Boundless Promotion of Contemplative Spirituality

Do you know that Boundless, a webzine ministry of Focus on the Family for 20-somethings, is a promoter of contemplative spirituality? I suspect James Dobson himself may not even realize it, but some of the articles by various writers in this magazine make it pretty obvious.

Example #1

In a Boundless (www.boundless.org) webzine article called Being Seen (dated June 9 on the main page), writer Kara Schwab refers to Donald Miller (and his book, Blue Like Jazz), J. Budziszewski (and his book, Written on the Heart), and Annie Dillard, one of her "favorite authors."

Meanwhile, as we all know (right?), it appears that Donald Miller shares many of the same views on spirituality as many emerging church leaders (see here), and Annie Dillard is someone who "openly promotes and espouses Buddhism and New Ageism as well as contemplative spirituality" (from A Time of Departing, 2nd Ed., pp. 151, 152). As for Mr. Budziszewski, we'll get to him in the next example.

Example #2

In a story called Office Hours: The Lord Told Me (Part 1 of 2) by Boundless writer J. Budziszewski, a young girl receives advice on how to listen to God and find illumination in His presence. Through this fictional dialogue, in Part 2, she is advised further on how to listen to God...

"I said pray John 18 and 19. Pray the words themselves. The first day you might pray the first few verses of chapter 18, and so on. Take your time. Linger over the verses. Let them dwell in your mind. Rest in them. Rest in God. Offer the verses to Him. Pray them. Let Him pray them in you."

"That's a kind of prayer?"

"A very ancient one, used by both Catholics and Protestants. It's called lectio divina, 'divine reading.'"

The writer of this subtle dialogue that makes Lectio Divina sound so nice has written several books. One of them is called How to Stay Christian in College, which some of you may recall reading about at Lighthouse Trails Research not too long ago:

J. Budziszewski (pronounced Boo-jee-shef-ski) was an author and professor who had converted in 2004 from Protestantism to Catholicism. We also learned he was a proponent of contemplative practices. He is a featured professor on contemplative-promoting Focus on the Family's TrueU.org online university, telling students to practice lectio divina as a form of meditation.3

...How to Stay Christian in College, and much to our dismay saw full page advertisements at the back of the book for books by Tony Jones and Eugene Peterson. We could understand why Budziszewski's publisher would place ads for Jones, a major advocate for mystical practices, in the back of Budziszewski's book.

[Source HERE]

As you all know (right?), some have pointed out that Tony Jones promotes mystic spirituality and Eugene Peterson appears to be a contemplative mystic (see here).

Note: Boundless readers who are influenced by the advice in this two part story might might find a much more thought provoking and compelling read in a similar encounter regarding this same subject in this book.

Example #3

Another contemplative Boundless webzine article was called Teach Me to Pray by Sarah E. Hinlicky, (published back in 2001 but is still accessible on the website). Here is an excerpt...

There are two particular kinds of prayer that I've run across lately that fit this model of disciplined desire very nicely: lectio divina and contemplative prayer. They are neither hard nor easy, because that implies measuring progress up to some state of perfection. Instead, they are ways of directing the desire of the soul to God.

Lectio divina is holy reading. Usually we read for information or entertainment. This is neither. It's reading for illumination or devotion. It's why you keep reading the Bible after you know already what it says, in terms of content. The words form and shape you and the way you think and believe, so you keep going back to them for more shaping and forming.

In this kind of prayer, for instance, you might take the hymn to love in I Corinthians 13 and spend half an hour with it. You can get the gist of the argument in 30 seconds, but in the practice of lectio divina you turn all your attention to the words and their meaning and soak it up, sort of the way you tan on a sunny day just from being outside whether or not you're trying. Your thoughts and praises and requests are all shaped by the words before you. The words are teaching you how to pray, instead of making you come up with something on your own.

Contemplative prayer is a form of prayer without words or thoughts — not something that comes naturally to any of us. Thomas Keating, in the appendix to his book Centering Prayer, says that it is "the opening of mind and heart — our whole being — to God, the Ultimate Mystery, beyond thoughts, words and emotions. We open our awareness to God whom we know by faith is within us, closer than breathing, closer than thinking, closer than choosing — closer than consciousness itself."

He suggests you start in a quiet and comfortable place so that you are minimally aware of your own body. Then you choose a word — Lord, Jesus, Mercy, Shalom, Amen — and make that the central point of your prayer. For twenty minutes (the recommended period of time) and with eyes shut, you gently open yourself up to God, not by analyzing or reciting the word you've chosen, but by using it to hush the extraneous thoughts that come creeping in. Such thoughts are inevitable, and not an indication of failure. The point is that every time an outside thought comes in, you're given another opportunity to lay it aside and turn back to God again.

How's that for an unabashed promotion of contemplative spirituality? As you may or may not know, Thomas Keating teaches a form of meditation called centering prayer, which is said to be drawn from Buddhist and Hindu practices (see Who is Thomas Keating?).

Unfortunately, the Boundless webzine ministry of Focus on the Family seems to know no bounds when it comes to introducing 20-somethings to ancient contemplative spirituality.

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Related:

Ray Yungen Contemplative Prayer Preview - Part 1
(10 minutes)
www.youtube.com

FOCUS ON THE FAMILY AND BRIO MAG ENCOURAGING LECTIO DIVINA
www.reformata.org

[Note: According to their website, Focus on the Family is no longer publishing the Brio printed magazine. Kor Ministries has taken over the digital version, so the links in the above Brio Mag article will no longer take you to Brio.]