Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Adventism's Spiritual Formation Debate

A relative recently sent me a link to hear a debate about the dangers of spiritual formation, and I was once again disheartened by the amount of warnings without definition of terms or aspects needing to be avoided.
Finally 28 minutes into the youtube video Mark Finley had a very balanced, clear perspective, followed by this statement by the moderator, C. A. Murray:

"There is more council in Ellen White's writings on formalism and coldness than there is on the excess of moving to the left, dare I say. You have more council against formal, rigid, dogmatic, lifeless, Christless church."

This is the core of my frustration.  I have never been to an Adventist church that was erring to the side of too much prayer and meditation!  Where are these SDA churches that are struggling with having all of their members becoming mystics and experimenting with types of prayer that may be evil?  I would compare our current focus on this possible extreme to the Adventist Health System sending out urgent memos warning of the dire consequences of leaving the black plague untreated.

If the goal in this discussion is a middle-of-the-road vibrant walk with Christ, and the two possible sides to error on are lifeless formalism and eastern mysticism, which have you encountered more in the Adventist denomination?

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