EVANGELICAL REVIEW OF THEOLOGY VOLUME 16 Volume 16 • Number 2 • April 1992 Evangelical Review of Theology Articles and book reviews original and selected from publications worldwide for an international readership for the purpose of discerning the obedience of faith EDITOR: BRUCE J. NICHOLLS Published by THE PATERNOSTER PRESS for WORLD EVANGELICAL FELLOWSHIP Theological Commission p. 115 Editorial Towards an Evangelical Spirituality Global spirituality is the preoccupation of our age. The forthcoming 16 volumes on World Spirituality plan to develop a new discipline in the field of religion with a comprehensive survey of past and present paths to spirituality worldwide. James Houston calls these studies a ‘new expression of Gnosticism’. Each religion offers its own distinctive pilgrimage. Some aspects enshrine particular truths which are uplifting and morally edifying. Every day millions of Hindus pray the Upanishadic Prayer: From the unreal lead me to the real From the darkness lead me to light From death lead me to immortality The daily call to prayer from the minaret is a call to submission to God who is Great. Other aspects of religious pilgrimage are self-centredness leading to selfishness, arrogance and violence, while others are overtly idolatrous and demonic, resulting in fear and bondage to elemental spirits. Secular spiritualities are blatantly materialistic and hedonistic. The eclecticism of New Age philosophies and religions reflect the present-day search for global spirituality. Religious and secular spiritualities are but shadows of the nature of mankind, created in the image of God with a thirst for communion with the Ultimate and yet fallen in sin and guilt and rebellious against the Laws of God and ever seeking to manipulate God through idolatrous cultic practices. Christian spirituality is a sustained and living relationship of trust with the personal triune Creator-Redeemer God. It is experiencing Christ’s Kingly reign in daily life. In the words of Klaus Bockmuehl it is ‘living the Gospel’. The history of the Church is a rich mosaic of different paths to communion with God and service in the world ranging from the disciplines of the contemplative life of the early Church Fathers, east and west and mediaeval mystics to the Word-centred spiritualities and puritan ethics of the Reformation era, to the holiness and mission-centred spiritualities and puritan ethics of the Reformation era, to the holiness and mission-centred Christologies of the Evangelical Awakening from Wesley to the present time. The twentieth century has seen the phenomenal growth and global spread of pentecostal and charismatic spiritualities. True spirituality must be both inward and interpersonal and yet controlled by coherent theological understanding. All too often these aspects of spirituality have been set against each other whereas they are inseparable. Experience and understanding are interdependent p. 116 and the failure to realise this has led many into bypath meadows. True spirituality must be thoroughly trinitarian, welcoming the security and discipline of 2 the sovereign Father, experiencing reconciliation and fellowship in union with Christ and being guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit for service. False spiritualities, Christian or otherwise, begin with an inadequate or perverted understanding of the doctrine of God. Thus a Christian theology of spirituality must be wholistic without being syncretistic; it must be both transcendental and immanent. There are at least four components or spheres of experience that are essential to maintaining spiritual growth and maturity in the knowledge of God and of the self. The first sphere is a direct and personal knowledge of God expressed in constant prayer and meditation, in repentance and purity of heart and in experiencing the love and justice of God. Symeon the New Theologian of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Charles Simeon of the Evangelical Awakening and Sadhu Sundar Singh of Indian spirituality are models of the piety which characterizes and inspires evangelicals in their pilgrimage. The theological dictum of Augustine, Anselm and others, ‘I believe that I may understand’ is our starting point. The second dimension is understanding and applying the truth of God’s self revelation. Evangelicals have always given priority to the Bible as the authoritative and trustworthy Word of God and sought to rightly exegete it and apply it to daily living. Gerhard Maier has addressed this issue in his article ‘What is Spiritual Exegesis?’. Evangelical spiritualities aim to accept the discipline of the Scriptures in all matters of faith and practice. To our shame, we like others have all too often rationalized and manipulated the Scriptures to further our selfish ambitions and to satisfy the lusts of the flesh. The third component of our theology of spirituality is a constant striving to live in unity and fellowship with ‘the people of God’. We reflect on the universal creeds and on the Statement of Faith of our churches and evangelical ecumenical agencies. We humbly listen and learn from other traditions, Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant, ever subjecting these traditions of the Church to the authority of the Word of God. We live in the mystery of being members of the Body of Christ. We love the Church and give our lives for her purity and growth throughout the world. We affirm the continuity of the apostolic Faith yet ever look to the reformed being continually reformed. Our individualism is subject to the constraints of the Church, locally and universally expressed. Lastly, true spirituality is being in the world but not of it. Spirituality without praxis in the world will never liberate those in bondage to sin p. 117 or to social injustices. Spirituality is made visible in mission and mission is motivated and sustained by true spirituality. Evangelical spirituality must be seen in word and deed. May this issue of ERT encourage all of us to press on towards the mark of our high calling in Christ Jesus. p. 118 3 The Nature and Purpose of Spiritual Theology James M. Houston Printed with permission from Crux June and September 1991 WHY THE CONTEMPORARY INTEREST IN SPIRITUALITY? ‘Spirituality’ is still such a recent term that it requires some definition. Clearly it starts from a religious base, although it is now being used more widely. But the definition given in the Dictionary of Christian Spirituality is broad enough: A word which has come into vogue to describe those attitudes, beliefs, practices, which animate people’s lives and help them to reach out towards supersensible realities.1 That we live, in the Western world, within an environment of spiritual deprivation and impoverishment, is very obvious. However, this is not only true of our secular life, but it is becoming obvious also with our religious life and its service. What is notional may not be transformational, so the hunger for spirituality is for what is personal, as opposed to what is impersonal, firsthand as opposed to what is secondary, and applied as opposed to what is merely theoretical. Spirituality involves then the enlargement of our awareness of God, of what gives a living, growing relationship before God and with each other.2 Spirituality is identifiable with the intensification of the self-consciousness that we see in contemporary society. So it is not necessarily evidence of religious renewal within our secular world. In the 1960s the eruption of the drug culture with its Dionysian frenzy of sexual freedom, was a defiant rebellion against Technological Society. The 1970s followed with the powerful Drang am Osten, the journey eastwards and inward, with Transcendental Meditation, Silva Mind Control, occultism, est, and the new eclecticism of Zen Buddhism, Gurdjieff, and the religious writings of the East. The 1980s have followed with the culture of self-fulfilment, transactional analysis, and p. 119 personality tests to find out one’s own type of personality. For all these movements, from ‘sex’ to ‘spooks’ to ‘spiritual,’ spirituality is in vogue! However, in this lecture we are concerned only with Christian spirituality, which has to do with what lies at the very heart of the Christian faith. It focuses on our personal prayer life, on communion with God, on what Christians in the past have called ‘the interior life.’ Not that we should ever seek either to privatize the faith, or ignore what unconscious motives may control behaviour. Such insights may gain us greater freedom and more consistency between belief and action, attitudes and service. It calls then, for much greater discernment, a richer relational and personal life, and more realistic guidance in the application of doctrine to behaviour. Passing fads are dangerous. As George Santayana wisely observed, whoever is married to the spirit of the age is condemned to be widowed in the next. But there are too many multiple indications to suggest that the contemporary interest in Christian spirituality is 1 Gordon Wakefield, ed., A Dictionary of Christian Spirituality (London: S.C.M., 1983):361. 2 Simon Tugwell, Ways of Imperfection: An exploration of Christian Spirituality (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1984):7. 4 merely a passing whim.3 I shall outline four major interrelated reasons for this remarkable interest in Christian spirituality today. Not all the motives and reasons are positive and true, which perhaps explains why not all Christians are fully convinced of the validity of this emphasis. But reluctance is often associated with a fear of losing self- control, either rationalistically so, or from fear of personal intimacy being opened up. So the challenge of Christian spirituality is cause for some confusion and concern about one’s personal life and thought. The first reason for the contemporary interest in Christian spirituality is the practical concern that beyond any intellectual pursuit of theological studies, we should seek to know God more personally and intimately. In other words, it stems from the desire to experience the reality of the Kingdom of God in daily life.