( After discovering that the Assemblies of God leadership had invited Ruth Haley Barton, a Spiritual Director (Guru) trained in pagan Contemplative Spirituality, to speak at their General Council in Orlando, Florida, I sent George Wood, General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God, a set of questions.\u00a0 The following is the email exchange between George Wood and me. )<\/p>\n
Brother Fisher,<\/p>\n
Greetings in the Lord.<\/p>\n
With all the press of things calling for my attention, I\u2019ve nevertheless tried to respond briefly to your questions below. I believe the more thorough response has already been given, which I believe you have.<\/p>\n
Blessings!<\/p>\n
George Wood<\/p>\n
From: Woodward, Jewell
\nSent: Monday, May 06, 2013 3:42 PM
\nTo: Wood, George O
\nSubject: FW: Some questions<\/p>\n
do you want to respond to him?<\/p>\n
________________________________________
\nFrom: CH Fisher [mailto:cfisher@triad.rr.com]
\nSent: Mon 5\/6\/2013 3:13 PM
\nTo: General Superintendent
\nSubject: Some questions
\nSome Questions for the AoG leadership
\n(Please note that your answers will be published unedited on the Internet.) (George Wood’s responses are in red.)<\/p>\n
1. Christianity is presently being inundated with a number of cult beliefs and practices directly from the New Age Movement. One of those practices is Contemplative Prayer. Even if your version is the genuine article, why are you introducing it during this surge of cult, occult, and pagan infiltration by means of a \u201cspiritual director\u201d? For everything God has, the devil has an imitation. Just because he has an imitation does not mean we stop doing the original. Waiting on the Lord and meditating on His Word is very Scriptural.<\/span><\/p>\n 2. Before I was licensed and eventually ordained by the Oklahoma District of the Assemblies of God some 35 years ago, I was required to read a book by E. M. Bounds entitled, \u201cPower through Prayer\u201d. Nothing in the book even hinted of Contemplative Prayer. Here is a quote from that book; \u201cThe Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men.\u201d Do you now reject or marginalize E. M. Bounds, Rees Howells, and other great praying Christians? If so, then what caused this change of opinion? If not, then why are their examples now insufficient? None of them are rejected even though I don\u2019t believe they were Pentecostals. We need all the help we can get in motivating people to pray.<\/span><\/p>\n 3. You say that Contemplative Prayer is a true Christian practice that is being mimicked by Satan. Obviously, just applying the term \u201cChristian\u201d to it does not change is intrinsic nature. If that is the case, then how do you tell the difference between the true and the copy? You apply God\u2019s Word and the witness of the Holy Spirit. If you knew the Godly women who chose the speaker for their event as I do, you would have every confidence in their spiritual discernment. I regret that you do not know them and have unfairly judged them. These are ordained women in our Movement, spiritually mature and thoroughly Pentecostal.<\/span><\/p>\n 4. If we are in the last days, then it is certain that deception will be a primary factor in the great and final apostasy. Deception usually arrives on the wings of some new thing. Since it arrived with a number of other New Age elements, spiritual formation, centering, spiritual directors, yoga, transcendental meditation, and etc., doesn\u2019t it seem more likely that Contemplative Prayer (in my opinion a pagan practice and at the least a new term) is a vehicle for extreme deception? Not the least. Waiting on the Lord and meditating on His Word are part of Biblical disciplines. I would rather wait on the Lord and meditate on His Word then sing a simple chorus over and over (which is a musical form of contemplation) that gets overdone in many of our circles.<\/span><\/p>\n 5. Has any of the leadership of the Assemblies of God practiced Contemplative Prayer, centering, or had any experience with the practices listed in the above section? If not, then why are you so adamant about introducing such a practice into the Movement? If so, can you give scripture references that prophesy such things will be revealed and ordained by God for His church in the last days? I\u2019ve meditated on His Word and waiting on Him in prayer all my life. I\u2019ve waited hours on the Lord. You can call that focus or centering \u2013 it\u2019s certainly very Pentecostal. We need more people who will get quiet before the Lord, wait on Him, ingest His Word into their lives. In all the busy-ness of today \u2013 what we need is to get into our prayer closets. Contemplative prayer is the current term for what is a very Biblical practice \u2013 getting alone with God. I suggest you read Ruth Barton\u2019s book, Strengthening the Soul.<\/span><\/p>\n 6. Do you agree with the New Age beliefs of Rick Warren, Rob Bell, Brian McClaren, and others in the Emergent Church Movement? Are you in the process of merging the Assemblies of God into the Emergent Church Movement? Do you agree with its goal of global ecumenism using the vehicle of Contemplative Prayer? If not, would you issue an official statement of opposition to this aggressive cult, occult, and pagan-driven Movement? I know Rick Warren personally and he is not a New Ager. That is a slur on him and I will defend him as equally strong as I would defend Billy Graham. Rob Bell is heretical. I\u2019m not familiar with Brian McClaren except for his name. There are many components of what passes under the umbrella of the term \u201cemergent\u201d church so I would not lump everyone under the same roof.<\/span><\/p>\n 7. You sent out a call to unity. When everyone adheres to truth, there is obviously no need for a call to unity. Considering the controversy over whether Contemplative Prayer is of God or of Satan, would it not be more appropriate to send out a call to truth? I stand by the call for unity. We\u2019ve had over 10,000 download my message so far. It touched a need in our Fellowship. Waiting on the Lord and meditating on His Word is not of the devil. Remember that my parents were missionaries to Tibet and I was a kid then. Tibetans under the power of the devil spoke in other tongues. That doesn\u2019t mean that our speaking of the tongues is of the devil. Not at all! As I said earlier, the devil always tries to imitate what God has. What a shame that there are those in the body of Christ that are criticizing other believers for wanting to learn better how to wait on the Lord. We are spending a lot of our time needlessly shooting at one another rather than focusing on reaching the lost. Right here in Springfield, the big battle right now is on rights of homosexuals. We need to be together engaging on those issues rather than sapping time and energy dealing with that.<\/span><\/p>\n 8. Does your call to unity mean that everyone who opposes the practice of Contemplative Prayer should drop their opposition and trust you completely that the practice is God ordained? Why would you require such a thing without proper research, without seriously considering the opposing views, and without putting it to a vote of the membership? I did not mention contemplative prayer in my message. If you took it that way, then that is your interpretation. I referred to multiple divisions in local churches and the body of Christ. Often those who reject the conviction of the Holy Spirit respond in a negative way \u2013 as you have discovered in your own ministry.<\/span><\/p>\n 9. What do you expect to accomplish with the introduction of Contemplative Prayer at the General Council in Orlando? A significant number of AoG ministers have rejected this practice and do not agree with your introduction of it? If your decision divides the Movement, will you believe the forcible introduction of Contemplative Prayer was worth the cost? I\u2019m not introducing anything. Our Credentialed Women in Ministry Task Force selected a speaker for their event. I suspect that the ministers who are rejecting \u201ccontemplative prayer\u201d do not understand that within our context the term simply means waiting on the Lord and meditating on His Word. If we have ministers who are opposed to waiting on the Lord and meditating on His Word, then I do think even more that there is a need for a true revival in our midst.<\/span><\/p>\n 10. I apologize in advance if the following questions offend anyone. I mean no disrespect, but in light of recent harsh actions by certain AoG leaders against credentialed ministers, these questions have to be asked. I am not aware of any harsh actions. I have done my best to respond kindly to all who have written or talked with me. I have been the recipient of many unkind emails and letters.<\/span> Thank you for your answers to these important questions. You are most welcome. I trust my responses are helpful to you. Perhaps we will not agree on some issues but it\u2019s always right that we love and pray for one another. I do covet your prayers. The Lord richly bless you!<\/span> ( After discovering that the Assemblies of God leadership had invited Ruth Haley Barton, a Spiritual Director (Guru) trained in pagan Contemplative Spirituality, to speak at their General Council in Orlando, Florida, I sent George Wood, General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God, a set of questions.\u00a0 The following is the email exchange between George […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paIm2N-1s","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1284,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions\/1284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nYou were elected to lead the Assemblies of God. Do you believe that job description gives you the authority to force a controversial belief or practice upon the entire membership without any recourse on their part? I am accountable to the Executive Leadership Team, the Executive Presbytery, the General Presbytery and the General Council itself.<\/span>
\nIf so, when did you come to the conviction that being given the privilege of leading the great AoG Movement equals dictatorial dominance of the very ones that granted you the privilege of leadership? Anyone who works with me knows that I am not dictatorial, that I work with consensus among leadership. As for Ruth Barton, I and our executive leadership team approved the request of the credentialed Women in Ministry Task Force because we trust them.<\/span>
\nDo you plan to excommunicate credentialed ministers that ignore your Call to Unity and openly disagree with your arbitrary decision? No. I\u2019ve never threatened anyone with excommunication; and as you know, there is a process of dealing with credentials \u2013 and I don\u2019t have that power, and wouldn\u2019t use it if I did.<\/span>
\nIf you truly consider leadership as God\u2019s word defines it, \u201cnot being lords over God\u2019s heritage\u201d (1 Pet. 5:3), when will you call for a conference with qualified speakers to enumerate the pros and cons of Contemplative Prayer, its origin and history, and the consequences or benefits of implementation? I think the blogs are perfectly capable of debating that issue without the need for a conference.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nFor His glory,
\nC. H. Fisher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"