Category Archives: Spirituality

Which Culture Infiltrating Which?

Doug at MetaCatholic has an interesting discussion of an anachronistic reading inadvertently committed by a significant English New Testament scholar. I see his main point being that it is very easy—even for the brightest and best educated among us—to fall into anachronistic blunders while reading the Scriptures from time to time, but the one he has identified here was much broader and deeper implications.

That is, Thisleton writes about the Corinthian correspondence concerning : “…the seductive infiltration into the Christian church of cultural attitudes derived from secular or non-Christian Corinth as a city.” After noting the odd and anachronistic equation of “secular” with “non-Christian”, Doug gets to the meat of the issue:

More seriously problematic is the idea that the church is sufficiently well established and developed for ideas to “infiltrate it” as alien, or that what Paul thinks is “church culture” and what the Corinthians think are alien cultural misperceptions. Partly the Corinthians are new converts, and conversion of mind, practice and culture is always a long drawn out and imperfect process, however impassioned the conversion of commitment and heart is. Partly Paul is one of many people trying to work out what a Christian vision is (and other equally prominent people in the new movement are articulating rather different ones).

Paul comes from a long-standing Jewish communal tradition which has considerable experience of singing the Lord’s song in strange land, and is working out how that is transformed by his Messiah Jesus. The Corinthians have no real idea they are living in a strange land, and in so far as they might think in these terms it is not an idea of being in exile, but one of being a colony, there to teach everyone else to sing the Roman song.

Finally, there is nothing other than personal charisma and persuasive argument to say who is doing any misperceiving: Paul or the Corinthians. There is no orthodoxy for the Corinthians to be seduced away from. What will later (in varying degree) become orthodox emerges in part from Paul thinking on his feet. It is not apparent to me that if the Corinthians hadn’t provoked Paul to argument, the church would ever have so strongly committed to belief in the resurrection of the body. It is equally arguable that in some historical periods aspects of the Corinthian view of the body and sex, say, have been at least as close to mainstream Christianity as Paul’s. (“It is well for a man not to touch a woman.” 1 Cor 7:1)

In short, Thiselton makes it sound as though what was happening on the ground was straightforward and obvious. I think it was a mess, in which people (especially in this context) Paul and the Corinthians are contending for the appropriate cultural forms of Christian practice and thought in a non-Jewish culture, one partly alien to Paul, in which the Corinthians are fully at home. I also think that’s much more like most of our own situations, whether in the traditional “mission-field” situation or in our very non-traditional one, where the culture has changed under our feet, and there are competing visions about how much to change with it.

Reading this particular scriptural case as the “seductive infiltration into the Christian church of cultural attitudes” encourages us to do the same today, and engage in name-calling our opponents. Me Paul, you Corinthian. I argue that the reality of what’s going on is more complex, then and now, and if we’re less anachronistic about then, we might be more constructive about now.

The last couple of paragraphs contain the pay-off—and where I’d like to head off in the direction Doug indicates. We modern Americans and Europeans live in what has been referred to as a post-Constantinian culture. And we could debate whether, when, and how these contemporary cultures are Christian, non-Christian, or anti-Christian., but I’d rather go from the other direction.

Do we know what a truly Christian culture to be manifested by the church looks like? Do we have a sense of its markers, signs, virtues, and values? To make the task easier, do we know what a liturgical Christian culture would look like with its own kalendar, ways of marking rhythms and times, and paths of virtue?

One of my mentors states that the job of theologians and religiously committed biblical scholars is to imagine the world that Scripture imagines. While I like this formulation, I think it needs rhetorical tweaking. This is how I’d define the real goal of preaching: to invite the congregation into the world that Scripture describes. “Imagine” is a good enough word, but “imagination” is too easily paired with “reality” as an antonym. An implication I’d rather avoid is that Scripture imagines what doesn’t exist in reality. I’d rather say that Scripture describes some things that are real and some things that are in the process of coming into being. There is a reality, a way of living, of thinking, of believing, of being that Scripture describes and that we experience (albeit fleetingly) in the church’s liturgies. What can we do as people in the church to coalesce these ways of being into an intentional culture that can speak with its own voice—serving when conditions require as a community of resistance?

Now let me be clear—I’m not suggesting that we cultivate a fortress mentality that pits us “enlightened saved” against the “malevolent heathen”. Nor am I envisioning a collective where we listen exclusively to Contemporary Christian Music (saints preserve us!). Attempts to describe or to be intentional about a distinctive Christian culture that have arisen in some conservative Christian movements seem both overly oppositional in some areas and unreflectively complicit in others.

Perhaps the problem is when we start with an attitude of opposition, of describing what we’re against. I’d rather see us do things like embracing the rule of life that seems to proceed from the rhythms of the Prayer Book and being both intentional and explicit about what this would look like, and starting from who we think we are than who and what we think we’re not.

I suppose where I’m actually meandering is here: perhaps we do need to begin constructing and sharing rules of life. Not as legislative documents, not as holier-than-thou checklists, but as ways of framing what it means to be intentional Christians with our own distinctive charisms and callings. I love Benedict’s Rule. I love Cassian’s Institutes. Neither of them function for a household with two working parents, two energetic preschoolers, and an emotionally needy cat. I’ve felt a pull to doing this before, and here it comes again, perhaps even stronger than before…

Definitions and Distinctions

Here are some definitions worth remembering, all from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (E. A. Livinsgtone, ed., Oxford University Press, 1977)

Ascetical Theology: The theological discipline which deals with the so-called ‘ordinary’ ways of Christian perfection, as distinct from Mystical Theology, whose subject is the ‘extraordinary ‘ or passive ways of the spiritual life. It is thus the science of Christian perfection in so far as this is accessible to human effort aided by grace. It also treats of the means to be employed and the dangers to be avoided if the end of the Christian life is to be attained.

Mystical Theology: In Catholic theology, the science of the spiritual life, in so far as this is dependent on the operation of Divine grace. It is commonly contrasted with Ascetical Theology

Mysticism: An immediate knowledge of God attained in this life through personal religious experience. It is primarily a state of prayer, and as such admits of various degrees from short and rare Divine ‘touches’ to the practically permanent union with God in the so-called ‘mystic marriage’. It issues in an increase of humility, charity, and love of suffering. Christian mysticism emphasizes two elements often absent in other religions. In contrast to all pan-cosmic conceptions of the underlying Reality as an impersonal Unity, it recognizes that the Reality to which it penetrates transcends the soul and the cosmos. And in place of all notions of absorption of the soul into the Divine, it posits that the union is one of love and will in which the distinction between Creator and creature is permanently retained. Psycho-physical phenomena, such as trances, visions, and ecstasies, have been frequent concomitants of mystical experience, but they are not held to be essential to it, and are sometimes considered a hindrance to its proper realization. Though Christian thinkers have differed widely in their attitude to mysticism, a measure of it is encountered in the Christian life at its more serious levels in all periods.

Asceticism: The word denotes a system of practices designed to combat vices and develop virtues by means of self-discipline such as are found in many religions. In the NT there are repeated exhortations to self-denial. The theoretical foundation of Christian asceticism was developed by Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Taking over from the Stoics the idea of ascetic action as a purification of the soul from its passions, they saw in it a necessary means of loving God more perfectly and for attaining to contemplation. In the 3rd cent. the ascetic ideal as a way of life spread through Christendom, leading to the age of the Desert Fathers and the beginnings of monasticism in the 4th cent. The monks in both East and West, and later the Mendicant Orders, became the leading representatives of asceticism. At the end of the Middle Ages there was a reaction against the ascetic ideal, esp. among the Protestant Reformers, whose doctrine of the total depravity of man and of justification by faith alone undercut the theological foundation of ascetic practices. The ascetic ideal was, however, upheld in the RC Church of the Counter-Reformation and later. It also played an important role in Methodism and among the Tractarians and their successors.

Acc. to its classical Christian exponents, asceticism is a necessary means of fighting the concupiscence of the flesh; it is also of value as an imitation of the sacrificial life of Christ and as a means of expiation of one’s own sins and those of others. It springs from the love of God and aims at overcoming all the obstacles to this love in the soul.

Personally, I’d never heard the term “ascetical theology” until M became a TA for a class of that name at GTS. In college, one of the things that kept me within Christianity and led me to learn more about was an attraction to Christian mysticism, its practices and experiences. The more that I learned over the years, the more I came to the understanding that Christian mysticism isn’t really something you “do”, rather, it’s something that happens purely as an operation of God’s grace. That having been said, there are things that we do to cultivate within ourselves a receptiveness to all of God’s graces, the mystical ones included. That is, there are paths and practices that we travel that lead us into depths of Christian doctrine, faith, and experience.

To put it another way, is the man on the street who may attend church once or twice a month at the urgings of his family who’d prefer to spend his free time watching football and playing golf less likely to experience mystical graces of God than the cloistered contemplative? My answer is: yes, the first is less likely to experience it—and I offer two explanations. First, as St Paul tells us in the Corinthian and Roman correspondence, we of the Spirit receive different gifts of the Spirit. I believe that these are allotted partly in respect to our authentic selves. The Spirit works through and amplifies who and what we were created to be. A vowed contemplative may well be better suited by both created and granted graces to receive these sorts of experiences. Second—and I believe more important than the first—a primary issue is receptivity: are we open to the possibility of such experiences and do we recognize them for what they are when they happen to us? The man on the street may well receive just as many moments of mystical grace as the contemplative—but may not have the tools and resources to understand what they are and what they mean.

Ascetical theology, then, is the discipline that teaches us actions and ways, paths and systems, that increase our potential for receptivity to the graces of God.

In some ways, given this language, I know recognize that this is what I have been moving towards and captivated by since late high school/early undergrad. Even as a New Testament scholar, my chief area of research is how the demands—and glories—of the biblical texts are enacted, liturgically and practically, in Christian formation.  And, in embracing this language, I have found a way to articulate one of the difficulties that I faced as a Lutheran. As a Lutheran I heard over and over again an emphasis on grace and faith—emphases that I embraced and still embrace. I struggled, though, with what seemed to be a deliberate silence around the spiritual disciplines that I encountered among many of the Lutheran clergy and professors I encountered. The fear of Pelagianism and works-righteousness hung heavy over any such discussion. This need not be so, and if we turn to the ascetical masters themselves, this question is treated early and often. An extensive discussion of the topic is found in John Cassian in two places: the first is the polemical Conference 13 (the third conference with Abba Chaeremon) which reacts against a overly or caricatured Augustinian position and the less polemical, more charitable Conference 3 (with Abba Paphnutius).  I wonder if I had had the language asceticial theology that I have now if it would have eased my sojourn among the Lutherans (though I doubt it would have changed the eventual outcome).

Suburban Homesteading

The new blog Suburban Resistance points to this promising beginning of a new series on suburban homesteading–the idea of becoming more self-sufficient in some ways but (I’d suggest) ultimately makes us more aware of our interdependencies on nature and God for what sustains us. I’ve always been into this concept but have never had the time or resources to follow through.

As a youngster in suburbia, our family had a huge garden where we grew all sorts of veggies: swiss chard, broccoli, cucumbers, squash, green beans, etc. Being from rural stock my folks were into organic gardening back in the 70’s and 80’s despite having the opposite political views one normally associates with such things. I spent a lot of time with the venerable Back to Basics (ours was the first edition) which left home when I did… Back then I decided that when I grew up I’d have chickens, goats (for milk, cheese, wool, and meat), bees, and a fishpond along with my garden and greenhouse. I was also a wanna-be herbalist. The closest I’ve come so far is a clutch of container gardens where M and I have farmed
tomatoes, peppers, and herbs in our various rented apartments and homes.

Part of this tendency in me comes from nurture—I was raised with it; it’s just what you do. Another part comes from American individualism—a desire to be entirely self-sufficient. As I’ve grown up and have acquired a more grounded sense of things, I’ve realized that the desire for self-sufficiency is an illusion and may even approach the level of delusion. I’ve now come to the place where I see this activities as moving back into a place where we begin to recognize and integrate ourselves with the mysteries of incarnate reality: the cycles of the sunrise and set, the cycles of the seasons, the cycles of wet and drought. If anything, return to a more intimate connection with our food sources helps us realize how utterly dependent we are on others for our survival. Other people, communities, creation and its Creator.

In the Rule, Benedict points towards sufficiency almost as a by-product of the redeeming value of manual labor.  He prefers when the monastics grow their own food, noting that labor of the hands joins them with the apostles and the fathers, making them “truly monks” (RB 48.8). It’s interesting to read ch. 41 from the perspective of one used to electric lights: the focus on the rhythms of the sun reminds us of how alienated we are from the natural cycles by our technology. Too, it’s worth noting the kinds of food Benedict assumes to be available in ch. 39: bread, fruit and vegetables when in season, and not four-footed animals.

My wandering mind reminds me of just how much space John Cassian allots to discussions of gluttony. Certainly he considers it a problem for monks as a full stomach leads to an increase of libido, but issues of food, food cultivation, and consumption were necessary parts of considering the spiritual life for these authors. And, for him, these topics are also linked to issues of possessions, envy, and theft. (Stories of biscuit-stealing seem to abound in certain chapters…) But when was the last time you heard anything on gluttony recently? And yet that is, as I see it, part of what the suburban homesteading movement is about: curtailing consumption, of processed and factory-farmed food, yes, but also of the cycles of gluttonous consumption which our society glorifies.

So–I’m interested in a variant of this movement that does not seek to cut itself off from others in a drive for sufficiency, but to recognize the cycles within which we exist–the healthy, the unhealthy, and those good cycles that have been altered or perverted from what they ought to be. Peak oil may be a reality in our lifetime—or not. I clearly lack the scientific chops to weigh the various arguments about human-driven climate change especially as they are repeated and distorted y various outlets. But what I can do is recognize sound theological calls for prudence, temperance, moderation, and respect for the creation within which we exist and concerning which we are stewards.

Fascinating Edited Volume on the Psalms

Google Books—as you know—has full-text of old stuff and snippets of new stuff. Mostly. However, there is some full-length new stuff there including a fascinating collection of essays on the Psalms. [Note: it is actually under limited preview. I got through the first essay, then it turned itself off…] It immediately attracted my attention when I saw the editors: H. Attridge and M. Fassler. When Harry Attridge, noted New Testament scholar and Margot Fassler, noted musicologist team up on something on the Psalms you know it’s going to be both good and broad.

The table of contents suggests exciting too… A lot of big names from various fields are represented: Robert Taft (liturgical history), John J. Collins (intertestamental literature) Gordon Lathrop (liturgical theology) and more.

This is definitely worth a read and can be accessed here.

Discipleship at the Cafe

What would the Church look like if we thought of “disciple-making” as
our core purpose, in adult formation programs, in seminary education,
in worship?

There you go, folks—that’s the key question. It’s from a post here at the Episcopal Cafe. I’d say all of the rest of our questions about church stuff (including what we do with people, buildings, politics, etc.) are properly subsets of this question.

Significant Books

Fr. Chris was posting on books that had been particularly formative in his faith journey and, turning it into a meme, tagged me for it.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and I find it a very difficult one to answer. There have been so very many books that have influenced me in many ways. But—fitting in my turn away from true protestantism—when I think about my faith journey people have been more formative for me than books. Or—to mix it up, what certain mentors taught me with certain books has been incredibly formative…

None of that answers Fr. Chris’s question which is partly about recommending really good books to other people. I’ll morph it a little bit too–I’ll list what I currently think to be the seven most important books for my faith formation and theology. There are, of course, three that should go without saying so I’ll just stick them here at the top for the sake of form and make it a round ten:

  1. The Bible
  2. The 1979 American Book of Common Prayer
  3. The ’82 Hymnal
  4. The Book of Concord: Ok—here’s the first book that I’ll explain, and that needs some explanation. For those who don’t know it, the Book of Concord is that official collection of theological writings that Lutherans accept. I don’t accept it all (one of the reasons why I’m not currently a Lutheran pastor), But I find myself very frequently going back to Luther’s Small and Large Catechisms, the Augsburg Confession and its Apology. The Small Catechism in particular is a key work for me.
  5. The Rule of Benedict/John Cassian’s Institutes and Conferences: Three books for the price of one… Benedict’s work is fairly widely known in Christian and Episcopal circles and is justly honored for its wisdom, structure, and humanity. Cassian’s works are still fairly obscure—and that’s to our detriment. The early church didn’t write systematic theologies. However, Cassian’s work is the closest that you’ll come to a systematic spirituality. Filled with theological and psychological insight, Cassian focuses less on doctrines and more on practices, on communicating a path for cultivating disciples. I find myself at a place in my spiritual and intellectual life where I can’t see these three works as truly distinct from one another. The Rule is in many respects a distillation of Cassian and yet the Rule becomes a lens for reading Cassian as well.
  6. Monastic Practices: This is a supremely practical book written for Cistercian novices. It introduces them to the basics of the monastic spiritual practices. Ever since I first encountered it in a theology library in Tokyo during undergrad this book has been having on me.
  7. On Christian Doctrine: This is Augustine’s main work on hermeneutics–how to read Scripture and get stuff out of it. The center of his argument is caritas: If you are reading and you find something other than love, read it again because you missed it. Of course, love is not a gooey do-whatever-you-like; it’s love with depth and integrity. Like the Rule & Cassian, this one has been very influential in my spiritual and intellectual lives.
  8. The Soul in Paraphrase: This was a very important book for me because it introduced me to the notion of the religious affections. It gave me a vocabulary for thinking about a range of human experience I didn’t know how to describe. In many ways this book laid the groundwork for me to appreciate what Stoicism is really about and therefore monastic spirituality which is fundamentally a kind of Christian Stoicism. 
  9. The Temple: For a sacramental Anglican who loves poetry, this is simply a no-brainer. Herbert’s verse sings. He soars up to great heights but—just as important—he plumbs great depths too. His poetry of misery in relation to God is second only to the Psalms in my opinion.
  10. The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why it Matters: This work begins by affirming that the creed is not an easy thing for modern people to affirm. Then, rather than making excuses for it or weaseling out of it, affirms the importance of a literal reading of the Creed and ties each article into classic Christian theology and spirituality, explain why each one is important and the broader ramifications of it.

What are your picks?

An Act of Recalibration

Go read Christopher’s latest post. He and I have been working around some similar themes of late especially in terms of what is going on at a national level in the church.

Christian social justice is not separate from personal holiness nor vice versa. In fact, they’re really not in opposition to one another despite what various “culture warriors” want you to think. However, both of them are only Christian when they flow from the Gospel.

Christopher makes mention of the Benedictine tradition. Now, when I think and say “Benedictine”, I often conjure up in my head a kind of idealized Benedictine spirit that I believe existed in ninth century Europe as mediated through my experience with Benedictine teachers I’ve had and monasteries I’ve visited.
But there are other very real and important parts of the Benedictine tradition that I would do well to remember.

The monastic house of Cluny, founded in 909 was by the end of the 11th century to become the head of a sprawling family of houses throughout the Continent and in England as well. At its founding it was devoted to a strict interpretation of the Rule. As time went on, things changed… Because of its later years, the name of Cluny is now associated with liturgical excess. A reading of its customaries reveals that the monks were actively in choir over eight hours a day. Now—liturgy is good; but that doesn’t mean that more liturgy is better. Rather, Cluny lost the balance of the Rule that demanded physical labor and study in addition to hours in the choir. Many scholar of the period regard the use of lay brethren as a kind of second-class citizen to do the physical work as a sign of the decay that eventually led to Cluny’s collapse.

What came in its stead was the Cistercian revolution. More ascetical, less liturgical (by comparison—still far more liturgical than anything most of us have ever known) The Cistercians re-emphasized the principle of balance. They did not jettison the old. Indeed, the use of silence outside the choir was a central feature of Cluniac spirituality retained and heightened by the Cistercian reformers. Fundamentally as an act of Reformation, it was an act of Recalibration. 

While I make no secret of my love of Cluny and its liturgies even when they tend to excess, the Cistercians proved themselves a necessary and important part of the Benedictine tradition. And, in their in their path of Recalibration it would suit us now to walk.

We face different challenges, of course. And yet—the balance of the liturgical life, the intellectual life, and the active life still, I believe, burns at the heart of the Anglican way. We would do well to recalibrate.

The Anglican Scotist on the Eucharist

In his comment to my post below and in a new post on his blog, the Anglican Scotist takes issue with my suggestion that those representing the national church and those clergy with progressive political views remember that demands for justice in church flow best from acknowledging God’s call to humanity in light of what God has done for us through Jesus Christ.

He states:

Granted, loosey goosey lefty preachers might preach social justice and
be too dull to notice the sacramental context in which they preach is
soaked in political references, but there is also a loosey goosey
mentality perversely abstracting the Eucharist from the political, as
if real labor and real money and real paychecks and real exchanges were
not actually involved and actually sanctified, as if it were all just
symbolic or even pretend.

I can’t tell if he’s directly accusing me of holding the second “a loosey goosey
mentality [that] perversely abstract[s] the Eucharist from the political” or not… If he is, it’s a caricature and not an accurate representation of what I said or believe. I agree that there are some who have tried to make a hard separation between the religious and the political and that doesn’t make sense to me either. You can’t pray the Psalms and believe that “YHWH is king” has no political implications.

However, let me reiterate to clarify my position to the Scotist. The Eucharist is a powerful multivalent symbol. The Eucharist is misunderstood whenever we attempt to reduce its complexity.  Our historic liturgy and architecture is designed to highlight these multivalent elements and the move in recent years to change things has resulted in just such a reduction. That is, an east-wall altar speaks of a table, a sacrificial altar, and a tomb. The bread, wine, and water speak of simple family meals, the fruits of the earth,and—yes—the products of human labor. The liturgical words speak of covenant relationships, political injustice, the triumph of love, and a God who choose to permeate human life through multiple modes of presence and incarnation. And these items that I have pointed out just barely scratch the surface…

I would not claim that the Eucharist is “simply religious,” abstracted from the political. That’s not how I understand “religious”—it can never be “simply” anything because it’s fundamentally not simple.

In a similar fashion, I would hope that the Scotist would shy away from reducing the Eucharist to the purely economic or even political and miss the full splendor of its spectrum of meanings.