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| Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth | 
 enlarge | Author: Richard J. Foster
Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (120 reviews)
Sales Rank: 2362
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 3rd
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 248
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.8 x 1
ISBN: 0060628391
Dewey Decimal Number: 248.4896
EAN: 9780060628390
ASIN: 0060628391
Publication Date: October 1, 1998
Release Date: October 5, 1988
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Classic Wisdom June 11, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Foster's profound insights on living out the spiritual disciplines in a sustainable way still work after all these years. By tweaking his classic volume for the 21st century the author has helped Christians everywhere understand how the "yoke" of following Jesus can become light. Genius!
Celebration of Dicipline: The Path to Spirtual Growth March 18, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Excellent book. The author has a basic, sensible style of writing that makes what he is saying very clear.
 gnosticism? March 6, 2007
25 out of 57 found this review helpful
Either we consider our subjective experience (mysticism or rationalism) as our basis for "truth", or we have some outside, objective standard of truth by which we measure our experience (revelation). This latter view does not discount or even diminish subjective experiences; it simply relegates them to their proper role in the pursuit of truth and knowledge of reality (particularly of God!). God has provided us with His Word as the perfect standard of truth. Is our knowledge of God based on our subjective experiences of Him, or are our spiritual experiences tested against the standard of His Word? It's the difference between "a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock" and "a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth" (Luke 6:48-49. I see three possibilities (rationalism, mysticism, revelation) and it appears that Foster has chosen mysticism. (Quotes from first edition.)
Foster starts off his discussion on disciplines with a chapter on meditation, claiming that:
`Christian meditation leads us to the inner wholeness necessary to give ourselves to God freely, and to the spiritual perception necessary to attack social evils. In this sense it is the most practical of all disciplines.' (15)
How are we to learn to meditate?
`If we are capable of listening to our dreams, we are taking the first steps.' (16)
How can we learn from our dreams?
`Benedict Perenius, a sixteenth-century Jesuit, suggested that the best interpreter of dreams is the "...person with plenty of experience in the world and the affairs of humanity, with a wide interest in everything human, and who is open to the voice of God." (24)
The "voice of God" is a vague generality that has no clear meaning. What is clear is the emphasis on humanity and everything human; interesting if you consider that all religions boil down to two, essentially: Gnostic humanism, and Biblical Christianity.
`Anyone who can tap the power of the imagination can learn to meditate.'(16)
Try this: `And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.' (Genesis 6:5);
More on meditation:
`They are not laws nor are they intended to confine you; rather, they are a few of the many windows into the inward world.' (20)
`We simply must become convinced of the importance of thinking and experiencing in images.' (22)
Try: "Thou shalt not make thee any graven image," (Deuteronomy 5:8)
Note also Foster's panentheism/pantheism.
`"The simplest and oldest way...in which God manifests Himself is...through and in the earth itself. And He still speaks to us through the earth and the sea, the birds of the air and the little living creatures upon the earth, if we can but quiet ourselves to listen." [Agnes Sanford] We should not bypass this means of God's grace, for as Evelyn Underhill warns: "To elude nature, to refuse her friendship, and attempt to leap the river of life in the hope of finding God on the other side, is the common error of a perverted mysticality....So you are to begin with that first form of contemplation which the old mystics sometimes called the `discovery of God in His creatures.'"' (25)
Perhaps instead the simplest and oldest way in which God reveals Himself to us is in His literal spoken (and for us written) Word. But according to Foster we shouldn't start with the Word of God as our foundation:
"Having practiced for some weeks with the two kinds of meditation listed above, you will want to add the meditation upon Scripture." (25)
i.e. Filter Scripture through your experiences as a means of knowing its truth, rather than starting with Scripture and testing your experiences against it.
Another reviewer already quoted the passage detailing astral travel (!).
According to Foster, "time and experience" will teach you to distinguish the Truth, rather than the Timeless Truth distinguishing between experiences. In today's spiritual climate we must realize that just because the right buzzwords are used (Jesus, True Spirit, Creator) this is no guarantee that these are used in the sense in which we assume they are.
Foster's foundation of mystical experience/meditation/contemplation then becomes his basis for prayer:
`Meditation is the necessary prelude to intercession.' (35)
`We begin praying for others by first centering down and listening to the quiet thunder of the Lord of hosts. Attuning ourselves to divine breathings is spiritual work, but without it our praying is vain repetition.' (34)
Nevermind the countless passages in Scripture of prayers to be prayed, and Jesus Himself teaching us how to pray.
When he finally gets to the discipline of study (in chapter 4) he states that:
`Although meditation and study often overlap and function concurrently, they constitute two distinct experiences. Study provides a certain objective framework within which meditation can successfully function.' (56)
However, he doesn't even specify here that it is the study of Scripture that provides a certain objective framework within which meditation can successfully function. His notion of study certainly can't be limited to such a narrow focus; studying experience must have its place, as well as studying what we find within ourselves.
Many have documented the death of the Evangelical mind and in its place has risen a nonrational mysticism. I am not saying that mysticism and meditation have no place in the Christian life, nor am I saying that, in contrast, rationalism is the foundation of truth; either makes for a deadly "foundation." Mangalwadi puts it well when he says that "our knowledge of truth is not rooted in our abilities - rational or mystical - but in revelation." (Missionary Conspiracy). These reasons are enough cause for me to have serious concerns about the recommendation of Celebration of Discipline to anyone.
Please! don't be a lemming, even though anyone who's anyone in American "christianity" seems to be recommending this book.
One of the best discipleship books available January 5, 2007
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
Along with J.G. Marking's "A Voice Is Calling," there is no better book to study by yourself or in a group regarding how the spiritual disciplines can dramatically, actually transform our lives.
Foster's ability to define the simplest of truths while revealing their power and applicability is truly amazing.
If you like Dallas Willard or J.G. Marking, this book is for you. I definitely agree that this and the one above are great for bible studies or groups because they both open up a discussion about how to grow closer to God.
 A staple for your spiritual library January 5, 2007
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
We read this book for my mens bible group. I came into the group halfway through, but I zipped through the book after I got a little taste!
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