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Christian Meditation

Decent Essays

Some Christians are against meditation in general, or even mediation in Christian context. Some are fearful because they automatically associate any type of meditation with Asian religious traditions. The Christian practice of meditation has been forgotten by some, and it has been centuries since it was a common tradition. In his book, Prayer of Heart and Body, Thomas Ryan says that rather than learning intellectually about God that the meditation allows the Christian to know Him through direct experience. Christian meditation has been around as long as Christianity itself, including the three major branches, Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant including evangelical denominations. In his thesis on the difference between Christian meditation …show more content…

Marcarius, Diadochus, and St. John Climacus, in the fifth and sixth centuries. In the 1500s St. Ignatius implemented the idea of meditation as a way for the Christian to find his or her self in God’s story; this is still used today, centuries later and is often referred to by Christians as “scriptural drama meditation.” Other types of Christian meditation are scriptural truth mediation and Christ-centered present moment awareness. Other well-known Christians who have practiced meditation through the centuries include St. Francis of Assisi, St. Teresa, Evagrius of Pontus, and others. Groups within Christianity that have used it include: Orthodox, Society of Friends, and …show more content…

Augustine was a Christian monk from the sixteenth century who used devotion and memory to reflect on Genesis as the model for spiritual life with God. St. Augustine’s meditation is an example of devotional meditation. Augustine’s prayer life focused on engaging the mind, emotions and motivation for a direct link to God. St. Teresa of Avila, also of the sixteenth century, emphasized what is known as a prayer of union and the boy as a means to achieve it through importance of contemplative prayer and meditation on the greatness of God. Her works were part of the inspiration behind Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon and the Quietist controversy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Meditation in the Society of Friends, or Quakers, is closely related to the Quietist movement because they both focus on internal spiritual life with God. Protestant Bishop Joseph Hall, a ...of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was influenced by Augustine and wrote several works on meditation titled The Arte of Divine Meditation, Meditations and Vowes, and Heaven on Earth. Despite this, Hall saw meditation as no more than a means to turn the mind on a spiritual item through dialog on a topic. Hall identified three types of meditation: two deliberate forms of meditation- logical and emotional- and then what Hall referred to as an “occasional” meditation because it was prompted by external

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