Prodigal Kiwi(s) Blog

God’s Distinctive Alternative – Part 3B

Paul writes - Again, the Volf quote I first cited here [part 2 above]:

 

“Christian difference is always a complex and flexible network of small and large refusals, divergences, subversions, and more or less radical alternative proposals, surrounded by the acceptance of many cultural givens. There is no single correct way to relate to a given culture as a whole, or even to its dominant thrust; there are only numerous ways of accepting, transforming, or replacing various aspects of a given culture from within…”

 

Volf concludes his essay with four implications:

 

1. To live as Christians “means to keep inserting a difference into a given culture without ever stepping outside of it to do so (p. 233). We are able to change and modify symbols, practices and values. Elsewhere Graham Ward illustrates this nicely “...I think that people’s lives are transformed on a micro level as well as on a macro level. Let’s think of managers working at a store as an example. Yes, the money is a big and powerful driver, but what if we sit around and say, “Yes, but the most important thing is life satisfaction, and we want people to actually enjoy coming to work.” The micro modifies [and] ameliorates some of the dehumanizing aspects of the macro forces...”

 

2. “All transformations are piece-meal – transformations of some elements, at some points, for some time, with some gain and possibly some loss” (p. 233 / italics mine for emphasis). Isn’t this true too of God’s action in Christ in the world? We experience something of God’s eschatological intention now, but the end is not yet fully consummated. We are what I like to call “renovators”, because, as Volf writes, “these transformations are reconstructions of the structures that must be inhabited as the reconstructions are going on” (p.233).

 

[As an aside (and Catholic’s might appreciate this) Catholic theologian Tom Beaudoin interestingly talks not of (cultural)“transformation”, but of “transubstantiation” – “The Catholic Church is”, he says, to use a priestly metaphor, the concelebrant (jointly with God by his Spirit) [acting] for the transubstantiation of the world.”]

 

3. “Accommodation cannot be part of the Christian project.” Instead we need to recover the stress on difference. “It is,” Volf says, “the difference that matters” (p.234). Volf reminds us that if we erase the difference and literally nothing will remain that could matter and could make a transformative difference for the sake of this world of which we are a part (p.234). Importantly this need for difference is exactly why theology needs to be fresh, needs to be engaged with and in conversation with the ordinary and everyday realities of our lives in culture(s). And so to Graham Ward again for an illustration:

 

“I sit on a research panel for the British Government, and I recently had to evaluate a proposal that came forward for research funding on resurrection and the afterlife in contemporary film. And I thought, “Yes! Someone is realizing how much that is happening culturally is shot through with religion.” Look at The Matrix or the Harry Potter phenomenon.

 

Look at the popularity of Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials and the recent film The Golden Compass based on the first part of his trilogy. Or take the last part of the Bourne Identity series. Culture is playing with books, themes, and symbols that are part of a Western Christian heritage. Just as they are playing with themes and symbols from Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. And so theologians can re-enter the public sphere now and say, “Look! What’s happening? How are you using this? Do you understand where it comes from and what the rest of this is about?”

 

To be continued.

Thomas Merton on Vocation

“Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny. We are free beings and sons and daughters of God. This means to say that we should not passively exist, but actively participate in His creative freedom, in our own lives, and in the lives of others, by choosing the truth. To put it better, we are even called to share with God the work of creating the truth of our identity. ...To work out our own identity in God, which the Bible calls "working out our salvation," is a labour that requires sacrifice and anguish, risk and many tears. It demands close attention to reality at every moment and great fidelity to God as He reveals Himself, obscurely, in the mystery of each new situation.”
- Thomas Merton. New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions Press, 1961): 32.

Cultural Transformation – An everyday example

Paul writes – One of the things I’ve been exploring in the last couple of posts centred on Miroslav Volf’s article, "When Gospel & Culture Intersect”, is the question of cultural transformation (see also this recent post featuring Graham Ward). As I was driving between Palmerston North and Wanganui yesterday it was fascinating to have Ward as a backdrop to an interview I was listening to on the radio.

 

The interview was with Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Auckland University, Dr Nikki Harre. She was talking about “boy racers” (young men who drive high-powered and/or modifed cars on NZ roads in such a way that they endanger both themselves and other road users). Specifically, and this is what made it particularly interesting to me, she was arguing for the need for culture change or transformation.

 

It nicely fleshes our some of the terminology (though not using the same words) that have occurred in the first three posts on this blog under the heading “God’s Distinctive Alternative?” Terms like “subversions”, “micro-modifications”, and “piece-meal transformations” (which will occur in the fourth post).

 

The interview is downloadable for a while as an Mp3 here (scroll down to the 10^th July and the heading “the Psychology of Boy Racers”. The interview features two guests but it’s the Nikki Harre segment I’d encourage you to listen to if you’ve read the last three posts.

God’s Distinctive Alternative – Part 3A

Paul writes – In his article “When Gospel and Culture Intersect: Notes on the Nature of Christian Difference” (published in Pentecostalism in Context: Essays in Honor of William W. Menzies edited by Wonsuk Ma and Robert P. Menzies, Sheffield Academic Press, 1997, pp. 223-236) Miroslav Volf firstly situates the Western Church on the margins of culture. Indeed, he sings the praises of this marginality. Once one of the dominant cultural forces; “today they find themselves on the margins with a past they like to boast about [and hearken back too] and a future they dread.”

 

Volf uses the metaphor of a sports team. Once we were in the game, then we were removed to the bench, but now they are up amongst the spectators, far removed from the field of play. He wonders if this is actually the crisis we make it out to be.

 

“For anyone” he writes “who remembers the days when the Church was young and vigorous, there is something profoundly odd about the presence sense of crisis. The early Church was not simply on the sidelines, it was not even among the cheering spectators. A slandered, discriminated against, even persecuted minority, a thorn in society’ flesh...” (p. 223).

 

Much like many persecuted churches today, the early Church had resources to deal with its marginality. This is not so readily the case for contemporary Western churches today.   

 

Volf well states his goal in writing his. He explains that he wants:

 

“...to make us more comfortable with our marginality so that from there we can influence the multiple centres of our societies, more at home with our irrelevance so that from there we can gain new confidence about our relevance.”

 

After describing the features of the framework “in which we need to place our discussion about Christian identity and difference” (the features are: (1) Voluntarism, (2) Difference, (3) Plurality, and (4) Self-sufficiency) Volf explores what he thinks are misplaced proposals for thinking about the presence of the Christian Church in the world:

 

·         The Liberal Program: Accommodation.

·         The Post-Liberal Program: “Reversing the Direction of Conformation” (a phrase he gets from Nicholas Wolterstorff).

·         The Separatist Program: Retreat from the World (a haven for “resident aliens”).

 

In place of these three, and drawing on Michel de Certeau he proposes a “metaphorizing the Dominant Order” – imagining the churches presence as internal difference within culture. Churches can be more or less distant from culture, but they do not exist outside of culture. As such they are able to participate in cultural transformation by “subverting [culture] from within” through “tactics” (de Certeau) and “micro-modifications” (Graham Ward). Christian’s will put elements of culture to different uses, e.g. their homes as centres of hospitality and welcome for the stranger and the outsider.

 

To be continued.

God’s Distinctive Alternative – Part 2

Paul writes – Good friend Steve Taylor very helpfully, and unknowingly in terms of timeliness, directed to me to an essay by Miroslav Volf that I haven’t read for years. It couldn’t be timelier as I continue to engage Stanley Hauerwas and themes of missional “distinctiveness”, “transformation”, “discipleship”, lived ethics, and gospel and culture engagement. It’s at this intersection that today’s reflection extends the first post in this series.

 

Johann Baptist Metz (liturgy and the implications of the churches “dangerous memory”), Daniel Hardy (thinking and practising Christian faith with the world), William Cavanaugh (theopolitical imagination), Kenneth Leech (subversive orthodoxy), Graham Ward (Cultural Transformation and Religious Practice), and Herbert McCabe are all helping, but it’s Steve’s timely reference to Volf that is helping me more helpfully hold these various voices in conversation with my own.    

 

“Christian difference is always a complex and flexible network of small and large refusals, divergences, subversions, and more or less radical alternative proposals, surrounded by the acceptance of many cultural givens. There is no single correct way to relate to a given culture as a whole, or even to its dominant thrust; there are only numerous ways of accepting, transforming, or replacing various aspects of a given culture from within…”

 

From Miroslav Volf "When Gospel & Culture Intersect" - Pentecostalism in Context: Essays in Honor of William W. Menzies edited by Wonsuk Ma and Robert P. Menzies, Sheffield Academic Press, 1997, pp. 223-236).

 

“Christians do not come into their social world from outside seeking either to accommodate to their new home (like second generations immigrants would), shape it in the image of the one they left behind (like colonizers would), or establish a little haven in the strange new world reminiscent of the old (as resident aliens would) …. Christians are the insiders who have diverted from their culture by being born again…” (From here, and again a reminder via Steve).

 

Volf talks about the importance of “soft difference” – distinctiveness, most certainly, but with the kind of “softness” that opens space for the other. We live our Jesus-following identity from a place of genuine conviction, or as Graham Ward writes, from a particular “stand point” (defined by Ward as: the place from where I negotiate my Christian living and thinking in conversation with the contemporary word (p.4). I encounter and engage my ‘world(s)’ from a situated standpoint, from within particular narratives, beliefs, and relations (pp.72-85). It is the sum of who I am; of all that has shaped and formed me. This of course means I do operate out of multiple standpoints, because the Christian standpoint isn’t the only one I operate out of.

 

We read in the second quote above that we are distinct within culture (“in”, but not “of”). Further, we are not in culture for the sake of ourselves nor are we “resident aliens”, as Volf notes above.

 

We are distinct, but not in the sense of being apart from, or somehow not fully present within other communities. We are in culture, but our distinctiveness is in our informing narrative – that which shapes, informs, and gives significance to how we are in all the small, everyday, and ordinary ways; the “numerous ways”, as Volf reminds us, that we make a difference because of our having been caught up in God’s unfolding drama.

 

By means of “a complex and flexible network of small and large refusals, divergences, subversions, and more or less radical alternative proposals, surrounded by the acceptance of many cultural givens…” (Volf, above)

 

“…To make a difference, one must be different…” (Volf: ‘Soft Difference: Theological Reflections on the Relation between Church and Culture in 1 Peter’). 

 

That “difference” however, is ever cognisant of and deeply immersed in the everyday challenges of being (and becoming more fully) human in the midst of both the power of death, brokenness and dysfunction, and, at the same time, the joys of life.

 

More on Volf’s article, “When Gospel and Culture Intersect: Notes on the Nature of Christian Difference”, in my next post.

 

Alan Roxburgh on Mission and Church

Paul writes – A friend of mine, Alan Roxburgh, has written a number of very useful books in relation to mission IN (Post-Christendom) Western culture. One of the most useful for me was his (sadly out of print) co-written Crossing the Bridge: Church Leadership in a Time of Change. Other key texts include his: Missionary Congregation, Leadership, and Liminality; Reaching a New Generation; The Missional Leader; and The Sky is Falling: Leaders Lost in Transition. Out in Nov. 09 is his (again co-written) Introducing the Missional Church. While I don’t like the title, it is a great introduction to issues of mission in Western culture; specifically as they impact and shape the local congregation. You can pre-order it, and if the topic is relatively new to you I couldn’t recommend a better place to start (other than Steve Taylor’s book). However, a caveat from Al:

“...I was struck again by how easy it is for all of us to quickly shift the conversation into one about the church. It made me aware again of how much a mistake it was ten years ago to name a book Missional Church. The connections have stuck in very deep ways that are extremely difficult to disembedded. The idea that the church is not the subject, object, goal or purpose of the missional conversation creates consternation. When one points out that the missional conversation, especially in Newbigin’s later writing, is about the interface between the Gospel and the culture(s) of late modernity people agree but want to go back to conversations about the church...”

If you’re leading a local congregation, particularly a typically aged one, I would highly recommend Alan’s book. Start with Reaching a New Generation and The Sky is Falling.

Also worth a read is a recent reflection written by Al. It’s titled Entering the Unthinkable World and can be found here.  If can get your hands on a copy of Missional Church (pub 1998 / edited by Darrell Guder and Lois Barrett) Al’s contribution, chapter 7 is excellent and remains a “must read”.  

Here’s an excerpt from Entering the Unthinkable World:

We are in a world of the unthinkable where accepted categories of leadership and how things work can no longer be assumed...

...A decade ago a new word entered the conversation of North American churches - missional. It was intended as a call to missio-dei, a kingdom-shaped church.  Today, the word is as common as a sneeze and means about as much...

...Anglicans in the West are suggesting the old parish system is not working in a postmodern culture of networks and the communications revolution.  It is, some claim, unable to connect with the emerging generations of young people and immigrants now shaping our world. 

God’s Distinctive Alternative? – Part 1

Paul writes – A few weeks back I referenced an article written by Mike Riddell. It was the first of a series of reflections on St. Paul (the original request from the editor was three articles. I hear from a reliable source that that has now been increased to four. Indeed in the latest issue Jul 09 Mike brings his series to a close by "ring[ing] out those bells"). You can find my post (referred to above) here and the article it links to, here.

Mike’s latest reflection on St. Paul (sadly not online) draws on St. Paul’s letter to the Roman church(es) – “Betwixt and Between: Romans 8.”  While not a lengthy article it gets to the heart of Romans 8 – the place we find ourselves between who we are now, and our better selves – the often dim awareness of our deepest or truest self and the invitations extended to us to become more fully human “in Christ”

 

As Mike writes: “And yet… and yet. We find ourselves caught between two realms, two realities, two eras. We are in that uncomfortable position of announcing something to the world that we find ourselves incapable [if we’re honest and have a healthy self-awareness] of demonstrating… and so we groan [along with all creation]. We ache, we lament, we suffer – caught in the agony of longing for what has not yet arrived…”

 

My own life journey honors the truthfulness of this very human confession. I too am “betwixt and between”. Our churches, comprising as they do, human beings, are likewise “betwixt and between”.

 

Stanley Hauerwas advocates (rightly I think) that without an adequate embodiment of the gospel the truthfulness of the Christian story is not borne witness too, and it cannot be a genuinely liberating, reconciling and healing narrative. “... For Hauerwas practices and how we are followers of Jesus take precedence over ideas and talk about Jesus. “...It is the practices of the churches liturgy which supplies the story of the Christian faith, rather than themselves being the consequence of, or justified by, and anterior theoretical account.” The gospel is a story that gives the church and individual members a way of being in the world. Indeed it is a community-forming narrative whose centrifugal character induces mission and enables the church to properly be a gift to the world “not by trying to reform the world [here Hauerwas differs from the likes of Graham Ward – see his Cultural Transformation and Religious Practice, p. 9] into God’s Kingdom, but by witnessing to the presence of that Kingdom in their lives as a political apologetics...”

 

Without human and relational em-body-ment we run the risk of effectively underwriting a disembodied church, i.e. the emphasis of our churches is on a solely rational apology that is unsupported by the truthful witness of embodied distinctiveness, i.e. the argument is put, “if the Christian narrative is good news, let us first see it in your living. Our distinctive living makes intelligible to the significance of the Jesus-story.

 

For Hauerwas it is the explicit change of lives that displays God’s intention and active working for the transformation of the whole of creation through the active Kingship of Christ in the world. Indeed, it is only, Hauerwas believes, as the church becomes more distinctive (from “glory to glory”) that the story carried in its sanctification can be seen and experienced. Our sanctification, individually and collectively (as churches) is a substantial witness to the presence of Christ in the church, and the wisdom of God mediated through the sanctifying work of grace, Word, and Spirit in our lives. 

 

But, it’s precisely here that the point of tension is for me. Indeed, I’m more inclined to call it the place of paradox! If the Jesus-story is “good news” for my humanity, my human becoming, how is my journey a witness to this good news? How is the all too human journey of a local church “good news” in its local context, particularly given that a good many statistics indicate that “church goers” are no different ethically or behaviourally than those in the wider cultural context? Does this seeming lack of gospel distinctiveness in our various cultural contexts undermine the public announcement of “good news” centred on Jesus of Nazareth?

 

To be continued.  

Henri Nouwen: Downward Mobility

“…The society in which we live suggests in countless ways that the way to go is up. Making it to the top, entering the limelight, breaking the record - that's what draws attention, gets us on the front page of the newspaper, and offers us the rewards of money and fame.  The way of Jesus is radically different. It is the way not of upward mobility but of downward mobility. It is going to the bottom, staying behind the sets, and choosing the last place! Why is the way of Jesus worth choosing? Because it is the way to the Kingdom, the way Jesus took, and the way that brings everlasting life.”

Looking in the Mirror Michael Jackson Holds Up to Us

Paul writes – I’ve followed very little of the written media that has been coalescing around Michael Jackson over the last week or so, however, I was struck by the observations (though frustrated by the misspelling of “Michael”) of Pat Kane in his evocatively titled article The Man in Our Mirror: Michael Jackson. Thanks to Michael Radcliffe, a member of MOOT.

 

Here's some excerpts from Kane's article: 

 

“…What was it like to be Michael Jackson, from the beginning to the end? To "give up your life" – from that very tenderest of moments where his self was beginning to form, till the end of his complex, wracked adulthood – "for the medium"? Once we grant the power of his music, we can look at the spectacle of Jackson, and indulge quietly in that familiar, hubristic pleasure at his massive fall - from overpowering celebrity, to sexual pariah, to spindly, sheet-covered corpse. We think we can box him away in our lifestyles as another showbiz calendar date – "where were you when", etc, etc. But he's closer to us than that: indeed, much too close for comfort.

Let's begin with how Michael Jackson died – a cardiac arrest in the midst of a punishing project-schedule, driven by massive debt and the need to restore public reputation and status. Sound familiar to anyone out there, de-stressing slowly on their precious Sunday?

 

As Neal Lawson wrote last week, if we agree to live in a hyper-consumerised, hyper-advertised culture – one which depends on our subjective insecurity to keep us purchasing, a compensation which keeps the mills of production rolling – we must take the consequences. If we "give up our lives" to the media of money, stuff and image, there will be a dark side.

 

And who epitomises what lack, neediness and the corrosion of character does to the human spirit (and corpus) more than Michael Jackson? It shouldn't be necessary to say that any disdain for his pharaoh-like profligacy reflects badly on us, the accusers: a consumtariat who eagerly used up every commercial offering of fictional credit presented to us over the last three decades…”

 

You can read the whole article here. Kane is the author of The Play Ethic: A Manifesto for a Different Way of Living (2004). John and Olive Drane also offer a brief reflection on Jackson here. John's little book Celebrity Culture (pub 2005 / pp. 93 / Chapter 1 A Brief history of fame / Chapter 2 From fame to celebrity / Chapter 3 God and the cult of celebrity is well worth a read.

(Christian)Communities

Communities of faith and churches are called to be centres of discipleship and mission. They are meant to be multi-voiced worshipping communities, places of friendship and accountability, living in God’s kingdom in active anticipation of it’s coming in full. Young and old are valued, consultative leadership is exercised, and roles are related to gifts rather than gender.

 

Doug Sewell

New-Monasticism - “totally Unnecessary as a means of renewal.”

Paul writes – In the latest issue of On the Road (the newsletter of the Anabaptist Association of Australia and New Zealand – attached as a PDF below) Australian Dave Andrews (brought up as a Baptist) critically reflects on monasticism old and new. Here’s an excerpt:

“…I think we need to critically reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the way these saints lived their lives - and embrace their mysticism but eschew their monasticism.

 

I believe we should resist the call to pursue renewal through monasticism for ten reasons:

 

1.      It has no biblical basis.

2.      It encourages self-abnegation.

3.      It requires subordination to a hierarchy.

4.      It typically involves separation from the community.

5.      It principally involves imposition on the community.

6.      That imposition may involve exploitation of the community.

7.      The ‘monastic cycle’ tends to move from devotion to decadence.

8.      Monastic organization makes monastics susceptible to appropriation.

9.      Monastic isolation makes monastics vulnerable in times of persecution.

10.     Last but not least, monasticism is totally unnecessary as a means of renewal.”

 

I have a significant regard for Dave, his thinking and his practice, so his reflections on monasticism old and new require some serious engagement.

 

I referred to the last issue of On the Road here. Gordon Preece, another excellent thinker wrote an article “Everyone a Monk”. Anyway, he responds to Dave in the latest issue below. Dave Barnard, a kiwi also responds to Andrews.

 

All in all this is a very useful debate. Thanks to the Anabaptists for inviting us into the conversation (or for drawing us further into it) in the last two issues of their newsletter.

 

Download On the Road - June 2009

Paul’s Mysticism Described – Final Part

Fourthly, Paul’s mysticism was the experience of divine love. It was Paul’s experience of the “overcoming of distance” (2 Cor. 12:2-4) between himself and God. It was an experience of communion or union – if you will, a oneness with God in Christ by means of the Spirit. Paul’s was a profound and transformative experience of acceptance and love; of being loved and of loving in return. It is in this sense, as much as any other, that Paul’s mysticism, his union with Christ can be described as similar to a marriage.

Fifthly, Paul’s mysticism, his experience of God, was grounded in the contemplative; in the contemplation of God. Or, more precisely in Paul’s openness to the active presence of God, trusting that God was quietly and transformatively at work in him. His is very much an experience centred in his body, not outside of his body in some heavenly sense.

Sixthly, Paul’s mysticism is concerned not just with his experience of God but has a communal dimension; Paul is incorporated into the body of Christ and is thus joined to others who are likewise in Christ. He is bound to others. It is connected with a community, and in that sense it is not ‘elitist’ but ‘democratic’, i.e. it is available to all who are in Christ.  

Seven, Paul’s mysticism has as its aim conformity with Christ in his death and resurrection. It is thus deeply acquainted with suffering, it is cruciform, and as such it is deeply human; deeply cognisant of the human condition; of the inarticulate groaning of all of creation (Rom. 8). His is, to quote Luz, a “passion-mysticism”. Equally it is a resurrection-mysticism. It is a foretaste of Christ’s glory and thus our future hope. Paul is a mysticism and experience of always carrying about in his body the death of Christ (2 Cor. 4:10) which “does not lead to an experience of union with Christ at the end of a long road of piety, but one which causes the whole painful  and difficult life of Paul to become conformable to Christ...” Paul can therefore say with all truthfulness that his is a mysticism where he himself no longer lives, but Christ lives in him.  “The suffering Christ transfers and reforms Paul’s life, but does not extinguish his personal existence...”

Eight, Paul’s mysticism “is open to ethics”. “Putting on Christ” has an ethical, a transformative aspect. How he lives in relation to God, self, and others is a critical dimension of his experience of being in Christ. So too for us.

So, yes, I believe St. Paul is a wonderful example of a mystic in the Christian tradition, and with regards to the characteristics listed above, all who follow the way of Jesus of Nazareth should likewise be "mystics".

Parts 1, 2, and 3.

Paul’s Mysticism Described – Part 1

So how does Luz define “mysticism”, particularly in respect of St. Paul?

Firstly, it is concerned with God’s action in me. His was an experience of God by means of the person of the Spirit. His was a profound and intense experience of being “joined to” the resurrected Christ; of being in Christ (Gal. 2:19-20) by means of the Spirit. That said, the “emphasis lies not on the definition of identity (i.e. in Christ) but on the effect” – new life and the process of transformation. In many ways, Luz suggests, his Damascus experience was in a sense a “change of ego”. Christ is his new “centre” of being, while the ego (his “old self”) “is the “I” of Adam.”

Secondly, Paul’s mysticism was about experience. Albert Schweitzer has written that for Paul, “being in the Spirit is only a form of manifestation of being-in-Christ”.   While ecstatic out-of-body experiences are not the norm (certainly true if one considers the saints / mystics in the latter Christian tradition), they were a part of Paul’s experience.

Thirdly, Paul’s was not the mysticism or experience of “transreligious phenomenon”, i.e.  The experience of phenomenon common across all religious / spiritual traditions. Paul’s was particularly a “Christ-mysticism”. His experience of God was very specifically “Christ-shaped”. Indeed, some would go as far as to say that Paul’s experience of being in Christ “leads more directly into the rest of Paul’s theology than justification.” This would be my own inclination. Paul experiences himself as being in Christ while at the same time, paradoxically perhaps, Christ is in Paul. While granting there may well be shared experiences common to a number of religious traditions, Paul’s were firmly, and thus by comparison, uniquely grounded upon (his baptism into Christ’s death) and nourished by his experience of being in Jesus Christ, by his ongoing experience of God in Christ, present and active by the Spirit.  His is an experience of weakness dependent upon the power of Christ; on God’s power that raised Christ from death.  

Parts 1,2, and 4.

“Complicated Evangelical”?

Paul writes - The latest issue (June 2009) of the UK Spirited Exchanges newsletter is out. The theme is “Complicated Evangelical”. John A. H. Dempster’s opening reflection is well worth a read. A PDF of the newsletter is below.

Download Spirited Exchanges Newsletter - Issue 8 - Complicated Evangelical - June 09

St. Paul as Mystic

Karl Rahner (1904-1984) has written:  “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or he (she) will not exist at all.”  Another post you might find interesting in relation to Rahner can be found here.

Theologian Ulrich Luz in a short essay, titled “Paul as Mystic”, published in 2004 asks if St. Paul is a “mystic”.

Luz, while using different language, names the apparent separation between the experiential and spiritual (“living religion”), and the oft-experienced lifelessness and irrelevancy of doctrine and theology (often popularly understood as “talking about God”). Or, to put it a different way, it is an apparent separation between the external form and practices of religion (e.g. “going to church on a Sunday) and the experiential; the felt experience of knowing one’s self as loved, accepted and ‘held’ by God; the actual ordinary and everyday experience of the transcendent, or what many would name as “God”.

This separation can also be named in people’s experience of emptiness while at the same time longing for depth, meaning, peace, wholeness, freedom, hope and who they most truly are.

After setting the scene, Luz first sketches out a definition of ‘Mysticism’ noting that while there has always been a significant interest in Paul’s theology (what he thinks and believes), there has been less interest in his “religion, his piety, and his religious experiences”. Too often the “spiritual” and the experiential were seen as independent of (and thus of a lower order) Word and sacrament.

He also reframes the question. It isn’t so much, “was St. Paul a mystic?” Rather Luz’s question centres on the ways in which an understanding of Paul’s mysticism becomes a question about the action of God in me, before it is God’s action “extra me”, i.e. outside of me. St. Paul’s transformative experience (as the foundation for his thinking and acting) ignited in his experience on the road to Damascus becomes a means through which I/we actually hold together theology and experience, and religion (narrative/tradition, sacrament, word, (radical) orthodoxy, and practices) and spirituality (experience, orthopathy, longing and becoming).

Though perhaps an even more fruitful question to ask, specifically in relation to this blog, is the question of whether Paul is a mystic is a fruitful one for thinking through new and fresh expressions of church. I think it is. 

Parts 1, 3 and 4.