Borrowed Spiritualities
Evangelicals need to rediscover the spiritual riches of their own forebears or risk losing believers to other traditions.
Evangelicalism is without question the powerhouse of the modern Christian church. Time and time again, people put their discovery of the vitality and excitement of the gospel down to the witness of evangelicalism. But having won them for the gospel, can evangelicalism keep them?
The lack of a credible and distinctive spirituality is one of the greatest weaknesses facing evangelicalism today. Many people begin their Christian lives as evangelicals. They have been attracted by the power of evangelical testimony and the obvious difference that faith makes to the lives of their evangelical friends and neighbors. But what happens next? As a professor in England’s leading seminary, I have seen the same pattern happen too often for comfort: Many students begin their ministries as evangelicals, yet end up—often after a period of many years—committed to a form of catholicism. And what has attracted them away from evangelicalism? They gain the impression that evangelicalism has little help to offer those who are trying to deepen their understanding of God, develop approaches to prayer and meditation that will enrich their faith, and keep them going in the Christian life. I write as one who is deeply appreciative of the catholic tradition, especially within my own Church of England.
For some, Catholic spirituality leads to more catholic forms of theology. And why? Because there is something wrong with evangelical theology? No. It is, quite simply, that evangelicalism is seen to lack a spirituality to give its theology staying power. There is a serious weakness here.
Spirituality, one of the buzz words of our time, has been taken up with enthusiasm by many evangelicals. Yet instead of developing considered evangelical approaches to the Christian life, many evangelicals seem eager to borrow the spiritualities of others. This is a feature of evangelicalism worldwide, not simply in North America. Evangelicalism has become spiritually derivative. Instead of falling back on its own distinctive approach to spirituality, evangelicalism has become lazy. It has borrowed other people’s.
Blind to the evangelical heritage
A colleague of mine, having just read a work on prayer by a well-known British evangelical writer, put the book down with intense irritation. “Doesn’t she know anything about evangelical spirituality?” he asked in utter exasperation. The medieval catholic spiritual tradition seemed to be well represented. But what of evangelicalism? What of the great Puritan writers, whose writings on prayer remain among the classics of Christendom?
Evangelicalism owes the modern church the duty of ensuring that its distinctive forms of spirituality remain alive. Yet it has too often become blind to its own heritage. Evangelicals are often told by their catholic colleagues that they have no spirituality worth talking about. This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that it brings about a sense of inferiority within evangelical circles. Evangelicals, convinced that they have nothing to offer in this area, promptly draw on the resources of other traditions. It is little surprise to note that many who begin their Christian life as evangelicals end up on the more catholic wing of the church on account of the perceived superiority of its spirituality.
The Reformers and the Puritans—to name only two groups of people—have enormous spiritual resources to offer the modern church. For example, the Reformation work ethic—which is not the same as the secularized Protestant work ethic—seems to have had virtually no impact in modern evangelicalism. And the Puritans—such as John Owen, Richard Baxter, and Jonathan Edwards—emerge as individuals with real insights for the spiritual difficulties that confront modern Christians. But much more needs to be done.
We need to make such forms of spirituality intelligible and accessible, as a duty both to evangelicalism and to the wider church. Current neglect of our heritage in no way precludes its rediscovery.
‘Feel good’ spiritualities unacceptable
Ignorance of the evangelical tradition is only half of the problem. At a deeper level, there has been a failure to apply and develop evangelical spirituality. There has been no real attempt to mobilize its historic resources and apply them to the present.
Evangelicalism is the most potent form of Christianity in much of Western civilization at this moment, deeply rooted in the power of the risen Christ and concerned to make him known and make him relevant to our modern society. However, unless something is done to promote evangelical spirituality, the present growth of the movement may not be sustained in the longer term. It may be seen like a plant that goes through an initial surge of growth—but thereafter needs to be supported.
Any notion of spirituality as a quest for heightened religious experience as an end in itself is totally alien to the outlook of evangelicalism. “Feel good” spiritualities are unacceptable, unless they are firmly grounded in Scriptures that give us reasons to “feel good.”
The church has become weak in the domain of personal and interpersonal problems. Modern evangelical churches and theologians have typically not grappled with the problems of daily living in light of spiritual realities. The church has either misconstrued, oversimplified, or avoided facing the existential and situational realities of human experience in the trenches of life.
Unless we can develop or rediscover forms of spirituality that are thoroughly evangelical in their roots and outlook, today’s evangelicals may be tomorrow’s ex-evangelicals. This is one of the most urgent tasks facing us. We owe it to evangelicalism to get it right. And we owe it to the church at large, which is painfully aware of a gaping hole left by our failure.
Evangelical distinctives
So what distinctive contributions has evangelicalism to make to spirituality?
• Evangelical spirituality will insist upon grounding in Scripture the beliefs and hopes that animate our lives and give us meaning. Our hope must be, and be seen to be, grounded on the bedrock of gospel truth, rather than some passing psychotherapeutic craze.
• Evangelical spirituality will center upon Christ’s saving work, insisting that the Christian life is impoverished without an appreciation of the sheer wonder of all that Christ has done for us. Contemplation is a word that many evangelicals shy away from; yet a contemplation of the dying Christ can open the door to a new appreciation of the joy and exhilaration of knowing the full extent of God’s love for us. Isaac Watts’s “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” is an excellent example of the power of the human imagination, when nourished upon scriptural images, to delve deep into a knowledge that humbles and delights us.
• Evangelical spirituality will seek to develop discipline in the spiritual life—not as an end in itself, but as a means of strengthening the Holy Spirit’s energizing control of our lives. Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline reminds us that the gospel liberates us from the idea that discipline is a means of salvation, and thus sets us free to discover the value of that discipline as a means of expressing and developing the salvation that is already ours. Spiritual discipline is what keeps many Christians going through spiritual dry patches; too often, we have neglected this resource.
• Finally, evangelicalism must rediscover the value of role models in the Christian life. In this image-centered age, we can too easily lose sight of the fact that faith transforms people—and that their story and example can enable others to deepen their own faith. The person who has made Christ central to his or her life can be a living model of the life of faith, sharing wisdom grounded in their experience. Books and television are no substitute for living a life in which Christ has been embodied. This is because the gospel is a truth that cannot simply be taught; it must be lived.
Each of these points has a long history of use in the evangelical tradition. Current neglect in no way precludes their rediscovery, along with others awaiting to be found and used. Just as the woman rejoiced at finding her missing coin (Luke 15:8–9), so we can share the joy of rediscovering spiritualities that our forebears knew, but which have since been lost.
Evangelicalism is a slumbering giant in the world of spirituality. It needs to wake up. If it does, the new millennium could see some exciting developments. We owe it to our future to do that right now.
By consulting editor Alister E. McGrath, University Research Lecturer in Theology at the University of Oxford, and lecturer in theology at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, England.
Keep On Truckin’
Folio, the magazine for magazine publishers, recently surveyed various publications about their policies on printing profanity. Not many surprises here: Harper’s prints obscenities only in fiction; Playboy will not print them in captions or subheads; People and Cosmopolitan print only the initial letter(s) followed by the standard unimaginative dashes.
The only surprise? Well, it depends on your image of truck drivers. Truckers News has no policy about profanity “as the issue has never come up.” Says a Truckers News spokesperson: “I have yet to hear anyone swear or use a racial slur after 11 years at this magazine. Many truckers have a real spiritual basis and don’t use swear words.”
So honk, and don’t swear, if you love Jesus.
