Campolo: Mysticism's the bridge between Christianity & Islam

Dedicated to The Virginia Baptist Mission Board, who is bringing Tony Campolo to speak to the 185th BGAV Meeting in November...

Originally posted Tuesday, October 30, 2007

"According to Tony Campolo, in his book Speaking My Mind, he has several suggestions for Christians - the bottom line is he believes we need to "redefine ourselves,"... "recast our opinions," and "entertain the possibility that we might be in error" about particular issues. He says we need to stop being so stubborn about these issues. What are those issues he speaks of? They are everything from mysticism to homosexuality..."

"...he (Campolo) believes, "mysticism provides some hope for common ground between Christianity and Islam." He asks and then later answers the question, "Could they (Islamic Sufis) have encountered the same God we do in our Christian mysticism?" His answer - of course! Sound like Thomas Merton? It should. Campolo emulates Merton, Schuller and a host of other New Age, mystical leaders all rolled into one."

"The most alarming thing about this book is that Brian McLaren's name is on the back cover, telling us the book is a "great bargain" and that Campolo's voice is one that "needs to be heard." Brian McLaren, named recently by Time magazine as one of 25 most influential evangelicals, is also considered the statesman and leader for the fast growing emerging church movement, which is just a disguised Trojan horse for contemplative prayer with a close connection to Richard Foster, Rick Warren and other contemplatives.

Remove the contemplative, mystical element from the emerging church and you have nothing more than couches and candles. While many of the young people in this movement may be searching for a more genuine faith and cannot be criticized for that, we believe the leaders, such as McLaren, are leading thousands astray, whether they realize it or not.

If McLaren agrees with Tony Campolo, and he must or he wouldn't have said so, then great deception is lurking around the corner and many are heading right into trouble and into a belief system that shouts All Paths Lead to the Same God. And as for believers who refuse to recast their opinions or redefine their views that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation and access to the living God, hold on to your hats - it's going to be a rocky ride."

Read the rest at Lighthouse Research Trails Project . See more articles on Campolo's ecumenical and mystical beliefs.

Biblical Discernment Ministries reports the following on Campolo:- From his book, Partly Right, Campolo espouses his New Age philosophy of pantheism:"We affirm our divinity by doing what is worthy of gods, and we affirm our humanity by taking risks only available to mortals. God had to become one of us before He could become heroic. Robert Schuller affirms our divinity, yet does not deny our humanity ... isn't that what the gospel is? Isn't God's message to sinful humanity that He sees in each of us a divine nature of such worth that He sacrificed His own Son so that our divine potentialities might be realized? ... The hymn writer who taught us to sing 'Amazing Grace' was all too ready to call himself a 'wretch' ... Forgetting our divinity and over-identifying with our [Freudian] anal humanity [Freud is responsible for a host of maladies that plague our contemporary society] ... Erich Fromm, one of the most popular psychoanalysts of our time, recognized the diabolical social consequences that can come about when a person loses sight of his/her own divinity ..." [Fromm was a godless anti-Christian, who took the serpent's lie, Ye Shall Be As Gods, for the title of one of his books, and was largely responsible for the introduction of the self-love movement into the professing Church.]"

The Apostle Paul was apparently too quick to deny his own deity when he wrote, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am the chief" (I Timothy 1:15).] (Quoted in part from CIB Bulletin, December 1989.) (Emphases added.)

See related article: Vatican: Lectio Divina is Privileged Ecumenical Method.