Lecture 3 Study Notes – September 9, 2008

1.      Printable Version

           Africa was the beginnings of experiments in spiritual life called the monastic life.  One of the first to engage in the monastic life was a gentleman by the name of Antony (250-350). Antony heard the gospel read in church, “Sell all that you have and give to the poor” and immediately did so.  He entered into training with others who believed as he did and went out into battle with Satan in the “opponent’s home territory.”  It was believed, in that day and time, the desert was the dwelling place of the devil and his demons.  He went out, not so much as to escape the world as to do battle with the devil.

2.      Down through the centuries, Men and women like Antony developed their own type of wisdom and rugged Christian spirituality.  Their writings have been preserved and collected in numerous volumes dealing with the sayings of the desert fathers (see “The Sayings of the Desert Fathers” by Benedicta Ward[1]).

3.      Others include Evagrius of Pontus (345-399), who was a Christian Platonist who believed the goal of life was the recovery of the knowledge of God and unity of rational spirits lost in the primordial fall.  He, like Origen, was later condemned as a heretic.  According to Holt[2], the earlier heretics were very influential in medieval Christian spirituality (page 41).  Evagrius believed that the dangers to the Christian life were eight in number (similar to the seven deadly sins): gluttony, lust, avarice, dejection, anger, despondency, vainglory, and pride.  He thought that the goal of prayer was stripping of the mind, having a purged consciousness without images or thoughts of God.  According to him this would restore the lost knowledge of God.

4.      Another saint was from Italy, named Benedict (450-547), who founded the Benedictine Order in the Roman Catholic Church. He made up what was called the Rule of Benedict, which was a structure plan of spiritual growth for those under his authority and influence.  One principle was that physical labor be combined with prayer.  The rhythm of prayer seven times a day interspersed with labor, eating, and sleeping in moderation, became the norm for Western monks up to the present day.  He also emphasized lectio divina or divine readings.  Monks were to read the scriptures and then meditate on them in silence, or while working, at least six hours a day.  He also praised silence as a virtue.  In addition, the obedience, or bending one’s will to another, namely the abbot, was another important discipline in his order.  The humble submissions of a monk’s will to another human being (the abbot) was seen as doing likewise to God.  As preachers and ministers of the Gospel, are we held accountable to anyone other than God?  How important do you believe your spiritual growth is?)

5.      Celtic spirituality was started by Saint Patrick, not much is truly known of him.  But the Celtic brand of spirituality is very distinctive of the druids and their culture.  The Irish Christians began the concept of soul friend.   It was important in their understanding of spirituality because they believed that one was not to “walk” alone as a Christian, but have a close companion to encourage and correct one along the way.  The book of James states, “Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed” (James 5:16).
 

6.      They also practiced a strict type of asceticism and discipline.  For example, they would daily recite all 150 psalms and often stood in icy water praying.  A distinctive feature of Celtic spirituality that later spread to all Roman Catholicism was the practice of private confession with fixed penances for their sins.  After the Lateran Council of 1215, it became a required practice in Catholic churches to confess to a priest.  Is the practice of having a soul friend who can help you along the way a positive thing to you?  Do you need someone other God to confess your sins to?  How about the practice of doing penance for one’s sins, do you think that practice to be helpful to our people as a way of getting over their guilt?

7.      Mysticism is term misunderstood and misused even today.  The term comes from a Greek root word meaning secret.  In general according to Holt (page 44), it is a form of spirituality that sets as its goal unity with God.  The essential meaning of mysticism in the Christian tradition is the experience of God as one with whom one has union or communion.  Union, to some people, means the complete absorption and ultimately the loss of one’s identity in God.  How far this goes, especially the loss of one’s identity can be argued as going against traditional Christian doctrine.

8.      Communion, on the other hand, suggests a loving relationship of two people who remain distinct in spite of a unity of purpose, feeling, and knowledge.
 

9.      Augustine (354-430) is one known for his mysticism (more communion rather than union) as well as being one of the foremost theologians in the history of the church.

10.  He gave a narrative character to Christian growth that had not been present before.  He wrote his autobiography called, “The Confessions,” in which narrated his “inner life with God.”  He tells his story in a conversation with God that confesses both sin and faith, leading him in appreciation of God’s love along the way.   It is his story of a personal longing for God that finally finds satisfaction.
  

11.  He is instrumental in connecting sexual desire as a biological transmitter of original sin, the sin inherited by humanity after Adam and Eve’s first sin (not such a good thing).

12.  Augustine championed the grace of God against human effort as means of salvation.  To many of Augustine’s day, relying on grace and not human effort seemed to be a cop-out (Pelagius, being an example).  

Similar to some people today who might say: “I can’t do it. If God wanted me to, God would give me the strength.”  This issue of grace and hard work is fundamental to Christian Spirituality and was, according to Holt (page 46), one reason for the later split in the church between Catholics and Protestants.  Augustine was convinced that any good thing in his life was a gift of God, not his own achievement.  The Catholic Church, officially sided with Augustine, but in the local parishes the role of the human will in “working out one’s salvation” was more prominent.  The Protestants would appeal to the anti-Pelagian writings to support their beliefs in “grace alone.”

13.  How do we reconcile grace and human effort?  Maybe human efforts toward salvation and sanctification is like a truck stuck in the mud…the more we try to spin it out of the mud the deeper we are stuck in the mud, unless someone outside the mud gives us a push (the grace of God).   However, I believe that even the will and effort to spin our wheels in the right direction is a matter of the Grace of God.

14.  Now see the handout on Augustine for his position on the inward life.

15.  According to Holt (page 47), Augustine “was a teacher whose bad conscience, unhealthy sexuality, and emphasis on original sin left a legacy of gloom and misogyny (hatred of marriage) on much of Western spirituality.  But for all his faults, Augustine’s final word was adoration of the grace of God.”

16.  Another person standing at the roots of Christian mysticism is someone who is known as Dionysius the Areopagite.  An anonymous writer around 500 A.D. wrote under the name Dionysius (Acts 17:34) to claim the authority that comes from the apostolic age.  Among his contributions are three stages of mysticism that late became the standard of Western mysticism: the purgative, illuminative (light of God shinning on the soul), and unitive.
  

17.  Dionysius also taught that the knowledge of God was beyond words and images, apophatic in nature.  He believed that all human concepts limit and distance God, and therefore must be stripped away from the mind if God is to be known.  Commenting on the inscrutable nature of God in Romans 11:33-36, he writes:

“Indeed the inscrutable One is out of the reach of every rational process. Nor can words come up to the inexpressible Good, the One, this Source of all unity, this supra-existent Being.  Mind beyond mind, word beyond speech, it is gathered up by no discourse, by no intuition, by no name.”

18.  According to him, any human concept for God is inadequate, only denials of the likeness of God to human categories are important.  For example, in saying that God was just, it would be better to say that God is “not unjust (in the negative, ‘via negativa’).”   Yet, one of the ironies of his writings is his “combination of a highly intellectual discussion of God with an absolute denial of the power of the intellect to know God” (Bradley[3], page 49).

Spiritual Formation

Lecture 4 Study Notes - September 16, 2008

Printable Version

1.      Apophatic spirituality requires a state of passivity on the part of the mystic.  “According to (Pseudo) Dionysius, such passivity leads to an ecstasy of love in which the human is fused with God” (Bradley, page 49. This theme is seen in later mysticism, for example, Meister Eckhart, page 62-63).

2.      The practice of calling forth images from Scripture is called kataphatic.  It is an attempt to image God by the use of one’s imagination and emotions.  According to Pseudo-Dionysius the kataphatic way is good for the beginners on the spiritual way, but for those that want union with God, the apophatic way is all important.  We may not want to admit this, but Christianity was developed in many different cultures and influenced for better or for worse in many of them. 

3.      I want to interrupt our teaching of history to speak about a theme that keeps coming up in our study of the history of Spirituality- apophetic and kataphetic spiritual types. Are there different spiritual types within our understanding of Christianity?  Why is it that some people in a given congregation are satisfied, even enthusiastic, about the style of worship and the activities in the church while others range from apathetic to hostile? 

4.      Maybe we could understand it better if asked ourselves: Do I have a spiritual self and therefore, a spiritual type?  Yes, everyone has a spiritual self or a need for spiritual expression (see “spirituality handout # 3”). Who am I as a spiritual person? Are there different types of spiritual expression?  Or do we believe that the Spirit of God only expresses itself in one matter in all people?  Therefore should we all be spiritual clones of one another?  What is the spiritual profile of my worshipping group?

5.      First of all, I do believe that while there is only one Holy Spirit it does express itself in number ways, if nothing else, though numerous spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12). People are different and express themselves in different ways, so it is reasonable to assume that Christ wants us to keep our different expressions of individuality (without sin) and to express those differences in a Christ-like manner.

6.      Urban T. Holmes in a book called “The History of Christian Spirituality” says there are four types of Christian spirituality: Speculative, Affective, Apophatic, and Kataphatic.  We might say: Head, heart, emptying, and imaging. 

7.      For example, speculative people might be inclined to gain their information about God, indeed about life in general, through emphasizing reason, logic, and facts.  The affective group, or heart group, might emphasize instinct and intuition, feelings more.  According to Ware, both ways of knowing and learning are needed by the worshipping congregation.  Yet, usually by individuals and by churches, one kind of knowing becomes the norm. 

8.      The other two poles of our four poled spirituality wheel is apophatic and kataphatic.  Apophatic is from the Greek meaning “negative” or “emptying.”  It is the tendency to think of God in a non-concretized way, like a mysterious cloud of unknowing.   Kataphatic means “affirmative,” or imaging God as revealed and knowable.  The hymn “What a friend we have in Jesus” is a natural expression of the kataphatic tendency to think of God in concrete terms—such as like a friend.  (see handout four).

Speculative/Kataphatic quadrant - This is the intellectual thinking spirituality that favors what it can see, touch, and vividly imagine.  They might really be into more study groups, history, college courses, and some type of theological reflection. By itself, Holmes and Ware would call this “rationalism,” with loss of feeling, and very dogmatic.  The Pastor of such a church might want to encourage flexibility and give increasing attention to the feeling and experiential side of spirituality.
 

Affective/ Kataphatic-A Heart Spirituality-quadrant two group - It is an all heart-combined with the concrete, real life stuff.  Here theology still emphasizes the human presentational understanding of God, the centrality of scripture, but this is more affective, charismatic spirituality whose aim is to achieve a holiness of life.  It will typically emphasize evangelism, since experience must be shared. Theologically the experience stresses the immanence of God or the transcendence of God. “Yes I know God is real, because I can feel him in my heart.”  Holmes calls this excess of this group-“pietism.” Many times, as with the intellectual, this group becomes too exclusive resulting even more than the intellectuals as “us against the world” mentality.  Sometimes this exclusiveness is seen as narrow mindedness toward the risk of new thoughts and ideas. 

Affective/Apophatic—a Mystic Spirituality—Quadrant three group – Here, hearing from God rather speaking to God is prominent.  The aim of this spirituality is union with God, and though this is never completely achieved, the attempt or the journey is source of their satisfaction.  People by nature in this group are reflective, introspective, intuitive, and tend to focus on the inner world rather than the exterior one.  A life of solitude and asceticism is appealing to this group, because simplicity of life quiets outside distractions and enables one to attend more to the movement of the Spirit.  They want to look deep within and hear the voice of God.  Prayer is more listening to God rather than speaking to him.

Speculative/Apophatic—Kingdom Spirituality quadrant 4 - This group is the most difficult to describe. It is the mystical and apophatic experience with an intellectual mode of gathering data that makes for an almost crusading type of spirituality.  According to Ware, these are very deep thinking and feeling people who have a passion for transforming and changing society.  Ware believes that the Hebrew prophets are a good example of folks who listened to God in a very deep sort of way and set out to change Israel.  They equate prayer and theology with action and doing.  Their growth edges lies in the single-mindedness to get the job done no matter what—their job and devotion to the perceived will of God is their obsession.   Holmes believes that spiritual health is staying within the circle and in some way partaking of all its parts (see the circle of spirituality).  Many spiritual writers in history, especially the mystics, will see that the mystical experience in Christian spirituality is only possible when we move out the action, or kataphatic, mode of consciousness and into the listening or the apophatic mode.  According to Ware (page 33), the shift from the active to the receptive mode is essential to all mystic experiences.  The mystical experience—the experiencing the presence of God is the “receptive” component.  While theology and bible study by themselves are reflections upon “religious experience” not the experience of the Spirit of God itself.   In the western culture, we are inclined to think about God more than to experience God’s presence.  For example, we can talk about prayer all we want in the class, but until we experience prayer we will know very little about it.  In our services, we can learn a great deal about God, but do nothing to fill that empty spot in the lives of our people because we are not experiencing God.   To do deep praying or to really fill our emptiness with God, we must take the risk of moving into what Victor Turner labels “anti-structure” (Ware, page 34).  “Anti-structure” is moving out of the norms of praying and our understanding of God.

9.      Second, if all of this is true, it is important to realize that there are many different ways to worship God in Spirit and truth (John 4), not just one way.  Different denominations represent different types of worship, so do different groups within certain denominations. All churches are different, with different styles of worship. 

10.  Back to History—Around the beginning of the fifth century, Christianity beggan to lose ground in Asia and Africa, but gained ground in northern Europe.  It was a period of gradual separation of the Greek East from the Latin West.  The Eastern Christians were centered around Constantinople, and the West began to concentrate around Rome. The actual date of separation between the West and the East was 1054, but according to Holt, there were many ups and downs in this relationship from the 800’s to 1200’s. 

11.  In the early centuries, the differences between the Eastern and Western churches were mostly cultural with an overall unity of Spirit.  The great cities of the apostles (Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Alexandria, Rome, and then later Constantinople had their own patriarchs.  But the patriarch of Rome, the only patriarch in the West, gradually claimed authority over the other cities.  But the other patriarchs and their churches didn’t recognize the authority of the West (Rome) and tension grew.

12.  At first, “ecumenical councils” were called to discuss the growing concerns and differences in the known Christian world.  Representatives from both East and West came to Nicea in 325, Constantinople in 381, Ephesus 431, Chalcedon in 451, Constantinople (II) in 553, Constantinople (III) in 680, and Nicea (II) in 787.  After this when the Roman Catholic Church called councils, the Eastern Orthodox Church chose not to participate (Bradley page 52-53).  After the 7^th century, the Mediterranean area fell under Islamic rule and Christians were pressured to stop evangelism and any outward display of Christian faith.   In 1453, the very center of Byzantine Empire fell to the Muslim Turks and Constantinople became “Istanbul” and has been that name ever since. 

13.  At the core of the Eastern Orthodox spirituality was something that most Protestant Christians simply do not understand—Icons.  Whereas, St. Benedict, set the tone for Western spirituality by using prayer and scripture as a means for listening to God, the Byzantine fathers focused on spiritual icons.  According to Bradley Holt, the status of icons was clarified for the Eastern churches in the eighth and ninth centuries during the “Iconoclastic Controversies” (Thirsty for God: A Brief History of Christian Spirituality by Bradley P. Holt, page 55). The major theological issue behind the conflict of understanding icons was the nature of the incarnation.   Did the Logos really become flesh (John 1: 1-14)?  If so, what are the implications for Christian worship? Those who wanted to reject the paintings did so because they argued that it was unworthy of God to be represented and venerated in physical art.  It was idolatry from their point of view.  Defenders of this kind of art replied that these painting were consistent with the mystery of the incarnation.  “It was taking seriously the human nature of Jesus, the goodness of creation, and the sacramental quality of all things, for it implied that a physical object could be the meeting place between God and human beings” (page 55).  In the seventh ecumenical council 787 A.D, it was approved.  Therefore, according to the Orthodox Church, “the human figures in the icons are seen as windows on eternity” in which participants “gaze” and participate in the divine.   It is a “kataphatic” approach to prayer which uses images rather than discursive languages (See handouts taken from “Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons” by Henri J.M. Nouwen).

Spiritual Formation

Lecture 5 Study Notes – September 23, 2008

Printable version 

1.      In 1296-1359 there lived a monk by the name of Gregory Palamas who became an advocate for another tradition of Eastern spirituality, called hesychia (or hesuchia) which means stillness or silence.  According to Holt (page 56), Gregory saw the goal of Christian life as “God became man so that man might become God.”  He made an important distinction between the Energies of God, which we may know, and the Essence of God, which we cannot know.  He stated that union with God is essentially God’s grace, yet the vision of God in this life could not be attained without hard work.  There was to be cooperation between the divine grace and human will: “those who search with all their hearts for unceasing prayer will be given the gift of prayer (a gift of grace).”

2.      Gregory and his monks used the “Jesus Prayer.” We’ll talk about that later.

3.      We are only going to mention one person in the West during this time period—Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153).  In his public life, he preached to recruit people to take part in the Second Crusade (1146), and eventually had so much power that he was the virtual pope of the Western church during his time period (Holt, page 57). 

4.      In his teaching on the spiritual life, he focused mostly on the relationship between the self and God.  In a paper entitled “On Loving God” he outlines four different degrees of love.  See reflection paper on Bernard of Clairvaux.

Spiritual Formation

5.      Spiritual Formation is the conforming of each and every one of us in the image of Christ.  This is a vast task in understanding what it is means to be conformed to the image of Christ, and how multi-faceted our formation can be.  Refer/(ask about the readings in Boa.

6.      All persons are being shaped spiritually: their heart or spirit (the core of who they are) is undergoing formation.  It is, to one degree or the other in one way or the other, happening to everyone.  This formation may be in either a positive or negative direction.  Every Christian and every church is being formed or changed for better or for worse.  Our intent here is to understand what spiritual formation is and to be intentional for our own spiritual formation and the spiritual formation of the churches that we represent so that we all may be changed for the better.

7.      Turn in Boa’s book to page 16 and look at his understanding for the book that I hope might be our understanding for the course as well.

8.      Spiritual formation is really a transformational process in which we are “putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, and not organizing our lives around the satisfaction of our natural desires (Roman 13:14).”  In that process we “put off our old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4: 22-25).  In doing so, we are to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling which we have been called” (4:1).  

9.      As a church, what are our primary goals and reason for being? Worship? Evangelizing? Make disciples? Spiritual formation?  According to James Wilholt ( Spiritual Formation as if the Church Mattered: Growing in Christ through Community), the primary goal of the local congregation is the making the spiritual formation of it members the primary “aim which every one of its activities serve” (page 10). It is the task of the church (Matthew 28:19-20; 1 Corinthians 3:1-3).

10.  But, the process of making disciples of Christ is not always neat and nice. In fact, it can be a very messy and imprecise business. True formation, no matter how much we know about the Bible and the spiritual life,, will always be from grace and by grace, channeled through our human efforts.  God is constantly directing the process in His people, but while it is grace we can help the process by relying on him first and foremost and then attempting to order our efforts into some kind of order or plan of action.  What makes it harder for our Lord’s grace is that we are not intentional in our understanding of spiritual direction for ourselves and our churches.

11.  To me, spiritual formation is the “intentional communal process of growing our relationship with God and becoming conformed to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit” (Wilhoit, page 23).

12.  Christian spiritual formation:
(1) is intentional;
(2) is communal;
(3) requires our engagement;
(4) is accomplished by the Holy Spirit;
(5) is for the glory of God and service of others;
(6) has as its means and end the imitation of Christ” (Wilhoit, page 23).

13.  What are the great concerns, issues, helps, and obstacles to spiritual formation?
a.   Spiritually, what does Christ look like in me? What is a realistic goal of my transformation in Christ? 

b.   Union and communion with God

c.       Grace verses works (see 89# )

d.      The Gospel

e.       Sin

f.       Asceticism (what good things maybe hinder my relationship with God,

g.      Spiritual disciplines-prayer (how, where, when), solitude,  scripture, etc. (second half of course)

14.  The Gospel and Spiritual Formation (handout on Gospel the Power of God sermon)

a.       Many people preach and teach the Christian faith as if the gospel is the door by which we enter Christianity, but something that we leave behind as we grow spiritually.

b.      However, the gospel is the power of God for the beginning, middle, and the end of salvation.  The gospel, therefore, permeates everything that we teach and preach and every program or services that the church offers.  Returning to the cross in awareness of our sin, rebellion, and brokenness is the bedrock of spiritual formation.

c.       Look at 1 Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and mankind, Christ Jesus, himself human.”  A mediator that goes throughout all of our saved lives.

d.      We need “to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand upon (Martin) Luther’s platform: you are accepted, looking forward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, relaxing in the quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude” (Wilhoit, page 28).

e.       We need to learn to rest and live in the identity that the cross and resurrection gives us as a child of God.

f.       So the gospel calls us to spiritual discipleship and then contains the power (along with the Holy Spirit) to enable us to follow and become like Christ.  [Someone once wrote: “The practices of faith are not ultimately our own practices but rather habitations of the Spirit, in the midst of which we are invited to participate in the practices of God.” (Craig Dykstra)]

g.      To Paul, the gospel continually works in us as we understand more and more of its truth and respond to that truth (Colossians 1:6).

h.      In fact, according to Wilhoit, all of our spiritual problems come from a failure to apply the gospel (page 32).