Yancey's First Quote

How interesting that I just noticed something in this book I've been skimming through this week. This probably means that other readers may have missed it as well, and that it has slipped in unnoticed, like so many things in Christianity today. It's Philip Yancey's very first quote under the very first chapter heading (Born Again Breech) of his book Reaching for the Invisible God-what can we expect to find? I, for one, certainly didn't expect to find this quote...

"Oh God I don't love you, I don't even want to love you, but I want to want to love you!"

Teresa of Avila

The thing is, St. Teresa of Avila was a levitating saint, a Spanish Roman Catholic nun and mystic who experienced horrific episodes of what many recognize today as demonic possession. Even so, her writings are being read, quoted, praised, and passed on by many who call themselves, or market their books and things for, protestant evangelical Christians today. Of course, they only quote the nice things she wrote. If they quoted her writings which describe the personal torment of her uncontrolled experiences of 'ecstasy' when she levitated in view of the other nuns, well, who would go for that? I believe it's called selective quoting.

So it's very subtle of Mr. Yancey and Zondervan, indeed, to slip that one in. I almost missed it, yet there it is on page 13. You would think that learned, highly educated, well known Christian authors or their Christian publishers would check these things out before slipping them in like that. Unless they have - and don't care. But then, this book is full of such quotes, and this is nothing new, as things have been slipping in unnoticed like this for quite some time now - for nearly thousands of years, in fact - as Jude 1:4 reminds us.

Sad to think how many people are reading this stuff though. While their Bibles gather copious amounts of dust.

Related:

Yancey, Influenced by Mystics
http://morebooksandthings.blogspot.com/2010/02/yancey-influenced-by-mystics.html