Reformed Circling?

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Having not read the book, I must say that this book sounds like a touch of man-centeredness splashed with mysticism, disguised as "Christianity" and should be avoided. I would say that this practice should be avoided at all costs, as they are introducing New-Age mysticism with elements of yoga, channeling, etc.

From the Circling Website:
As everyone engages with genuine curiosity and shares their personal experience of being with you, you discover that who you ARE is more magnificent than any limited idea about who you “should” be. Because of this, Circling™ is often deeply nourishing and can lead to spiritual insights and awakenings.

Learn from Circling Institute partners Guy Sengstock, the original founder & genius of the now worldwide practice of Circling and Authentic Relating and Jon Cotton, a master circler with 30 years of experience teaching meditation, intuition & psychic abilities, firewalking, intimacy, & numerous other modalities.


From the owner (Guy Sengstock) in defining what circling is on a YT video:
"Circling has been telling me what it is ever since the beginning. I feel like my job is to listen deeply to it.... It's a deep inner subjective relational yoga or meditation."

Deeply Satanic.
 
Re: Aymee Byrd...

For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.—2 Tim. 3:6-7
 
The problem with Byrd is that she is developing an entire theological approach around a personal grievance that she's not able to cope with. Regardless of what she thinks she believes, in actual practice, she doesn't have a Reformed view of sin and suffering. She thinks that hardships and offenses can be dealt with by bringing them out into the open and talking about them endlessly, and fails to realize not only that no end of talking will ever "fix" these problems but that the act of endlessly talking draws one's attention away from Christ, to self, and feeds and nourishes whatever sins may be present. That she had some good things to say is, I think, reasonably clear. That she was also, at the outset, subjected to some behavior unbecoming of ministers of the Word may be more debatable but I do think that's the case as well. But she failed to accept this as a consequence of sticking her neck out (rightly or wrongly*). Then, instead of responding as the apostle Paul does by counting her sufferings as filling up what is lacking of the suffering of Christ in her life, instead of responding with humility and meekness, she asks "How could this possibly happen to me?" and doubles down on the areas where she was wrong. She's turned inward, and now looks to self instead of to Christ. Notice that every post of hers assumes the premise: the unspoken "truth" behind everything she writes is that she was grievously and unjustly wronged with no corresponding wrong on her end.

And so now we have a theological oyster. Unable to rid herself of the irritant, she's surrounded it with layer upon layer of flowery language, creating yet another shiny pearl that is, at its root, nothing more than plain ole' theological error and confusion. Once again we have that far-from-unique American phenomenon of someone packaging their own theological journey off the rails and packaging their own unaddressed grievances and unsolved heart problems as a solution to the problems of others that you can buy or click "Like" or subscribe to. Congratulations, Aimee: you're the latest iteration of a very tired cliche.

*A woman always takes on a big risk putting herself out there as Aimee has. The debate over gender roles is one thing; prudence, I think, ought to suggest that women like Aimee are safer, and in a better position, if they have a man to go to bat for them and lead the charge. But how old fashioned and quaint of me to assume that the Biblical way of doing things is actually better for women and designed to protect them. Can't have people like me trampling on someone's right to self-expression and autonomy!
 
The problem with Byrd is that she is developing an entire theological approach around a personal grievance that she's not able to cope with. Regardless of what she thinks she believes, in actual practice, she doesn't have a Reformed view of sin and suffering. She thinks that hardships and offenses can be dealt with by bringing them out into the open and talking about them endlessly, and fails to realize not only that no end of talking will ever "fix" these problems but that the act of endlessly talking draws one's attention away from Christ, to self, and feeds and nourishes whatever sins may be present. That she had some good things to say is, I think, reasonably clear. That she was also, at the outset, subjected to some behavior unbecoming of ministers of the Word may be more debatable but I do think that's the case as well. But she failed to accept this as a consequence of sticking her neck out (rightly or wrongly*). Then, instead of responding as the apostle Paul does by counting her sufferings as filling up what is lacking of the suffering of Christ in her life, instead of responding with humility and meekness, she asks "How could this possibly happen to me?" and doubles down on the areas where she was wrong. She's turned inward, and now looks to self instead of to Christ. Notice that every post of hers assumes the premise: the unspoken "truth" behind everything she writes is that she was grievously and unjustly wronged with no corresponding wrong on her end.

And so now we have a theological oyster. Unable to rid herself of the irritant, she's surrounded it with layer upon layer of flowery language, creating yet another shiny pearl that is, at its root, nothing more than plain ole' theological error and confusion. Once again we have that far-from-unique American phenomenon of someone packaging their own theological journey off the rails and packaging their own unaddressed grievances and unsolved heart problems as a solution to the problems of others that you can buy or click "Like" or subscribe to. Congratulations, Aimee: you're the latest iteration of a very tired cliche.

*A woman always takes on a big risk putting herself out there as Aimee has. The debate over gender roles is one thing; prudence, I think, ought to suggest that women like Aimee are safer, and in a better position, if they have a man to go to bat for them and lead the charge. But how old fashioned and quaint of me to assume that the Biblical way of doing things is actually better for women and designed to protect them. Can't have people like me trampling on someone's right to self-expression and autonomy!
I am not willing to go that far yet. But, even as an early defender of Byrd I think she has made bizarre twists along the way and I stopped following.
 
More circles….
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The same stuff I see in schools. It's very vague. Trauma is anything that one doesn't agree with that one has encountered.
 
The same stuff I see in schools. It's very vague. Trauma is anything that one doesn't agree with that one has encountered.
…and love doesn’t seem to be able to cover anything regardless of the degree of offense or time elapsed since the event(s).
 
I am not willing to go that far yet. But, even as an early defender of Byrd I think she has made bizarre twists along the way and I stopped following.
It's a sad story: she really wasn't treated right. And her being a woman definitely had something to do with her treatment. Being an attractive woman didn't help. That can be threatening to men. Especially nerdy, theological ones.

But my impression: she was simply too invested in the movement she wanted to start to pull back and just be an "ordinary" congregant. And that's taking her in a weird trajectory with some strange friends.
 
…and love doesn’t seem to be able to cover anything regardless of the degree of offense or time elapsed since the event(s).
Our society has been conditioning people to be "fragile" for a long time. The notion that if one suffers any kind of abuse, or even just grew up with a father who was not as emotionally available as one might have wanted (like 99.997% of humanity), this becomes the defining aspect of one's identity. You are a victim. And the damage is automatically assumed to be irreparable. Getting past such things is thought impossible. And telling someone to try and get past it is one and the same as denying their identity. So we have a society that has had the least amount of suffering of any generation in world history constantly imagining themselves to have suffered more than any other. It's really something to behold.
 
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