- Richard Foster (religion)
Richard J. Foster is a Christian theologian and author in the
Quaker tradition. His writings speak to a broad Christian audience. He has been a professor atFriends University and pastor of Evangelical Friends churches. Foster resides inDenver, Colorado .Foster is best known for his 1978 book "
Celebration of Discipline " (ISBN 0-06-062839-1), which examines the inward disciplines ofprayer ,fasting ,meditation , and study in the Christian life, the outward disciplines ofsimplicity ,solitude , , and service, and the corporate disciplines ofconfession ,worship , guidance, and celebration. It has sold over one million copies. It was named by "Christianity Today " as one of the top ten books of the twentieth century.He also wrote "Freedom of Simplicity" (1981, ISBN 0-06-104385-0) which further explores the discipline of simple, intentional living, "Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home" (1992, ISBN 0-06-062846-4), which explores 21 different types of Christian prayer, edited "Devotional Classics" (1993, ISBN 0-06-066966-7), a devotional guide featuring Christian wisdom through the ages, and wrote "Streams of Living Water" (2001, ISBN 0-06-062822-7), which examines the place of the different spiritual traditions - Contemplative: The Prayer-Filled Life; Holiness: The Virtuous Life ; Charismatic: The Spirit-Empowered Life; Social Justice: The Compassionate Life; Evangelical: The Word-Centered Life; and Incarnational: The Sacramental Life - in Christianity.
Foster (along with several others) also authored the devotional "Renovaré Spiritual Formation Bible." Two editions of this
NRSV -basedstudy Bible exist, one with theapocryphal /deuterocanonical texts and one without.In 1988 Foster founded "
Renovaré ", a Christian renewal para-Church organization. As Foster encourages the utilization of classical Christian wisdom, he functions within the realm ofpaleo-orthodoxy . Some fundamentalist Bible teachers, however, criticize Foster's writings as unbiblical and of being part of the "Emerging Church " doctrines which have adapted prayer styles of Eastern mystics. (Some extreme fundamentalist leaders also teach that the Emerging Church is prophesied to ultimately join with other world religions to make up the "One World Religion.")External links
* [http://www.quakerinfo.com/foster.shtml QuakerInfo: Richard Foster: Quaker Writer on Christian Spirituality]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.