One thought on “Prologue”

1. Others have asked me about why i selected a book written by a Catholic Mystic, as I am an evangelical firmly committed to reformation truths.

   How did you choose this book?

   I chose this book for a couple of reasons. As stated, it is a very influential work, not only among Catholics but among Protestants as well, particularly as the phrase “the dark night of the soul” remains within the Christian lexicon. A quick search will provide references to the phrase numerous websites such as TGC and Legionnaires. Secondly, I was given a copy of the book by a member of our congregation who had tried to read it for herself but wasn’t able to understand it, and so I began to read it and was struck by some of the descriptive ways that the book describes many traps into sin immature Christians fall into, the same traps into which I have observed many fall into within Protestant and Evangelical communities. This section alone I thought was very excellent and could be beneficial for young Christians to reflect upon. Thus I thought it would be a good book to start in this re-writing process.

   How will you deal with any Roman Catholic teaching that is counter to what the Bible teaches?

   As I stated on the homepage of this site, i do not intend simply to paraphrase these works or merely update the language to modern words, but I will rework the material, specifically “to speak more directly to modern evangelicalism.” That means that my intent is indeed to “de-Catholicize” the work, while reaping some of the insights from the material. In doing so, I am not giving a blanket endorsement of any of the source material on this site. I understand that some people may not be comfortable with this experiment, or may question my discernment in doing so. That is fine, I am not too concerned, as to my own Maker I stand or fall.

   As to specific references:

   I left the reference to “rosaries” in primarily because the author surprising refers to our reliance on things like them in a negative light. I also added other examples to that section which are drawn from both Catholic and Protestant experiences: “They will seek out new experiences of worship, new methods of prayer, and new mechanisms of connecting with God, rather than focusing their spiritual energy on killing sin and developing virtue. Often they will turn to material things such as rosaries, icons, prayer labyrinths, incense, or in our modern age, slickly-produced worship conferences which saturate the eyes and ears with laser, fog, and pulse-quickening bass rhythms.”

   The reference to the seven deadly sins was going to much more difficult to edit, as the entire section of the book was structured around each of the sins and the temptations they lay before the immature believer. However, in my understanding, the classification of these sins both preceded the Medieval period and were not rejected by the reformers – it was the Aquinian understanding of how the sins function that was rejected. Therefore I did not see it as problematic to keep the structure as is. In any case, the author himself concedes that this list of sins was somewhat arbitrary – his point is to demonstrate how the spiritual immature fall into predictable patterns of sin.

   Other examples of ways that I have de-Catholicized and de-mystified the writing: I am not very comfortable with St. John’s classification of spiritual initiates and masters, etc. I understand that this is actually a central core of his mystical worldview, but I reject it, and thus I use language to speak of “the spiritually immature” and “mentors”. I also downplay language of purgation as it sounds Catholic-y and brings to mind images of purgatory, however, I don’t think it needs to be taken in such a way. I would prefer to use language similar to John Owens “mortification of the flesh”, or “putting to death what is in us”, etc, although at some points I do speak of the purging work of grace. Please understand that when I use the word “purge”, I mean it in a most Protestant manner – i.e. speaking of sanctification alone as distinct from the justifying work of Christ.

   Finally, scripture alone is to be the sole authority on this site, yet obviously Scripture is not the only source I am using (otherwise this site would just be a Bible!) If you find any example on the site that sounds as though it is contrary to the revelation of Scripture, by all means point it out, and I will be very thankful to edit or remove.

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