Studying Christian Spirituality

David B. Perrin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781134159147
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

This book provides a new introduction to the study of Christian spirituality, exploring it through the human sciences and ranging from philosophy and hermeneutics to psychology, history, sociology and anthropology.

Systematic and progressive, it introduces the key approaches and shows how they relate to the understanding, study and practice of spirituality. Covering a vast amount of ground - from traditional themes such as images of God, spiritual direction and pilgrimage to more contemporary issues, such as place and space, cyberspace and postcolonialism - the author takes an ecumenical, inclusive stance, allowing the book to be used in a wide variety of courses and across denominations.

1
Questions of definitions

		Introduction 16
		Spirituality 16
		Humanist understanding of spirituality 18
		The spirit of spirituality 20
		Spirituality in the everyday of life 23
		Spirituality marketed as a product 24
		Christian spirituality 26
		The history of the word spirituality in the Christian traditions 26
		Christian spirituality – some working definitions 31
		Christian spirituality and theology 32
		Methods in the study of Christian spirituality 35
		Theological method 35
		Historical method 39
		Anthropological method 40
		Hermeneutical method 41
		Spirituality and religion 44
		Christianity and Christian spirituality 46
		Christian spirituality and experience 47
		The nature of experience 47
		Conclusion 50
		Recommended reading 51
		Notes 54

Introduction

WHAT IS SPIRITUALITY? People throughout the world experience spirituality whether they are Christians or not, and even whether they believe in God or not. Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism are all forms of spirituality, but have no reference to a God as such.¹ Many people today claim to be “spiritual but not religious.”² For them, spirituality can be explained as a human phenomenon rather than an explicit belief in the Christian God or any God. How can this perspective be understood? Not everybody may agree that spirituality is possible outside the context of belief in God, but the approach taken to Christian spirituality in this book encourages an understanding of this perspective. Once spirituality is understood in a general way, questions of spirituality that relate to Christian life become clearer.

Since this entire book is about spirituality in general, and Christian spirituality in particular, it only proposes working definitions: that is, definitions that contain the area of reflection without limiting it. The rest of the book then explores the meaning of these initial definitions in greater depth. Working definitions are useful because there is no universally accepted understanding of spirituality, spiritual life, spiritual growth, or even Christian spirituality. Talking to different people, or reading different authors, will produce many ways of understanding both spirituality and Christian spirituality.

Spirituality

William Stringfellow, in his book The Politics of Spirituality, indicates the broad spectrum of what the term spirituality might mean today. He suggests that it

may indicate stoic attitudes, occult phenomena, the practice of so-called mind control, yoga discipline, escapist fantasies, interior journeys, an appreciation of Eastern religions, multifarious pietistic exercises, superstitious imaginations, intensive journals, dynamic muscle tension, assorted dietary regimens, meditation, jogging cults, monastic rigors, mortification of the flesh, wilderness sojourns, political resistance, contemplation, abstinence, hospitality, a vocation of poverty, nonviolence, silence, the efforts of prayer, obedience, generosity, exhibiting stigmata, entering solitude, or, I suppose, among these and many other things, squatting on top of a pillar.³

But this definition of spirituality is still too broad for the purposes of this book, even as a working definition. In addition, his use of the word spirituality tends to focus on particular behaviors and events, rather than the underlying motivation for them, or the capacity of human beings to engage reality in these ways. Something must lie behind the external actions and events that makes the external expression of spirituality possible. Motivation (why people do things) and capacity (the ability to do things or be receptive to them) are also part of spirituality, as will be shown. These aspects of spirituality are more difficult to describe and understand.

Another question that comes to the fore after examining Stringfellow’s list is the question of authentic and non-authentic spiritualities. Might some of Stringfellow’s categories be excluded as authentic spiritualities? If so, why? It is very difficult to judge different spiritualities as authentic or non-authentic, as well as decide on criteria that would be helpful to do so. There are real tensions with normativity and what is to be considered acceptable. However, despite inherent tensions, there is good reason to give critical thought to some criteria that might help divide acceptable or authentic spiritualities from those that are not. Take, for example, Jonestown. Jonestown, named for its founder Jim Jones, was the communal settlement made in Guyana by a religious cult previously under suspicion for human rights abuses in California in the 1970s. Jonestown gained international notoriety in 1978 when nearly its whole population of about 900 people died in a mass murder-and-suicide ordered by Jones. From any perspective the events in Jonestown are recognized as an inauthentic expression of spirituality that was pathological in nature.

To begin to respond to the question “What is authentic spirituality?” some suggestions about what authentic spirituality is not are in order.

First, authentic spirituality is not simply to be identified with the interior and private life of the individual, as reflected in either exterior practices and rituals or interior meditations and reflections. In other words, authentic spirituality is not to be identified with only one part of the life of the person, cut off from other aspects. “Spiritual life” is not separate from “body life,” from the entire sphere of human action and human desire. The psychological, bodily, historical, social, political, aesthetic, intellectual, and other dimensions of the human subject of spiritual experience are integral to the understanding of spirituality. As Ernest Becker points out in The Denial of Death, his 1973 Pulitzer Prize-winning study of the human condition, human beings are spirit in the world; spirituality is the effort to understand and realize the potential of this extraordinary and paradoxical situation.⁴

Authentic spirituality, therefore, is not merely the way an individual generates meaning in life to feel good about his or her self and world. Authentic spiritualities involve the integration of all aspects of life in a unified whole. Authentic life refers to living in an overall spirit of goodwill; it refers to a commitment to look critically at oneself and one’s relationships as well as an openness to question objectively and regularly all aspects of living. All this is with a view to deepening self-appreciation as well as self-giving to others. This ongoing, objective, and critical stance may open up new, and greater, possibilities for living which are the foundation of authentic spiritualities. For example, negative patterns such as the abuse of alcohol or the excessive preoccupation with buying new things, though they may generate meaning in one’s life and even make an individual feel good, are not authentic spiritualities based on the above criteria.

Second, spirituality is not necessarily associated with belief in a God or some other supernatural being. Spirituality, for some people, may be an important sphere of human living without any involvement in a community of believers for whom belief in a God is at the core of their self-identity. But spirituality does not exclude such a belief, either. In the public realm, spirituality may refer to an expression of human life within a particular belief system that includes recognition of the existence of God as well as referring to belief systems that contain no such recognition. From Stringfellow’s definition above, non-violence and yoga disciplines, for some people, could be appreciated as spiritualities. These do not necessarily have a belief in God at their core. But then the question could be asked whether these two examples are authentic spiritualities that “involve the integration of all aspects of life in a unified whole.” Authentic spirituality is not all about one’s personal life, even if that life is meaningful.

Now that we know what spirituality is not, let us explore what it is. Four primary characteristics of spirituality are proposed as a working definition for spirituality,⁵ in terms of the human dimension of life. Since they contain no reference to God, the characteristics of spirituality listed below describe a strictly humanist perspective.

Humanist understanding of spirituality

First, spirituality is a fundamental capacity in human beings known as human spiritual nature. For example, human spiritual nature is engaged in expressions of creative and imaginative art and music, or in self-conscious reflection. Spirituality in this first sense is also the search for meaning, values, and purpose in life, all of which can be nurtured through such things as interpersonal relationships, volunteering time and energy in soup kitchens, or taking part in certain rituals on a regular basis. Human spiritual nature engages in being thoughtful, being empathetic, and at times making heroic choices that involve intense self-sacrifice.

Second, and intimately related to the first, spirituality recognizes that life is bigger than what is happening in an individual’s personal world. The awareness that reality is beyond what can be seen and touched is called the human capacity for transcendence. Self-transcendence includes the human capacity to nurture meaningful and intimate relationships...