Spirituality for the Times.
Mike Riddell
Spirituality is booming in the emerging culture. The eruption
of interest in spirituality has caught erudite secularists by
surprise. As John Drane notes:
Suddenly, it's trendy to be spiritual ... what was once
regarded as a minority interest - the preserve of idealists
who patronized wholefood shops, burned joss sticks and read
the works of eastern mystics - has now become big business. It
is fashionable to be Green and spiritual.
In the
midst of this revival of interest in the spiritual, the
Western Protestant church appears more arid and barren than
ever. Several centuries of romance with the Enlightenment have
left many streams of the church devoid of mystery, magic and
meaning.
More
germane to our discussion, however, is the need for a
spirituality which will not simply sustain people, but empower
them for the task of mission. If, as has been suggested,
mission involves living beyond the borders in strange and
difficult territory, then it is vital to survival that
relevant resources are found to support and engender such
mission. Spirituality in partnership with mission cannot be
static or defensive. It must be dynamic, open, embracing and
engaging. Above all it must be genuine; it must be able to
co-exist with the ambiguous and unsettling experiences of life
outside the walls.
A new
situation for the church will require a new spirituality.
Urban missiologist John U'Ren acknowledges that 'to undertake
ministry at "the coal face of the frontier" requires a special
integrity, openness and honesty'. The greatest danger facing
mission practitioners in recent times has been burn-out. Many
people who have suffered this condition report the depletion
of inner resources as external demand outstrips their inner
capacity. The spiritual traditions which they have inherited
have proved inadequate to refresh or nurture them in their
place of encounter with the world. Crisis forces them to
search for new sources of encouragement.
A
Spirituality for Mission
What
is needed is the forging of a new and vibrant spirituality
which is adequate to the call to mission in the new
millennium. While drawing from the deep wells of Christian
tradition, this spirituality will need to be responsive to
engagement with contemporary Western culture. It will be a
missionary spirituality, in terms of promoting and maintaining
the divine journey toward the other. If it is to be adequate
to this task, it will need to be earthed, conversant with
human suffering, attainable within the complexities of life,
holistic, creative, communal and contextual. While there may
be many expressions of such spirituality, they will need to
contain many of these qualities.
EARTHED
Too
much Christian spirituality contains the Hellenistic dualism
of body/spirit, with body being regarded as inferior and
limiting, while spirit is noble and uplifting. The result is a
spirituality which is disembodied, disengaged and ill at ease
with normal human existence. The glorious creation story of
Genesis 2.4b—25 contains a rich image for the understanding of
humanity. In creating humans, this account pictures God
reaching down and scooping up a handful of earth, and then
breathing the divine breath/life into it to give life.
Humanity is viewed as an amalgam of mud and the breath of God,
joined so as to be incapable of separation.
A
spirituality for the third millennium will need to lose its
discomfort with sexuality, embodiment and the apparent scandal
of God's incarnational working. It will need to find both the
spirituality of physical life, and the physicality of
spiritual expression. Earthiness is a prime indicator for
saints, and a sign of acceptance of God's blessing
of humanity. Those who engage in mission will have their feet
planted firmly on the good earth, for they recognize it both
as something God-given, and as a common resource with the
whole body of humanity. In their own lives they will accept
and celebrate embodied life, making it a means of appreciation
for the good gift of God. As already reported, the experience
of suffering has become a process of separation of Christians
from the wider population. There is, especially in some
sections of Evangelicalism, a strangulated denial of
suffering. Any form of spirituality which cannot look
suffering full in the face and give account of itself, is not
worthy of the title Christian. The starting-point for a
renewed spirituality will be a recognition that human
existence entails suffering, much of it meaningless and
without value. There can be no denial of the horrors of rape,
suicide, disease, starvation, psychiatric disorder,
homelessness or divorce. Nor can there be the suggestion that
faith in God will protect anyone from the incursion of
suffering, or the more blasphemous suggestion that God causes
or at least willingly permits such ravages. The message of the
gospel, however, offers the possibility of dignity and hope
within suffering by suggesting that even seemingly pointless
suffering can be redeemed by God. Any new spirituality will be
based around the Christian image of a God who suffers with us
and for us.
Modern
urban existence is extraordinarily stressful and complex.
Henri Nouwen speaks of 'the restlessness, the loneliness, and
the tension' which is engendered by 'this hectic, pressured,
competitive, exhausting context'. Many proffered approaches to
spirituality take no cognizance of this situation, and rely on
patterns of discipline and retreat which are the legacy of
simpler agrarian worlds. While they have some useful
contributions, the consequence in the life of believers can be
one of guilt and frustration. It seems that the only
possibility of spiritual life is one of abnegation and
asceticism, admirable from a distance, but inaccessible to the
majority of city dwellers. Spiritualities of withdrawal and
isolation are not helpful to the current task of mission,
which requires engagement and participation. The vast majority
of images used in Christian spirituality are rural, and
therefore do not immediately connect with urbanites. A
criterion of any valid spirituality for the West must be that
it is possible and attainable within the given world. It must
be constructed out of and valid within the experiences and
demands of urban technological life. Such an approach to the
spiritual life will necessarily look and feel different from
traditional models.
HOLISTIC
Life
is already split and fragmented, and many people feel the lack
of a sustaining centre to existence. A spirituality adequate
to the missiological task will be one which is integrating and
holistic. In the development of New Testament Christology, the
drama of the Christ-event reaches cosmological proportions
(Colossians 1.15-20, Ephesians 1.3-14). In doing so it binds
together creation and redemption so that the purposes of God
and the meaning of human existence are united. Contemporary
Christian spirituality will need to rediscover this emphasis,
and move toward bringing together disparate elements of faith
and experience. Today the separation between the human race
and the realm of nature is keenly felt. The ecological crisis
not only represents a structural or organizational problem; it
is also an expression of alienation which people experience
from the organic world. As Fox and others have noted, the
emphasis on redemption in some sections of the church has been
at the cost of creation, creating a split which has been
lethal to the environment. This needs to be overcome, Today
there is a hunger for connectedness and belonging, whether in
relation to nature or to other people. There are spiritual
resources to address this quest within the Christian
tradition, but they need to be made available.
CREATIVE
Postmodernity represents in part a volcanic uprising of those
aspects of human life which have been suppressed by modernism.
Creativity is one of the gifts of God to humanity, whereby we
share in the ongoing creative work in the universe. It is both
a resource for and consequence of fertile spirituality. Art
has a long history of association with Christianity, and for
many centuries the church was the supporting locus of art and
artists within society. Since the Enlightenment, however, art
has been disparaged and artists forced into exile by the
church. A sign of renewal within the Western church would be
the return of artists and their work to dialogue with the
community of faith. Christian spirituality is capable of
enriching and releasing the creative endeavours of not only
artists, but all who find relationship with God the Creator.
Such creativity has the power to inspire and
communicate with people at levels other than that of the
spoken word.
COMMUNAL
Western existence in the late twentieth century bears the
wounds of a deeply-rooted individualism which has left people
isolated and alone: Loneliness is one of the most universal
sources of human suffering today ... Children, adolescents,
adults, and old people are in growing degree exposed to the
contagious disease of loneliness in a world in which a
competitive individualism tries to reconcile itself with a
culture that speaks about togetherness .. . Whatever
spirituality of mission is developed will need to draw on the
Christian tradition of communality, and oppose and subvert the
reign of the individual. It cannot be the exclusive domain of
the individual pilgrim, but must be resourced, expressed and
celebrated in the context of community.
A
spirituality forged in community will give up on the attempt
to carry the full burden and responsibility of Christian life
as an individual. It will be interdependent, meaning that
there will be times when we rely on others to carry us and
times when we will be the carriers. We will be free to
contribute whatever it is we have within us, confident that
there will be others who will provide to compensate for our
deficiencies. A Christian communal spirituality will reassure
us that our lives are shared with others rather than being our
exclusive domain, and that we have a place of belonging which
transcends geography and culture.
CONTEXTUAL
In the
land where I live, Christmas cards picture horse-drawn sleighs
sliding over frozen wastes. Shops decorate their windows with
frostings of holly and mock snow. The irony of this lies in
the fact that the Antipodean Christmas falls a few days after
the summer solstice. With the sun beating down, native trees
flowering and beaches beckoning, many New Zealanders insist on
providing a roast meal followed by Christmas pudding. The
whole performance is out of place in the southern hemisphere,
as is the celebration of resurrection at the onset of autumn.
It is an example of the way in which Christianity has failed
to be transplanted into local culture, and remains foreign and
distant. If a spirituality is to 'work', it needs to resonate
with the experiential world of the participants. The symbols
and language of the spirituality have to be vernacular, in
that they are owned and understood. Christian mission has
always understood the need to translate Scripture so that the
many peoples of the world may hear in their own language. But
neither the permission nor the impetus to translate
spirituality has been so readily forthcoming. In order to
nurture inner resources, it must be possible for the heart to
find voice in its interaction with the Christian story.
Resources for Spirituality Within Western Christianity, there
are various legitimate resources for spirituality which have
been strip-mined, and are consequently running close to
depletion. Sources such as prayer and Scripture are legitimate
in themselves, but taken in isolation from any other
tributaries become strained and barren. If a broader and more
mission-oriented spirituality is to be nurtured, it will
certainly draw on a range of resources, some of them
non-traditional. Some of these are explored below, starting
with the more orthodox ones before surveying the less well
appreciated.
PRAYER
Prayer
within the Evangelical tradition tends to be relatively simple
and straightforward. It is talking to God, either inside one's
head or out loud. There are various modes of praying, such as
thanksgiving, petition and intercession. But the methodology
of prayer is doggedly verbal. In essence it is a one-way
communication, from petitioner to God. While such an
understanding of prayer has sufficed for many, over time it
can come to seem unbearably trite and dull. It is difficult to
sustain a one-way conversation with anyone, and the feeling of
being somewhat foolish as one's words bounce back from the
ceiling is difficult to dismiss. The contemplative tradition
enriches the understanding of prayer. Now prayer is understood
as waiting before God, and may include the discipline of
silence as well as the recitation of liturgical material. The
emphasis here is on meditation, quietness, receptivity and
devotion. This attitude to prayer 'requires that we stand in
God's presence with open hands, naked and vulnerable'.7 There
is a degree of intimacy with God, and the analogy to prayer
which is developed in mystical literature is that of sexual
relationship. This type of praying is at once more mysterious,
engaging and renewing. However, if the danger of petitioning
prayer is that of a thinly veiled pragmatism, the danger
of contemplative prayer is that of quietism. The need is for a
form of prayer which combines both depth and responsive
action. God must be encountered in the public sphere as well
as the private sphere, and the two must inform each other. The
forms of prayer are hugely varied: lighting candles, using a
kneeler, repeating the 'Jesus prayer', writing prayers in
reflective mode, taking intentional devotional walks through
the community, praying with media such as clay or paint,
conducting public prayer as protest, singing or chanting
prayer, and of course the essence of all prayer - silence
before God.
SCRIPTURE/STORY
After
a couple of centuries of applying intellect to Scripture in
various forms of 'criticism', it is time to allow the Bible to
be what in essence it always has been: a collection of
stories. Listening to or reading stories is not primarily an
application of intellect. It is an act of shared imagination.
In story, one is invited (not coerced) into a different world
through the use of active imagining. Neither is the process
one-way. Whoever encounters a story brings with them their own
story, and on creative ground the two are allowed to interact
and cross-fertilize.8 This form of communication produces
encounter, and encounter may lead to change. How then to apply
imagination to Scripture in a fruitful way? Sermons, which
constitute the bulk of Protestants' encounter with the Bible,
can be depressingly rational and dull. This is the legacy
of the 'expositional' school of preaching, which is
astonishingly intellectual. Sermons also epitomize one-way
communication. There are other ways of coming at the Bible. It
can be acted out, read in parts, or discussed in groups.
People can be invited to use their imagination to 'feel' their
way into Gospel stories. Alternatively, people could be asked
to share something of their own story, and then think about
how Scripture has any relevance to it. If there has to be a
sermon, there could be discussion afterwards. It is imperative
that Scripture be set free for its subversive task.
PARTYING/CELEBRATION
Jesus
was a great one for parties. From the scene of his first
miracle (John 2.1-12) to his many discourses around the dinner
table (Luke 7.36—50; Mark 7.1-23), Jesus' social life is such
that he is looked down upon by the religious people for his
indiscriminate and gregarious behaviour. The culmination of
history in the kingdom of God is portrayed as one big party
(Luke 14.15-24). The sheer festivity of the messianic movement
is one of its most attractive features.9 Disembodied Christian
spirituality and an undue emphasis on the ascetic has given
the impression that partying is the antithesis of spiritual
formation, but this is in denial of the tradition. Certainly
celebration in denial of life is unchristian: where the aim is
to escape and get 'out of it' so that the pain of existence
may be temporarily suspended. But followers of Christ will be
able to celebrate with enthusiasm in the face of life, without
denial of suffering or ambiguity. The cause of celebration is
the hope and freedom won through resurrection; the effect of
such celebration is to extend hope and freedom within the
proximate world. The test of vital faith may well be the
ability to enjoy oneself dancing. Celebration of any sort,
whether in joy or grief, is constructive of spirituality. It
deepens appreciation of God's good gift of life, and shares
the burden of private pain with others. Moreover, celebration
is open, participative and accessible in ways that few other
activities are. Common meals (in their natural form, not the
stylized form of the eucharist) are abundant sources of
spiritual enrichment. There is something quasi-mystical about
the joining of people in eating and drinking, linked together
by the common table.
RISK-TAKING/BOUNDARY-CROSSING
We
have in the previous chapter emphasized the importance of
crossing boundaries for the sake of mission. There are few
people for whom this comes naturally, and without large
amounts of anxiety. The capacity for taking risks or crossing
boundaries is something that needs to be worked at and
prepared for, like running a marathon. There is a strong
psychological and spiritual inertia which sets in at mid-life,
if it has not already, that makes people more unwilling to
experience genuine risk. One of the preconditions for reckless
endangerment of personal safety is faith in the ubiquitous
presence of God. Like Peter climbing out of the boat, we need
to incrementally test ourselves against the idea. Crossing
boundaries requires practice. None of us find it easy to live
without the approval and understanding of people we respect.
And yet crossing boundaries means relinquishing much of that
affirmation. Like troops on the front line, it becomes
important to develop good lines of supply. It is important to
have a few friends who share the same vision and are
rock-solid in their support. Reading the Gospels becomes
essential, and learning how to search for and find Christ in
the . stranger. Regular time out for reflection helps to
maintain sanity. But the danger is worth it, for it is beyond
the margins that God is most clearly at work.
TRANSPARENCY/VULNERABILITY
Amidst
the predominantly functional relationships of the city, there
are great pressures on our inner resources. In order to
survive and protect relationships, we build fortifications
around the most tender parts of our psyches, and place them
off-limits to the majority of people. We don't want the masses
trampling over our sacred ground, and rightly so. However,
this results in our presenting masks or personas to the
outside world in order to function. Once having adopted a
strategy of presenting faces to people, it is easy to use it
in the wrong circumstances, and to begin to lose perception of
who we truly are. This is not good for spiritual development.
The only counter to this threatening loss of identity is
unnatural candour. As Frederick Buechner tells it: It is
important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who
we truly and fully are - even if we tell it only to ourselves
- because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we
are truly and fully and little by little come to accept
instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope
that the world will find it more acceptable than the real
thing.10 With transparency comes vulnerability. When we are
honest in a context where others are not, it seemingly gives
them an unfair advantage over us. Some will use it to ridicule
or denounce us. But others will find in our disarming honesty
the freedom and encouragement to be honest about themselves.
HUMOUR/CYNICISM
Paradoxically, running in the opposite direction from what has
just been said, is the need to survive in the city. The great
task of Christian life is discernment; knowing when to be open
and when to stand back. Jesus' injunction to 'be as wise as
serpents and innocent as doves' (Matthew 10.16) seems
apposite. Both humour and cynicism are mechanisms for survival
among people who suffer. Humour is a human expression of
transcendence: the ability to stand outside of a situation in
order to lovingly ridicule it. Like all gifts it can be
misused, but in its best form humour is full of human
poignancy. Laughter, when it is not mocking or derisory, is
wonder-fully therapeutic. It is renewing and refreshing, and
even in times of tragedy can be the key to unblocking
wellsprings of -spiritual energy. It is astonishing how often
in the context of a death, family members will end up laughing
at times until their tears of joy mingle with their tears of
pain. It is a good thing to laugh in the face of death. What
is the resurrection, other than God's greatest joke? You
either get it or you don't. Cynicism is a more dangerous
resource. It can easily become a corrosive acid which
dissolves everything good in life. People operating on the
margins are susceptible to cynicism, and if not handled with
care, this can lead to the ugly child of bitterness. On the
other hand, a judicious use of cynicism may be a way of
affirming the inherent sinfulness of humanity, and thus be a
better guide to realism in spiritual life than credulity.
SELF-EXPRESSION/PLAY
Fear
of rejection pushes people into hiding their gifts from public
sight. It seems that our culture of competition and success
inhibits creative self-expression amongst all but the most
talented. But failing to express what is within one is the
equivalent of blocking the outlet of a pond; it becomes
stagnant and foul. Self-expression, whether in art, writing,
music, sculpting, flower-arranging or cooking, is a means of
participating in the life of God. It is letting be; bringing
to fruition that which was not, and has come to life only
through the expression of our imagination and practical
skills. In part at least, this is what we were made for. There
is great excitement and satisfaction in self-expression,
whether or not it is appreciated by others. Play is sometimes
frowned on in Christian circles. It is seen as the domain of
children; something that mature people grow out of. This is
simply not true. Adults retain a capacity for play which
allows enjoyable sexual frolicking and relational game-playing
among other things. We of the church are in danger of being
too mature for our own good. There is a great need to lighten
up and enjoy life, and to rediscover the sensations of wonder
and awe. The call is not to be childish but child-like in our
approach to life. Absorption in play is a spiritual resource;
a means by which the false world of commerce and status is
treated with contempt in the light of the kingdom.
PROTEST/SUBVERSION
The
values and priorities of the Way are quite different from
those of the surrounding culture. Particularly in the
technocratic and economically obsessed West, it is inevitable
that followers of Jesus will run into conflict with the
powers-that-be. In order to affirm their faith, and to be
disciples, Christians must inevitably protest. There are three
guidelines for Christian protest. Firstly, it needs to take
place in the public arena, in the same way that Jesus
challenged local power structures at the Temple (Mark
11.15—19). This involves confrontation and the willingness to
bear the consequences. Secondly, it should not expect to be
successful even if sometimes it is. The call is to
faithfulness rather than success. Our job is not to bring in
the kingdom but to bear witness to it. Thirdly, it should
express creativity and life. Too much protest cannot think
outside of demonstrations and petitions. We have a rich and
inspiring prophetic tradition of dramatic protest on which to
draw. Subversion is a subtler form of the same resistance. It
involves refusing to play by the rules or adopt the priorities
which society decrees as normal. The Christian movement has
always been powerfully subversive in acknowledging an
authority which lies outside the bounds of existing powers. To
use the words of Peter: 'We must obey God rather than any
human authority' (Acts 5.29). Opting out of consumerism,
treating one's career lightly, standing alongside the
marginalized; these are acts of both subversion and spiritual
formation.
WORSHIP/AWE
Although worship has been left till last, it is one of the
most important spiritual resources available. Much worship in
the West tends toward the tedious. If God is not bored with
it, then many church members are. It fails to inspire or
engage the imagination. Even in Charismatic churches, it can
be verbose, cerebral and patronizing. For increasing numbers
of Christians, worship is an experience of oppression rather
than liberation. They have turned aside in despair, making
their protest through non-attendance, and struggling to keep
the stuttering flame of faith alive in isolation. Some,
however, have sought to recapture worship as something which
leaps wet and wild from the bog of captivated hearts; which
stretches convention until it rips and allows God in; which
draws words and symbols from the raw experience of
participants and flings them to God in love and desperation.
Some have shared their discoveries in a loose network known as
the 'alternative worship' or 'new worship' movement. In gifted
moments, they have found God yearning and wooing in their
midst in such a way that it seems possible to hope for a
future for the church again. There are of course many other
sources of spirituality than those surveyed here. When the
heart is captivated by Christ, then all of existence becomes a
resource for growing in depth and understanding. There need be
no rigid compartmentalizing of life into sacred and profane
areas. The promise of Scripture is that Christ is within us,
and that the Spirit is at work in the world. We need not be
fearful or anxious, but can relax and enjoy travelling in
partnership with the One in Three. For Christians,
spirituality is nothing other than participation in the life
of God; and God is available at all times and places.
