NAMB & David Platt Church Plant Promotes Enneagram for Church Training
Conservative evangelicals warn that the Enneagram is unreliable and invokes a spirituality incompatible with Christianity.
(Capstone Report) A church in Virginia planted by the New City Network–a partnership funded by NAMB and McLean Bible Church promotes the use of the Enneagram in its new member training class.
Conservative Christian experts warn of the dangers of the Enneagram.
SBC Presidential candidate Willy Rice is vice chairman of the NAMB trustees charged with oversight of NAMB.
A Falls Church, Virginia church planted by the North American Mission Board (NAMB) in partnership with the New City Network uses the Enneagram as part of its ministry training program. CityLight Church’s Basic Training Manual includes a section on Spiritual Gifts and personality—it is in this section of the booklet that the church promotes the Enneagram.
According to the booklet, there are nine Enneagram personality types including: the perfectionist, the helper, the performer, the romantic, the investigator, the loyalist, the enthusiast, the challenger and the peacemaker.
The section on personality concludes by saying, “We will be sending you an invitation (by email) to take an enneagram test to help identify your type.”
Conservative evangelicals warn that the Enneagram is unreliable and invokes a spirituality incompatible with Christianity. Dr. Rhenn Cherry explains in a podcast on the Enneagram:
“The symbol that is currently identified as the 9-point Enneagram was brought to the Western world by a mystic named G.I. Gurdjieff in the early 1900s. Few people would dispute that he’s credited with bringing the symbol to the Western world. For those who don’t know, let’s not skip over this word mystic. It’s someone who claims two main things: First, a mystic claims to have attained a level of divine insight or understanding that transcends ordinary human knowledge.”
Cherry has also written a book on the dangers of the Enneagram.
Southern Evangelical Seminary warns that the Enneagram is often presented with Christian origins; however, this has been debunked. According to SES,
“Since the Enneagram is false in nature, it means that Christians who recommend it are promoting a false idea and a false method for self-evaluation. How can Christians proclaim the truth of Jesus Christ while accepting a false tool?”
Kevin DeYoung writes, “The Enneagram presents an approach to spirituality that is alien to, and often at odds with, the language and contours of Scripture…If the Enneagram were…
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Editor’s Note. This article was written and published at the Capstone Report