The Enneagram came from George Gurdjieff, a mystic who claimed to have learned it from “the Sufis (a mystical spin-off sect of Islam).” So clearly, this “Christian trend” is not based in sound biblical teaching. Thus, no matter how CharismaNews (a site we do not recommend) couches it, the Enneagram isn’t a helpful tool for the Christian. The fact of the matter is that it is an occult tool….a tool of the devil. Any professing believer who’s involved in this practice is going against God.
All you need to know to understand how bad the Ennegram is, is that Catholic contemplative Franciscan Friar Richard Rohr, who wrote that “sins are fixations that prevent the energy of life, God’s love, from flowing freely,” bears most of the responsibility for introducing the Enneagram to the (undiscerning) Christian community in his book “The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective” in 1990.
The ChrismaNews article concludes with this statement:
The Enneagram is a deep well to explore—that much is clear. However, determine for yourself whether it’s for you to dive into. Most important of all, remain led by the Spirit—you won’t go wrong.
So, the question Bible believing Christians should ask themselves before getting involved in the New Enneagram Trend is, does the Holy Spirit, who inspired the writers of the Bible, lead believers to explore practices that are expressly forbidden in the scriptures (like, say, yoga) and then prompt them to dive into a tainted well?
With this backdrop in place, here’s Chanshi Chibwe’s article over at CharismaNews:
There’s no denying that our culture is obsessed with self-assessment and personality typologies. There are countless systems that claim to support every aspect of life, from Myers-Briggs for interpersonal relationships to DISC or Strengths Finder for work communication and team-building strategies. However, one especially unique system, the Enneagram, corners the market for spiritual assessment. The Enneagram is an ancient psychological model for understanding personality that identifies nine personality types ranging from 1 to 9. These nine archetypes break out our “tragic flaws” and sin tendencies which we cloud with learned behaviors and coping techniques.
The unique claim of the Enneagram is its ability to dive under the surface of personality and culture and peer into our core identity and lens on the world. These consist of our root motivations, fears, strengths and weaknesses.
Although the Enneagram has been in existence for several hundred years, in the last couple decades, its popularity in the Christian community has skyrocketed. Its ease of unearthing critical motivations and sin tendencies that shape our understanding of the world, experts claim, can ultimately better connect us to God and thus lead to spiritual growth. Franciscan Rev. Richard Rohr is attributed responsibility for bridging study of the Enneagram through a Christian lens when he published The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective in 1990. Some even describe the Enneagram’s 9 types as essentially “nine paths to God”—roads to understanding our true selves and thus God’s design.
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This news story is posted for informational and research purposes and is not in any way intended as an endorsement of CharismaNews.
HT John Lanagan