Brennan Manning speaks on God's love in this video.

"I dare you to trust that I love you just as you are, and not as you should be... because you're never gonna be as you should be".

At least not while we're here.

Thank you TN Dove for sharing this with us. It ministered to me. I struggle a lot in this area of believing the depth of God's love for me because I feel that I don't deserve it because there are areas in my life where I let Him down.

I have seen evidence of His love over and over again in my life, and have felt His love countless number of times, but it's still a stuggle for me to understand the depth of His love for me.

I'm going to watch this again until it gets in my heart.

Me, too, Lisaleenie... me, too!

The Lord is gracious and compassionate
Slow to anger and rich in love!

Here's one of my favorite songs. I play it over & over in our house:

Something about this man's name prompted me to look it up. Here is some info on Brennan Manning:

What is Contemplative Spirituality
and Why is It Dangerous?
A Review of Brennan Manning's
The Signature of Jesus


John Caddock
Winchester, OR


The Never-Ending Review
Little did I know when I began to read The Signature of Jesus the time and effort that would be involved in understanding it. I am not a theologian by training. My background is in technical management in electronic component manufacturing. However, I stumbled onto something that I became convinced was very dangerous and little understood.

One reading was not enough for me to understand The Signature of Jesus. I found that it was like reading a book in a foreign language. I read many new expressions like contemplative prayer, centering prayer, centering down, paschal spirituality, the discipline of the secret, contemplative spirituality, celebrating the darkness, mineralization, the Mineral Man, practicing the presence, the interior life, intimacy with Abba, the uncloistered contemplative life, inner integration, yielding to the Center, the bridge of faith, notional knowledge, contemporary spiritual masters, masters of the interior life, shadow self, false self, mysterium tremendum, existential experience, and the Abba experience.

I learned about the heart of Manning's message, centering prayer.

I continued the study because what I found frightened me and because I felt others needed to be warned. The teachings of Manning are very dangerous.

There is a seductive quality to his writings. He reports grappling with and overcoming fear, guilt, and psychological hang-ups and difficulties, including alcoholism. He gives the impression that he has a very intimate relationship with God and that he has insight to a superspirituality. He regularly meditates and reports having many visions and encounters with God. He is an extremely gifted writer who is able to tug at the emotions of the reader while at the same time introducing ideas that the reader would immediately reject if they were not cloaked under this emotional blanket.

He promises readers that if they apply his teaching they too will gain this same intimacy with God as well as freedom from fear, guilt, and psychological hang-ups and difficulties. This is very attractive. Manning's prescription to achieve this is not by traditional prayer and by the reading and application of the Bible. Rather, the means to this end is a mixture of Eastern mysticism, psychology, the New Age Movement, liberation theology, Catholicism, and Protestantism.3 This mixture will not deliver intimacy with God. It no doubt will lead to special feelings and experiences. Those practicing Manning's methods will likely feel closer to God. However, in the process they will actually move away from Him as a result of a counterfeit spirituality.

This is a radical departure from the good news of Jesus Christ. Eternal life and the forgiveness of sins is replaced with psychological healing.

What Is Contemplative Spirituality?
The Signature of Jesus is actually a primer on what Manning calls paschal spirituality, which is supposedly, but not actually, spirituality centered on the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. (Chapter 6 is entitled "Paschal Spirituality.") Another name for this, a more accurate one, is contemplative spirituality. Indeed, one entire chapter is a call to "Celebrate the Darkness" (pp. 137-58)6 and another teaches about centering prayer, an Eastern Religion mind-emptying meditation technique (pp. 209-227).

Unfortunately, the book isn't about following Jesus Christ or having faith in Him. It is about following "the masters of the interior life" (pp. 94, 219).
Daily devotions consisting of Bible study, meditation, memorization, and traditional prayers are of limited importance in the contemplative spirituality of Manning. A type of prayer derived from Eastern mysticism is what is really important. Practice the presence. Center down. What is really needed is freeing the mind and having an existential experience with God.

Thomas Merton, who is frequently cited by Manning, is the forerunner of the New Monks.

Merton traveled to Asia on a quest to redefine what being a monk entailed and apparently found it in Buddhist and Hindu teachings. There he discovered great similarities between monastic contemplation and Eastern Meditation and determined that they were both in touch with the same mystical source. He felt that the emphasis on experience and inner transformation rather than doctrine would be the ecumenical meeting place between East and West.

Embraced by progressive Catholics, some say he was most influential in the shift from devotional spirituality to contemplative spirituality.

In The Signature of Jesus, Manning precisely echoes the themes of contemplative spirituality. It appears to be his intention to bring to Protestants what Thomas Merton brought to many Roman Catholics.

Contemplative Spirituality Promotes Universalism
Both the new theology and contemplative spirituality emphasize ecumenism. Hans Küng (whose book "On Being Christian," Manning says is "the most powerful book other than Scripture that I have ever read," p. 153) is the author of the document, Declaration of a Global Ethic, which personifies the push toward religious pluralism among progressives. The document, intended to be an agreement among the world's religions, does not contain the word God, Küng explains "because including it would exclude all Buddhist and many faith groups with different views of God and the divine."15 Most Evangelicals are familiar with ecumenism within Christendom only. However, those who hold to the new theology, and more explicitly those who hold to contemplative spirituality believe in an ecumenism which includes non Christian religions and all "faith groups." This is a logical step for those who divorce themselves from the gospel of Scripture and who adopt the view that all are saved (universalism).
_________________________________________________

The pieces above are excerpts from the review, not the entire review. I did not watch the video because the name set off alarm bells in me. After looking it up he is involved in new age and universalism. Discernment is necessary regarding this.

Email: sarmstrong2007@yahoo.com

I didn't watch the video either. For some reason I just had no desire to press play, although I know nothing of Brennan Manning.

But TN Dove is right: God loves us!!!!!!!

Discernment is always a good thing.

All I know about him is Rich Mullins called his band "A Ragamuffin Band" after one of Manning's books.

If you like to sing "Awesome God"... maybe he's worth a listen.

Charity, I agree that God loves us and I know that is the intent of TN's post. I appreciate the thought.

When I felt that tug at my spirit not to watch and looked up this guy I then knew why. This is why I don't believe a lot of the visions and visits to heaven and hell when I read them if the details don't agree with scripture and the revealed word of God -Bible! There are two sides to the spiritual world and we have been warned in scripture that there would be deception and delusion and much more so as the day approaches for Jesus's return.

It is good to rely on the Holy Spirit's prompting regarding what we see and hear as the false can look very much like the real thing.

Email: sarmstrong2007@yahoo.com

I have read a couple of books written by Brennen Manning, including the "Raggamuffin Gospel".

In both books I have never seen nor felt him express anything but the true teachings of Christ as layed down in the word.

One of Mannings biggest callings in his books is the explosive power of Jesus in our lives. How his love enpowers us to not only except our selfs as failed sinners, but to live in the love of Christ. Through his love we want to repent, be enpowered and to follow him whatever the cost. He trys in his books to tear down the wall that many struggle with, "Does Jesus really love me".

Manning was a priest in his early years before leaving the priesthood and getting married. He has recieved alot of flak over the years due to breaking from catholic traditions. His has been smeared in this regard.

Some respected Christian writers even have proclaimed his books as refreshing and enpowering like "Max Lucado" & "Eugene Peterson"

Just my thoughts, but I have not found him to be anything else than on fire for Jesus. A fellow Brother.

ybiC/ Paul

Thanks for sharing that, Paul. It's strange... I thought I had never read anything by him or heard about him, but then I looked on my bookshelf, and lo & behold, there was Manning's name on a book that I particularly remember enjoying a few years back. It was a really good book! Called "Abba's Child". I would definitely recommend it.

I'm so glad you were blessed by it, Melanie.
Yes, please everybody take a listen!!!!!!!!
(especially you, Paul, since you LOVE that Psalm!)

Mel thanks for the heads up just listened to it.
I loved the brass section, beautiful
Thanks Charity for this great Psalm / song of praise.
103 says it all, love it

Love ybiC Paul

oh my gosh, I REALLY LOVE this song; I've listened to it several times in a row and it's so good! I'm going to check out more music from the Vineyard UK!

Love you guys!

Melanie, my all time fav worship cd is called "Come Now is the Time- live from London". Vineyard UK. It's got this one and many other awesome songs. Don't know how many times I've listened to this cd in the past year. Hundreds?
Go to iTunes and BUY IT!

yes ma'am!

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!

I like this one also

I love third day Paul :) and that video made me smile seeing all those people being baptized.....awesome..

Joyful Susan dear sis,

When I watched it for the first time, I looked at all the different faces of the people. All different races, shapes and sizes. All with one precious precious thing.
A soul saved in Christ

Gods children are beautiful inside and out, though man looks on the outside, God looks into the heart of each man.

To wash away the old life sins and emerge from the waters washed in his blood.

Love ybiC Paul

I noticed that too Paul...and also the peace and joy on their faces to follow Jesus...I love people :)

I had tears streaming down my face watching that "Born Again" video, Paul.
I remember Melanie posted it a couple weeks back, but it really hit me tonight!
WOW- how can anyone deny the reality and beauty of God when they see a face
so full of JOY JOY JOY?!?! All those people were absolutely beautiful.

Glad the stone throwing is over, & this thread turned out for good!

God STILL LOVES Us, no matter who the messenger is.

Think I may have told y'all this before but it was a while back; not sure if I have time now cos I'm doing a pot-roast at the same time as trying to watch Jessie Duplantis (I mean on TV obviously!) in about forty minutes but anyway just to let ya'll know that an angel - whether supernatural angel or male human instrument/messenger from God with curly blond hair I don't know, rescued my little girl in a stroller from a speeding ambulance cutting across our path on what day do you think? It happened on Valentines' Day!

I was in central London trying to cross a road and lights were green to walk across so I started. Just before that moment coming up on street level from the subway I was praying Psalm 91 sensing a darkness in that area of London. With my little girl about four years old in the stroller in front of me I went to cross the road because the lights said I could go and I was instantanously grabbed by my right shoulder and pulled back by a tall young man in a business suit (with blonde curly hair!). At that instant an ambulance screamed across the lights where I was about to push the stroller obviously in front of me! And again at the same moment a lady to my left crossed herself and told me, "God protected you!".

I crossed the road when the lights changed, crying with my little girl twisting around in the stroller asking me what was wrong. I went straight into a cafe to get myself together and the lady who had been on my left was in there and again said, "God really loves you"!.

I never thought to thank the young man or see who or where he was. I went on my way in a daze. It happened on Valentine's Day - a Valentine message from the Lord!
love
Ditta

That's BEAUTIFUL, Ditta. Can't wait to meet you, dear sister.

Are you still in England?

Hey TNDove yes I'm still here although hopefully not for too long and before long we'll meet somewhere mid-Atlantic (I mean above it, not in it!). Thank you dear brother for telling me that you were touched by the account - it happened about eight years ago and I only realised later on when typing it out and dating it that it was Valentine's Day.

Here is TN Dove's original post for those who have been all caught up in what some think is a controversy. It was not and is not controversial as far as I am concerned, as there are bigger issues in life than this. Much ado about nothing.

As you can see it is a video TN posted about love. I replied with a warning about the background of the man in the video who is involved in "contemplative spirtuality" which is based in New Age and Eastern Mysticism, more recently labeled "the Emergent Church".

Everyone on this forum is an adult who is able to read, and speak to the Holy Spirit for direction and instruction and is able to make their own decision about whether they want to watch the video or accept the background information. I thought the deceptive nature of this was dangerous and that the information would be helpful.