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The Spiritual Exercises is one of the most influential Christian spiritual texts, now used as a medium for retreats and spiritual guidance across an ecumenical spectrum of Christians. It is not an inspirational text but a collection of practical notes for a retreat guide. The aim is to flexibly assist a retreatant to grow in inner freedom, to be able to respond to the call of Christ in the midst of daily life.
From the Exercises , it is possible to outline certain key features of Ignatian spirituality and of the active type of spirituality more generally. First, God is encountered in the practices of everyday life. Second, the life and death of Jesus Christ are offered as the fundamental pattern for Christian life.
Third, God, in and through Jesus Christ, offers the healing and liberation needed to respond to the divine call. Fourth, spirituality focuses on a deepening desire for God in the midst of ordinary existence. Ignatius effectively summarizes a long tradition of discernment in Christian spirituality that finds its roots in ancient philosophy, notably in Aristotle. The Exercises and the wider Ignatian tradition promote a range of spiritual practices including meditation, contemplation, and other forms of prayer, including what is known as the Examen, a brief daily practice of prayerful reflection on the events of the day and how God has been present.
The aesthetic type of spirituality covers a spectrum of ways by which the spiritual journey may be expressed in, and shaped by, the arts, music and poetry. Icons are understood to be a medium of divine power. Through interaction with them, humans may become spiritually united with, and transformed by, what the icon represents—God, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, or other saints.
In the world of music, there is a long tradition of explicitly spiritual-religious music, often associated with Christian worship, such as plainchant, the polyphonic Mass settings of composers like William Byrd or Giovanni Palestrina, and the Lutheran chorales of Johann Sebastian Bach.
In more recent times, the French Catholic composer Olivier Messiaen believed that sound in itself was spiritual, because it connects the listener to the harmonies of the cosmos. If we turn to literature, it is clear that the extraordinary poetry of someone like the 16th-century Spanish mystic John of the Cross was a direct expression of his own inner spiritual experience. The 19th-century English Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins is considered to be one of the leading and most innovative Victorian poets, full of spiritual vision.
In recent times, the lyric poetry of the late Elizabeth Jennings is deeply imbued with her inner struggles and her Christian faith. However, in the history of Christian spirituality, a cluster of important 17th-century English poets expresses the gradual emergence of a distinctive Church of England spiritual tradition.
Deeply inspired by the Bible and the liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer, the sophisticated poetry of such priests as John Donne, George Herbert, and Thomas Traherne as well as the physician Henry Vaughan is both great literature and an important expression of Anglican spirituality. George Herbert — , aristocrat, Cambridge University orator, Member of Parliament, then priest, wrote two great works—a prose treatise on the priestly life, The Country Parson , and an outstanding poetic collection, The Temple.
However, the carefully ordered nature of the collection also indicates their wider purpose—to communicate to readers the sometimes-painful complexity of the Christian spiritual path. Herbert was someone with deep aesthetic sensibilities—to the beauty of liturgy and of church architecture, for example. He also considered writing poetry as a form of prayer. Finally, the prophetic type of spirituality goes beyond the simple service of other people in the direction of an explicit commitment to social transformation as a spiritual task. It is possible to argue that historic religions have always had prophetic elements.
Thus, the prophets of the Hebrew Bible such as Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah critiqued corrupt social and political systems. In medieval Christian spirituality, the movement associated with Francis of Assisi emphasized spiritual poverty and worked with marginalized groups of people, partly in reaction against what Francis saw as the prevailing sins of his own wealthy merchant class.
However, neither biblical prophecy nor Francis of Assisi explicitly promoted a spirituality of social justice or social transformation. The development of a prophetic style of spirituality really emerged during the 20th century in response to three factors. First, the appalling slaughter of the two World Wars, mid-century totalitarianism Nazism, Fascism, and Stalinism , the Holocaust, and then the birth of the atomic-nuclear age provoked an overwhelming sense of the destructive power of war and of human oppression.
Second, there was the gradual and often violent end to European colonialism in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Third, there was a growing wave of social and cultural change in Europe and North America in relation to the status and role of women and to civil rights for ethnic minorities. In Christianity, there has been a range of examples of the prophetic type of spirituality. This eventually took other forms in Africa and Asia. The interrelated feminist, political, and liberationist expressions of the prophetic type of spirituality promote two central and interdependent values.
First, authentic spirituality necessarily demands that humanity should engage fearlessly with the structures of injustice and violence.
That is, all aspects of human sexuality are shaped by social and cultural systems. The work of feminist scripture scholars such as Sandra Schneiders, who is sensitive to spirituality, has been an important tool. For example, Jantzen wrote a major feminist academic study of Christian mysticism, Power, Gender, and Christian Mysticism. Turning to late 20th-century European political theology, in simple terms, it focuses on how to engage theology explicitly with political and social structures. It has sometimes been caricatured as Christian Marxism.
Fundamental Concepts of Liberation Theology. This approach affirms that true spirituality is not disembodied interiority but should be marked by a struggle against the sexism, ethnic prejudice, and economic oppression that diminishes the life experience of Latina women.
He was born in a poor family in Lima, studied in Europe, and was ordained in His dual experience of university teaching and working in a poor parish led him to bring together theology and a commitment to justice. He used the Old Testament image of the Exodus, a desert journey in which God leads the oppressed peoples from a state of slavery to the possession of a land of their own. The underpinning of all Christian spirituality is discipleship, a radical following of Jesus intrinsically linked to social practice. At the heart of spirituality is the experience of God speaking in and through the poor.
In Part 3 of another book, On Job: True justice is resituated within the depths of God. In Africa and Asia, liberation spirituality has taken distinctive cultural forms while sharing the fundamental values of its Latin American inspiration. In Africa, there are a range of emphases. For example, Laurenti Magesa from Tanzania focuses strongly on the injustice of a continent that is not economically self-sufficient but is the victim of global inequality. For example, the writings of Mercy Amba Oduyoye in Ghana focus critically on how traditional African culture impacts on the religious spiritual experiences of women.
This seeks to awaken assertiveness in black workers so that they become self-realized persons rather than depersonalized objects in the labor market. He also focuses on theology and reconciliation, as do Charles Villa-Vicencio, in his call for a reconstructive theology of nation building, and John de Gruchy, in his work on reconciliation, solidarity, and social justice. However, Asia has produced its own variety of liberation theology with an associated spirituality.
Another Sri Lankan theologian and human rights activist, Tissa Balasuriya, portrayed the Virgin Mary, a traditional focus of Catholic devotion, as an image of revolutionary strength rather than docile passivity. The suffering of Jesus and his resurrection is an important image for the sources of liberation. It is now possible to summarize how the close relationship between Christian spirituality and social transformation is approached.
Critically, this depends on how the public world is valued. From its scriptural origins, Christianity is clear that there is no exclusively private self. Human existence inherently embodies a social task. For example, the great North African theologian, Augustine of Hippo — ce was clear that our individual existence was intrinsically related to the common good.
In contrast, for Augustine, the redeemed Heavenly City would be a community based on sharing and solidarity. The mystical dimension of Christian spirituality has profound social implications. So, the spiritually elevated person never ceases to be a common person. And this is the supreme summit of the inner life. However, while Christian spirituality has an essentially social dimension, explicit attention to social transformation as a spiritual issue is, as we have seen, particularly characteristic of the last decades of the 20th century. A number of Christian writers argue that mysticism and contemplation are a necessary aspect of social engagement.
One Chilean theologian, Segundo Galilea, has written a great deal concerning the spiritual dimensions of political and social responses to injustice. Galilea suggests that people need to move beyond the notion that effective responses are purely structural. Only social action that is nurtured by contemplative practice is capable of bringing about the change of heart necessary for lasting solidarity and social transformation. Social engagement must be accompanied by an interior process of liberation from self-seeking.
If we are to draw an overall conclusion about the relationship between spirituality and the work of social transformation, it would be in terms of the purification of human motivation in relation to social justice. In the early Christian era, the study of Christian spirituality began as part of an undifferentiated theological reflection on scripture, doctrine, worship, and pastoral practice.
This new scientific approach slowly led to a separation of spiritual theory from theology by the end of the Middle Ages, reinforced by the Reformation. Then the 18th-century European Enlightenment promoted the dominance of analytical thought. This encouraged theology to move in similar directions and deepened its separation from spirituality.
By the early 20th century, spirituality and theology began to re-engage, especially in Roman Catholic circles. However, this re-engagement had serious limitations. It was mainly driven by religious dogma and moral theology, with little attention to other disciplines. Even historical studies, for example by Pierre Pourrat, were subordinated to doctrine.
In recent decades, major shifts in the study of Christian spirituality have taken place. First, it no longer refers simply to monastic or mystical traditions, but has broadened to reflect on Christian life in the everyday world. Equally, the study of spirituality nowadays embraces material beyond literary texts, such as art, poetry, music, and sacred architecture. Second, Christian spirituality now seeks to integrate all aspects of human experience and existence. The study of Christian spirituality has also established itself as an interdisciplinary field.
What is known as postmodern theory saw the breakdown of closed academic systems where each discipline needed to be autonomous and pure. Interdisciplinary study is not simply an enrichment of the ways in which Christian spirituality is approached. It also involves a discipline of learning to live with what is multi-faceted rather than relatively easy to control.
Because the study of Christian spirituality relates to a specific religious tradition, certain disciplines are necessarily involved. Sandra Schneiders, a key figure in the modern development of the field, describes these as constitutive disciplines and proposes Christian history and scripture. In addition, there are problematic disciplines that relate to the specific theme being studied. Depending on context, Schneiders proposes psychology, the social sciences, literature, and the sciences. In her view, theology is situated between the two categories.
In other words, the study of spirituality is transformative as well as informative. People obviously seek information: However, beyond this lies a quest for the wisdom embodied in what is being studied. The study of Christian spirituality is now at a crossroads. Over the last quarter century, scholars have been concerned with redefining the field and with questions of method. However, they are now less methodologically preoccupied.
Consequently, people increasingly seek to bring the subject into conversation with contemporary realities. One issue is the impact of globalization on Christian spirituality. People are increasingly aware of the cultural plurality of human society. In the past, Christian spirituality was often presented as if it had an entirely Western profile. Today, a critical question concerns how Christian spirituality transmits itself, and how it is received, across cultural boundaries. Any authentic appropriation is contextual. Therefore the study of Christian spirituality has to relate to the specific situations in a plurality of local cultures.
Equally, some argue that overcoming our physical limits in this way opens up a new quasi-mystical experience of transcendence. Finally, the field of Christian spirituality increasingly engages with important social and cultural issues. There is a growing list of priorities. For example, there is a new urgency regarding interreligious dialogue and the potential contribution of Christian spirituality. This arises from an acute awareness of the connection between religious divisions, violence, and armed conflict.
The volumes in the series, edited by recognized scholars, consist of translations or modern English versions of widely acknowledged spiritual teachers and traditions from all parts of Christianity. The series also includes material from Jewish, Muslim, and native North American spiritual sources. Currently, the series totals just over one hundred and fifty volumes, some organized in reference to spiritual traditions and others containing the writings of individual people. New volumes are added to the series every year. While the volumes in the series are not critical editions in the strict sense, the material is critically selected with footnotes, extensive and substantial introductions, an additional bibliography, and comprehensive indexes.
The volumes in the series that relate directly to material in this essay, in historical order, are:. Classics of Western Spirituality. The Life of Moses. Luibheid Colm, and Paul Rorem, eds. Colledge, Edmund, and Bernard McGinn, eds. McGinn, Bernard, and Frank J. The Spiritual Espousals and Other Works. Colledge, Edmund, and James Walsh, eds.
The Spiritual Exercises and Selected Writing. The Country Parson, The Temple. Each volume has an introduction and notes. There are also two important series of texts that are not in English but are of considerable interest to students and scholars of Christian spirituality. First, Corpus Christianorum , published by Brepols Turnhout, Belgium , contains over five hundred volumes of critical editions of texts by important Christian authors from Late Antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages.
The series is divided into three groups: Each text is in its original language with a French translation on the opposite page. Other important source material in English, related to the five types of Christian spirituality discussed in this article, are listed here. A Translation and Commentary. Sayings of the Early Christian Monks. Spearing, Elizabeth, and A. Revelations of Divine Love. George Herbert and His Writings. God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent. We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People. Power, Gender and Christian Mysticism.
Cambridge University Press, With Wisdom Seeking God: The Academic Study of Spirituality. Themes from the Tradition. Dreyer, Elizabeth, and Mark S. The Study of Christian Spirituality. Johns Hopkins University Press, Saliers, and John Meyendorff, eds. The Blackwell Companion to Christian Spirituality. The Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism. Essays in Honor of Sandra M. Origins to the Twelfth Century.
High Middle Ages and Reformation. Questions of Interpretation and Method. Westminster-John Knox Press, History, Theology and Social Practice. The Wound of Knowledge: Oneworld Publications, , 16— Originally published in Blackwell, , For a concise account of the intimate relationship between spirituality and doctrine in the early Church, see Rowan Williams, The Wound of Knowledge: Blackwell, , 79— Hendrickson, New Edition, See for example David J.
See and Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson, eds. See Edmund Colledge and James Walsh, eds. Doubleday Image Books, For discussions of the different approaches to the spiritual journey in Christian spirituality, see for example Lawrence S. Cunningham and Keith J. Themes from the Tradition New York: From Plato to Denys Oxford: Clarendon, ; Philip Sheldrake, Spirituality: On asceticism and monasticism, see, for example: Richard Valantasis, The Making of the Self: Ancient and Modern Asceticism Cambridge, U. James Clarke, ; Benedicta Ward, ed. Penguin Classics, ; and Terrence C.
See Colm Luibheid and Paul Rorem, trans. Michel de Certeau, The Mystic Fable: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries Chicago: University of Chicago Press, For critical commentaries on the experientialist turn in understandings of mysticism see Denys Turner, The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian mysticism Cambridge, U. Origins to the Fifth Century New York: Crossroad, , especially the General Introduction and Appendix.
Bernard McGinn and Edmund Colledge, eds. Paulist Press, ; and B. McGinn and Frank Tobin, eds. Teacher and Preacher New York: An Introduction to Ignatian Spirituality London: The Invisible Embrac London: George Herbert and His Writings London: For a collection of interesting essays on aesthetics, art, and spirituality, see Bill Hall and David Jasper, eds.
University of Sunderland Press, Orbis, , — Crossroad, ; and Catherine M.
Vibrant Christianity in Your Time and Place Dan Collison, Shelly Barsuhn Daniel, –Church in translation: vibrant Christianity in yourtime and place / Dan. Editorial Reviews. About the Author. Stan Toler () was a dynamic speaker, out of 5 starsFive Stars. June 8, Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. Very practical steps for setting a strategy in place to build from. Read more.
LaCugna, God for Us: For example, Jon Sobrino, Spirituality of Liberation: Orbis, ; Leonardo Boff, Saint Francis: A Model of Human Liberation London: Cambridge University Press, , 55— Tissa Balasuriya, Mary and Human Liberation: Trinity Press International, See the excellent collection of essays in Janet Ruffing, ed. Syracuse University Press, The Spiritual Espousals , book I, part 2, chap lxv. Gaspar Martinez, Confronting the Mystery of God: Journal of Contemporary Christian Spirituality 25 Burns and Oates, Williams, The Wound of Knowledge , 2.
Dreyer and Mark S. The Study of Christian Spirituality Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, , 5— Apart from this volume, another volume with important essays on the field of Christian spirituality is Arthur Holder, ed. Some other significant books on the overall field are Bruce Lescher and Elizabeth Liebert, eds. Paulist Press, ; David B. Peeters, ; and Philip Sheldrake, Spirituality: A Brief History Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, , chap. See for example, Orlando Espin and Gary Macy, eds. For example, see David Marshall and Lucinda Mosher, eds. Georgetown University Press, See, for example, Sheldrake, Explorations in Spirituality , chap.
The Christian faith has steadily grown in to a multivarious world movement, with Christians outside the traditional Christian areas now outnumbered by world Christians of viritually every culture of the world. Strong indigenous missionary movements reach out from many "Third World" countries.
Sanneh's descriptions of the indigenous approach of the Christian mission and the indigenous character of mother tongue development enhances and affirms traditional cultures wherever they are, in contrast to most other cross-cultural approaches. He presents "World Christianity" as the forms of Christian faith inculturated in the many cultures that sometimes seem alien to each other. He focuses on the unity in faith beyond the specific variations we find from culture to culture. He develops this view in the African cultural context with which he is most familiar.
He contrasts the vibrant indigenized Christianity we find with the paternalistic attitude of secular western rationalism. Many of us who have lived among other cultures in Africa have noted those benevolent, well-meaning foreigners who approach other cultures of the world with a barely hidden impatience with what they perceive as their inferior backwardness.
They come to fix things for them if they will allow it. But always on western terms, and usually for western benefit. Inconsistent Secularism In this regard Sanneh aptly highlights the ignorance of many opponents of "mission" who primarily lay bare their outdated prejudice and unawareness of what actually constitutes Christian mission.
Sanneh references cultural patterns I have observed in several decades of cross-cultural study and communication, studying cultures around the world. I can especially relate to many of the examples Sanneh uses, coming from Africa, where the depth of my experience was developed. I note that all through the arguments presented by his hypothetical questioner appear the logical contradictions we often observe from westerners who assume a condescending view of other cultures. These westerners seem to think their cultural pattern is the height of a supposed historical evolution of culture, and thus other cultures are necessarily lagging behind.
This cultural imperialism in the western paternalistic approach to Africa and other cultures comes out clearly in this discussion, and is rejected by Sanneh in a gentle but clear and firm manner. Sanneh is an advocate for the peoples. Free Choice Sanneh consistently portrays the central role of traditional indigenous cultures in Christian mission and Bible translation into the vernacular. Coupled with this is the principle of free and informed choice, rather than the coerced conversion we have seen so often in the history of other religions and cultural imperialisms, notably the movement of Islam across the geography of the world and its cultures.
The diversity and variety of language and cultural expression in the Christian community is not a divisive factor, but rather is seen as the strength of the faith as a universal human phenomenon, freely accessible to all cultures and languages equally, appropriated and adapted and reexpressed by each in a unity beyond their individual diversity. This is a pithy, challenging but highly readable short book packed with value and insight for rationalist and religious alike.
The author is at pains early in the book to differentiate between "Global Chrisianity" i. Christianity imposed on cultures by European colonial efforts e. South America and "World Christianity" aras where Christianity develops more as a result of genuine faith experience than colonization efforts. Understanding this distinction, it is reasonable that the majority of the book focuses on Africa. On the other hand, this is not the only locus for World Christianity and, to my knowledge, the author, having come from Gambia, fails to acknowledge his bias towards Africa.
The discussion itself is worthwhile with solid points throughout. The "interview format", however, detracts from the presentation of the information. The author has a very 'academic" writing style, which better lends itself to continuous reading rather than the "stop and go" approach of an interview. One can scarcely imagine the "answers" he provides being adequate for an interview with someone such as Larry King or Terry Gross. This vehicle costs the book a great deal for those engaged in academic study as the "jerkiness" of the format makes it difficult to get into a reading rhythm.
While perhaps handy for bathroom reading i. This is the type of book that you struggle through the first time because of the interview style but reference with some frequency afterwards oddly enough, because of the quick, succinct presentation of information provided by the interview style. I give it 4 stars for the treatment of the subject matter and 2 for the presentation. Worth the price, but no more One person found this helpful. This is another strong book in the Alternate Life Kingdom of God material. An important read, especially for anyone working in Christian ministry across cultures.
Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. I love his rebel approach to writing an academic piece in a question and answer format to make it more readable to regular people. Also a great read for clergy who want to think about the impact majority world esp. Africa Christianity will have in the future. See all 23 reviews. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway.
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