Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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CHICAGO (RNS) — Years ago, Southern Baptist theologian Albert Mohler wrote an article warning Christians that Eastern meditation, which encourages participants to embrace silence and clear their minds, was “not a means to spiritual growth.” More than being just ineffective, he concluded, it was “dangerous” and “an empty promise.”
Coming from an evangelical upbringing, I can understand his concern. I’ve heard plenty of religious leaders make similar claims, casting meditation as some sort of boogeyman wooing Christians away from the faith with pagan practices. In the world in which I was raised, meditation was not on the list of approved spiritual practices. We prayed and read and sang and journaled. But meditation was not on the menu.
But a few years back, I began to explore the practices of silence and meditation — not due to some sort of spiritual curiosity, but out of spiritual exhaustion. Our church was only a few years old, but the process of launching it had taken quite a toll on my wife and me. We were simultaneously full-time parents of young kids and full-time pastors of a young church, and the combination had left us undone.
It's always been there. Quakers don't meditate but they have some similarities.
Coming from an evangelical upbringing, I can understand his concern. I’ve heard plenty of religious leaders make similar claims, casting meditation as some sort of boogeyman wooing Christians away from the faith with pagan practices. In the world in which I was raised, meditation was not on the list of approved spiritual practices. We prayed and read and sang and journaled. But meditation was not on the menu.
But a few years back, I began to explore the practices of silence and meditation — not due to some sort of spiritual curiosity, but out of spiritual exhaustion. Our church was only a few years old, but the process of launching it had taken quite a toll on my wife and me. We were simultaneously full-time parents of young kids and full-time pastors of a young church, and the combination had left us undone.
How a Western megachurch pastor fell in love with Eastern meditation
(RNS) — Coming from an evangelical upbringing, I’ve heard religious leaders cast meditation as a dangerous pagan practice. But Western Christians have missed out since abandoning our own tradition of meditation.
religionnews.com
It's always been there. Quakers don't meditate but they have some similarities.