Does The Pursuit of God Promote Christian Mysticism?

Short answer: The Pursuit of God does use language and sources associated with Christian mysticism, but whether the book “promotes Christian mysticism” depends on what that term means. Tozer encourages personal communion with God, spiritual attentiveness, prayer, surrender, and experiential knowledge of God. He does not present occult techniques, secret revelation, or a path to God apart from Christ and Scripture. His language should nevertheless be tested carefully against the Bible.

Why readers ask the question

The question is reasonable because the original introduction by Samuel Zwemer explicitly notes Tozer’s familiarity with Christian “saints and mystics” such as Augustine, Nicholas of Cusa, Thomas à Kempis, and Friedrich von Hügel. Tozer also uses phrases such as tasting God, apprehending God, spiritual senses, the gaze of the soul, and conscious awareness of God’s presence.

Those phrases sound different from the language used in many modern evangelical churches.

“Mysticism” can mean very different things

The word mysticism is too broad to answer with a simple yes or no.

Some people use it to mean any emphasis on direct, personal communion with God. In that broad sense, Tozer certainly emphasizes experiential knowledge of God.

Others use mysticism for practices that seek hidden knowledge, altered states, revelation outside Scripture, union that erases the Creator-creature distinction, or spirituality detached from Christ. Those ideas should not be automatically attributed to Tozer simply because he quotes older devotional writers.

Chapter 8, in fact, emphasizes the proper Creator-creature relationship rather than collapsing the distinction between God and the believer.

What Tozer is trying to recover

His stated concern is that Christians can possess correct doctrine without living in worshipful fellowship with God.

He wants believers to pray, trust, obey, surrender, worship, and live with conscious dependence on God. He repeatedly uses biblical texts to awaken hunger.

That makes his spirituality experiential, but “experiential” does not automatically mean unbiblical.

John 15, for example, describes abiding in Christ, love, obedience, prayer, and fruitfulness. The Psalms are full of longing, delight, thirst, fear, joy, and trust in God.

Where discernment is necessary

Tozer’s poetic and devotional language can sometimes sound stronger than the biblical text he is illustrating. Readers should therefore ask:

Is this phrase a direct biblical teaching or Tozer’s devotional description?
Does the surrounding chapter keep Christ, grace, and Scripture central?
Does the idea preserve the distinction between Creator and creature?
Does it lead toward obedience and holiness rather than fascination with experience?
Is a private impression being treated as equal to Scripture?

Colossians 2 warns against spirituality that becomes detached from Christ, while John 15 roots spiritual life in abiding in Christ and obeying His words.

A fair conclusion

It is fair to say that Tozer draws from the historic Christian mystical or devotional tradition and encourages experiential knowledge of God.

It is not fair to conclude from that fact alone that The Pursuit of God teaches every practice or theology that has ever been labeled “mystical.”

The safest approach is neither uncritical enthusiasm nor automatic rejection. Read Tozer with an open Bible and evaluate each claim on its own merits.

For that process, see How Should Readers Test Tozer’s Teachings Against Scripture?.

How Tozer differs from experience-centered spirituality

A helpful test is to ask what holds the center of the spirituality being described. In The Pursuit of God, the intended center is God, not the believer’s experience of God. That matters. Experience-centered spirituality asks, “What happened to me?” God-centered spirituality asks, “Who is God, what has He revealed, and how should I respond?”

Tozer’s strongest chapters repeatedly move away from self-absorption. Chapter 2 confronts possessiveness, Chapter 3 confronts the self-life, Chapter 8 restores the Creator-creature order, and Chapter 9 attacks the burden of reputation. These themes are difficult to reconcile with a spirituality whose final goal is fascination with one’s own inner state.

What should a cautious evangelical reader do?

A cautious reader does not need to adopt the label mystic in order to benefit from Tozer. Read the original text, identify the biblical claim underneath the imagery, and keep Christ and Scripture central. Where Tozer is illuminating, receive the insight. Where his language is ambiguous, let clearer Scripture control the interpretation. Where a later practice is imported into Tozer that he did not actually teach, distinguish it from the book itself.