Spiritual Direction to Where?
Why do Mennonites think they need Catholic spiritual directors? While it’s true that their forefather Menno Simons was a Catholic priest, he left the Catholic church, even renouncing it for it’s heretical teachings. There was much at stake for the costly choice of those who joined and followed Menno (i.e. being burned at the stake). But today there is a new breed of Mennonites who are going to back to the Catholic church, and beyond, through Catholic spiritual directors.
In a (rather long) article called ECUMENICAL DIALOGUE AS A MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION, John A. Lapp, Executive Secretary Emeritus of the Mennonite Central Committee says the following:
“I have already mentioned a spiritual director from my congregation who has a Catholic spiritual director. I don’t know how many times that is being multiplied. I do know that a steady stream of Mennonites are learning the art and skill of spiritual direction at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, at Ignatius College in Guelph, Ontario, and surely at other places. Catholic resource persons are a continuing presence at retreats held at the Jesuit Center near Reading.
A number of Mennonite have studied liturgy and worship with Catholic teachers or in Catholic institutions.”
-http://www.bridgefolk.net/mctc05/lapp.htm
Ministry reconciliation (as in making up for bad feelings over all that nasty persecution, burning at the stake over silly little doctrinal issues, etc.) is the term used by Bridgefolk to describe ecumenism, or bridge building between the Catholics and Mennonites. But it’s not only the Bridgefolk who are building these bridges through spiritual direction. There are now Mennonites who are promoting it. The examples are far too numerous to list, but here are a few…
For example, there is the 2 year training program in Spiritual Direction called Journey Partners led by Rev. Miller, campus pastor for Eastern Mennonite University, who was trained at the ecumenical Shalem Institute of Spiritual Formation.
Spiritual direction is also popular in the heart of Mennonite land in Mennonitobia (Manitoba, Canada), as shown by this list:
http://www.mennochurch.mb.ca/resources/spiritual_directors.htm
Working our way west, Imago Dei (in affiliation with the Mennonite Brethren Conference of British Columbia, Canada), is a community that promotes spiritual direction:
http://imagodeicommunity.ca/finding-spiritual-direction/
As you may have noticed, these last two websites link with the very interfaith/interspiritual SDI (Spiritual Directors International). You will even find the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary of Elkhart, IN, sandwiched in between all the interspiritual spiritual direction programs (here:
http://www.sdiworld.org/northamericaenrichment.html).
Ray Yungen, author of A Time of Departing, says this about SDI:
While it is evident that SDI believes outside of the scope that salvation can only be found through Jesus Christ according to the Bible, it is interesting to note the wide variety of Christian denominations that are represented by SDI:
A 2005 membership list showed 531 Episcopalians, 223 Presbyterians, 201 United Methodists, 154 Lutherans, and a whopping 2,355 Roman Catholics; counting another forty or so “traditions,” the total was nearly 5000. To show the nature of just what they mean by “across traditions” the list included Buddhist, Gnostic Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Siddha Yoga,and even Pagan/Wiccan (A Time of Departing, 2nd ed. p.41).
-http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/spiritualdirection.htm
To get a clear understanding of the kind of spirituality that is taught by SDI, you really must see this short clip:
http://info.sdiworld.org/archives/2007/08/09/kriya-yoga-meditation
If that’s not clear enough, take a look at their upcoming international SDI event in Washington, D.C., where the Shalem Institute’s top spiritual guide and sensei teacher in the lineage of the White Plum Sangha (Zen) will be the keynote presenter.
Yet this is where Mennonites are getting their training for spiritual direction! Not only is spiritual direction leading Mennonites back to Rome through Catholic spiritual directors, it is also leading them down the wide interspiritual pathway to destruction!
This is nothing new. It’s been going on for a few years already. Here is quite a long list of Mennonite spiritual directors, many of whom have been trained at Jesuit (Ignatius) retreats, Shalem, or SDI on this 2005 Mennonite Spiritual Directors list from the Mennonite Church USA:
www.mennoniteusa.org/executive/congregational_life/docs/Spiritual-Directors.pdf
(HTML link here)
It almost seems too incredible to believe how far off the path Mennonites have gone. If you think Menno would not be amused, how do these Mennonites suppose God feels about this Mennonite mess? As John Lapp of the MCC said at the end of his ecumenical Bridgefolk article (above), may God help us!
“And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the LORD to anger.” Judges 2:12
ROM (Roll Over Menno) Index: High
You mentioned Imago Dei, which I had never heard of. This overall trend of which Imago Dei forms a part is highly troubling. It’s all the more so because overall, the BC Mennonite Brethren Conference is actually highly conservative and Biblical in orientation.
The largest church in the conference, Willingdon Church, solidly teaches the sovereignty of God, inerrancy of Scripture, substitutionary atonement, and the doctrines of grace, and the BC Conference’s overall conservatism carries weight because of the conference’s size and influence.
The denomination is congregational in its organization, however, so it is possible for individual congregations to ally themselves with movements and ideas that are not doctrinally sound, as long as they keep within the bounds of the MB Confession of Faith (presumably), which is fairly conservative but allows some latitude.
On another note, thank you for bringing some of these issues to light, but it is not clear from anywhere on this blog where you (the blogger or bloggers) stand. Are you yourselves affiliated with any Mennonite denomination?
You are very right about the MB. It’s a good thing that each MB congregation can remain somewhat autonomous by individually deciding what they bring in (to an extent, as you mention). That’s okay as long as the church leadership is discerning, as in the case of Willingdon Church, which is very good to hear. However, the concern is that there is so much accessability to contemplative, emerging, and other questionable (and even recommended) materials and resources that should not even be available in the first place through the Mennonite Brethren Conference and their various gatherings. The discernment is lacking at the top. What a shame that these things are not being caught before they require discernment farther down the line. For example, how many senior pastors are even aware of what their youth pastors are teaching? I know of quite a few MB churches where this is the case. Of course, this is not only a Mennonite issue - it’s everywhere, in every denomination.
In answer to your last question, the purpose of this blog is to bring out these issues in an objective manner from a biblical perspective, although it is difficult not to let the flesh get in the way as the writer of this blog is quite biased, being a Mennonite Brethren member until leaving very recently.
Thank you very much for you excellent comment.