Is there a true Christian mysticism?

In contrast with the Emerging Church's "contemplative prayer," the mysticism I want to defend is so difficult to practice rightly it's hard to see that it could ever become a large movement in the churches. In fact it wouldn't be wrong in many cases to think of it as the entire life of a Christian's growth in sanctification condensed into intense periods of prayer and meditation on the Bible and other appropriate sources of inspiration.

The rightly criticized current practice is nothing at all like the Christian mysticism of John of the Cross or Madame Guyon or Gerhard Tersteegen, whose main practices were self-denial and mortification of sin and of the fallen nature and worldliness. As I mentioned in the previous post, I haven't found one advocate of today's popular version of contemplative prayer saying anything about self-denial or mortification of sin, it's all quite the opposite, seeking an experience of your "true Self" which is far from a Christian objective. And as the critics warn, that sort of pursuit will not lead you to God, but may very well lead you to demonic counterfeits and even possession. In fact it should be kept in mind that even when we are sincerely seeking God, the attempt to practice a deeper sort of prayer that focuses on having an experience of God is also open to such counterfeits, just because we are prone to deceive ourselves about whether we are truly denying ourselves and mortifying our sins, or really seeking God for that matter.

One of the Emerging Church teachers I didn't mention in the previous post is Richard Rohr who has many lectures at You Tube, a Catholic as so many of these teachers are, a Franciscan priest, who apparently specializes in "contemplative prayer." According to Rohr, "contemplation" is "non-dualistic thinking" which he says we desperately need to learn. Dualistic thinking is making distinctions, discriminating between true and false, right and wrong, but what we need is unity, coming together, giving up our distinctions, giving up conflict in order to find true ecumenical accord. I don't know if this is New Age or Postmodernism, or both or neither, but it isn't Christianity.

Besides the technique of meditation I described in the previous post, which is basically Transcendental Meditation done with a more or less Christianized "mantra" of your own choosing, there is another method he says Karl Keating, another Catholic priest, describes, of simply watching your thoughts: letting your thoughts arise, labeling or acknowledging them and sending them away, in a boat or something like that I think he said. This he calls "self-denial" because it's giving up such an entrenched habit that you are attached to. It's very much like some Buddhist technique I read about, if I remember rightly, and the word for it may be "mindfulness." Watching your thoughts and letting them go.

The utter lack of a prescribed content, any content at all but certainly Christian content, in all these video presentations is something to marvel at. Everything is scaffolding or skeletal structure without an edifice, without content. We are taught to get rid of our thoughts, the idea being to leave yourself open to whatever then comes in, supposedly God but it won't be God. Also in this nondualistic system we are exhorted to give up our "differences" without any of those differences being discussed or in some cases even mentioned. Doctrinal differences between Catholic and Protestant are a major theme because these are the groups coming together in the Emerging Church. But the doctrinal differences between Catholicism and Protestantism are a matter of life or death, eternal life or death, no small thing. No matter, all that is to be ignored in the service of ecumenical unity, one big happy family, apparently embracing a big emptiness of nondualistic thinking or in other words nonthinking.

But if there is such a thing as true Christian mystics, their mysticism is full of Christian content, biblical content. That is, they are actively seeking the God of the Bible, not just some generic god or generic experience. If there is an aspect of their seeking that is similar to the emptying of the mind of the new agey practices of the Emerging Church, it's the negating of everything that is not God, the purging of the fallen nature, of sin.

I don't want to recommend the 16th century Catholic mystic John of the Cross beyond saying that his method, if it can be called a method, is clearly Christian, clearly Biblical. He aims to quiet his own fallen nature in order to draw close to God, which quieting he calls a "dark night" because it's a closing off of the natural physical senses so that the spiritual nature can reach out to God. And along with quieting the soul, at the same time he is cultivating a deep love toward God.

Here are a few stanzas of the famous poem of John of the Cross:

The Dark Night of the Soul

On a dark night, Kindled in love with yearnings–oh, happy chance!– I went forth without being observed, My house being now at rest.

In darkness and secure, By the secret ladder, disguised–oh, happy chance!– In darkness and in concealment, My house being now at rest.

In the happy night, In secret, when none saw me, Nor I beheld aught, Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart.

This light guided me More surely than the light of noonday To the place where he (well I knew who!) was awaiting me– A place where none appeared.

Oh, night that guided me, Oh, night more lovely than the dawn, Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover, Lover transformed in the Beloved!

This poem is the basis of John of the Cross's treatise on this method of approach to God, titled The Ascent of Mount Carmel. This is no emptying of the mind, there is no emptiness here at all. As the fallen nature is mortified and the dark night darkens, the soul is filled more and more with the spiritual love and yearnings toward God.