About Us

ContemplativeChristians.com seeks to be a resource for Christians seeking a way forward in their faith.

The purpose of this blog is to continue the articulation and embodiment of contemplative Christianity in the third millennium of Christian faith. My prayer is that through these writings, resources and reflections, you, Dear Unknown Friend, will be drawn further into the heart of God through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit’s transforming presence and action in your thoughts, feelings and embodiment.

In an era of increasing confusion, the Church is invited to an ancient alternative. We are invited to return, receive and re-discover the contemplative dimension of prayer and worship.

In an era of increasing interconnectivity, we believe that the cultivation of a meditative prayer practice is an ethical imperative, and the leading edge of how the human community can love God, humanity and all of God’s glorious creation – earth, sea, sky, life and cosmos.

We believe that personal, direct, relational experiences with Love, Meaning and Purpose are possible because of the Trinity. Beyond doctrine and creed, the experience of Love and Divine Presence is available in a universe that is alive and interconnected in Christ who is our All in All.

Every blessing in the depths of divine love, and every certitude of knowing beyond the senses in this Reality of Love.

Contributors

Peter Traben Haas

Peter Traben Haas, ContemplativeChristians.com founder and contributor, lives in Austin, Texas with his wife Christina. Peter serves as an associate pastor at Westlake Hills Presbyterian Church in Austin, TX. Peter received his M.Div. from Princeton Seminary and is currently writing his D.Min dissertation. Peter practices Centering Prayer and seeks to articulate the forgotten contemplative dimension of Christianity to Christianity. He is nurtured by the presence, teachings and writings of Father Thomas Keating, Tim Cook, Bernadette Roberts, the writings of Maurice Nicoll, and the extraordinary Cistercian Studies Series on the Church Fathers published by Cistercian Publications. Peter’s first book, The God Who Is Here, will be published in March 2011 by Lantern Books www.lanternbooks.comPastorPeterHaas@gmail.com. Peter welcomes conversation.

Ted Nottingham

Ted Nottingham is pastor of Northwood Christian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. Ted is the author of several books and seeks to communicate with all who will listen insights on the reality of God and on the ways in which we can encounter the sacred dimension of life. Ted’ s video blogs are available at the YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/tednottingham.

  • Contemplative Reflections

    "In Christ our sense of separation is subsumed by Divine love, enabling not just deeper spiritual understanding, but also spiritual union. Union with Christ is a state of being that helps dissolve our demands for air tight answers to the intellectual and emotional conundrums we confront in life and our perplexing experiences of existential pain.

    When we say that “Jesus became sin” for the salvation of the world, we mean that Jesus experienced the full terror of being separate from his Abba—the Aramaic term for “daddy.” Jesus couldn’t have imagined this state since his whole life was defined as being one with the Father. Thus, when he was asked to give up his oneness with the Father and become sin—that is, the state of conscious separation from the Father—it’s no wonder he cried out in agony alone in prayer (“If there be any other way”) and from the cross (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

    Jesus understood the core of what it meant to be human—to feel separate from God—because he experienced it. However, this experience is no longer the sole destiny for the human condition. An interpreter exists to mediate the mystery: the Spirit who awakens us in Christ to the essential interconnectedness that is our birthright way of being with God, our self, one another, and creation."

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