence of any good and solid preaching on the cross, especially in the light of his own statement: “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:1-2) Paul was saying in effect: “I have not come to you parading my own wisdom but to present to you the power and wisdom of God, which is the cross of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:18).

Was St. John of the Cross’ maxim something new and original? Hardly! The following survey will prove that it originated with Eastern religions and the New Age.

The significance of silence in Eastern religions, the New Age and Shamanism

Buddhism

In one of the many anecdotes on the life of Gautama Buddha (born circa 563 BC) it is told that a philosopher once visited Buddha and asked him: “Without words, without the wordless, will you tell me the truth?”Buddha remained silent. After a while the philosopher rose up gently, made a solemn bow and thanked Buddha saying: “With your loving kindness, I have cleared away all my delusions and entered the true path.” (1) This anecdote describes how Buddha sought the essence of truth through silence in his relentless and endless quest for the truth. Cognitive processes such as rational thinking, doctrinal or dogmatic studies and debates, the discernment or evaluation of facts and/or postulates played no part in Buddha’s quest for the truth. During the Mosaic Congress it was resplendently aggravating to hear again and again that wisdom is not found in dogmas, doctrines or propositions but in a way of life, a way of life that one enters into by following the Sage, Jesus Christ.

The path Buddha preferred was completely embedded in “mauna” (in English “silence”) which he hoped to achieve in seclusion and solitude. It is very interesting to note that the word muni (meaning “hermit” or“sage”) is derived from mauna. Buddha was also known as Sakyamuni, the gracefully silent one or sage from the Sakya clan. Please make a mental note of the word “sage” because it pops up frequently in Stephan Joubert’s paper titled ““Being a Radical Pilgrim and Prophet” which I intend to critique later in a separate comment. There are many stories and discourses in Buddhism that are attributed to Buddha himself and in nearly all of them Truth and Silence are intrinsically and inseparably linked. In fact, whenever Truth is mentioned in relation to Buddha it is always said in regard to Silence, so much so that it is believed that Silence in the presence of Buddha equals Truth. Fr. Chandrakanthan who earned his doctorate in theology at St. Paul University, Ottawa, where he also teaches Eastern Religions, wrote the following based on a talk he gave in July, 1986, at the Christian Meditation Centre, London.

Buddha’s Silence was not wordlessness or noiselessness. It had a transforming power, permeating and filling the atmosphere around him with such intensity that people seated at his presence experienced “the ineffable and the inexplicable.” His Silence had no movement, yet people around him moved closer to the Truth just by being in his presence, permeated and filled by the effulgence of his joyous stillness. His Silence was contagious. It was like the unseen powers of a magnetic field or the invisible sound waves that travel in the atmosphere.

The close affinity that is said to enjoin Truth with Silence is not uncommon in the mystical traditions of other religions including Christianity [the "Christianity" to which the author refers is of course Roman Catholicism - my own parenthesis]. Whether it be in the Sufism of Islam or in the Hasidim of Judaism, silence is always referred to as the prerequisite for an interior experience of the divine. Silence is often eulogized as the language of the heart. Buddha’s Silence reveals to us the nature and significance of an ideal form of silence. This becomes more evident when we contrast the mauna with our ordinary experience of silence. (Emphasis added)

Hinduism

The Hindu poet and teacher, Dryanadev (A.D. 1290) once wrote in his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita: “Your true praise consists in perfect silence.” God, he also said, does not put on any other ornament except silence.

In the Atharva Veda of Hinduism  the following is said about silence.

He cannot be seen by the eye, and words cannot reveal Him. He cannot be reached by the senses, or by austerity or sacred actions. By the grace of wisdom and purity of mind, He can be seen, indivisible, in the silence of contemplation. This invisible Atman can be seen by the mind wherein the five senses are resting.

In the Maitri Upanishad it is said:

There is something beyond our mind which abides in silence within our mind. It is the Supreme Mystery beyond thought. Let one’s mind and one’s subtle body rest upon that and not rest on anything else.

Adi Shankaracharya said:

Silence is the first door to spiritual eminence.

Sri Chinmoy tells a story about a pious man who studies the scriptures devotedly, and likes to discuss philosophy with a scholar who comes to visit him. They earnestly discuss the path to spiritual liberation, but deep in his heart, the man knows this endless talk is not bringing him any closer to attaining his goal. Now, it happens that the man has a little caged bird in his room, and he likes to hear it sing. But one morning he notices the bird is not singing at all, it has fallen completely silent. He speaks to the bird, tries to coax it, but it makes not a sound. Eventually the man opens the cage door and the bird, in an instant, escapes, flies out of the cage, through the open window of the room, and soars into the infinite freedom of the sky.

The bird taught his master an important spiritual lesson. Silence liberates!

We can talk endlessly, argue, discuss, debate. But the real truth of things, we discover in silence. Eventually we have to hush the mind and its chatter, discover that vastness in our hearts and soar into it.

New Age

Franz Kafka said:

You do not need to do anything; you do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You do not even need to listen; just wait. You do not even need to wait; just become still, quiet and solitary and the world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

Alice Bailey tells us that Sagittarius is called in some ancient books “the sign of silence”. She goes on to tell us that the lesson of Sagittarius is “restraint of speech through control of thought.”

‘Right use of thought, restraint of speech, and consequent harmlessness on the physical plane, result in liberation; for we are held in the human unit, we are imprisoned to the planet not by some outside force that holds us there, but by what we ourselves have said and done.’

Shamanism

(Practices concerned with communication with the spirit world)

In “An Encyclopedia of Shamanism Volume 2” on pages 448 and 449 the following insightful facts are given on the spiritual significance of silence.

It is the wisdom of shamanic peoples to leave in silence the things we cannot talk about clearly in words. There are states of being and numinous experiences that are central to shamanic altered states of consciousness and shamanic healing experiences which defy description through words.

Choosing not to talk about sacred experiences is a way to contain and protect the energy. Though powerful, the energy of the sacred is illusive and easily contaminated. Silence is both a form of protecting the sacred and a means by which to hold the sacred while the nonrational aspects of a sacred experience are integrated.

Silence is often a necessary prerequisite to having an experience of the sacred. This is in part the reason for the traditional vision quest that lasts for three to four days in silence. The vision quest is time designated for silence in the hope that a message from spirit will be “heard.”

Silence is both a way to open to the sacred and to integrate the numinous aspects of sacred experiences. Silence is one of four universal healing salves (storytelling. singing, dance) employed by indigenous peoples to maintain health and well-being. Discomfort with silence, or any of the four healing salves, indicates a state of soul loss. (Emphasis added)

The Word of God

Throughout the Bible God makes it abundantly clear that the preaching of His Word (the Word of Truth as Jesus referred to it in John 17:17) was and still is His way of making Himself known to mankind. The written and spoken Word of God, as we learn from Paul in Romans 10:17, is the mouthpiece, if you will, that produces true faith in the lives of those who obediently and wholeheartedly submit to it’s authority. In fact, Paul emphatically states that no-one can truly know or get acquainted with God unless they call upon His Name (entreat Him according to everything His Name represents) and no-one can call upon His Name (in this particular way) without someone proclaiming or preaching His Word, and no-one can preach His Word without having been called to do so. Their sound (the spoken words of these called and sent out preachers and not their “silence” or “shut ups” or “shhhhhhhs”) went out into all the earth (Romans 10:13-18).

Imagine Peter at Pentecost, placing his index finger in front of his mouth and saying “Shhhhhhh! silence is the first language of God,” and then bidding his audience to sit down with him in silence to experience the presence of God. Let’s do a quick survey. Do you think three thousand souls would have been saved that day if Peter, who had been in touch with God (through Jesus Christ) nearly every day of his life, had listened to Ron Martoia who spoke more than thirty five minutes (not in siilence but in well articulated and yet unbiblical sounds) on the silly assumption that “silence is the first language of God?” You must be joking! If we were to accept St. John of the Cross’s and Ron Martoias’s silly notion that “silence is the first language of God” we would have had to rewrite the very first verse in the Bible: “In the beginning God shhhhhhh. . .d.” Not even Jesus Christ, the Word that became flesh, deemed it necessary to practice “silence” in order to “hear” the so-called “first language of God.” He said:

John 15: 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.

Johan 18:20 Jesus answered him, I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in a synagogue and in the temple [area], where the Jews [habitually] congregate (assemble); and I have spoken nothing secretly.

When Jesus said “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32) He never intended the truth to be known through the practice of silence or quietness or stillness. The word “ginosko” means to perceive, understand, to attain knowledge of Him and his teachings through his spoken and written Word which is the Truth (John 17”17). We already have his Truth at our disposal in his written Word and therefore do not need to practice certain techniques so as to learn the truth or to enter into God’s presence. This is a far cry from the belief that the Buddha imparted truth merely through his silent presence and that he only had to look into the eyes of his devotees to impart all the teaching and wisdom that can ever be imparted to all those who are ready to receive it. I pretty much believe that this will be the way Antichrist is going to impart his knowledge (“truth”) to the world.

WHEN WILL WE SEE HIM?

He has not yet declared His true status, and His location is known to only a very few disciples. One of these has announced the soon the Christ will acknowledge His identity and within the next two months will speak to humanity through a worldwide television and radio broadcast. His message will be heard inwardly (silently), telepathically, by all people in their own language.From that time, with His help, we will build a new world. (Emphasis and parenthesis added)

Jesus also said “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” It evidently does not mean that we ought to hear an audible voice, but simply that his disciples follow Him in accordance with his commandments (his teachings, dogmas). They have come to know and discern his voice from other counterfeit voices by following his will as expounded in his decrees (written Word; His Truth).

2 John verse 9 Anyone who runs on ahead [of God] and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ [who is not content with what He taught] does not have God; but he who continues to live in the doctrine (teaching) of Christ [does have God], he has both the Father and the Son.

I sincerely hope to find adequate time to write more detailed comments on each of the speakers’ presentations at the Mosaic Congress, proving to you that many well-known and distinguished clergy in South Africa are already head over heels part and parcel of a full-blown last days apostasy and sadly many, I repeat, many South Africans and especially our youth are being drawn into this godless maelstrom of an end time apostasy.

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(1) Paul Reps, (ed.), Zen Flesh, Zen Bones (London: Penguin Books, reprinted 1982), pp. 119-120