Month: July 2013 (Page 3 of 10)

Strengthening the Soul of your Leadership, by Ruth Haley Barton

Book Review by C. H. Fisher

Part One: Introduction

As promised, I began reading Ruth Haley Barton’s book, ‘Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership”.    I can tell you that after reading a few pages I am not going to enjoy reading the rest of it. Some things have to be done out of a sense of duty.  Knowing that I may help someone else avoid reading it, and possible enlighten someone that has read it and was deceived, will help me get through the process.  At some point I may have to put the book down.  Already it is so distasteful to my spirit that I feel as if I have to take a bath.  I intended to post a review after each chapter, but after reviewing the introduction I do not believe that would be a wise expenditure of my time.  There is so much heresy and use of New Age terms and ideas that I would literally have to write a book to explain it all.  Suffice it for me to write this one review and I will write another one after finishing the book.

To begin with, in her Introduction Barton makes comments about the soul that I find shocking.  Just so no one misunderstand what she means, she defines souls as “the very essence of you that God knew before he brought you forth in physical form, the part that will exist after your body goes into the ground.”  She then refers to the scripture where Christ said, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36 NKJV)  Her explanation of this verse is stunningly heretical.

She declares that Christ would teach us that is is possible to lose our “own soul in the midst of ministry success”, and then find it “after so much seeking, only to lose it again.”  If you wondering if she really means that, then please consider her explanation of what he wrote.

“Losing our soul is sort of like losing a credit card.  You think it’s in your wallet so you don’t give it much thought until one day you reach for it and can’t find it.  The minute you realize it’s gone, you start scrambling to find it, trying to remember when you last used it or at least had it in your possession.  No matter what is going on in your life, you stop and look for it, because otherwise major damage could be done.  Oh, that we would feel the same sense of urgency when we become aware that we have lost our souls!”

That is not what Christ meant when He spoke those words about losing our souls.  He was talking about entering eternity as an unsaved person.  But then, the Emergent Church/New Age movement does not believe in the judgment, hell, and eternal damnation.  A soul that is “lost” is one that has not been “found” by God.  The parable of the shepherd looking for his lost sheep is an illustration of that truth.  No one’s soul can just go missing.  By Barton’s own definition of the soul, if one’s soul went missing the individual would die.

“And so it was, as her soul was departing (for she died), that she called his name Ben-Oni; but his father called him Benjamin.” Genesis 35:18

I agree with her definition of the soul, but must point out that her explanation of the lost/missing soul is contradictory.  It would be quite impossible for my soul to go missing and I remain to search for it.  If my soul goes missing, I go with it because I am my soul.  My physical body cannot go searching for my soul.  That would certainly be a sight terrify to most people. What is Barton trying to convey with her bizarre comments?  There is no way of actually know without asking her.  She seems to be saying that our souls (actually us) drift away from us, and somehow we find us. 

She declares in another section that she is convinced “we are looking for the transformation of our souls in the presence of God.”  However, Paul declared that we believe unto the saving of the soul (Heb. 10:39).  It is our flesh and carnal mind that needs work, not the soul.  If the soul is not saved, then no one is saved. If our soul is saved, then it is spiritually transformed

What Barton’s motive appears to be is to set herself up as someone we cannot do without, making herself relevant to the Body of Christ in an extremely unscriptural manner.  It is a very clever trick.  She declares that she was broken and struggling like her subjects.  The she explains how she obtained victory.  Of course, that makes her the first choice to bring victory to everyone else.  Consider the following section.

“I know how important it is to have a spiritual guide or companion during those times when everything in us wants to get up and do something—anything!—rather than stay in that Presence.”

To that I say, really?  What is this spiritual guide or companion going to do?  Force us to stay in ‘that Presence” against our will? Actually, yes.  If one happens to get a spirit guide during a Contemplative Prayer session, one will become demon possessed.  Demon possession is the same as Barton’s spiritual transformation process.  Although she declares that spiritual formation is the “process by which Christ is formed in us”, she implies that the process is not fully complete until one has a contemplative/centering prayer session.  In fact, Tony Compolo, an Emergent Church leader, popular conference speaker, and “Christian” liberal (?), said that he was born again through contemplative/centering prayer (Letters to a Young Evangelical; Tony Campolo). 

The truth is that we are born of the Spirit when we surrender our lives to God at the point of salvation.  At that moment, we are spiritual transformed from children of darkness to children of the light.  If one decides to go through Barton’s spiritual transformation, one would be transformed back in to a child of darkness by demon possession. 

Barton writes that he book is an invitation to go “deeply into the process of spiritual transformation”, which she declares will “forge a connection between our souls and our leadership rather than experiencing them as separate arenas of our lives.”  Again, here is ambiguity that has the soul and an activity of the physical person being completely separated.  How any seasoned Christian could fall for this hodgepodge is beyond my ability to understand. 

Finally, Barton condescending writes, “As a spiritual director, my primary intent in this book is to guide you into encounters with God in the places where you need it most in the context of your leadership.  Thus, you will find practice sections at the end of each chapter that are intended to guide you into an experience with God much I the same way I would guide you if we were together in spiritual direction or on retreat.”  

Again, all I could say was, “Really?”  After 35 years of close encounters with God I have never needed a guru trained in eastern mysticism and masquerading as a spiritual director.  In fact, God dwells in me by His Holy Spirit.  I’ve felt His presence in some of the most busy and even tumultuous periods of my life.  There has never been a point to where I thought I needed a guru.  I have never seen such a need described in God’s word, or until recently ever heard it stated in a Christian context.   

Barton then goes on to describe the process of Contemplative Prayer, which is exactly as the pagan New Age version.  In her description she declares the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of God whom the Scriptures describe as the wind, the pneuma, the very breath of God.  This Spirit is closer to us than our own breath.”

Actually, the Scriptures do not describe the Holy Spirit as wind.  In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit with a sound from heaven as a rushing mighty wind.  Declaring the Holy Spirit as wind is like hearing me run down the stairs and declaring I, C. H. Fisher, actually exist as the sound of footsteps.  The Holy Spirit is the third person in the Godhead, and as such is God.  He is not merely God’s breath. 

Conclusion:

In summary, I cannot believe that the leader of a major Christian denomination recommended this book to me.  Is there no discernment left in Christian leadership?  I’m certain that there is, but just a certain that it is rare. To recommend this book as a benefit to anyone is like to recommend smoking crack as a cure for low metabolism. 

I am further dismayed that George Wood, General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God would recommend this book as a defense of Ruth Haley Barton’s Christianity.  It is quite the opposite.  The book is affirmation of her Emergent Church/New Age credentials.  It is amazing to learn from Barton’s book that throughout modern Christian history, the Great Awakenings, the outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit in mighty revivals, no one was actually spiritually transformed because they had no spiritual director such as Ruth Haley Barton.  And now that we have her and those of her ilk, we can now finally recognize the fullness of God, and perhaps find our missing souls.  Anyone believing that is in dire need of deliverance.

I do not recommend this book to anyone who is not seasoned in the faith.  I consider it as poisonous as anything I have ever read mainly because of the meshing of Christian terms, symbolism, and doctrine, with the seductive doctrines of the pagan realm of the New Age movement.  The book is an invitation to become demon possessed.  It draws unsuspecting Christians away from God and into the presence of a demon, and perhaps Satan himself.

Dear Brother Wood,

Thank you for your forthright and prompt reply.  These questions were compiled by listening to or reading the concerns of many individuals regarding Ruth Haley Barton.  Although you are confident in the individuals that chose her as a speaker, there is clear evidence of her association with the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation in Washington, DC. In fact, she sought out a “spiritual director” to teach her about Contemplative Prayer.  A “spiritual director” is as an eastern guru that manages the spirituality of individuals.  The truth is that Barton did not receive her “ministry” from the Holy Spirit, but from people akin to shamans and gurus.  The Shalem Institute has a much different perspective of Contemplative Prayer than the one you shared with me.  Further, Spiritual Formation is an unscriptural movement that is providing a source and means by which contemplative prayer is invading Christianity.  If we are going to borrow all these terms and practices from the diabolical realm, and attempt to use them as Christian replicas, then what happens to distinctly Christian terms and practices that are far better, left alone?

You wrote that “Contemplative prayer is the current term for what is a very Biblical practice—getting along with God.”  Certainly, all of us that pray will wait, and even meditate on the Lord.  We may also be quiet before Him.  However, this has never been called Contemplative Prayer in the decades that I have been a Christian.  Actually, it is an old term that originated in eastern religions.  It is associated with paganism, false religions, and Roman Catholic mystics.  The practice is presently an essential part of the Emergent Church and New Age Movements.  In fact, it has been said by leaders of those movements that Contemplative Prayer will be the means by which all religions will be united.  However, why use a cult term to describe the act of prayer or spending time alone with God?  It would be just as improper to use the term “séance” to describe a group of Christians holding hands and calling on the Lord.  However, this is not a case of Satan stealing a Christian practice, but quite the opposite.  The overwhelming evidence points to Ruth Haley Barton borrowing a practice from the diabolical realm and is presenting it as a Christian practice. 

Therefore, when someone who has trained at the Shalem Institute, who was the associate director of spiritual formation at the notorious Willow Creek Community Church, decides to use the term Contemplative Prayer for her topic at the General Council, it raise serious concerns.  For one thing, the method of Contemplative Prayer that Ruth Barton uses is exactly as the method used by Roman Catholic mystics, pagans, and New Age adherents.  She takes on the role of a “spiritual director” when she teaches, “Ask for a simple prayer to express your willingness to meet God in the silence — a simple statement — such as “Here I am.” — Help yourself return to your original intent by repeating the prayer that you have chosen.”  On her web site she states that her goal is to help pastors, “to experience rhythms of solitude, prayer and community, and to deepen your understanding of leadership that flows from your transforming self.”  This is incredibly similar to New Age rhetoric.  Thus, her practices appear to be an attempt to “Christianize” the diabolical. 

My wife and I spend a great deal of time in prayer (In fact, I wrote your name in my prayer journal some time ago and pray for you daily).  We have never been prompted by the Holy Spirit to employ such methods.  I’ve never asked God for a simple prayer.  That would be like me asking my wife to give me a love note that I could chant to her as if it were from my heart.  After over 35 years of praying, I would have to go backward a very long distance, into the transcendental meditative, mystical realm of evil that God delivered me from, to accept Barton’s methods.  Barton wrote, “A few years ago, I began to recognize an inner chaos in my soul . . . No matter how much I prayed, read the Bible, and listened to good teaching, I could not calm the internal roar created by questions with no answers.”   My experience with prayer, reading the Bible, listening to good teaching, was quite the opposite.  I was filled with joy and peace, questions were answered, and faith was increased.  Barton’s sought out a diabolical individual and drank from the polluted fountain of the Shalem Institute.  Now she endeavors to indoctrinate seasoned ministers of the AoG.

With all due respect, you are either incredibly naive or one of those beautiful people that finds it impossible to see the bad in anyone.  In any case, and in my opinion, leadership in this great and final apostasy demands a “Paul” rather than a “Barnabas”.  However, I accept your challenge to read Ruth Haley Barton’s book (of which I have only read excerpts) if you will promise to read Roger Oakland’s book, “Faith Undone” or Ray Yungen’s book, “A Time of Departing”. 

Finally, comparing Rick Warren to Billy Graham is to me a bizarre comparison given what I know about the two.  However, out of respect for a family in mourning, I will not make further comments.  Thank you again for your time and willingness to be accessible in this matter.

In Christ,

C. H. Fisher