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There is a burgeoning movement within Protestant and Evangelical circles that emphasizes the ancient and mystical above the Word of God and seeks, by any means necessary, to cast off the “youthful naïveté” of the Protestant Reformation and bring the church to a superstitious, anti-intellectual “maturity.” Just to give examples from the last ten years or so, a 2008 article in Christianity Today wondered how the church might move beyond the cumbersome restrictions of a boring, propositional gospel. “Easy!,” comes the answer—”Just embrace the mysticism of the early Church!”:

“For the younger evangelicals … traditional churches are too centered on words and propositions. And pragmatic churches are compromising authentic Christianity by tailoring their ministries to the marketplace and pop culture. The younger evangelicals seek a renewed encounter with a God beyond both doctrinal definitions and super-successful ministry programs. So what to do? Easy, says this youth movement: … Dialogue with the ‘other two’ historic confessions: Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Recognize that ‘the road to the church’s future is through its past.’ And break out the candles and incense [TFK: late 4th century development]. Pray using the lectio divina [TFK: 6th century development]. Tap all the riches of Christian tradition you can find.” (Christianity Today, “The Future Lies in the Past,” February 8, 2008)

We see this same theme in Peter Leithart’s article last fall, encouraging Protestants to stop opposing Roman Catholicism, and just grow up into the Reformational Catholics that Luther and Calvin wanted us to be:

“To a Protestant, a sacrament is an aid to memory. A Reformational Catholic believes that Jesus baptizes and gives himself as food to the faithful, and doesn’t avoid speaking of ‘Eucharist’ or ‘Mass’ just because Roman Catholics use those words. Reformational Catholicism meets George Weigel’s Evangelical Catholicism coming from the direction of Rome, and gives it a hearty handshake. … Protestantism has had a good run. … But the world and the Church have changed, and Protestantism isn’t what the Church, including Protestants themselves, needs today. It’s time to turn the protest against Protestantism and to envision a new way of being heirs of the Reformation…” (First Things, “The End of Protestantism,” November 8, 2013).

Weigel’s Evangelical Catholicism, as one might expect, is rife with the image veneration of Faustina Kowalska (p. 32), and the Eucharistic adoration that he says is one of the indispensable “characteristics of deep Catholic reform that is Evangelical Catholicism” (p. 123). This is what Protestants are advised to give a “hearty handshake,” as if it was somehow different from the trappings of Rome’s historical idolatry.

Consistent with this mystical, anti-intellectualism, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA)’s campus ministry, Reformed University Fellowship (RUF), includes on its recommended reading list various books that advance—implicitly or explicitly—the same view as Leithart does. RUF’s list includes James K. A. Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, in which he unabashedly supports a form of ex opere operato for the Church, because “going through the motions” is actually a way of absorbing the gospel without thinking:

“But it is important also to keep in mind  that worship is best understood on the order of action, not reflection; worship is something that we do. … The practices carry their own understanding that is implicit within them, and that understanding can be absorbed and imbibed in our imaginations without having to kick into a mode of cerebral reflection. I recognize that some might be uncomfortable with this claim, since it seems to suggest that there can be some sort of virtue in ‘going through the motions.’ On this point I’m afraid I have to confess that I do indeed think this is true. While it is not ideal, I do think that there can be a sort of implanting of the gospel that happens simply by virtue of participating in liturgical practices (this is in the ballpark of the principle of ex opere operato).” (Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, p. 166-7, n 29, emphasis added)

How much better, says Paul, to worship with the mind, than to go through motions as Smith suggests:

“Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue. Brethren, be not children in understanding: … but in understanding be men.” (1 Corinthians 14:19-20).

We are not surprised that Smith does not see much difference between his version of Christianity and the Pope’s. After all, Christianity, to Smith, is not something you believe, but is something that happens to you. So sayeth Cardinal Ratzinger, and so believeth James Smith:

“Fundamentally, the concern is to emphasize that Christianity is not (or even primarily) a set of cognitive, heady beliefs; Christianity is not fundamentally a worldview. Or as so aptly put by Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), ‘Christianity is not an intellectual system, a collection of dogmas, or a moralism. Christianity is instead an encounter, a love story; it is an event.'” (Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, p. 216)

Another book on RUF’s reading list is Engaging God’s World by Cornelius Plantinga, who wrote the book while he was president of Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In his book, Plantinga cites as fellow Christians, Jesuit priest Henri Nouwen (pp. 30, 113), Roman Catholic mystic Teresa of Ávila (p. 87),  Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins (pp. 26, 38, 112), and humanist philosopher Simone Weil (p. 11).

Henri Nouwen was a homosexual, mystical, Roman Catholic priest who believed that salvation comes to all human beings whether they know about Jesus or not. He wrote in Sabbatical Journey: The Diary of His Final Year:

“Today I personally believe that while Jesus came to open the door to God’s house, all human beings can walk through that door, whether they know about Jesus or not. Today I see it as my call to help every person claim his or her own way to God.” (Nouwen, Sabbatical Journey, (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1998), pg 51)

Nouwen struggled deeply with his homosexual desires and, in order to consecrate those desires to Christ, commissioned an icon, “Christ the Bridegroom,” pictured below.

He venerated this icon in his bedroom and around his home where he could gaze on it at night before going to bed, then again when he woke up, and contemplate it throughout the day (Ford, Michael, Wounded Prophet: A Portrait of Henri Nouwen, (pp. 142-143).

Teresa of Ávila was a 16th century counter-reformational Spanish mystic who had frequent encounters with a demonic apparition of Jesus that would beat her within an inch of her life, leaving her “disjointed, as I said, in such a way that for three or four days afterward one feels great sufferings and doesn’t have the strength to write” (Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, ch. 11).

Gerard Manley Hopkins reveled in the “the popish sacrifice of the mass” that the Westminster Divines considered abominable (Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 24.2), writing in his poem, Barnfloor and Winepress,  “And on a thousand altars laid, Christ our Sacrifice is made!” (Mariani, Paul L., Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Life, p. 54).

Simone Weil never entered into full communion with Roman Catholicism because there were too many stumbling blocks to her faith—things like an afterlife and the resurrection, as she acknowledged to her confessor, Fr. Perrin:

“‘As to eventual meetings in another world,’ she tells [her confessor] Father Perrin in a letter, ‘I do not picture things to myself in that way,’ and elsewhere she confesses that ‘if the Gospel omitted all mention of Christ’s Resurrection, faith would be easier for me. The Cross by itself suffices me.” (Mario von der Ruhr, Simone Weil, 139)

Remarkably, Plantinga’s book is subtitled A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living, and Nouwen, Ávila, Hopkins and Weil are provided as models of this vision. If this is how we are to engage God’s world—by shirking the knowledge of the Gospel and commending demonic mysticism, icon veneration and the abominable sacrifice of the Mass—”we are of all men most miserable” (1 Corinthians 15:19). We would not object if Plantinga had offered these writers as evidence of the false hope of universalism, Romanism, mysticism, humanism, “philosophy and vain deceit” (Colossians 2:8), or if RUF had offered Plantinga as a cautionary example of just how far from truth a president of a  Reformed Seminary may wander in his attempt to be culturally relevant. But Plantinga commends all the people cited, and RUF commends Plantinga.

This is what our covenant children are learning at university, and this is what our ministers are learning at seminary. As we noted in And the Diviners Have Seen A Lie, Dr. Michael Milton, president of Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) took great joy in weaving Mother Teresa, as well as 16th century Spanish mystics into his sermon on doubt and assurance. We note as well that homosexual priest Henri Nouwen’s book, The Wounded Healer, remains on the RTS recommended reading list under “Christian counseling.”

But it is not solely in the ivory towers of the university or the hallowed halls of Reformed seminaries that this systemic compromise of the Gospel is taking place in the 21st century church. Ostensibly evangelical men are preaching this nonsense from the pulpits, too. We have highlighted for example,

• Tim Keller’s  chronic mysticism and his repeated use of one of his “favorite quotes” by Teresa of Ávila “every month or so.”

• Steve Brown’s plea that we acknowledge that “Roman Catholics R Us” in his popular video, Church R Us.

• Rick Warren’s gushing approval of the 16th century Spanish counter-reformational Catholic mystics when he appeared on the Roman Catholic Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN).

• Timothy George’s (dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University) shameless compromise of the Gospel as he represented the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) at the 13th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops October 2013 in Rome.

Thus, when our covenant children come home from university for the summer or on school holidays, their ears are primed to receive the anti-intellectual, mystical, counter-reformational, Romanist message that comes from “reformed” and other pulpits—because that is what they are learning from their “reformed” ministries at university. When they hear the same things from their “reformed” seminary trained preachers as they learned at “Reformed” University Fellowship, it is understandable that they might also assume they are the legitimate heirs of the Reformation, and further that “being Reformed” is simply the process by which Protestants repent of the Reformation.

Evidence of the slide into anti-Reformational ecumenism is provided by Leonardo De Chirico in his article last week, A New Era Between Catholics and Evangelicals? He warns, appropriately, in the aftermath of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) sending an official delegation to meet with the pope on November 6th:

“Visiting the Pope has become something popular amongst Evangelical leaders around the world. …  Pope Francis seems to have targeted Evangelicals of all stripes (from highly liturgical sectors of Protestantism to prosperity gospel gurus with all variances in between) in order to build bridges with these Christians who have traditionally stayed outside of mainstream ecumenical circles but who nonetheless represent the wing of the Church that is growing more than any other. This phenomenon of Evangelical leaders taking ‘selfies’ with the Pope and then becoming prominent spokesmen of unity with the Roman Catholic Church needs to be examined more carefully.”

Although he has not taken a selfie with Pope Francis (yet), we are nonetheless equally troubled by influential evangelical Randy Pope, senior pastor at Perimeter Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Atlanta, and his use of the Roman mystic, ‪François Fénelon, to instruct his flock.

In 1598, Henry IV of France granted civil rights to the Calvinist Huguenots of France in what was called the Edict of Nantes. When the edict was revoked in 1685 by Louis XIV, “the [Roman Catholic] Church began a campaign to send the greatest orators in the country into the regions of France with the highest concentration of Huguenots to persuade them of the errors of Protestantism,” and the greatest of these orators was ‪François Fénelon  (Wikipedia, François Fénelon‬). Persuasive oratory was not the only tool at Fénelon’s disposal, as he also resorted to force to convert the Huguenots from their error:

“Fénelon amply demonstrated that he shared the intolerant and repressive instincts of his age. As director of the Maison des Nouvelles Catholiques between 1678 and 1688, he was an accomplice in the abduction and forcible conversion of young Calvinist girls; in 1686, he recommended deportation and the taking of hostages as appropriate means of inducing conversion among recalcitrant heretics.”‬ (Geoffrey Adams, The Huguenots and French Opinion, 1685-1787‬: ‪The Enlightenment Debate on Toleration‬, (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1991), p. 25)

Fénelon was willing to resort to force and kidnapping to convert the children of the Huguenots, and now “Reformed Evangelicals” are doing Fénelon’s job for him with no resistance at all. By way of example, Randy Pope, in his September 2012 message, “In The Midst Of Prosperity,” cited ‪François Fénelon’s The Royal Way of the Cross, accentuating the need to find the blessing of one’s personal purgatory in the midst of prosperity:

Fenelon, The Royal Way Of The Cross
“The only good point of worldly prosperity is one to which the world is blind – its cross! An elevated position does not save us from any of the ordinary afflictions common to men; indeed, it has its own special trials. … God turns the good things which the world covets into trouble and toil, and allows those whom He has raised to earthly grandeur to be an example to others. It is His will to perfect their cross by concealing it beneath the most splendid worldly riches, in order to show what little value there is in prosperity. Surely it is a blessed thing to find one’s purgatory in what seems a paradise to the worldly. In seeking that false paradise, many, too often, forfeit the hope of true paradise after this brief life ends. The one real treasure of great seeming prosperity is its hidden cross.” (Randy Pope’s notes on Generous Living, 22/23 September 2012)

“A blessed thing to find one’s purgatory”?  What nonsense is this that our “Reformed” preachers are teaching to the great-great-grandchildren of the Huguenots? Are the Scriptures so lacking in instruction to the wealthy that we must rely on a Roman Catholic mystic archbishop to teach us that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and that we are mere stewards of His riches?  After the Edict of Nantes was revoked, Fénelon held the children of the Huguenots captive in order to preach Roman Catholicism to them. Now the alleged Calvinist descendants of the Huguenots hold their own children captive to Fénelon’s message!

Randy Pope is just one recent and shameful example of this propensity of Evangelicals for using Roman Catholic mystics to instruct the sheep. It is now “hip to be mystical” and it is “rockin’ to be Roman” in Evangelical circles. Keller loves to cite the Roman mystics in his sermons. Brown loves to say that “Roman Catholics R Us.” Plantinga regards them as our co-laborers in the Gospel mission, Milton offers counter-reformational mystics as Christian models of overcoming doubt, and Smith wants us to accept that the gospel “can be absorbed and imbibed in our imaginations without having to kick into a mode of cerebral reflection.” Warren gushes about these mystics on the Catholic cable channel, Christianity Today believes we must pursue the mystics in order to overcome the doldrums of the propositional Gospel, RTS and RUF have them on their recommended reading lists, Leithart says we need to embrace their veneration of icons and idols, the BWA and WEA send delegates on pilgrimage to pay obeisance to the bishops in Rome while Evangelicals trip over each other to get selfies with the Pope—and Randy Pope, pastor of one of the largest congregations in the PCA, preaches Fénelon’s “blessed purgatory” to his flock. By the time the sheep of these pastures are finally confronted by the actual claims of Roman Catholicism, these “Reformed” and “Evangelical” leaders have already fattened them up for the slaughter.

This, of course, must not dismay or discourage the elect of God. The Lord will certainly deliver His flock and protect us from danger, just as assuredly as the world must certainly wonder after the beast. Nevertheless, while “Evangelicals” peddle Fénelon and all things mystical and Roman to the flock, the gates of Rome will never prevail against Christ’s church (Matthew 16:18).

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