Apparently the emergent movement is redefining prayer for us. It is not enough to know that prayer is communication with God now you should know the difference between “apophatic” and “kataphatic” prayer. Well don’t panic, Eugene Peterson explains it all for us. Kataphatic prayer is praying with the eyes open and apohpatic prayer is praying with the eyes closed. Somehow all this profound wisdom reminds me of a old commercial. The one where they show eggs frying and equate it with your brain on drugs. You read the article and see where it takes you?
More Books and Things…: A Thing called Apophatic Prayer
“kataphatic prayer employs thoughts and images while apophatic transcends these. And that the Cloud of Unknowing will give us a clear, concise and convincing statement on what is ‘apophatic‘ prayer, which is about rising ecstatically within the Cloud of Unknowing, where one can know God by simply letting one’s mind rest in the consciousness of God in His naked existence, where, in this state of being beyond conscious awareness, one does not know or even care who or what God is. One is simply satisfied with the Lord as He exists at this moment in a relational union with oneself.”
This is ridiculous. Prayer is something you do to maintain a relationship with God. In prayer, you thank God, you confess your sins and ask for His forgiveness, you ask Him things. One ought to be humble before God at all time, including in prayer. Doesn’t matter whether your eyes are open or not, as long as you do it in a spirit of humbleness and sincerity, with fear and love for the Lord. It’s not some way to achieve an ’emptiness of the mind’ or some inner feeling of peace. That is what the Buddhists and other occult religions would say. The opposite is true! A Christian must be full of God’s Holy Spirit. Those who wish to empty their minds are opening themselves to demonic spirits that are not from God. That is what so many people are doing through the practice of various forms of meditation. These ‘relaxation techniques’ aim at achieving a state of inner peace and enlightenment by ourselves. The truth is that only Christ can fill our empty hearts and give us peace and comfort. He is the living Water. Whoever drinks of this Water shall never thirst. We can only drink of this ever-satisfying Water if we listen to God’s Word to us and act accordingly. And the only way we can obey God’s Word is through the the Holy Spirit who teaches and comforts us and writes His Law on our hearts. He is not some mystical mumbo jumbo obscure force as some charismatic Christians have made out of Him, but the Spirit of the living God.
‘But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”‘ Hebrews 10:15-17