Campus Crusade for Christ Power to Change Canada uses its 2019 Canadian summer project to promote contemplative spirituality

Power to Change is the Canadian ministry of what used to be known as Campus Crusade for Christ. For several decades, they've been having national and international summer projects for students. In the 1980s, the national projects went from early May to mid-August; students found a job during the daytime, and evenings and weekends were spent on Bible study and evangelistic activities. The 2016 Canadian project lasted only five weeks from late May-early July--not enough time to work at a job in the community--and I don't think there was any Canadian project at all in 2017.

I look at Power to Change's site just a few times a year to see what they're up to; I noticed that they have a Canadian project scheduled for 2019, but it lasts only four weeks, and now goes by the name Praxis Summer (bold, links in original):

PRAXIS SUMMER
Cost: $3950 (only includes flight from Summer Missions Launch in Guelph, ON to Victoria, BC)
Location: Victoria, BC
Date: April 29, 2019 to May 27, 2019
Deadline: January 31, 2019
APPLY

prax·is | \ ˈprak-səs: the practical application of theory. The exercise or practice of an art, science, or skill

Why PRAXIS?

We so often live fragmented lives, where our ‘being’ is disconnected from our ‘doing.’ It’s easy to view missions as something to “do” versus something to “be”. Can we be missional, living lives on mission wherever we are?

Jesus invites us to come to him and to learn from him (Matt. 11:28-29). In Jesus, we see the perfect union of being and doing; Jesus’ ministry activity always was an overflow of his rich and abundant connection with his Father.

PRAXIS is not just a “personal development” trip; rather, it is a unique missions opportunity that offers participants the space to apply the formational and developmental lessons they are learning in a missional context.

The rhythm of our day will integrate all that we’re learning. For example:

Mornings: focus on leadership development and spiritual growth

Afternoons: missional engagement on campus

Evenings: rest, community, and mentorship


What Will We Be Doing?

Through PRAXIS, we will experience and learn what it looks like to integrate both our exterior world (the “doing”) with our interior world (the “being”) — identifying and being attentive to how God is at work in our lives. We desire that this will result in the transformation of how we engage missionally with those around us.

Through exposure to formative spiritual practices, practical leadership training, and life-changing mentoring relationships, we will seek to transform our approach to how we engage missionally with our contemporary culture. We will also seek to partner with local and international partners as we participate in Missio Dei — the mission of God.

Missional Engagement

. Learn how to share your faith in a post-Christian context with other students
. Experience listening to the Holy Spirit as we seek to share our faith
. Cultivate a vision for lifelong ministry, as we partner with other organizations

Leadership Development

. Experience and learn principles of biblical leadership
. Practice time and people management skills
. Work on a team and learn how to effectively resolve conflict

Spiritual Growth

. Learn about how to develop daily spiritual rhythms
. Engage with God’s word through mind and heart
. Experience various approaches to prayer

Through PRAXIS, we hope that we will form foundational practices and perspectives to help us take steps toward a greater embodiment of what it looks like to love God and love others.

Let’s Trust God to Do Something Extraordinary

Do you long for more? Do you recognize that your life is compartmentalized, but desire to live more holistically? Do you want to mature in your faith and in how you participate in God’s mission?

Join us as we endeavour to create space in our lives for God to transform us, and those around us.

Questions? Email praxis@p2c.com

BEGIN THE ADVENTURE

Alarm bells went off in the head of this blogger at the sight of this announcement. There are a lot of buzzwords and phrases that never used to be used in evangelical circles. The word "praxis" is ones of those words that religious liberals use when communicating with one another, and is seldom heard outside those circles. When it comes to "practical application," the summer projects in the old days of the '80s had plenty of practical application.

"Missional" is a word I never heard until about 2003, when the Emerging Church came along ; it seems to have replaced the word "missionary." "Missional" seems to include a connotation of man building the Kingdom of God on Earth. "Holistically" is a word that's always been popular with New Agers.

"Formative spiritual practices," "daily spiritual rhythms," "various approaches to prayer," and "foundational practices," sound like contemplative spirituality, i.e., Eastern spiritual practices masquerading as Christian. For information on contemplative spirituality, I especially recommend Lighthouse Trails Research Project and Herescope.

When I wrote to the email address above, I received an admirably quick reply, but without the clarity I was hoping for. I was told, "Cultivating a posture of receptivity to God’s leading is found in disciplines that include but are not exclusive to: Bible study, memorization and contemplation of God's word, personal and corporate prayer, time with God in song, in nature, in fellowship of other Christian believers."

Bible study and memorization are certainly good things, as is contemplation of God's word--if the word "contemplation" refers to the use of one's conscious mind to ruminate over the objective truth of God's word. However, the use of the phrase "not exclusive to," combined with the terms mentioned above, still leaves me suspicious that Power to Change Canada is not completely forthcoming in what this project involves. I didn't receive an answer to my request for information on what organizations Power to Change is partnering with in this project. If I receive any further or clearer information, I'll revise this post accordingly. I suggest the reader email Power to Change Canada for information.

December 31, 2023 update: There will be a PRAXIS project in Edmonton in 2024, and the language used is clearer than in previous years in showing that P2C is continuing further down the Social Gospel and contemplative path (bold, links in original):

PRAXIS Edmonton

Location: Edmonton, Alberta
Date: May 1, 2024 - June 10, 2024
Cost: $4350
Application Deadline: January 31, 2024

Why go on the PRAXIS mission trip?

PRAXIS Edmonton is an opportunity to practise being a whole person who lives an integrated life.

You’ll experience a balance of actively engaging with spiritual development, meaningful missional engagement, and growth in community.

You’ll have ongoing opportunities to intentionally reflect and process with peers and P2C-Students staff.

And you’ll be equipped to show and share the gospel in unique contexts.

Edmonton itself is a great place to learn about urban ministry in Canada. You’ll come alongside local partners who are showing and sharing who Jesus is to a variety of subcultures. Because you’re learning in a Canadian context, it will be relatively easy to translate your experiences to your own city after PRAXIS.

PRAXIS is for those who want:

. More in their spiritual journey
. To live missionally through hands-on experiences of compassionate care and gospel witness
. To live in a community on mission

What happens on PRAXIS?

A typical weekly schedule will include three main components:

1. Spiritual practices

You’ll develop healthy spiritual rhythms to enrich your faith and be with God. You’ll grow in recognizing God’s voice through times of prayer, silence, and reflection. You’ll experience spiritual practices like retreat, sabbath, silence and solitude, daily Examen, and Lectio Divina.

These spiritual rhythms are integrated with missional activities, so you can learn to both show and talk about the good news of Jesus.

2. Community You’ll be part of fostering an environment of trust and community. Together we will practise a communal “rule of life” to develop consistency and depth in our shared spiritual rhythms.

You’ll also grow as a leader as you take opportunities to guide your teammates in worship, prayer, meals, missional activities, Bible studies, and team building.

3. Missional Opportunities

Each week, you’ll engage in God’s mission by partnering with local organizations. You’ll serve vulnerable populations in Edmonton’s urban setting, often crossing cultures.

These opportunities will broaden your understanding of God’s work of restoration. They will allow you to wrestle with the fullness of God’s mission, the holistic and embodied nature of living as a witness, and the contextualization that’s needed in evangelism.

In the past, this looked like:

.Helping newcomers to Canada
. Caring for creation
. Learning about Indigenous–Settler reconciliation
. Serving at-risk youth

For a deeper understanding of a PRAXIS mission trip, check out this Prezi presentation.

Note: Trip cost includes housing, food, and mission trip activities. Participants will have the option to raise additional funds to cover their travel to Edmonton.

How will this trip deepen roots and widen horizons?

Deepen your roots as you:

. Live out—and not just know about—the good news of Jesus
. Explore your life story, and learn from the stories of others
. Live with integrity in all aspects of life, provoking spiritual curiosity in others

Widen your horizons as you:

. Learn life skills (e.g. time management, food planning and prep, sharing living space and life with others)
. Live in community, serving teammates and stewarding spiritual friendships
. Become aware of the breadth of God’s redemptive work in a Canadian city

Note on applying: To protect the privacy of your personal information, our online project application tool (the “PAT”) now uses two-factor authentication from Okta. You’ll find instructions on how to use and troubleshoot Okta when you apply.

More examples from Edmonton of community service centres masquerading as churches

Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. II Timothy 3:5

Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. James 4:4

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. I John 2:15-16

The following may be regarded as a companion piece to my post An example from Edmonton of a community service centre masquerading as an evangelical church (January 22, 2015).

As reported by Myrna Kostash in the Edmonton magazine The Yards, Summer 2015, pp. 14-15:

On a walkabout through my neighbourhood early this winter, I had taken note of the number of places of worship between Oliver and Downtown. I wondered, had these communities of religious citizens come to terms with the area’s drastic change in demographics and topography since they had first opened their doors a century ago? And how do the heads of these central Edmonton churches view their neighbourhood today?

For instance, according to the 90-year-old Grace Lutheran Church on 114 St., “the absence of focus on the unchurched and dechurched in the neighborhoods surrounding Grace” has resulted in a 10-year stagnation in membership, dwindling Sunday worship attendance and a Sunday school class one-third the size it was in 2000.

And then there’s the substantial, even hulking, brick presence of McDougall United Church that had seemed an incorruptible and timeless artifact of our history—social and artistic as well as spiritual— until last February. That’s when a report to City Hall estimated a repair and renovation bill of $18 to 25 million, citing a congregation reluctant to commit spending millions on urgent repairs for a building without provincial heritage status. Even more distressing was the conclusion of a separate consultant’s report that there existed no community or philanthropic “will” to save McDougall United.

Like all churches, Grace Lutheran and McDougall have their C & E (Christmas and Easter) adherents. Last year, 125,000 people went to Christmas Eve services in Edmonton who may never be seen until April, if not for another 12 months. But what counts to deans, bishops and pastors is who fills their pews the rest of the year.

All Saints’ Anglican Cathedral on 103 St. and Jasper Ave. is an imposing structure with a grand nave, but on Thursday mornings coffee and muffins are laid out in the Cathedral Common before a tax clinic opens for low-income Edmontonians. They arrive mainly from east of the Coliseum and Alberta Avenue and are then invited to Holy Eucharist and Soup and Sandwich Lunch in the lounge. It’s free and “everyone is welcome,” Dean Neil Gordon told me (a Dean is a Cathedral’s head while its Bishop leads the whole diocese). I arrived in his Cathedral office to find out what these modern ’hoods look like from the perspective of the parish office.

Downtown’s new condo dwellers come too, to bake muffins or drop by for an hour to chat with visitors who wait their turn for tax assessments. They’ve discovered the cathedral because of the concerts it hosts, such as Pro Coro, or for Choral Eucharist and the incomparable Jeremy Spurgeon on the massive organ. “We’re not just handing out food,” declared Dean Gordon. “We talk and learn stories.” The participation of young volunteers is key. They want to do more than just worship; they want face-to-face, hands-on service, whether it’s serving the Friday morning breakfasts or collecting clothes for the homeless. “They also join us in worship,” he noted, “but their primary religious energy is in outreach. I love millennials!”

All Saints’ is metres away from Bay/Enterprise Station—a “gold mine” when the arena opens up for business and downtown parking spaces disappear, he said. Many people come to All Saints’ from Cromdale and Southgate because of LRT access. The church even advertised its Christmas Eve services in the stations. But these commuting parishioners in fact represent a dispersed congregation and a new chapter in the cathedral’s history.

During Edmonton’s original “boom” before the First World War, All Saints’ was a “rich person’s church,” according to Dean Gordon, who invited me to think of the remnants of the grand old homes that lined the residential streets along 100 Ave. Then came the crash, the Great Depression, and the focus of the parish’s activities turned from “fund-raising for nice things for the church” (processional crosses and clerical vestments) to relief projects, especially at the outreach mission church in Rossdale Flats. In Dean Gordon’s vivid image, it was “literally the cathedral on the hill, with a commitment to the people living down below.”

Dean Gordon said by the 1940s wealthier Anglicans had moved out of downtown to Glenora, while others from further away began commuting to All Saints’ “for the choir, the organ, the bells and incense”—the liturgical flourishes on offer in a Cathedral setting. In the 1960s, the parish became more “activist” hosting a women’s shelter and, for a few months, the Middle Earth cafe. “Imagine a folk cafe, as in Inside Llewyn Davis. But not everybody was happy with just coffee.” (It was raided for drugs.)

And today, the evolution continues: Sunday afternoon worship services in the Dinka language for South Sudanese Anglicans and, every third Sunday, First Nations services tie the Gospel narrative with Aboriginal storytelling.

I came away exhilarated from my conversation with the very animated, emphatic Dean, with a vision that swoops all around central downtown, from the cathedral steps to the empty lot across from the once Greyhound bus station he hopes will be cleaned up and made safer for Aboriginal women. I also took note of other churches dotting central Edmonton that have found novel ways to fill their pews: MacDougall United’s “rainbow” inclusiveness, Robertson-Wesley’s free yoga classes and art therapy, Grace Lutheran’s open music stages. But these chapels have been around for a century. What about the rare places of worship that have emerged in the last decade? I wondered what spiritual void were they filling?

Around the corner from All Saints’ Cathedral on Jasper Ave. stands the now-doomed Paramount theatre building that until recently sported the emphatic lettering of City Centre Church. The church now meets Sundays three blocks away, at Landmark Cinemas in City Centre Mall, or at the Cineplex Odeon in South Edmonton Common. I chased down one of its staffers, Kevin Machado, who is also a pastor at the downtown “campus,” for an interview at the Milner Library Second Cup.

Despite its preference for large auditorium venues, City Centre Church (CCC) is not a megachurch such as those established by evangelical Christians in newly-minted suburbs. It has origins in a church-planting movement, which Machado told me “seeds through communities” like our own.

Machado emphasizes that they are neither counsellors nor psychiatrists, but simply people who have “spiritual awareness.” People who “burn for community.” “I’m passionate about people who come from dark places where your soul is brittle and cold,” he told me. People like he and his wife not so long ago.

It’s the hope of healing that the CCC offers those who join them, even temporarily, at prayer, Muffin Sundays for families, at Hope Mission or Mustard Seed volunteer commitments, or (when they were still in the Paramount) potluck meals in the theatre lobby—often the warmest place for the CCC community on a Sunday night. “People hear about us by word of mouth, or from a friend’ or they walk by our sign. They meet us and it’s okay not to have all the answers. We don’t yell at people while we’re feeding them. We have conversations. They are welcome to stay and pray.”

But there is also this important difference: the CCC is a young church and still “spontaneous,” building itself as it goes along, not proclaiming any special understanding but just coming together, “normal people who have a shared experience,” in Machado’s words. No pews or chandeliers, order of clergy or choirs, not a church “that says, ‘this is what you need to do’” with all the structures that go with it.

Yet, along with All Saints’ and the others, the City Centre Church could be part of a movement, bringing central churches to the ‘hood.

That’s what Jodine Chase hopes will happen for the 1910 McDougall United Church. The congregation member started campaigning to prove that there is a will to save it among the church’s most “feisty” members, plus supporters in the downtown arts’ community. “Right off the bat, we had a dozen ‘Friends of McDougall,’” Jodine Chase told me. Friends of McDougall’s efforts to save the building began with fundraising, accepting donations from $20 to $20,000, “to capture our support and translate it into meaningful dollars.”

This was not a heritage that could be “preserved” simply by renovating the facade and demolishing the interior for condos. For one, the interior, built to seat 2,000, is in good shape and still an ideal acoustic environment for musicians and performers. For another, the building has long been the site of historic developments, as the original home of the Edmonton Opera, site of suffragette rallies in the 1900s, University of Alberta convocation venue, and the auditorium before the Northern Jubilee opened in 1957. “It has been a ‘tool’ for the whole city,” Chase argued. “And all users needed to be at the table with their contributions.”

Then, on April 1, 2015, the provincial Culture Minister announced formal intent to seek provincial heritage status with a contribution of $750,000 towards restoration (the City may be good for another $500,000), enough to complete the most urgent repairs to the exterior. The interior will be preserved as a “vintage” performing arts space and community centre, subject, of course, to the affirmation of the congregation.

Ah, yes, the congregation. This is, after all, a place of worship. Its inclusive ministry—ordination of women, support for LGBTQ—is what attracted families like Jodine Chase’s. But, as with so many denominational churches in the 21st century, the congregation cannot sustain the building on its own and must force a “community partnership,” she said. “The congregation is an integral part of the vision but we cannot be the sole steward anymore … We’re ready to walk the talk.”

As was the case with the example mentioned in my previous post, one looks in vain for any mention in this article of the Lord Jesus Christ. The mainline churches such as the Anglican Church of Canada and United Church of Canada have abandoned belief in the Bible as God's infallible word, "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." (Mark 7:7) These are the churches that are emptying and aging; Christ's true sheep have left, and these places have been left to the goats. The social gospel of "Let's make this world a better place," promoted by the mainline churches with their aging and dwindling congregations, as well as by the younger inhabitants of the Emerging church, is a false gospel, providing a false salvation.

December 7, 2016 update: More of the same, as reported by Jessica Barratt in The Yards, Winter 2016, p. 5 (note: OCL stands for Oliver Community League):

Churches of all denominations have played a significant role in establishing Edmonton's earliest communities. For example, Alberta College (the antecedent to MacEwan University) was founded in 1903 by members of MacDougall's Church board, while Robertson-Wesley United Church was instrumental in nursing sufferers of the Spanish Flu. But what about today? What larger role do they play?

Community-mindedness has never been lost amidst its religious mandates. Take, for instance, the work initiated by a handful of area pastors and reverends working, well, religiously, on projects for the neighbourhood at large--not just Sunday congregants.

Curtis Boehm started using Grace Lutheran Church as a resource for the Oliver community after joining the church in July 2014. In addition to its already well-established yearly garage sale, the pastor started organizing an indoor basketball club for the neighbourhood inside its gym every Tuesday at 7 p.m. He also led the creation of the Oliver Bike Club, which meets weekly from snowmelt to snowfall. "I'm really interested in building community activities so I can meet my neighbours," Boehm explains. "I want to be a pastor of Oliver!"

Similarly, pastor Nick Trussell of Christ Church successfully applied for a Make Something Oliver (MSO) grant this past June to partially fund BBQ on the Block. This series of four free biweekly barbecues between July and August were well aligned with the OCL's strategic goals, says MSO director Anika Gee. "The event welcomed all community members, not just those of the church; it made the project even more exciting." She says Christ Church's project let neighbourhood residents meet in person and hopefully develop lasting relationships.

Building a better community is also the theme of Robertson-Wesley's Spirited Art Studio, which is open to creatives of every stripe Monday nights from 7 to 8:30 p.m. According to Karen Bridges, minister of congregation and community development, the free event invites people to come together and creates something based on a specific theme or question. "This program is a great network which connects people's passions and helps them find a way to offer what they have to others," she says. The goal isn't far from the ideals held by the Abundant Community Initiative, which Robertson-Wesley sponsored. "We provided funds through our trust fund, which are designated for community outreach."

"The Church is there for the community," explains Boehm. "A fellow pastor even recommended I get involved with the OCL as soon as I started." Though Boehm recently stepped down as OCL's volunteer director, he says that the connections he's made have helped him understand his audience better. "Where you live, where you are, where you go," he says, "that's where your work is." And that, for these generous souls, means Oliver.

The Outhouse (aka The Shack) author William P. Young's heresy, blasphemy, and perversity is becoming more obvious with the passage of time

For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Acts 20:29-30

And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. II Corinthians 11:14-15

Little children, it is the last time; and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us; but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. I John 2:18-19

I've already commented on The Shack (which I prefer to call The Outhouse) by William P. Young (Paul, to his friends), and I don't want to go to the bother of repeating myself, so the reader is invited to see my previous posts:

"The Outhouse" (aka The Shack): One-Hour Blasphemizing (December 30, 2008)

Finding God in The Shack? (April 1, 2009)

The Outhouse (aka The Shack) in God's house (May 5, 2009)

Catherine Elsworth interviewed Mr. Young for the online book club Goodreads for its September 2015 newsletter (bold in original) (as an aside, the same newsletter contained an interview with notorious atheist idiot Richard Dawkins):

Interview with Wm. Paul Young
September, 2015

Bestselling Christian novelist William Paul Young likes to shake his readers, both in terms of subject matter and the questions he asks. He achieved this in spades with his 2007 debut, The Shack, which not only featured a father reeling from the brutal murder of his young daughter but challenged perceptions by portraying God as a large, black woman who listens to funk. Heresy, some cried. But many more found the book inspirational, and the novel, which was initially self-published, has now sold more than 25 million copies worldwide, been compared to The Pilgrim's Progress in terms of impact, and is being made into a movie starring Octavia Spencer as God.

Young's new novel, Eve, is likely to prove similarly provocative with its interpretation of the creation narrative that suggests Adam, not Eve, triggered the Fall, which means that Eve—and therefore womankind—has for centuries been unfairly maligned. The gripping sci-fi-flavored story has as its central character a savagely wounded 15-year-old girl, a former child prostitute who witnesses creation from an in-between world of teleporting, angels, and evil mirrors. Eve is a "tall, fine-boned, ebony-black woman," God breast-feeds, and Adam is seen with a pregnant belly.

Those who were upset by The Shack will no doubt be outraged again. But Young, who says his fiction is grounded in decades of Bible study, welcomes such visceral responses. The 60-year-old, who was raised by missionaries in New Guinea, suffered abuse as a child and went on to attend seminary in Oregon, tells Goodreads why he is driven to challenge what he sees as polarizing and sexist in traditional interpretations of Scripture and how he hopes Eve will fuel a new discussion about gender roles and what it means to be human.

Goodreads: You've said Eve was the hardest book you've written because you were consolidating 40 years of work on this issue. How did you get to the point where you were ready to write it?

Wm. Paul Young: I don't think I would have had the confidence to tackle this without having written The Shack and Cross Roads [Young's second novel, released in 2012, about a selfish businessman who reconnects with God after falling into a coma], because it is such a monumental task to address something so embedded, and especially to do it inside a story, in fiction. That was why it was so arduous and such a hard piece of work, because I wanted a teenager to be able to read it and not get lost inside it, yet I wanted it to be true and coherent with the scholarship and with the text itself.

GR: Why was it so important for you to challenge the creation narrative of Genesis? What did you most want to do with this book?

WPY: For many of us, and I grew up evangelical fundamental Christian, the narrative has been pretty engrained. And the more I worked on the passages themselves, primarily pushed in that direction because of some major losses of my own, sexual abuse [an issue in the book] and those kinds of losses which were perpetrated by men, the more I came to the opinion that the narrative we have adopted is wrong. I grew up in a hierarchical fundamentalist religious perspective that really subordinated women and even in the last couple of decades has found new language to subordinate women. So I wanted to challenge the existing narrative because the polarizing language we use with regards to gender or relationships, to masculine and feminine, has created a huge amount of division and confusion. I saw a narrative for the entire passage that would allow a conversation to emerge that might get away from this polarity language and begin to relate to the question in terms of being human, not in terms of gender or ethnicity or social position. And I thought if I can find a way to make that narrative accessible, maybe it could change the conversation. And I really believe it can. So I'm kind of thrilled about it.

GR: How would you describe the existing narrative?

WPY: Oh, you know, Adam is created and then Eve is created, and she is beguiled by the serpent, who is the bad guy, and she tempts and draws Adam into an existence of separation from God. But the narrative predominantly places the blame at the feet of women, and that hasn't answered the question why have men done so much damage in the world.

GR: Why do you think this interpretation has endured for so long?

WPY: Because it's dominated by men, and translation has been dominated by men, and men have been the ones in power who have told the story. It's true not just of gender issues; it's true with ethnicity issues, and those in power create the narrative for history, whether they do it on purpose or not. I know job security impacts interpretation of Scripture more than any single thing. Genesis says that when the turning takes place, at least the woman turns to a relationship, which is more like the character and nature of God, but the man turns to the ground and the works of his hands, and so it becomes about territory and property. So, surprise, surprise, the narrative emerges that allows some sense of justification for men to continue to dominate and suppress the voice of women, and this is so wrong. Look at all the destruction and damage that men have brought to the world and continue to do so. So we need a different conversation.

GR: By depicting Eve as a black woman or having the images of God breast-feeding or Adam pregnant, are you trying to get people to think and perceive differently?

WPY: Yes, and the text allows for all of that. The word "mercy" is from the same root in Hebrew as the word "womb," and so every time you read "mercy" you are dealing with the maternal nature of God. And you've got language in Isaiah of God nursing or El Shaddai, which means the breasted one. We need to have a conversation that deepens our understanding of, and appreciation for, what being human is all about and that everybody, in my view, every single human being is a unique expression of the spectrum of both the masculine and feminine, because God is neither male nor female.

GR: How did you come up with the story itself—Lilly Fields, a teenage victim of child trafficking, horribly injured and abused, becomes a witness to creation and the fall and thinks she can somehow change history.

WPY: With the kind of history that I have, with growing up in a culture where sexual abuse was a part of my world before I was five years old, and it took me decades to work through the damage with any sense of coherency or integration, I have for many years been inside the conversation with regard to the healing of the human soul. So when I was looking at the story line, I was thinking, Eve is the character who frames the story, but who is the central character? The first time I began working with the idea, I was literally thinking, I want a 15-year-old girl to be able to read this story and not get lost. And I was thinking about the fact that sadly we live in a world where girls are constantly being trafficked, and they are objectified. And I was looking at my daughters and my granddaughters and thinking, How do I speak to this in a way that might change things for them? And not just for my girls but for the daughters of us all. Lilly allowed me huge freedoms because she allowed me to explore the process of healing itself.

GR: Some of the subject matter in your books, the suffering of Lilly or the murder of Missy in The Shack, is pretty traumatic. Is that part of what you want to do—to shake people?

WPY: I do, and there's no question about that. But even in Eve it's not graphic, and you don't need to be. You've got to pull people across the threshold enough so they understand what it is you're talking about. But I want my kids to be able to read this, and I want teenagers to be able to read this. People who read horror had an easier time with that than they did with The Shack because it is so human and so tangible and so wrenching, but not because it is graphic. And the same is true for Eve. I want a pretty strong boundary yet at the same time I don't want to be some Pollyanna person who thinks everything in the world is wonderful, because it's not. We have huge devastating problems that it is way past time to address.

GR: The voice of your teenage heroine is modern: She's unimpressed and skeptical about religion.

WPY: Yes, and it's because this younger generation is exactly there. They've got really good crap detectors, they're not excited about agenda, things are moving and changing so fast, they want something that matters that actually makes a difference. And her voice was not difficult to access. I'm surrounded by young women who give me lots of feedback, who love me, but aren't impressed.

GR: You wrote Eve in about seven months. How do you work when you start a new project?

WPY: I'm not a wake-up-in-the-morning, do-your-2,000-words kind of guy. I'm just like, all right, it's time, jump in the river, see what happens. Sometimes it could be 14 hours in a day. It's one of those zones where you lose track of time, you don't remember going to the bathroom or the last time you ate, you just get swept away in it, and it's a constant companion until it's done. To me it's as close as a man will ever get to delivering a baby, very much like a pregnancy—you have your morning sickness, and you waddle around, and you want to pull the baby out now, but it's not quite time, and the labor process is excruciating—and long for me.

GR: I wanted to ask about the book's graphic and colorful depictions of conception and labor. At one point God "plunges His hands into the holy mess... The labor was nearly finished. Then, with a piercing wrenching scream, Adonai raised above His head a newborn baby."

WPY: I have a high view of humanity, which is contrary to the evangelical heritage I grew up with, which had a very low view of humanity, so I am constantly trying to find ways to celebrate our humanity. And the whole conception and the birthing process is to me one of the most amazing miracles that exist in creation, and to find ways to celebrate it, I loved some of the depictions that emerged in the story line around the birthing process and the exultation of that, and that by itself grants a dignity and honor to women that is incredibly well deserved, and I'm thrilled about that, too.

GR: There was a very strong reaction to The Shack, with people accusing you of heresy and theological inaccuracy. What's it like to have such a visceral response?

WPY: I love a visceral response way more than I appreciate ambivalence. Someone who doesn't care, there's no real conversation there. At least with an angry person you can have a conversation, because when people are upset, something in them is being challenged enough to raise their ire, and that's an engaged process and opens up the possibility of really great conversation. I love the questions, I love the conversation, and I think it's our way forward.

GR: And with your background, you feel you can support your fiction with your knowledge?

WPY: I went to seminary, I went to bible school, and I've read voraciously. I love the deep philosophers and theologians and the people who people quote who they don't actually read, I actually read them. But I find that part of what I am to the community of faith as well as to the community of humanity is that I'm an interpreter. I grasp some of the big-picture stuff, and I find a way to say it in a way that my kids can understand it. And that's a very narrow thing, but it's important, and I'm thrilled to be in that space. My books are recognized as human books. They're not sectarian with an agenda to divide, but they're addressing fundamental human questions, and as a result I think they speak a language that crosses all these barriers, and that gives me hope.

GR: Goodreads member Ellen asks, "What sort of criticism or backlash do you expect from conservative Christians with the release of Eve?"

WPY: The same people who didn't read The Shack and didn't like it are not going to read Eve and not like it. And the beauty is they are my people. They really are. They are the people I grew up with, I know really well, and I know where they are coming from. I know what they are afraid of. So yeah, I anticipate I will get the same sort of serious 12-page dissertations against all the evils of the book that I've had before. But even with The Shack, I'd say that might be 1 or 2 percent, maybe 3 percent, of all the responses that I get. And even when people have come to where I've been speaking and intended to take a stand against me, they are overwhelmed by the stories of how this conversation has penetrated people and changed their world.

GR: The back of the book says it's an "unprecedented exploration of the creation narrative." You've never seen anything in all your reading like this?

WPY: The closest that I've gotten to someone who really did a great job on the Genesis narrative was Perelandra by C.S. Lewis, which remains one of my favorite stories. It's the second in the Space Trilogy that he did, and he posits Venus as the new Eden in which the Eve character makes the right choice. And Lewis is brilliant in that book. But he doesn't tackle the existing narrative; he just posits an alternative universe. But no, like I said, 40 years of work on all the issues and the problem passages, and it constantly drove me back to Genesis, really pushed me to explore the Hebrew and the historical theological positions about it and get a great grasp of the story line, and then draw together what people have written over the centuries and say, All right, let's see if we can't find a narrative that is coherent with the text and with the scholarship and that allows for a different conversation.

GR: Could you talk us through how The Shack became a book. You originally wrote it for your kids while you were working three jobs?

WPY: Yes, and our youngest was 13 at the time, so they weren't little kids. It started with Kim, my wife of nearly 36 years, who said to me, "Some day, as a gift for our kids, would you just put in one place how you think because you think outside the box." It wasn't until I was 50 that I felt my head and heart were integrated enough to write something that puts in one place how I think. So I wrote this story on the train going between my three jobs and ended up making 15 copies at Office Depot. I gave six to the kids and Kim and the rest to my friends and family. And those 15 copies did everything I ever wanted that book to do. I was thrilled with that. It never crossed my mind to publish it. I didn't know anything about publishing, and so to be involved in something that became such a global phenomenon was absolutely wonderful, humbling. You have the sense that, you know what, this is God's sense of humor. It's one of those stories where you just shake your head and laugh a lot.

GR: What does it feel like now that the movie is being made?

WPY: I was invited up to the set, and it is a surreal thing to walk around where they have built an entire shack, and they're filming and there's 50 crew and cast and you think, I made 15 copies of a little thing that I wrote for Christmas for my kids, and all of these people are employed because of this and bringing to this their abilities and their skill sets and their stories, and it's all being woven together into something that gets to be presented in a different way to the world again. It is so surreal, and I am so grateful.

GR: Who are your favorite authors and the writers who inspire you?

WPY: I grew up in the highlands of New Guinea, where we didn't have any technology, so I grew up with books and I read all the classics plus Edgar Rice Burroughs, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, I love the science fiction genre. And then of course the Inklings with C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams, Dorothy Sayers and G.K. Chesterton. And Malcolm Muggeridge, even in Punch magazine I loved his ability to turn a phrase and bite someone in the butt. And Mark Twain.

Then I started getting into some philosophy, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Jacques Ellul, who's not easy to read, but he's conceptually brilliant as a sociologist and a theologian. And then the mystic strain on the other side, people like Richard Rohr and Jean Vanier. Then back to Athanasius's On the Incarnation of the Word of God and people who were writing in the first few centuries. And also I'm a bit of a physics person. I love quantum theory and astronomy. I love it, just enough to be dangerous. That's why you have quantum fire in Cross Roads and fractals in The Shack and movement between worlds or parallel universes. And it's why you have this mixture of fantasy and science fiction and deep human psychology and theology all kind of merged together inside a story line.

GR: Goodreads member Katie asks, "Do you find it hard to write as a faith-filled man in a society that is becoming so secular and looking to follow popular opinion rather than stand for truth and right?"

WPY: So my first response to that is that I am convinced that secularism is halfway to Jesus from religion. I find huge amounts of resonance within secularism that religion has created inhibitions to address. So I don't find antagonism in the secular dimension of the world nearly as much as I find it within religious fundamentalism of any sort whether it's atheistic fundamentalism, Christian fundamentalism, or Islamic fundamentalism. With someone who is about being right, and not about loving, or about codified propositions and laws, then you've got a lot more pushback, and I find some comfort in the fact that Jesus found it the same way in the first century. It was the religious people who had the most problems with who he was and what he was saying. So I really don't. In fact, the more human that I am in terms of the conversation, the easier it is to have that conversation within the secular world.

GR: Goodreads member Kristin asks, "How do you feel when you hear your books have changed people's relationships with God?"

WPY: Oh my gosh, I hear that a lot. That's one of the greatest blessings that's ever happened, because I've been allowed to participate in whatever this is. And it really is the holy ground. People's stories are the holy ground, that's where you get to watch the activity of God inside a person's world in a way that burns away everything that's not real. So the greatest gift that's come out of this is the invitation to be inside other people's stories, and those stories are miraculous, they are just mind-boggling, and I've got thousands of them.

A few things that struck me from this interview:

When it comes to Paul Young's claim of having been sexually abused as a child, we have only his word to go on, but I'm increasingly inclined to believe he's telling the truth, because it would explain a lot. For instance, no normal man writes with a 15-year-old female reader in mind. To put it bluntly, there's something seriously wrong with Paul Young; his writing style is feminine; his subject matter appeals mainly to women (click on the link for the interview and look at the comments); he writes with 15-year-old female readers in mind; and worst of all, he promotes a feminine god. Mr. Young doesn't come across as a real man.

Mr. Young's list of favourite authors and literary genres is most revealing, and is more in keeping with a New Ager than a Christian. The Castalia House publishing firm is currently running a series of posts on its blog concerning the disproportionate amount of pedophilia within the science fiction community--including such big names as Arthur C. Clarke.

My reaction to the author of The Shack is similar to my reaction to the first two movies from writer and director Neil LaBute. In the Company of Men (1997) had two unpleasant men as the main characters, but the main female character was someone I could root for. However, Mr. LaBute's next movie, Your Friends & Neighbors (1998) had nothing but unpleasant characters; I can't speak for all myneighbours, but the characters in that movie don't resemble any of my friends. After seeing those movies--and especially, after the second one--I concluded that there was something seriously wrong with Mr. LaBute, who converted to Mormonism at Brigham Young University and has since left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Others have also noticed that there's something wrong with Mr. LaBute, as a glance at his Wikipedia entry will show. Two Neil LaBute movies were enough for me, and I haven't been interested in seeing anything else he's had to offer.

Paul Young openly denies the account of creation, apparently blaming belief in the literal truth of the account in Genesis chapters 1-2 for his sexual abuse as a child. As is always the case with religious liberals--especially those who have wormed their way from within the professing Christian church--those who believe in the literal truth of the Bible are always the bad guys. It should be kept in mind that to deny the biblical account of creation is to deny the very words of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, as well as the words of the Apostles, who were men directly commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ and were writing under divine inspiration.

By my count, Paul Young used the word "conversation" 11 times in the interview. That's the way it is in the Emerging Church in which Mr. Young would seem to naturally fit; it's always a "conversation" with Emergents, it's never "Thus saith the LORD."

Mr. Young boasts about his "high view of humanity," but whenever that occurs, it's always a see-saw--when the view of humanity goes up, the view of God goes down. The "God" of Paul Young's invention isn't worth worshipping.

Paul Young is an example of what Vox Day, author of the recent book SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police (2015) refers to as the three laws of Social Justice Warriors (SJWs)--the first law is the law that should be most kept in mind:

1. They always lie.
2. They always double down.
3. They always project.

Mr. Young, like a typical SJW, uses a false analogy when he places Christian fundamentalism on an equal level with atheistic and Islamic fundamentalism. He's also dishonest when he compares his own battles with fundamentalists with the religious leaders whom Jesus faced. In fact, the Pharisees of whom the Lord Jesus Christ was so critical weren't fundamentalists, but religious liberals; they didn't know (Matthew 22:29) or believe (John 5:45-47) the scriptures, "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." (Mark 7:7)

Paul Young makes a snide remark about the "people who didn't read The Shack and didn't like it." What a liar. I, for one, did read The Shack and didn't like it. Go to my first post mentioned above, and click the links to see reviews by Christian authors who also read the book and didn't like it--including Mr. Young's neighbour James De Young, who turned his review into the book Burning Down the Shack (2010). After the extremely unpleasant experience of reading The Shack, this blogger has no intention of reading Eve; I'll wait for reviews by discerning Christians who have stronger stomachs than mine (and of course, who have actually read the book).

I can't emphasize strongly enough that Paul Young isn't someone coming from outside the professing evangelical Christian church, but from within. He's an alumnus of Canadian Bible College from its days in Regina; it's now Ambrose University, based in Calgary (search this blog under "Ambrose" for information on this increasingly unbiblical institution). Mr. Young presumbably knows what the truth is, but he's chosen to reject it; like those mentioned by Paul in the Acts 20 passage cited above, Paul Young is speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after himself.

50 years ago: Then-obscure Maharishi Mahesh Yogi tours Canada

To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. Isaiah 8:20

In September 1963 Hinduism in Canada was so outside the mainstream that its practitioners and promoters were regarded as exotic. One of its evangelists spent a couple of weeks training disciples in Parksville, British Columbia, on Vancouver Island before brief speaking engagements in Victoria, Calgary, Winnipeg, and Ottawa before leaving for the Himalayas by way of Europe. As reported by Eileen Learoyd in the Victoria Daily Colonist, September 20, 1963:

Indian Mystic Passes on Wisdom of the Ages

A man from the Himalayas has come to Parksville.

Many have never seen his like before. He has the deep, mysterious eyes of a mystic, and he is reputed to be the greatest living saint in India today...

His name is Maharishi.

He sits in his room at the Island Hall Hotel where he can see an arc of sand and sea and the islands of Texada and Lasqueti rising blue in the sky.

But he doesn't look out the window much. He talks to those who knock at his door, and once a day he leaves his room to speak in the lecture hall across the lawn. He speaks on deep meditation, the evolution of the soul, and the riddle of Maya.

His listeners have come here for two weeks to hear the ancient wisdom that has been passed down from Master to Master in Asia for innumerable centuries.

One hundred and fifty people from all parts of the world have followed him here. They come from Japan, Hawaii, Germany, New York, Australia, Montreal, Los Angeles and Duncan and Regina. They are architects, geologists, housewives, students, actresses, health-faddists, millionaires and those of modest means. They are 18 to 88 years.

Two of the people from New York are colored. The women from Hawaii brought a bower of fragrant leis with them.

The people are interesting, but beside the man from India they pale to shadows.

One feels the force beyond the soft voice, for it carries the kind of authority that only comes from the direct experience of a thing.

Like the Rishis of old, he has spent 13 years in meditation in the austere fasts of the Himalayas. Now he has come "out" to help humanity with a method of meditation formerly kept among the intimates of an ashram.

The soft voice says, "Our real ability is infinite. Meditation transcends thinking, it takes us consciously to levels beyond thinking where we now have the ability to use finer, more subtle faculties of experience.

"You can't shoot the tiger of the waking state with the rifle of the dreaming state."

He speaks of the personal and impersonal aspects of God. "God appears to be changing, but is Absolute, never changing. As hydrogen and oxygen become water, then ice--creation is like a change of qualities. This is the unity of life."

Maharishi likes to laugh with his listeners, but when he speaks seriously he is the Guru, the teacher who imparts his light and knowledge, and then he dominates the room.

Sometimes he seems the lonely recluse that he is. He looks lonelier than anyone we have ever met--perhaps because he knows how little we understand of what he says.

As he said one day, "God watches us at play, with our toys."

Great saint or extraordinary man, he lives the life he talks about.

That's why everyone listens.

Maharishi will speak in the Crystal ballroom of the Empress Hotel Monday at 8 p.m., then returns to India via Europe.

Page 5 of the same edition of the Daily Colonist carried an advertisement similar to that which appeared in the bottom left corner of page 2 of the Calgary newspaper The Albertan for September 24, 1963, reading:

TO-NIGHT

AUDITORIUM

A "MASTER" from India speaks in Calgary. Founder of the worldwide SRM, he flies back to the Himalayas this week.

He speaks on deep meditation, key to the unfoldment of latent faculties of the mind and on the evolution of the human spirit. The glory within each man flowers with this unique method of meditation.

Often called the light and hope of this age, this great saint of India teaches contact of the Inner Being as handed down from Master to Master.

MAHARISHI SPEAKS

at

the

JUBILEE AUDITORIUM

Social Room

Tuesday, 8 P.M. -- September 24

A feature article, anonymously written, appeared on page 3 of The Albertan, September 25, 1963:

Mystic Movement

TOPIC: 'Deep Meditation'

The man with the service-club pin and the well-dressed woman halted at the door.

You don't wear shoes before a saint.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of the spiritual regeneration movement, sat cross-legged on a deer skin amidst a pile of newly-delivered flowers which he continuously fingered.

He wore a white robe, a long string of small red beads and the long shoulder-length dark hair was greying around the chin. He regarded the press with glowing dark eyes behind which seemed to lurk hidden amusement.

The well-dressed woman rushed in with a small table. "Somebody donated a coffee table, Master," she said. "There was none in the hotel."

The Maharishi doesn't worry about finances. "If I did," he explained, "I would begin to look down on the poor man." His followers, "thousands" in India, 1,000 in Canada, 116 in Calgary, supply the cash backing.

Tuesday night, the "great saint of India" rented the Jubilee Auditorium.

He came to bring peace of mind, self realization, better behavior, more understanding, happiness and harmony, and unfold latent talents--through a simple system of meditation.

"Thought arises from the deepest level of consciousness," he said in quiet, lyrical tones, "as the bubbles rise from the sea and explode.

Our thinking is so shallow, it is always on the surface of the sea of the mind."

The flowers he holds is the symbol of his message. "It invites every man to enjoy its outer beauty and inner honey."

Every man, he says, has a "word" which is his revealing characteristic. It is born with him and dies with him.

The Maharishi can find that word.

He examines a simple questionaire (name, address, state of health) given to those who wish to be initiated and finds the word vibration to correspond with the vibration of the man who filled the form.

It does not matter who or what the applicant is. Religion does not matter. The Maharishi is concerned only with raising the standard of humanity.

He has taught 60 other persons this power and they, with 1,300 lecturers, spread the word.

Personal questions are lost on the man. (How old are you? "We don't go by age." What area did you begin your work in India? "Big cities.")

The "light and hope of this age" as his followers call him speaks fluent English. He misses a question. "I didn't get you," he says.

Before coming here, he spent two weeks near Vancouver training 110 would-be teachers. "All have come out regenerated."

After leaving Calgary, he will continue east to Ottawa, Iceland, Europe and eventually the Himalayas. "I will go to Russia," he says, "when the government invites me."

Transportation? "I have just been given a four-seater Cessna plane," the Maharishi said, obviously pleased, "so that quickly I go ahead and bring peace to people."

The Calgary Herald of September 25, 1963 ran its own anonymously-written article on the bottom of page 18:

Indian 'Saint' Delivers Message

Meditation 'Key' To Inner Self

From the Himalayan foothills, Maharishi, whose followers consider "the greatest living saint in India," Tuesday night brought his message to the foothills of Calgary.

"Through deep meditation, man's mind can seek the inner spheres of his own personality and find the kingdom of heaven within," he says.

With his black, shoulder-length hair, beard and white robe, he is the traditional figure of the Indian mystic.

A rosary of 108 beads, each representing a prayer, hangs about his neck. Attached to the rosayry is a "picture of my master who left his body 10 years ago."

In his hotel room, he assumes a familiar, cross-legged position on a deer skin on his bed.

Thick perfume from dozens of flowers fills the room. In his hand he holds a rose.

NO MYSTIC

"But I'm not a mystic," he says, in excellent but hardly audible English.

"There is no mysticism in my message. It is a purely scientific way of exploring the glories of inner life through meditation.

Anyone can understand and practise it. It's simply a matter of thinking in terms of the subtle states of thought which are more charming than gross states of thought.

"This increasing charm draws the mind because by its very nature the mind goes to the area of greater happiness.

ONE WORD

"For every man there is one specific word--a word which has the vibration to set loose all his tensions, clear his mind."

Because of time limitations, he has devised a questionnaire and from the answers, decides on the word which suits "each person's level of intelligence."

"Having grasped the practice of meditating of the word--not its meaning, since meaning is static--they meditate morning and night on that word.

"From the first day, they begin to feel free from worries and anxieties."

With the release of tensions, body cells are rejuvenated, and people begin to look years younger, he says.

"And with spiritual regeneration comes happiness, peace, harmony and intelligence."

Founded in 1958, the spiritual movement now has 50,000 disciples in 23 countries, he says.

Calgary has 120 folowers and is the movement's Canadian headquarters, with Roland Umikar, oil company geologist, as president.

Tuesday night, the graduate with a science degree in math and physics who renounced his academic life to meditate and fast for 13 years in the Himalayas, addressed a gathering in the auditorium's social room.

He will make stops at other Canadian cities before flying to India via Europe.

The September 26, 1963 edition of the Winnipeg Free Press included an ad similar to the one in The Albertan, mentioning that the Maharishi would be giving a public lecture in the Oak Room of the St. Regis Hotel on Friday, September 27 at 8:30 P.M. The Winnipeg Free Press didn't regard the Maharishi's visit as an event worthy of a feature article.

The perceptive reader will notice that the Maharishi's movement still had the overtly religious title Spiritual Regeneration Movement--the name under which it was registered in California in 1959--and the technique he taught was called "deep meditation." While the Maharishi stated in his interview with the Daily Colonist that "meditation transcends thinking," the word "transcendental" as a brand name for his movement was nowhere to be found in 1963. It wasn't until several years later, after the Maharishi had figured out how to combine eastern spirituality with western desires for physical health and material success, that the brand name Transcendental Meditation came into existence. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi became famous when he met the Beatles in London in August 1967, and he became their spiritual adviser for a time (the Beatles were topping the British charts in September 1963 with their single She Loves You, but Beatlemania in North America was still several months in the future). The Maharishi died on February 5, 2008 at the apparent age of at least 90.

The Maharishi was being disingenuous when he said that religion didn't matter, when what he was teaching was Hindu meditation. In Vedantic Hinduism (i.e., the school which organized and systematized the Hindu writings known as the Upanishads), there is one impersonal god known as Brahman. Brahman alone is real, and everything else is a dream or illusion, known as maya. As stated by John Ankerberg and John Weldon:

However, Hinduism also teaches that Brahman exists "beneath" this illusory universe. In other words, Brahman resides "in" and "underneath" the material creation. This explains why the goal of Hinduism is to go inward to allegedly discover that one's true nature is part of God or Brahman. Hinduism aims at supposedly revealing one's inward divine nature by "contacting" Brahman through occult practice. The Facts on Hinduism in America (1991), p. 10

Phrases such as "latent faculties of the mind" and "evolution of the human spirit" come from the Hindu belief that sin is not transgression of the law of God (I John 3:4), but is lack of enlightenment and lack of self-realization. The technique of "deep" or "transcendental" meditation involves emptying one's conscious mind and concentrating on the mantra, resulting in an altered state of consciousness leading to enlightenment. If I actually stop to think about it, it seems quite nonsensical that I would have an inner divine nature and yet not know that--and to discover that true nature, I have to enter an altered state of consciousness where I'm unable to distinguish subjective from objective reality. In contrast, the Bible consistently upholds the reality of the material world, even to the point of stating that God--who exists apart from His creation--even became one of us (John 1:14), taking on an actual physical body (Luke 24:39, I John 1:1).

As for the particular word (the technical term is "mantra") given to each man, which he is then to keep to himself, Christian apologists such as the late Ron Carlson have pointed out that the reason for this is that there are only 16 mantras, and they're distributed according to the age of the initiate, which goes a long way in explaining why the initiate isn't to reveal his mantra to anyone else.

The perceptive reader will notice the similarities between the "deep" or "transcendental" meditation technique taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the contemplative prayer techniques being advocated today in Western evangelical Christianity, especially in the so-called "Emerging Church." The similarities--which can include even the promotion of two 10-minute sessions per day--are not coincidental. Contemplative "prayer" is in fact eastern meditation disguised in Christian garb.

For more information on contemplative spirituality and the Emerging Church, I suggest the sites for Lighthouse Trails Research Project, Caryl Productions, and Crossroad. Informative books on contamplative spirituality and the Emerging Church include A Time of Departing, 2nd edition, by Ray Yungen (2006); Faith Undone by Roger Oakland (2007); The Emergent Church: Undefining Christianity by Bob DeWaay (2009); and A "Wonderful" Deception by Warren Smith (2009). I don't know if it's still in print, but The Facts on Hinduism in America by John Ankerberg and John Weldon (1991) provides a good, quick review of the subject. It's also worth visiting the site of the Ankerberg Theological Research Institute.

TM-Free Blog and Meditation Information Network aren't written from a Christian perspective, but they provide useful information on Transcendental Meditation from the perspective of people who were formerly involved in TM.

While the 1963 newspaper advertisements proclaimed the Maharishi as "the light and hope of this age," there's someone who has a true claim on those titles for this and every age, and it isn't the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, but the Lord Jesus Christ:

Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. John 8:12

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. John 9:5

I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. John 12:46

Rob Bell says goodbye to his megachurch, hello to his own "reality" TV show

As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. Proverbs 26:3

Rob Bell, formerly a rock guitarist, has now decided to return to the entertainment world.

As reported by Niraj Warikoo in the Detroit Free Press, January 11, 2012:

One of Michigan's most noted religious leaders said good-bye to his congregation this week as he prepares to help create a TV series loosely based on his life.

Rob Bell, the founding pastor of the Mars Hill megachurch near Grand Rapids, is moving to California, where he will continue writing books and work on a TV show for ABC with the producer of "Lost."

According to Deadline.com, the series will be called "Stronger," about the life of "Tom Stronger, a musician and teacher, and his spiritual journey." The show will feature "autobiographical elements" from the life of Bell, Deadline said.

Bell was in a rock band before he became known as a Christian pastor.

Bell did not return phone calls seeking comment, and officials at Mars Hill declined to talk about his departure. "We're not taking interviews or discussing our transition plans," church spokesman Lee Jager said...

...It was at a Time gala that Bell met Carlton Cuse, the producer and writer with "Lost," according to Deadline. Bell's last appearance at the church was during a farewell service Sunday.

In his last sermon, delivered Dec. 18, Bell told his congregation that when members of the church found out he was leaving, "for many of you it was like a bomb going off -- you didn't expect it, you weren't looking for it."

He said that "through you, I have experienced the mysterious joy of creation. ... Thank you."

Blood Foundation's religious tourism trivializes religious differences

Let's go Sufi now,
Everybody's learnin' how,
Come on and safari with me...
(to the tune of Surfin' Safari--with apologies to the Beach Boys)

According to secular journalist Gwynne Dyer's column of July 4, 2011:

Gandhi, born a Hindu, once said: “I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew.” Most people will never achieve such enlightenment (or spout such pious tripe, if you are of a less reverent turn of mind). But such thinking certainly creates an opening for innovative programmes like “Muslim for a Month.”

No, really. There is an organisation that invites people of other religions or none to come to Istanbul and live as Muslims for a month. Well, not a month, exactly: the 9-day “Explorations” programme costs $900 and the 21-day “Ruminations” programme costs $1890.

“We like to think that “Muslim for a Month” facilitates more understanding of a religion which gets a lot of bad press,” explained Ben Bowler, who lives in Thailand and runs similar “religious immersion tours” in Buddhism for the same organisation. “There’s a huge difference in the public perception of Buddhism, for example, and Islam – Islam is thorny, while Buddhism is warm and fuzzy.”

People who think Buddhism is warm and fuzzy would probably benefit from Bowler’s “Monk for a Month” programme in Thailand. People who think that Islam is a religion of hatred and terrorism would likewise benefit from the “Muslim for a Month” programme. Indeed, if all that’s going on here is a simple download of information and perspective, you could argue that every religion should be doing it.

Much of the human race lives in places where two or more major religions co-exist – Buddhists and Muslims in Thailand; Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs in India; Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Jews in South Africa. Not to mention countries where up to half the population are non-believers (like Britain and Korea). A crash course in your neighbours’ religious beliefs ought to be part of the school curriculum. In some places, it already is.

But there is still something disturbing about the very idea of religious tourism. Immersing yourself in the prayers and rituals of a religion EVEN THOUGH YOU THINK ITS GOD IS FALSE smacks of condescension at best, blasphemy at worst. And although a sense of politeness prevents most people from saying it loudly in public, religious people generally believe that the gods of all religions but their own are indeed false.

Non-believers go even further. As Richard Dawkins, the world’s leading advocate of atheism, once put it: “We are all atheists about most of the gods that people have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.” Fine. That’s a perfectly respectable position to hold. But if that’s what you think, then pretending to pray to Allah as a “cultural experience” is downright disrespectful.

The people who are organising “Muslim for a Month” have the best of intentions. The Blood Foundation is a Thailand-based enterprise whose goal is “to promote the ideal of the sister/brotherhood of all humanity. We operate cultural exchange programs that build bridges of understanding between diverse peoples through the means of shared, authentic experience.”

According to the Blood Foundation, the “Muslim for a Month” programme aims “to foster a spirit of good will and increased mutual understanding between Muslims and the west. It is not the purpose of the program to bring converts to the Islamic faith but rather to strive towards a greater sense of unity among people.”

I believe that that is truly their goal. I also very much like the Sufi tradition of Islam, one of the most attractive forms of religious expression that I have ever encountered, and it is the Sufis who are providing the facilities and the teachers for the “Muslim for a Month” programme in Turkey. But it still doesn’t feel right.

Here’s the thing. Almost all of the “modern” religions that have arisen in the past 2,500 years (and Judaism, which is much older) have sacred texts that are held by the believers to be divinely revealed truth. They are not negotiable or mutually compatible, like the old pagan beliefs were. To believe in any of the modern gods requires the faithful to reject all the others as false.

If Muslim beliefs are right, then Christian beliefs are wrong, and vice versa. If the Sikhs are right, then the Baha’i are wrong, and vice versa. If the Buddhists are right, then the Jews are wrong, and so on ad nauseam.

Why stop there? If the Mormons are right, then all the other Christians are horribly, catastrophically wrong. If any of the other Christian sects (or any of the non-Christian faiths) is right, then Mormon beliefs are downright ridiculous. If the Shia are right, then the Sunnis are wrong, and vice versa. So in a world where something like 90 percent of the population is still religious (though much less in the developed countries), what is one to do?

We minimise conflict by simply not talking about the huge, irreconcilable differences in our religious convictions. (The non-religious play the same game: they rarely challenge the beliefs of the believers either.) It’s not an attractive behaviour, and it doesn’t always avert conflict, but most of the time it works. On most of the planet, we are no longer at each other’s throats about religion.

The world does not need “Muslim (or Sikh, or Christian) for a Month.” Let sleeping dogs lie.

Here's what the Blood Foundation says about itself:

About Blood Foundation

Blood Foundation is a small NGO based in northern Thailand near the Thai-Burma border. We are a group of volunteers from different nations committed to serving the various people of this region through a series of education, health and income-generation projects...

What we Believe

We believe in a universal spiritual heritage shared by all people which we hold to be the foundation of the human family. As with any family this carries an obligation and duty of care towards the less fortunate members. We believe there is much of value in all our great spiritual and philosophic traditions and we encourage the ongoing search for the Universal in human experience. We celebrate the diversity of our cultures and marvel at the absolute uniqueness of each individual and still we see that the greater truth is that which unites us, - our common humanity, the mystery of our origin, the search for meaning and the love of family.

What we Advocate

We advocate that alongside the globalisation of markets, economies and world culture we must strive for the globalisation of justice, fairness and ideals based on the expansion of our philosophic frameworks and the enlargement of our religious perspectives. While we are bound to each other through shared biology, economics and environment we also share a simple human desire for peace, prosperity and purpose. Blood Foundation advocates for greater expression of this unity as we join with the people of good faith everywhere in calling for respect of human dignity, freedom from oppression and justice for the poor. We proclaim that as human beings we are in fact spiritually related to one another and so promote the high ethical ideals that come with being members of a common family. We are inclined to look after our own immediate family because we place such a high value on blood relations, - the idea is to make the circle bigger. It's a high ideal but we believe it's worth striving for and we invite you to join with us in making it real.

What we Do

Currently working on the Thai-Burmese border in northern Thailand, we have a number of education and income-generation projects directly benefiting Burmese refugees, hill tribes and Thai people. These humanitarian efforts are supported by commercial projects that remain in line with our overall philosophy such as Monk for a Month and Flow.

From the Monk for a Month home page:

Monk for a Month offers you an authentic Thai Buddhist
experience and a journey of a lifetime.

Live at the temple
Study with the monks
Follow the ancient precepts
Practice meditation and chanting

Men and women are invited to formally receive the eight precepts and for men staying two weeks or longer there is the chance to be ordained as a novice monk at the discretion of your preceptor.

And from the Muslim for a Month home page:

Muslim for a Month is a Blood Foundation cultural exchange program run in partnership with Islamic scholars and peace activists in Istanbul Turkey.

Blood Foundation is a social enterprise and NGO dedicated to promoting positive intercultural experiences.

We operate the successful Monk for a Month temple stay program in northern Thailand’s Fang Valley, offering guests an immersion experience into Buddhism and Thai culture as well as a unique opportunity for personal spiritual progression.

In a similar vein the Muslim for a Month program offers an inner experience of the Islamic faith with the focus being on the Sufi path and the universal spiritual teachings of Mevlana Rumi.

PROGRAMS
The word ‘month’ in the name of these programs is used with poetic license – typical length of stay is 10 days

We are launching Muslim for a Month by offering the 10 day program and the ability for group bookings. The 10 day program consists of a broad introduction to Islam, Sufism, Rumi, and Turkish culture and a deep exploration of Sufi mysticism and a more thorough immersion into the life and works of Rumi.

I generally agree with Mr. Dyer's position, although I take a less benign view of the Blood Foundation's sincerity, especially with the prices they charge for their programs. The Blood Foundation programs have the effect of trivializing religious beliefs, practices--and differences. Adopting religious beliefs and practices is not a matter of taking on the trappings for the duration of a workshop. When I was drawn to trust in Jesus Christ as my Saviour and Lord, I didn't do so "for a month," but for the rest of my life and into eternity.

As for the Blood Foundation's beliefs in "a universal spiritual heritage shared by all people" and "that as human beings we are in fact spiritually related to one another," the only such commonality taught in the Bible is a unity in sin, the need for a saviour, and God's provision of salvation through the shedding of the blood of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross:

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:6

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Romans 3:23

The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. John 1:29

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16

Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Acts 4:12

Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.
And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. Acts 17:29-31
Let's pray that those involved with the Blood Foundation will come to know the salvation that comes only through the blood of the Lamb.

I expect the Blood Foundation's programs to become increasingly popular and to expand to embrace other religions. The emphases on mysticism and experience are the very sort of thing to appeal to the Emerging Church crowd. It will come as no surprise to this blogger to see promotion of the Blood Foundation programs from those involved with Emerging "Christianity."

"Second verse, same as the first:" More Social Gospel at a Christian and Missionary Alliance assembly

Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.
Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:
That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. Matthew 6:1-4

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Matthew 7:21-23

Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. John 6:28-29

One of the most insidious trends in evangelicalism in recent years has been the increasing emphasis on Christianity being defined in terms of actions rather than doctrine. In 1980 the World Council of Churches, already hopelessly apostate, defined the Kingdom of God as a social and political kingdom brought in by human effort. Fundamentalist and evangelical churches, if they were paying attention, rejected this view of the Kingdom of God, but three decades later, the evangelical churches are in about the same position that the mainline churches were earlier, and the idea that man will bring in the Kingdom of God is rapidly increasing in popularity in so-called evangelical churches.

Two years ago I posted about the assembly of the Canadian Pacific District of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Langley, British Columbia, where Erwin McManus was the guest speaker and the social gospel and postmodernism was promoted. I don’t care to repeat what I said in my previous post (because it’s easier to provide a link), but it’s as relevant today as it was then. Two years later, it’s time for the next assembly of the C&MA’s Canadian Pacific District, and nothing has changed except for the guest speaker.

From the site of the Christian & Missionary Alliance Canadian Pacific District:

SENT
"Empowering and Multiplying Missional Communities"
The biennial District Conference and AGM is coming up on May 17-19, 2011!
Registration is starting for your church to send delegates!

The conference will be held in the Lower Mainland at the Langley Events Centre and at Mountainview Alliance Church.

Cost: $175/delegate
This price includes lunch and dinner on Wednesday, all sessions with our speaker and materials, as well as lunch following the AGM.

Our Guest Speaker: Hugh Halter

This year, Hugh Halter, co-author of The Tangible Kingdom will be speaking to us. His newest book "AND" speaks about what it looks like to be the Church gathered and the Church scattered. Along with being a speaker and author, Hugh is a pastor in Denver to a community called Adullam. We are looking forward to having him join us during our District Conference!

As for Hugh Halter, I don't know who he is, but I do know this...I found the following on the home page of Adullam Communities:

Adullam communities are about the transformation of individual lives, local neighborhoods, and ultimately the world. What do we mean by transformation? We believe God exists as the primary protagonist in the unfolding story of creation. Transformation is simply what describes the journey of changing our roles in the story, going from antagonists-driven mostly by personal gain- toward joining a collaborative mission of redemption as God’s fellow protagonists. In doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly together in community we believe that what’s been broken in our lives, our communities…our world, has a chance at redemption.

While we are unashamedly a community of Jesus followers we believe that transformation isn’t about going to church. Actually, in most of our experiences simply "doing church" has often been a major distraction for people, both saint and sojourner, who want to relate to God and live out the Kingdom life. When Jesus spoke of the Kingdom we believe it was an invitation to not only dream of a better world to come, but an invitation to start leaning into and living out of that new world in the here and now.

The Emergingese jargon in this passage may prompt the reader to search for an online translator, but I’ll try to render it in English in one sentence: The Kingdom of God is brought in by human effort. Check out Mr. Halter’s blog, and you’ll find scarcely a mention of the cross of Jesus Christ, and I didn’t see any mention there of His return. The true gospel is a message about what God has done, i.e., sending His only begotten Son to die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. As the passage in John 6 cited above says, the work of God is just to believe on the One whom He has sent. The "social gospel," which is not really a gospel at all (see Galatians 1:6-7), emphasizes what man does and must do rather than what God has done for us. Go here for more on The Tangible Kingdom and the movement behind it.

As for the idea that man can usher in the Kingdom of God, I can’t top the words of Malcolm Muggeridge:

To proclaim a kingdom of heaven on earth, on the other hand, is both deceptive and intrinsically absurd. The maintenance of such a notion requires mental gymnastics so extreme and so strenuous that they usually produce dementia.

--from Backward, Christian soldiers!, an essay from Mr. Muggeridge's book Tread Softly, for You Tread on My Jokes, 1966

Chris Rosebrough asks: "Is Dallas Willard a Christian?"

Chris Rosebrough, at his Fighting for the Faith and Extreme Theology sites, has posted his analysis of an audio clip of Dallas Willard’s recent question-and-answer talk with John Ortberg. Mr. Rosebrough’s analysis is spot-on. What Mr. Willard is proclaiming is law, not gospel. And his remark "All who deserve to be saved will be saved" isn’t a slip of the tongue--Mr. Willard says it three times.

I downloaded Pastor Bob DeWaay’s excellent and scriptural audio (Part 1; Part 2) and print critiques of Mr. Willard’s book The Spirit of the Disciplines and took the book out of the public library. I wasn’t impressed, although I don’t disagree with everything Mr. Willard says. Mr. Willard has nothing good to say about the Reformation, and his eschatology is classic post-millennialism: Jesus will come back only after man brings in the Kingdom of God through practicing the disciplines. Mr. Willard is also a dominionist who beleives that Christians should control the world's wealth so that we can use it to further the Kingdom of God--as if the world would just sit back and allow that to happen. If the book had been published in 1968 instead of 1988, I would have said that Mr. Willard’s views were probably the result of smoking too much weed. In the last chapter of the book Mr. Willard says that his belief may seem like a dream. Indeed, it made me think of John Lennon singing, in Imagine, "You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one." I’ve always liked the way Dave Hunt puts it: The Bible says that Jesus will meet us in the air; if you’re expecting to meet Jesus with your feet firmly planted on planet Earth, you’ve been building the kingdom of the antichrist. Mr. Willard definitely has his feet firmly planted on planet Earth. His derisive comment on Christians’ view of the millennial reign of Jesus Christ from Jerusalem as a totalitarian dictatorship is blasphemous and offensive. Mr. Willard’s background is as a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California, and he argues largely on the basis of human logic and reasoning rather than from what the Scripture actually says. As for his attempt to create a distinction between "Christ" and "Christianity," this is where the currently-popular term "Christ-follower" comes in. You can be in another religion and be a "Christ-follower" without being a Christian.

And now, the "Emerging Mosque"?

It seems that it isn’t just evangelical Christianity that has increasing numbers of young, "hip" leaders trying to be "relevant" and "engage the culture." On December 2, 2007 The Washington Post reported on a popular young Islamic speaker named Moez Masoud (excerpts below--the full article can be found here):

Muna el-Leboudy, a 22-year-old medical student, had a terrible secret: She wanted to be a filmmaker. The way she understood her Muslim faith, it was haram -- forbidden -- to dabble in movies, music or any art that might pique sexual desires.

Then one day in September, she flipped on her satellite TV and saw Moez Masoud.

A Muslim televangelist not much older than herself, in a stylish goatee and Western clothes, Masoud, 29, was preaching about Islam in youthful Arabic slang.

He said imams who outlawed art and music were misinterpreting their faith. He talked about love and relationships, the need to be compassionate toward homosexuals and tolerant of non-Muslims. Leboudy had never heard a Muslim preacher speak that way.

"Moez helps us understand everything about our religion -- not from 1,400 years ago, but the way we live now," said Leboudy, wearing a scarlet hijab over her hair.
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Masoud and others promote "a sweet orthodoxy, which stresses the humane and compassionate" as an alternative to "unthinking rage," said Abdallah Schleifer, a specialist in Islam and electronic media at the American University in Cairo.
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On a recent Monday night in Alexandria, the ancient Mediterranean city on Egypt's north coast, more than 1,500 people poured into a huge hall to hear Masoud speak...

They were mostly in their late teens or 20s, university students or young professionals who had heard about the event on Masoud's Web site or on his popular page on Facebook...

As the lights came up in Alexandria, Masoud, tall and trim, wearing corduroy pants and a maroon, open-necked shirt, descended stairs at the back of the stage to loud applause.

"Salaam aleikum," he said, urging his audience to bow their heads for an opening prayer. For the next 90 minutes, Masoud worked the stage like a seasoned performer, his voice rising and then falling to a whisper, mixing Koranic verses with jokes and parables.
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His easy fluency with English and American culture adds to criticism that Masoud and other new-generation preachers, such as the well-known Amr Khaled, are pushing a sort of Westernized "Islam lite." After his speech in Alexandria, an angry older woman in a black veil pushed her way to the front of the crowd. "Why don't you talk more about punishment?" she said, urging a more tough-love approach to preaching.

Masoud smiled at her and said, "Thanks for your advice."
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When a Danish newspaper printed unflattering cartoons of the prophet Muhammad last year, Masoud and three other young Muslim preachers went to Denmark for dialogue, over the angry objections of more traditional preachers who urged confrontation.
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Ibrahim said he has had homosexual desires since he was 10. He said he asked his parents about sex, but they were not comfortable discussing it. He turned to religious books and came to the conclusion that sex between two men was "wrong and unnatural."

He said he has been trying to suppress his desires ever since. Filled with guilt and suicidal over his attraction to men, he said he eventually turned to a psychiatrist who prescribed antidepressants.

"I kept my secret for 18 years," he said.

In his TV show, Masoud preached that Islam forbids gay sex. But he argued that people who feel such urges cannot help feeling them. He said that those desires were a test from God, and that resisting them was a sign of strength and faith. He urged Muslims to show compassion rather than condemnation.

Ibrahim said that changed the way he felt about himself.

"Because of Moez, I am more self-confident," he said. "He told me that God selected me out of everyone to give me a very difficult test. So I have tasted a very unique flavor of spirituality that others haven't."

Ibrahim said too few people in his country discuss homosexuality -- he can't tell his family. He said he would like to create a center where gays can meet with religious counselors without fear of stigma.

"Moez has inspired me," he said. "Maybe I can even be a religious preacher one day."