Taizé: Interspiritual Worship Promoted At Northwest Nazarene University

Thanks to John Henderson who posted the following and saved me a bit of writing.  It is hard to keep up with all the apostasy going around in the evangelical churches and “Christian” universities of today, including my own Nazarene denomination.  He brings up the subject of “Taizé” worship.  As you read this, it is not the first time this has been mentioned on my blog or emails (see this story on Point Loma).  The chaplain at Point Loma Nazarene University has an affinity for Taizé, which is an interspiritual, multi-religious ecumenical worship center in France.  Mark Carter also likes Brother Roger, a founder of the Taizé community.  And in one of the books promoted by Barefoot Ministries, the Taizé center is recommended as a place to go for a pilgrimage.  And so we continue on with the bad news for you, but we have a duty as Christians to expose this stuff, so read on and find out what’s the fuss all about, and you decide.  I am forwarding this (as usual) to the Board of General Superintendents for their consideration and counsel on this matter.  Is this good, or bad?  It can’t be both.

What Next? How ‘Bout Taizé?

by John Hendersonon Thursday, November 17, 2011

It would be humorous if it were not so sadly pitiful and deadly to the soul.  The emergent church movement, like an addict, has more ways to get at the same tired deceptions.  It is different “approaches” and often different words and phrases, but it is still the same old evil.

Have you heard the term, “he doth protest too much,” indicating a desperate attempt to avoid discovery?  It is all over the place with this seduction of unsuspecting souls.

If Taizé has not come to a church or “Christian” college near you yet, it probably will in the near future—if Jesus tarries.  It is already in vogue at Northwest Nazarene University.  That is where Thomas Jay Oord, an advocate of open theism (God is limited, etc,), and postmodernism is a professor.  It comes under their Spiritual Formation program where they dedicate an entire Facebook page for such things.

http://www.facebook.com/nnuspiritualformation?mid=52

An October 27, 2011 entry says:  “Tomorrow in Chapel–Our first Taize service!!! Come and see what it is all about.”  I decided since I had missed the chapel service to find out what it is all about.  The Taizé people are shameless about any of it.  If you understand the emergent agenda, you will recognize it in what you are about to read.

From Wikipedia:

“The Taizé Community is an ecumenical monastic order in Taizé, Saône-et-Loire, Burgundy, France. It is composed of about 100 brothers who come from Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic traditions. The brothers come from about 30 countries across the world. The monastic order has a strong devotion to peace and justice through prayer and meditation. It was founded in 1940 by Brother Roger Schutz, a Protestant.

“The community has become one of the world’s most important sites of Christian pilgrimage. Over 100,000 young people from around the world make pilgrimages to Taizé each year for prayer, Bible study, sharing, and communal work. Through the community’s ecumenical outlook, they are encouraged to live in the spirit of kindness, simplicity and reconciliation.

“The Taizé Community attempts to send pilgrims back from youth meetings to their local churches, to their parishes, groups or communities, to undertake, with many others, a ‘Pilgrimage of Trust on Earth.’” (Official Taizé Community Website)

On that website are the following comments:

“As we continue the ‘pilgrimage of trust on earth’ that brings together young people from many countries, we understand more and more deeply this reality: all humanity forms a single family and God lives within every human being without exception.” (Brother Alois, Letter from Kolkata)”

“The brothers wish to support the search for peace and reconciliation wherever it exists. In this way, the pilgrimage of trust appears to widen out more and more, “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1.8).”

IT IS HIPPIE-NESS WITH A RELIGIOUS FLARE and a misrepresentation of Acts 1:8, which says:  “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the farthest parts of the earth.” (NET). [A better rendering of “power” would be the power OF the Holy Spirit.]

Lighthouse Trails furnishes the following which I have excerpted:

“Taize is a form of contemplative worship that incorporates mystical practices and interspiritual beliefs” [an odd term?  Probably means, “all roads lead to the same Heaven,” or something similar.]

“’Short chants, repeated again and again, give it a meditative character,’ the brothers explain in a brief introduction printed in the paperback songbook. ’Using just a few words, [the chants] express a basic reality of faith, quickly grasped by the mind. As the words are sung over many times, this reality gradually penetrates the whole being.’”

The entire matter is “just another indication that contemplative spirituality is no respecter of denominations. Nearly all are affected and influenced.”

Taize Worshipers:  “Practicing the silence with icons, candles, incense and prayer stations, this very contemplative community is attracting young people from around the world.”

Photographs of Taizé meetings show monkish-style robed individuals sitting in circles with lighted candles in the area.

 

I find it enormously puzzling as to why Nazarenes, especially in a Nazarene university or a Nazarene church, would have so easily abandoned the simple faith in Christ for this satanic form of the worship of strange gods and evil spirits—and then call them by God’s names.  An even greater wonder is how they unabashedly resort to mauling the Word of God to force-fit those precious words of life to this spiritual sludge.  They seem to sense no shame in it but, rather, boast in it and lie that God is pleased with it.  It is worse than Sodom and Gomorrah and I fear that God’s judgment will not tarry much longer.  I had rather be in Heaven when it breaks open but He might keep me here to witness it and I just do not look forward to that.

Then the sons of the World and the Sons of the Church

Walked closely hand and heart,

And only the Master, who knoweth all,

Could tell the two apart.

 

Then the Church sat down at her ease, and said,

“I am rich and my goods increase;

I have need of nothing, or aught to do,

But to laugh, and dance, and feast.”

The sly World heard, and he laughed in his sleeve,

And mockingly said, aside:

“The Church is fallen, the beautiful Church;

And her shame is her boast and her pride.”

 

The angel drew near to the mercy seat,

And whispered in sighs her name;

Then the loud anthems of rapture were hushed,

And heads were covered with shame.

 

And a voice was heard at last by the Church

From Him who sat on the throne:

 

“I know thy works, and how thou hast said,

‘I am rich, and hast not known

That thou art naked, poor and blind,

And wretched before my face;’

Therefore from my presence cast I thee out,

And blot thy name from its place.”

[The last portion of the poem by Matilda C. Edwards, “The Church Walking With the World.”]

“…you shall be holy to Me, for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be Mine.” Leviticus 20:26

“Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

      “Therefore ‘Come out from among them and be separate,’ says the Lord. ‘Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters,’ says the Lord Almighty.” 2 Corinthians 6:14-18

John Henderson