We have mentioned various warnings about different authors and leaders who promote the movement of contemplative spirituality.  And if you don’t know what exactly that consists of, you are welcome to browse these links:

• Definitions at the Shoe
• Two Lists of Leaders/Authors
• More articles on false teaching . . . 
• Lighthouse Trails Research Project

I recently came across an article that was too good to hide within a “Week Gone By” post.  It needed to be shared by itself.

This article is written by David Cloud from Way of Life.  I do not know much about David Cloud or his ministry, but I do know the article serves as a blatant reminder that this movement is nothing to mess around with.  We do not post warnings just because we feel like it, but because we believe there is a real need for warnings such as these within the church today.

This article is concerning the downward slide of popular author, Sue Monk Kidd, from being a Southern Baptist Christian . . . to worshiping the goddess within.  And this all came about because of contemplative spirituality.

EXCERPTS FROM THE ARTICLE:

It is “contemplative spirituality” that changed Kidd’s life, and her experience is a loud warning about flirting with Catholic mysticism.

She was raised in a Southern Baptist congregation in southwest Georgia. Her grandfather and father were Baptist deacons. Her grandmother gave devotionals at the Women’s Missionary Union, and her mother was a Sunday School teacher. Her husband was a minister who taught religion and a chaplain at a Baptist college. She was very involved in church, teaching Sunday School and attending services Sunday morning and evening and Wednesday. She describes herself as the person who would have won a contest for “Least Likely to Become a Feminist.” She was even inducted into a group of women called the Gracious Ladies, the criterion for which was that “one needed to portray certain ideals of womanhood, which included being gracious and giving of oneself unselfishly” . . . . .

“I ran my finger around the rim of the circle on the page and prayed my first prayer to a Divine Feminine presence. I said, ‘Mothergod, I have nothing to hold me. No place to be, inside or out. I need to find a container of support, a space where my journey can unfold’” (p. 94).

She came to the place where she believed that she is a goddess.

“Divine Feminine love came, wiping out all my puny ideas about love in one driving sweep. Today I remember that event for the radiant mystery it was, how I felt myself embraced by Goddess, how I felt myself in touch with the deepest thing I am. It was the moment when, as playwright and poet Ntozake Shange put it, ‘I found god in myself/ and I loved her/ I loved her fiercely’” (The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, p. 136).  {read more}

AND IN CASE YOU THINK THIS IS NOT CLOSE TO HOME FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY, I CHALLENGE YOU TO THINK AGAIN.

Sue Monk Kidd is quoted favorably by evangelical leaders such as David Jeremiah, Beth Moore, Richard Foster, and Philip Yancy.  She also wrote forewards/introductions or endorsements for books by Dallas Willard, Henri Nouwen, and Thomas Merton.  Eugene Peterson, well-known in Christian circles for writing The Message Bible, said this about Kidd, “As I read her book, Kidd became a companion.  I love having her walk with me on my journey.”

To read David Cloud’s full article, click the following link: https://www.wayoflife.org/reports/from_sb_to_goddess_worship_sue_kidd.html

Featured Image: Penguin Random House

End of article

The David Cloud article link is worth exploring because it provides small details about how she apostatized. The major change was her worldview, from western to eastern. That is, she began to hold a pantheistic view of the world because of inner discoveries she made via contemplation / meditation. She became involved in feminism because serious feminism leads to goddess worship: see Categories, Paganism, post 6 on Feminism. 

For a very brief description of what Hindu meditation and yoga do to practitioners, see Categories, Yoga / Meditation, the oldest yoga post.

Just above, the names listed are mostly mystics: Richard Foster; Dallas Willard; Henri Nouwen; and I believe Thomas Merton was also.

Beth Moore also affiliates with such people, as became apparent in her DVD, Be Still, which was actually a primer for eastern meditation. That aspect of contemplative Christianity is likely what also led Sue Monk Kidd astray too.

The Emergent Church blends eastern religion (eastern meditation) with their version of Christianity; following that brand of Christianity will result in apostasy too.

ADDED 4-12-22:

The following 3 points are more compelling reasons to believe that Sue Monk Kidd was never born again, but was an unregenerate, nominal Christian, despite all of her involvement in Church.

Point One: 1Jn 2:19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. 1Jn 2:20 But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.
Two things in those verses indicate those who apostatize are not converted: that they leave, indicates that they have not been anointed by the Holy One.
Point two:   Jonathan Edwards developed the following criteria after analyzing conversion experiences post Great Awakening. He desired to understand why many fell away from the faith after apparently having shown signs of being converted.
His discovery indicated that true conversions occurred via a process that included the following steps or experiences:  1) horror of being eternally lost; 2), the sinner’s attempt to stop sinning via his will power [it cannot be done independently of God’s Spirit]; 3), realization that only God can save him from sin; 4), conviction, the sinner beginning to see that God’s judgment is just; 5), awakening to God with genuine religious affections.
The following prominent Christians spent many years between stages 1 and 5 of Edwards standard of assessment for genuine conversion:
John Calvin, 12 years; Wesley, 23 years; Whitefield, 10 years; Fox, 12 years; Edwards, 5 years; Brainerd, 9 years; Newton, 6 years; Spurgeon, 4 years….
From my reading and personal experience, I believe that the above process begins with regeneration as is described in John 3:1-8. In that text, Jesus makes it clear that the Holy Spirit gives the new birth from above, then a person CAN subsequently see that there is a kingdom of heaven and seek/receive the graces that God bestows on such people as they partake of God’s appointed means of grace (reading His word, praying, fellowship with Christ and other believers via the Lord’s supper…).
We proclaim the gospel message because the Holy Spirit works via it to convert the hearers, when He chooses to do so.
It is possible for someone to be seeking God and even a Bible scholar and not be born again. That was shown in Acts 9, when the apostle Paul, a Pharisee schooled in the Old Testament many years (he was around 30 then), was suddenly converted by a visitation from the risen Christ. Or Moses, at the burning bush, when he received a visitation from God.
Step one above is also what is described as happening to Christian, in The Pilgrim’s Progress. John Bunyan wrote that because he experienced it in the context of having read God’s word. My own first read through the Bible left me with some solemn concerns and fears, and a desire to draw nearer to God.
Step two above has taken me 16 years to get past, if I am finished with it. The compulsion to do something to fix ourselves, or to help God save us is a hard thing to be done with. In my own experience, failure after failure has enabled me to see more clearly that it is impossible for me to fix myself, but that God the Holy Spirit will sanctify me as I submit to Him. This is a hard step because we all have idols we turn to for comfort, assistance, diversion…. Christ’s Spirit makes those clear to us and shows us the futility of doing so. But old habits die hard.
Step three has become more real to me as I have experienced more failure and futility. It seems that this process is a requirement. That is, I don’t think that someone can jump to step 5 in one experience, no matter what people say these days (the same people say you can sign a card and automatically be born again). Excluding John the Baptist and others who were born again in their mother’s wombs.
Step 4, in my own case, it has become clear from my failures, and my increased understanding of how much I love some of my sins. The posts I did on Ezekiel 36 indicate the same. Just read the latter portion of that chapter and see what God said they would experience as they viewed their own sins in light of His goodness.
I speculate that step 5 is a place wherein one loves God more than himself and has submitted his life, as in Romans 12:2. Again, new Christians and many teachers think they can jump straight to that point. God could undoubtedly work that in a person, as He did John the Baptist or the thief on the cross whom He said would be in paradise with Him that day. But Moses, for example, spent 40 years being humbled in the wilderness until the burning-bush experience, which was likely also a conversion experience.
Point three: Pastor Paul Washer’s wife’s conversion testimony revealed that she was converted after having spent 12 years doing the work of the church: see Categories, Conversion Testimonies for her story.

Christian meditation is described in the following verse:

Joshua 1: 8This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

It is not, as in eastern meditation, the emptying of the mind, but the filling of the mind with the scriptures and memorizing, thinking on…. See Categories, Spiritual Disciplines, for several posts on that topic.