The Blackwell Companion to Christian Spirituality E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Wiley Blackwell Companions to Religion
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1428

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

The Blackwell Companion to Christian Spirituality is a comprehensive single-volume introduction to Christian spirituality, and represents the most significant recent developments in the field.

• Offers a thoroughly interdisciplinary, broadly ecumenical, and representative overview of the most significant recent developments in the field
  
• Comprises essays combining rigorous academic scholarship with accessible and elegant writing
  
• Reflects an understanding of the field as the study of the lived experience of Christian faith and discipleship
  
• Provides material on biblical, historical, and theological foundations, along with treatment of contemporary issues

Leseprobe

Contents

Half Title Page

Title Page

Series Page

Copyright

Notes on Contributors

Introduction

Defining Christian Spirituality

An Introduction to the Essays

The Present, Past, and Future of a Discipline

References

PART I: What is Christian Spirituality?

CHAPTER 1: Approaches to the Study of Christian Spirituality

Spirituality as a Field of Study

Three Approaches to the Study of Christian Spirituality

The Issue of Self-implication

References

PART II: Scripture and Christian Spirituality

CHAPTER 2: The Old Testament in Christian Spirituality

Antiquity (First to Sixth Centuries)

The Middle Ages (Twelfth to Fourteenth Centuries)

Renaissance and Reformations (Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries)

Modernity and Early Postmodernity (Seventeenth to Twenty-first Centuries)

Conclusion

References

CHAPTER 3: The New Testament in Christian Spirituality

Cosmology

Definition

Methodology

The Early Church in Jerusalem

Contemporary Application

References

PART III: Christian Spirituality in History

CHAPTER 4: Christian Spirituality during the Roman Empire (100–600)

Searching for Unity in Faith

Forming a Christian Spiritual Culture

Ways of Christian Virtue and Perfection

Conclusion

References

CHAPTER 5: Christian Spirituality in Byzantium and the East (600–1700]

Signs of the Times

The Twilight of Classicism (CE600–900)

The Middle Byzantine Revival (CE 1000–1200)

The Hesychastic Revival (CE 1300–1500)

After the Collapse: Byzantino-Slavic Spirituality (CE 1500–1700)

References

CHAPTER 6: Christian Spirituality in the Medieval West (600–1450]

Early Medieval Spirituality (Sixth to Eleventh Centuries): Indigenous Traditions, Biblical Teachings, and Roman Administrative Skill

High Middle Ages (Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries): A Universe of Texts, Readers, and Authors

Late Middle Ages (Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries): Widening Rifts and Radical Responses

Conclusion

References

CHAPTER 7: European Reformations of Christian Spirituality (1450–1700]

The Fifteenth Century

The Sixteenth Century

The Seventeenth Century

Conclusion

References

CHAPTER 8: Christian Spirituality in Europe and North America since 1700

The Challenges of Modernity

Where is God? (1700–1820)

God with Us (1820–1915)

Is God? (1915–1980)

God is … Maybe (1980–Present)

Conclusion: The Modern Mosaic of Christian Spirituality

References

CHAPTER 9: Christian Spirituality in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania

Strange and Wonderful Names of God

Spirituality and the New Historiography of World Christianity

Catholic Spirituality on the Borders between Cultures (pre-1700)

The Upsurge of Protestant Spirituality on the Borders between Cultures (1700s)

Protestantization beyond Europe (1800s)

New Spiritualities and Old (1900s and beyond)

References

PART IV: Theology and Christian Spirituality

CHAPTER 10: Trinitarian Perspectives on Christian Spirituality

Unfathomably Giving Life: The Trinitarian Rhythm of Christian Spirituality

Living within the Trinitarian Dimension of the Paschal Mystery

Trinitarian Illumination and the Human Calling in Creation

References

CHAPTER 11: Christology in Christian Spirituality

Historical and Social Coordinates

Christian Spirituality and Christology in Opposition

Brief Interlude: Border-living-and-thinking as Harbinger

Combinative Approaches

New Oscillations

Issues of Evaluation?

References

CHAPTER 12: The Holy Spirit in Christian Spirituality

The Decline of Pneumatology in the West

The Spirit/Body Paradox

Constructive Proposals

The Gifts of the Spirit

References

CHAPTER 13: Christian Spirituality and the Theology of the Human Person

Theology and Being Human

Beyond Deductive Arguments

Theology as Mystagogy

The Doctrines of Grace and the Study of Spirituality

The “Christian” in “Christian Spirituality”

References

CHAPTER 14: The Church as Context for Christian Spirituality

Speaking of Spirituality

Christian Diversity and Unity

Liturgy: The Pedagogy of the School of Spirituality

A School of the Affections and Desires

Formation of a School of Discernment

The Ethical Dimension

Conclusion

References

CHAPTER 15: Sacramentality and Christian Spirituality

The Natural World

Poiesis: The Realm of Human Making

Procreation and Parenting

The World of Work

Music and Movement

Stillness and Silence

Christ as Sacrament

References

CHAPTER 16: Christian Spirituality and Theological Ethics

Ethics and Spirituality Defined

Virtue Ethics: The Heart of the Matter

Spiritual Practices

Affections: The Springs of Action

Transforming Reality

References

PART V: Interdisciplinary Dialogue Partners for the Study of Christian Spirituality

CHAPTER 17: Social Sciences

Social Scientific Studies of Spirituality since the 1990s

Challenges to Christian Spirituality and Social Science Studies of Spirituality

References

CHAPTER 18: Personality Sciences

Problems of Definition

Psychoanalytic Theories

God-representations

Cognitive Theorists

Analytic and Transpersonal Psychology

Transcendence

The Development of Empirical Measures of Spirituality

Qualitative Research in the Study of Christian Spirituality

Conclusion

References

CHAPTER 19: Natural Sciences

The “Book of Nature” Tradition

Science and the Prerequisites for the Possibility of Spirituality

Introducing Science into Spirituality

The Mathematical Laws of Nature and the Ascent to God as Transcendent

The Expanded Experience of Nature and the Immanence of God in the World

Quantum Mechanics and Special Relativity

Biological Evolution and God’s Action as Creator

Christian Spirituality in Light of Humanity’s Evolutionary Origins

The Cosmological Far Future and the Experience of Resurrection Faith

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

References

CHAPTER 20: Aesthetics

The Roots of the Theology and Spirituality of Beauty

The Aesthetics of the Early Christian Church

The Middle Ages

The Modern Era

References

CHAPTER 21: Feminist Studies

Caroline Walker Bynum and the History of Medieval Women’s Spirituality

Questioning the Paradigm

New Directions in Feminist Scholarship on Christian Spirituality

References

CHAPTER 22: Ritual Studies

Definition of the Field

The History of Ritual Studies as a Discipline

Three Approaches to Studies in Ritual

Challenges in the Dialogue between Ritual Studies and Christian Spirituality

Potentially Fruitful Areas of Inquiry

Conclusion

References

CHAPTER 23: Theology of Religions

Theology of Religions: Paradigms and Beyond

Spirituality and the Religions: “Schools of the Spirit”

Spirituality and the Spirit: The Dimensions of Practice

Integration and Interdependence

A Matter for Discernment: Word and Spirit

References

PART VI: Special Topics in Contemporary Christian Spirituality

CHAPTER 24: Experience

The Historical Context of Modern Empirical Research

The Beginnings of Modern Research

The Empirical Study of Religious or Spiritual Experience after 1960

A Biological Perspective

Testing the Biological Hypothesis against Alternative Naturalistic Hypotheses

Looking Ahead

References

CHAPTER 25: Mysticism

Historical Sources of Christian Mysticism

The Mystical Return: Pre-modern, Modern, Postmodern

Mysticism of Everyday Life

The Role of Language and Text

Mystical Texts

The Future of Mysticism

References

CHAPTER 26: Interpretation

Is There Wisdom in History?

The Importance of Context and Culture

Context and Choices

Interpretation and Commitment

The Nature of Spiritual “Classics”

The Process of Interpretation

What Kind of Meaning?

What Lies Behind the Text

Buildings as Texts

Can Texts Become Unusable?

What is a Community of Capable Readers?

Conclusion

References

CHAPTER 27: Nature

The Poetics of Loss

Loss and the Sacred

Loss and the Renewal of Hope

Conclusion

References

CHAPTER 28: Practice

Pastoral Theology and Spirituality

The Common Ground: Experience

“Practice” in the Academic Study of Spirituality

Insights from Educational Theory

The Importance of Practice in Spirituality

The Practice of Spirituality

Acknowledgment

References

CHAPTER 29: Liberation

Poverty

Detachment

The Problem of Liberation

Tutu: A Contemporary Exemplar

Communal Christian Spirituality

Conclusion: Implications for Liberation Spirituality

References

CHAPTER 30: Interfaith Encounter

Historical Roots

Interfaith Dialogue and Christian Spirituality

Multiple Religious Identity and Participation

The Use of Interfaith Resources in Worship and Congregational Life

References

Index

The Blackwell Companion to Christian Spirituality

Blackwell Companions to Religion

The Blackwell Companions to Religion series presents a collection of the most recent scholarship and knowledge about world religions. Each volume draws together newly-commissioned essays by distinguished authors in the field, and is presented in a style which is accessible to undergraduate students, as well as scholars and the interested general reader. These volumes approach the subject in a creative and forward-thinking style, providing a forum in which leading scholars in the field can make their views and research available to a wider audience.

Published

The Blackwell Companion to Judaism

Edited by Jacob Neusner and Alan J. Avery-Peck

The Blackwell Companion to Sociology of Religion

Edited by Richard K. Fenn

The Blackwell Companion to the Hebrew Bible

Edited by Leo G. Perdue

The Blackwell Companion to Postmodern Theology Edited by Graham Ward The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism Edited by Gavin Flood

The Blackwell Companion to Political Theology

Edited by Peter Scott and William T. Cavanaugh

The Blackwell Companion to Protestantism

Edited by Alister E. McGrath and Darren C. Marks

The Blackwell Companion to Modern Theology

Edited by Gareth Jones

The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics

Edited by Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells

The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics

Edited by William Schweiker

The Blackwell Companion to Christian Spirituality

Edited by Arthur Holder

The Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion

Edited by Robert A. Segal

The Blackwell Companion to the Qur’an

Edited by Andrew Rippin

The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Islamic Thought

Edited by Ibrahim M. Abu-Rabi

The Blackwell Companion to the Bible and Culture

Edited by John F. A. Sawyer

The Blackwell Companion to Catholicism

Edited by James J. Buckley, Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt, and Trent Pomplun The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity Edited by Ken Parry

The Blackwell Companion to the Theologians Edited by Ian S. Markham

The Blackwell Companion to the Bible in English Literature

Edited by Rebecca Lemon, Emma Mason, John Roberts, and Christopher Rowland The Blackwell Companion to the New Testament Edited by David E. Aune

The Blackwell Companion to Nineteenth Century Theology

Edited by David Fergusson

The Blackwell Companion to Religion in America

Edited by Philip Goff

The Blackwell Companion to Jesus

Edited by Delbert Burkett

Forthcoming

The Blackwell Companion to Religion and Violence

Edited by Andrew R. Murphy

The Blackwell Companion to African Religions

Edited by Elias Bongmba

The Blackwell Companion to Christian Mysticism

Edited by Julia A. Lamm

The Blackwell Companion to Pastoral Theology

Edited by Bonnie Miller McLemore

The Blackwell Companion to Chinese Religions

Edited by Randall Nadeau

The Blackwell Companion to Buddhism

Edited by Mario Poceski and Michael Zimmermann

This paperback edition first published 2010 © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd except for editorial material and organization (c) 2010 Arthur Holder

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Blackwell companion to Christian spirituality / edited by Arthur Holder. p. cm. — (Blackwell companion to religion) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-1-4501-0247-6 (hardback : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 1-4051-0247-0 (hardback : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4443-3765-5 1. Spirituality I. Holder, Arthur. II. Serises. BV4501.3.B535 2005 248—dc22

2004029753

A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Notes on Contributors

Michael Barnes, SJ, teaches theology and religious studies at Heythrop College, University of London, where he is also co-director of the Centre for Christianity and Interreligious Dialogue. He has written various books and articles on inter-religious relations, most recently Theology and the Dialogue of Religions (2002). He also runs the De Nobili Centre for Dialogue in Southall, a strongly multicultural and multi-faith area of West London.

Diana Butler Bass is Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Project on Congregations of Intentional Practice, a Lilly Endowment-funded research study of contemporary mainline Protestantism at the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia. She is the author of four books on American Christianity, including Strength for the Journey: A Pilgrimage of Faith in Community (2002) and The Practicing Congregation: Imagining A New Old Church (2004). In addition to teaching and writing, she has served on a number of national committees of the Episcopal Church (USA) and on the staff of an Episcopal congregation as director of adult education.

Michael Battle is Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia. He previously taught at Duke University Divinity School and the School of Theology at the University of the South (Sewanee). He has also worked as an inner-city chaplain with Tony Campolo Ministries, and in Uganda and Kenya with the Plowshares Institute. He holds certification in spiritual direction from the Shalem Institute. He also is vice-chairman of the board of the Ghandi Institute. He is the author of Reconciliation: The Ubuntu Theology of Desmond Tutu (1997) and Blessed are the Peacemakers: A Christian Spirituality of Nonviolence (2004).

Douglas Burton-Christie is Professor of Christian Spirituality in the Department of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles. He is author of The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism (1993) and editor of the journal Spiritus, the official journal of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality.

John A. Coleman, SJ, is the Casassa Professor of Social Values at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles. For twenty-three years he was Professor of Religion and Society at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. His most recent book, co-edited with William Ryan, is Globalization and Catholic Social Thought: Peril or Promise? (2005). He is currently working on issues of globalization, ethics and religion, and ecology and the common good.

Philip Endean, SJ, teaches theology at the University of Oxford, and is editor of The Way, the journal of contemporary spirituality published by the British Jesuits. He is a co-editor and translator of Saint Ignatius of Loyola: Personal Writings in the Penguin Classics series, and is the author of Karl Rahner and Ignatian Spirituality (2001).

Alejandro García-Rivera is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union. He is the author of numerous articles and books, including The Community of the Beautiful: A Theological Aesthetics (1999; 2000 Catholic Press Award) and A Wounded Innocence: Sketches for a Theology of Art (2003). He is past president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians in the United States, and recipient of the 2003 Virgilio Elizondo award for distinguished achievement in theology.

Barbara Green, OP, is Professor of Biblical Studies at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. She is author of How Are the Mighty Fallen? A Dialogical Study of Saul in 1 Samuel (2003) and Jonah’s Journeys (2005). She is general editor of Liturgical Press’s “Interfaces” series on biblical characters.

David Hay is Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Divinity and Religious Studies at the University of Aberdeen and Visiting Professor at the Institute for the Study of Religion of the University of Cracow in Poland. He is a zoologist by profession and a Roman Catholic layman. He worked for some years at the Religious Experience Research Unit in Oxford, becoming its director in 1985. Subsequently, he was appointed Reader in Spiritual Education at Nottingham University, a post from which he retired in 2000. His books include Exploring Inner Space: Scientists and Religious Experience (1982) and, with Rebecca Nye, The Spirit of the Child (1998).

Arthur Holder is Dean, Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Professor of Christian Spirituality at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. A priest of the Episcopal Church, he is the translator of Bede: On the Tabernacle (1994) and cotranslator of Bede: A Biblical Miscellany (1998). He is co-chair of the Christian Spirituality Group of the American Academy of Religion, and serves on the governing board of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality and the editorial board of the society’s journal Spiritus.

Amy Hollywoodis Professor of the History of Christianity and Theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School. She is the author of The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart (1995) and Sensible Ecstasy: Mysticism, Sexual Difference, and the Demands of History (2002).

Robert Davis Hughes III is Norma and Olan Mills Professor of Divinity and Professor of Systematic Theology at the School of Theology of the University of the South (Sewanee). A priest of the Episcopal Church, he is a Fellow of the Episcopal Church Foundation, a member of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality, and past president of the Society of Anglican and Lutheran Theologians. He publishes regularly in Sewanee Theological Review and Anglican Theological Review, maintains a private practice in spiritual direction, and is president of the board of the GOAL project, a mission society promoting twelve-step recovery worldwide.

Kwok Pui-Lan is William F. Cole Professor of Christian Theology and Spirituality at the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has published extensively in Asian feminist theology, biblical hermeneutics, and postcolonial criticism. Her recent books include Introducing Asian Feminist Theology (2000) and Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology (2005). She co-edited Beyond Colonial Anglicanism: The Anglican Communion in the Twenty-first Century (2001).

Elizabeth Liebert, SNJM, is Professor of Spiritual Life at San Francisco Theological Seminary and a member of the faculty of the doctoral program in Christian spirituality at the Graduate Theological Union. A past president of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality, she is co-author of The Spiritual Exercises Reclaimed: Uncovering Liberating Possibilities for Women (2001) and A Retreat with the Psalms: Resources for Personal and Communal Prayer (2001) and author of Changing Life Patterns: Adult Development in Spiritual Direction (1992, 2000).

Ann Loades is Emeritus Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham, England, where she was the first woman to receive a personal chair. She is currently President of the Society for the Study of Theology (2005–6). One of the first two lay members of Durham Cathedral Chapter, she is also its first woman member. She was recently appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Her publications include work on such diverse figures as Kant, Coleridge, C. S. Lewis, Evelyn Underhill, and Austin Farrer. Her most recent monograph is Feminist Theology: Voices from the Past (2001) on Mary Wollstonecraft, Josephine Butler, and Dorothy L. Sayers.

David Lonsdale teaches in the graduate Christian spirituality program at Heythrop College, University of London, and played a large part in creating that program. He was also co-editor of The Way, a journal of Christian spirituality, from 1984 to 1993. His books Listening to the Music of the Spirit: The Art of Discernment (1992) and Eyes to See, Ears to Hear: An Introduction to Ignatian Spirituality (2nd edn, 2000) are widely used in teaching and have been translated into several languages.

John A. McGuckin is a priest of the (Romanian) Orthodox Church. He is Professor of Early Church History at the Union Theological Seminary in New York, and Professor of Byzantine Christian Studies at Columbia University. He has written extensively on early Christian and New Testament literature. Recent publications include St Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography (2001) and The Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology (2003). He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Current projects include a translation of Origen and a popular edition of the largely unknown treasures of Ethiopian religious poetry.

Mark A. McIntosh, Associate Professor of Theology at Loyola University of Chicago, is also currently serving as a chaplain to the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church and as Canon Theologian to the Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church, USA. An Episcopal priest, he holds degrees in history and in theology from Yale, Oxford, and the University of Chicago. In addition to his most recent work, Discernment and Truth: Meditations on the Christian Life of Contemplation and Practice (2004), he is the author of Mystical Theology: The Integrity of Spirituality and Theology (1998) and two other monographs considering the relationship between theology and spirituality.

David B. Perrin, OMI, is Professor of Spirituality and Ethics at Saint Paul University, Ottawa, Canada. Most recently, he authored The Sacrament of Reconciliation: An Existential Approach (1998) and he is the editor of Women Christian Mystics Speak to our Times (2001). His research interest in mysticism centers on the mysticism of John of the Cross. Former Dean of the Faculty of Theology at Saint Paul University and past co-chair of the Mysticism Group of the American Academy of Religion, he currently serves on the governing board of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality.

Jill Raitt is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies and founder and Senior Research Fellow of the Center for Religion, the Professions, and the Public at the University of Missouri-Columbia. A past president of the American Academy of Religion, she has served as a senior editor of and contributor to the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation and as primary editor of and contributor to Christian Spirituality: High Middle Ages and Reformation (1987), vol. 17 in World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest.

Janet K. Ruffing, RSM, is Professor of Spirituality and Spiritual Direction at Fordham University, Bronx, New York. She is the author of numerous articles and of Spiritual Direction: Beyond the Beginnings (2000). In addition, she edited Mysticism and Social Transformation (2001) and prepared the critical introduction and translations for Elisabeth Leseur: Selected Writings (2005). She is one of the founding Coordinating Council members of Spiritual Directors International.

Robert John Russell is Professor of Theology and Science in Residence at the Graduate Theological Union, and Founder and Director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS). He co-edited the five-volume CTNS/Vatican Observatory series, “Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action.” He helped lead the CTNS Science and the Spiritual Quest and Science and Religion course programs. He co-edits the new journal, Theology and Science. He is ordained in the United Church of Christ. His research includes eschatology and cosmology, quantum physics and divine action, and time, eternity and relativity theory.

Sandra M. Schneiders, IHM, is Professor of New Testament Studies and Christian Spirituality at the Jesuit School of Theology in the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California. She is author of Women and the Word (1986), The Revelatory Text (1999), Written That You May Believe (2003), and two volumes on Roman Catholic religious life (2000, 2001). She has served on the editorial boards of Spiritus, New Testament Studies, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, and Horizons, and on the governing board of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality, of which she was president in 1997.

Philip F. Sheldrake is William Leech Professor of Applied Theology at the University of Durham, England. He is the author of several books, including Spirituality and History (1995) and Spaces for the Sacred: Place, Memory, Identity (2001). His current research and writing focuses on spirituality and theological method, and the spirituality/ethics of place and the meaning of cities. He is regularly a visiting professor in North America and is a past president of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality.

William C. Spohn is Augustine Cardinal Bea, SJ, Distinguished Professor of Theology and Director of the Bannan Center for Jesuit Education at Santa Clara University. He is the author of What Are They Saying about Scripture and Ethics? (2nd edn, 1995) and Go and Do Likewise: Jesus and Ethics (1999). He serves as Project Director for Discover (the Santa Clara program for reflection on vocation) and is a member of the Medical Board of California Ethics Task Force.

Columba Stewart, OSB, is a monk of Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. He is Professor of Monastic Studies at the Saint John’s School of Theology and Executive Director of the Institute for the Book, Art, and Religious Culture and the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library at Saint John’s University. He is the author of Cassian the Monk (1992) and Prayer and Community (1998), and is currently at work on a study of early monastic prayer.

Joseph Stewart-Sicking is the Project Associate for the Project on Congregations of Intentional Practice, a Lilly Endowment-funded research study of vital mainline Protestant churches at the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia. An Episcopal layperson, his work focuses on the inter-relationships among Christian practices, Christian traditions, and congregational vitality in contemporary society.

William Thompson-Uberuaga is Professor of Systematic Theology at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, his published books include Christology and Spirituality (1991) and The Struggle for Theology’s Soul (1996). He specializes in the dialogue between spirituality, theology, and philosophy (especially political theory).

Bonnie Thurston was an academic for thirty years. She now lives as a solitary in West Virginia, USA. An ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), she was William F. Orr Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and has authored many books including Spiritual Life in the Early Church (1993), Reading Colossians, Ephesians, and II Thessalonians (1995), Women in the New Testament (1998), To Everything a Season: A Spirituality of Time (1999), Preaching Mark (2002), the Sacra Pagina volume on Philippians (2004), and two books of poetry.

Susan J. White is Alberta H. and Harold L. Lunger Professor of Spiritual Resources and Disciplines and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University. She received her PhD from the University of Notre Dame and was previously on the faculty of the Cambridge Federation of Theological Colleges, Cambridge, England and a member of the Faculty of Divinity of the University of Cambridge. Her recent books include Christian Worship and Technological Change (1997), The Spirit of Worship: The Liturgical Tradition (2000), and A History of Women in Christian Worship (2003).

Ulrike Wiethaus holds an interdisciplinary appointment as Professor of the Humanities at Wake Forest University. She combines her interest in medieval women’s spirituality with cross-cultural and interdisciplinary work on the arts, film, and cultural representations of the sacred. She is the author of numerous articles and books on medieval Christian mysticism and spirituality, including Ecstatic Transformation (1995), and, most recently, a translation of the visions of a medieval holy woman, Agnes Blannbekin, Viennese Beguine: Life and Revelations (2002).

Richard Fox Young is Timby Associate Professor of the History of Religions at Princeton Theological Seminary. He served for some years as a Presbyterian Church (USA) mission worker with churches and Christian institutions in Asia. His major publications – Resistant Hinduism (1981), The Bible Trembled (1995), Vain Debates (1996), and The Carpenter-Heretic (1998) – use the indigenous literatures of South Asia to historically reconstruct the encounter of Hindus and Buddhists with Christianity and to reflect theologically on contemporary problems of pluralism, dialogue, and witness.

Acknowledgments

The editor and publisher gratefully acknowledge the permission granted to reproduce the copyright material in this book:

Bridgeman Art Library, for permission to reproduce the painting Jonah and the Whale, c.1988 (oil on canvas) by Albert Herbert (b.1925), from a private collection.

Sandra M. Schneiders, for permission to use excerpts from her unpublished work, “Seriously, Jonah!”

The Johns Hopkins University Press, for permission to reproduce a revised version of an article entitled “The role of practice in the study of Christian spirituality” from Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 2: 1 (2002), 30–49. (c) The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

Introduction

Arthur Holder

The Blackwell Companion to Christian Spirituality offers a comprehensive introduction to Christian spirituality, which has in recent years emerged as a distinct academic discipline in universities, colleges, and theological schools throughout the English-speaking world. The Companion is intended to be thoroughly interdisciplinary, broadly ecumenical, and representative of the most significant recent developments in the field. Without attempting to impose a single definition of Christian spirituality upon the contributors, as editor I have invited them to reflect on “the lived experience of Christian faith and discipleship.” The six parts of the volume deal with approaches to the study of Christian spirituality, biblical foundations, historical developments, theological perspectives, interdisciplinary dialogue partners, and selected special topics in contemporary Christian spirituality. My hope is that The Blackwell Companion to Christian Spirituality will be of use to scholars in the field and in other related disciplines, to undergraduate and graduate students in theology and religious studies who desire a more accessible entry point to Christianity than might be provided by books dealing solely with doctrinal issues or institutional developments, and to Christians of all denominations and traditions who desire to learn more about the practice of their faith.

Defining Christian Spirituality

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God … When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8: 14–16). Although the apostle Paul never uses the word “spirituality,” this earnest confession of faith suggests that any Christian understanding of that term must necessarily refer to the intimate loving relationship between God’s Holy Spirit and the spirit (animating life force) of believers – a relationship that can be characterized both as kinship and as communion. The Christian life is always “life in the Spirit” (cf. Gal. 5: 25), in all its variety and unpredictability. The Spirit of God is one, but it manifests itselfin diverse ways. As members of the human race, we all share in a common human spirit, but that spirit takes a distinct and particular form in each one of us. The phenomenon that has come to be known as “Christian spirituality” is thus a complex subject that can only be understood and appreciated when approached from a variety of perspectives, and with careful attention to its particular manifestations in an infinite range of historical and cultural contexts.

The word “spirituality” does not have a very long history in English, at least not in its current sense. As a term referring to lived Christian experience, its recent popularity in English seems to have been derived by way of translation from French Catholic authors in the early years of the twentieth century (Principe 1993: 931; Sheldrake 1995: 42–4). Readers of this volume will find frequent discussions of matters of definition, the details of which may be best appreciated in the context of the individual essays. Here it seems appropriate simply to indicate some issues about which the contributors are in general agreement, and some on which they disagree (or at least offer significantly different emphases).

Contemporary scholars of Christian spirituality, including the contributors to this volume, have readily accepted Walter Principe’s demarcation of three different but related levels of spirituality: (a) the “real or existential level,” (b) “the formulation of teaching about the lived reality” as constructed by influential spiritual leaders, traditions, or schools, and (c) “the study by scholars of the first and especially of the second levels of spirituality” (2000: 47–8). Which of these three senses is operative in a particular discourse can usually be determined from the context, just as speakers of English are accustomed to thinking of “history” as referring sometimes to past events, at other times to a narrative account of those events, and at still other times to the academic discipline that studies both past events and the accounts of them subsequently provided by later writers. (But note that in the academic discipline of Christian spirituality, as in that of history, postmodern theorists often question whether we ever have direct access to the first “existential” level for anyone except ourselves; if not, then these disciplines are in truth able to study only the discourses and artifacts that appear on the second level, and any inferences they draw about the first level are necessarily provisional or perhaps even illusory.)

All of the contributors to this volume seem also to hold that the study of spirituality appropriately involves a focus on “experience.” Although there is no final consensus on what “experience” means or on how it can best be studied, these scholars do agree that the experience studied in the field of Christian spirituality is not limited to extraordinary moments of ecstasy or insight, or to explicitly devotional experiences such as prayer and meditation. Certainly the experience to which the discipline of Christian spirituality attends is not “spiritual” as opposed to “material” or “embodied”; these scholars are very much aware that in Pauline terminology “spiritual” (pneumatikos) means “under the influence of the Holy Spirit” and is contrasted not with the realm of the “body” (soma) but with that of the “flesh” (sarx) and its selfish desires. Thus these scholars want to avoid all suggestions of dualism and to insist that spirituality properly includes the whole of life: politics, economics, art, sexuality, and science, as well as whatever is explicitly religious. A difficulty, of course, is that many (perhaps most!) Christian “spiritual” writers and practitioners of previous eras have not sharedthis wholehearted aversion to dualism, so that these contemporary scholars must frankly acknowledge that their own convictions and interests are often at odds with the tendencies of the material they seek to study.

Finally, the contributors to this Companion agree that the study of Christian spirituality is inherently interdisciplinary. Although their own academic training came in a wide range of academic disciplines (including biblical studies, history, theology, sociology, psychology, physics, and biology), I believe that all of them would now identify themselves, at least on a part-time basis, as scholars of Christian spirituality – not in distinction from their original disciplinary identities, but as an enhancement or focusing of those identities. For some of them, Christian spirituality has become their primary academic discipline; others continue to see another discipline as the home base from which they venture forth into Christian spirituality from time to time; still others probably see themselves as having a foot in both camps, without feeling a particular need to distinguish when they are operating within one or the other. But surely none of them would claim that his or her approach to the subject is exhaustive or self-sufficient. Indeed, I believe that readers of this volume will be able to discern that all of these scholars, despite their disparate disciplinary locations, are engaged in a common conversation about a topic (Christian spirituality) that holds fascination for them in its expansive totality, not just in relation to their particular subfields of expertise.

Even with all these significant agreements, the contributors to this volume hold various points of view in relation to some critical questions of definition that engage all scholars in the field of Christian spirituality today. Perhaps foremost among these is a question about which element in the term “Christian spirituality” ought to be taken as primary. Some scholars, often but not always those who come from the disciplinary perspectives of biblical studies, history, or theology, begin (not always explicitly) with Christianity as a concrete historical phenomenon, and then go on to ask: “What is it within Christianity that we can identify specifically as ‘spirituality,’ as distinct from ethics or doctrine or institutional structures, or perhaps as a conjoining of those features of the Christian phenomenon?” Here the academic discipline of Christian spirituality is in effect a specialization within the broader field of Christian studies, or within a more narrowly defined field such as biblical studies, church history, or systematic theology. Other scholars (often but not always those who approach their work from the standpoint of the social or natural sciences, or who want to engage in conversation with scholars in those disciplines) seek to begin with spirituality as a universal human phenomenon (for example, “the capacity for self-transcendence”), and then go on to ask how Christians specify and thematize this common human experience in ways that are distinctive to their particular traditions.

Closely related to the question about which element (“Christian” or “spirituality”) comes first is the often-heated debate about the relationship between spirituality and theology. Is the study of Christian spirituality inherently and irreducibly theological, simply because we cannot hope to understand any aspect of Christianity without reference to God and human discourse about God? Or is the academic discipline of Christian spirituality better seen as a form of religious studies, to which theology makes its distinctive contribution but only as one auxiliary discipline among many? There are, of course, many variations and subtle shadings of both views, often dependent uponhow the protagonists are defining “theology.” Is it equivalent to “doctrine,” in which case spirituality scholars must take care to avoid letting intellectually or ecclesially preconceived conceptions of what Christians “ought” to feel and believe distract them from what those Christians actually experience in life? Or is “theology” rather to be understood as “faith seeking understanding” or simply as “knowing God,” in which case it might again become (as it has always been in the Christian East) a virtual synonym for spirituality?

The debate around these and other such questions is conditioned by previous developments in the history of Western theology since the twelfth century, the time most often identified as marking a “split” between theology and spirituality, or between the reasoned expression of faith and its lived experience. The ascendancy of critical reason, the devotion to scientific methods, and the Enlightenment ideal of “objective” scholarship all come into play on both sides of the equation, along with the postmodern critiques of them that have emerged in the academy in recent years. Much of the current debate finds expression in arguments about the proper institutional location of Christian spirituality as an academic discipline. If it is a subdiscipline of theology, or an inherently theological enterprise, then perhaps it can only be carried out in the context of a believing community such as that found in a denominational seminary or a churchrelated college. (This view is more frequently encountered in the United States than in Britain or Canada, where theology is more easily afforded a place in the curriculum of secular universities.) But if Christian spirituality is really a descriptive discipline rather than a normative one, then (perhaps somewhat paradoxically) it is probably best pursued in an environment in which research and reflection are conducted apart from any authoritative shared faith commitment.

Obviously related to the question of the proper environment for research in Christian spirituality are the issues of practice and participation. If scholars of Christian spirituality seek to reflect on religious experience, is it appropriate for them at the same time to foster and shape the experiences of other people by serving as their spiritual guides? To what extent, and by what means, is it appropriate for those scholars to reflect upon their own experience? Is Christian spirituality best understood as a “theoretical” discipline like mathematics, or an “applied” discipline like engineering? Is growth in faith and holiness the true and proper aim of study in this field, or merely a happy but inessential byproduct? Can the study of Christian spirituality be undertaken by those of other religious traditions, or none? If so, are they doing the same thing as Christian scholars in the field, or is their study necessarily something different because they study as outsiders rather than as insiders? Is it ever truly possible for an insider to a particular spiritual tradition to adopt the posture of an outsider, and vice versa? If possible, is it desirable? Only a few of the essays here tackle these questions directly, but all of them provide at least implicit answers indicated by the author’s choice of tone, style, and perspective. The reader who wants to identify each contributor’s distinctive approach should pay close attention to the use of the first person (both singular and plural). Contemporary scholarship in the field of Christian spirituality moves along a spectrum from confessional autobiography to the presentation of an apparently “authorless” text. None of the essays in this volume goes to the extreme in either direction, but the contributions do represent a considerable range of points in between.

A final question that fascinates (and often puzzles) scholars of Christian spirituality has to do with the relationship between spirituality and religion. There are those who would argue that the two terms are synonymous, or at least that the distinctions commonly made between them inevitably end up reducing “spirituality” to something that is ahistorical, individualistic, disembodied, and utterly privatized – in short, not at all the sort of thing that interests scholars like the contributors to this volume, and hardly deserving of the name “Christian.” Others might want to argue that spirituality is the individual’s appropriation of a received religious tradition. (But how then can we speak meaningfully of the spirituality of the Baptists or the Armenian Orthodox, as though such groups had a distinctive corporate spirituality, and not merely a common religion?) Some suggest that spirituality is the universal human experience of transcendence that becomes particularized, and inevitably reified, in the forms and structures of any specific religion – thereby transferring to spirituality Schleiermacher’s famous definition of religion as “the feeling of absolute dependence.” For several of the authors whose work appears here, the contemporary tendency to set “spirituality” in opposition to “religion” (as in the phrase “spiritual but not religious”) is a phenomenon deserving scholarly attention in itself, regardless of whether or not this oppositional definition is “correct.” In other words, we need to listen carefully to what people are trying to say when they contrast the two terms with one another. We may not learn much about “spirituality” or “religion” as abstract concepts, but we will learn a great deal about the experience of the people who use the words in this way.

As previously stated, the working definition that I offered the contributors to this Companion was of Christian spirituality as “the lived experience of Christian faith and discipleship.” None of the authors appears to have rejected this definition outright or found it especially problematic, although several say that it needs to be given further specificity or put in relation to the spirituality of people outside the bounds of Christianity. It is worth noting that the words “faith” and “discipleship” are unambiguously Christian terms, full of scriptural and theological resonance. It is hard to think of any serious Christian author across the centuries who did not use those words or their cognates with some regularity, or any Christian group that has not invoked them in both teaching and worship. So this working definition is clearly more emic to Christianity (that is, expressed in terms intrinsic to its self-understanding) than etic (expressed in terms derived from outside the phenomenon under analysis). Like any definition of a scholarly subject, this one has its advantages as well as its limitations. Ultimately, the value of any such definition must be judged by its heuristic quality: does it stimulate research, foster insight, and raise interesting questions to be debated and explored? By that important measure, and on the evidence of the essays in this volume, my working definition of Christian spirituality seems to have done its job.

An Introduction to the Essays

The structure of this Companion to Christian Spirituality is neither haphazard nor original to me. As my colleagues at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley will quickly recognize, the six component parts of the volume correspond closely to theprotocol of our doctoral program in Christian spirituality, and to the syllabus of the introductory area seminar in which I have been privileged to participate on several occasions. (A prime motivation for editing this volume was the knowledge that now we will at last have a suitable textbook for this graduate-level course.) Thus we move from questions of definition and method to the foundations of Christian spirituality in Scripture and history, and then to engagement with theological perspectives; thus far, we are dealing with materials and questions that must be considered and (at least at a general level) mastered by all scholars in the field, regardless of the nature of their research projects. Then we come to consider a selection of interdisciplinary dialogue partners, any one or more of which a scholar might want to engage in relation to a particular research topic; and, finally, to some examples of topics in contemporary Christian spirituality that seem to be of special interest to many of those working in the field today. I gratefully acknowledge the help and inspiration provided over the years by students and faculty at the Graduate Theological Union, who have served as my mentors and guides in this exciting and ever-changing discipline.

Part I (What is Christian Spirituality?) contains a single essay by Sandra M. Schneiders, who has been perhaps the most articulate and prolific English-speaking scholar writing on the definitions and methodologies appropriate to this relatively new academic discipline. Here she explicates and refines her well-known definition of spirituality as “the experience of conscious involvement in the project of life-integration through self-transcendence toward the horizon of ultimate value one perceives” before going on to describe three approaches (historical, theological, and anthropological) to the study of Christian spirituality, with generous appreciation of the promise of each approach and insightful cautions about each approach’s potential pitfalls. Finally, Schneiders offers her own nuanced perspective on the controversial issues of practice and participation in the study of Christian spirituality.

Both of the essays in Part II (Scripture and Christian Spirituality) combine historical research with issues of contemporary application, but the first essay deals primarily with the spiritualities that the Bible has helped produce, while the second essay concentrates more on the ancient spiritualities that produced the Bible. To a certain extent, these differing approaches reflect the most obvious difference between the Old Testament and the New (namely, that the latter was written by Christians but the former by Jews); however, they also represent two different approaches to “biblical spirituality.” In the first essay, Barbara Green traces the history of Christian exegesis of the Book of Jonah in order to show how the Old Testament has been both formative and transformative for Christians; in conclusion, she identifies five perennial issues in the Christian appropriation of Old Testament texts. The second essay, by Bonnie Thurston, reminds us that the New Testament reflects a plurality of spiritualities, each of which arose from the religious experience of disciples in community, and all of which need to be studied in recognition that the first-century world was not the same as ours, even though Christians then and now claim experience of the same risen Christ.

The six essays in Part III (Christian Spirituality in History) provide an overview of some of the most significant themes, movements, and developments. Without attempting to be encyclopedic or exhaustive, each essay introduces the reader to selected persons, institutions, practices, and events that serve as illustrative cases. The approachhere differs somewhat from many previous treatments of the history of Christian spirituality in that the authors have tried to present more synthetic accounts that avoid treating various “schools” of spirituality in isolation from one another. As a result, the reader may hope to gain some sense of the unity of Christianity, as well as its unquestionable diversity. In the first historical essay, Columba Stewart characterizes Christianity during the Roman empire (100–600) as searching for unity and forming a spiritual culture through practices of liturgy, devotion, and public witness (most notably, martyrdom, asceticism, and monasticism). John A. McGuckin carries the story in the Eastern church forward to 1700 by concentrating on some of the most remarkable Byzantine and Syrian writers in a variety of genres, including hymnody, doctrinal treatises, spiritual guidance, hagiography, and polemic. In the medieval West to the eve of the Reformation, Ulrike Wiethaus sees the emergence of a multicultural synthesis that has bequeathed legacies both positive (expanded roles for women, mystical literature, ideals of radical poverty, heroic acceptance of suffering) and negative (religious intolerance, fear of diversity, and an over-reliance on texts). Jill Raitt analyses European reformations of all sorts (Protestant, Catholic, Anglican, Anabaptist, Quaker) in the tumultuous period 1450–1700 as diverse ways in which spiritual practice left the cloister in order to reach out to lay people in their shops and homes. Co-authors Diana Butler Bass and Joseph Stewart-Sicking picture Christian spirituality in modern North America and Europe since 1700 as a changing mosaic of spiritual options exercised by creative individuals both within and beyond the churches in the aftermath of the Enlightenment and the breakdown of institutional authority. Especially welcome in this volume because it covers ground that will be unfamiliar to many readers is the essay by Richard Fox Young, who employs literature along with more conventional sources to examine spirituality in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania from the perspective of a new historiography that shifts the emphasis from Western transmission of the gospel to non-Western appropriation, and from the missionaries to the converts.

In Part IV (Theology and Christian Spirituality), we turn to theology’s constructive engagement with lived Christian experience. Mark A. McIntosh draws on theologians as diverse as Maximus the Confessor, Aquinas, Traherne, and John of the Cross to root Christian spirituality in the divine generosity of self-giving at the heart of the Trinity. Suggesting that Christology’s role in spirituality is analogous to the role of theological reason in the life of faith, William Thompson-Uberuaga argues that both fideist and rationalist Christologies lead to diminished spiritualities, while combinative forms offer better prospects in the face of both globalization and postmodern thought. Taking up the question of the Holy Spirit (often strangely neglected in talk of spirituality), Robert Davis Hughes III explores the Spirit’s trinitarian mission as the source of a threefold pattern of conversion, transfiguration, and perfection in the spiritual life. Challenging Sandra Schneiders’s view of the discipline of theology as being too restrictive, Philip Endean advocates a mystagogical theology that at its best and most imaginative is very close to what is today called “spirituality”; he then goes on to identify three contributions that the study of the doctrinal tradition regarding the human person (which is by no means the whole of what he means by “theology”) can make to spirituality: articulation of context, concern with truth, and extension of sympathy. In his essay on the church as context for spirituality, David Lonsdale describes the church as a school ofthe affections and desires that forms disciples in discernment primarily through liturgy, which is its proper and distinctive activity. Liturgy naturally figures also in an essay on sacramentality by Ann Loades, but she points us not in the first instance to services of worship in churches but to the worldly sacraments of nature, creativity, procreation and parenting, work, music and dance, stillness and silence, and finally to Christ incarnate in our midst. Part IV concludes with William C. Spohn’s rendering (based in virtue ethics) of spiritual practices such as fidelity in marriage, hymn singing, and liturgical prayer as the primary means by which the affections of Christian believers are shaped for moral character and action.

The essays in Part V (Interdisciplinary Dialogue Partners for the Study of Christian Spirituality) explore both the promises and the challenges for Christian spirituality in entering into dialogue with various academic disciplines, all of which have already been in prior conversation with other forms of theological and religious studies. In the first essay, John A. Coleman surveys recent sociological literature dealing with the vast array of spiritualities and religious movements in the United States at the turn of the twenty-first century, noting that while the categories “spiritual” and “religious” are often defined in opposition to one another, many people identify themselves as both (good news for churches that emphasize spiritual growth). Next, Janet K. Ruffing provides an overview of some major schools of psychology (psychoanalytic, cognitive, analytic, transpersonal) that are particularly relevant to spirituality studies, even though, as Ruffing cautions, their understanding of spirituality is often independent of religious communities, privatized, and inattentive to societal issues of justice and compassion that are critical in Christian spirituality. The possibilities for dialogue with the natural sciences (especially physics and biology) are explored by Robert John Russell, who directs our attention to the spiritual implications of scientific discussions about things as old as the Big Bang and as new as artificial intelligence, as small as a DNA molecule and as vast as the stars. Alejandro García-Rivera traces the historical development of aesthetics from Plato and Aristotle through the early church and the Middle Ages to Kant, Hegel, and von Balthasar, suggesting that the human ability to appreciate and create beauty is an intrinsic aspect of our experience of the divine. Amy Hollywood’s essay shows that feminist readings of medieval spirituality, as carried out by Caroline Walker Bynum and other recent scholars, have revealed previously hidden aspects of that historical period, while raising complex methodological and theoretical issues that are pertinent to the study of Christian spirituality in any context. Susan J. White’s essay on the dialogue with ritual studies incorporates concepts and investigative tools from anthropology, ethnography, and performance studies that will be useful to many spirituality scholars, especially in light of the current interest in religious practices, and liturgical practices in particular (as noted above with reference to several of the theological essays in Part IV). And if Christian spirituality is a form of religious experience, then we can hardly talk about it without some consideration of the other great world religions. In the final essay of Part V, Michael Barnes presents what he calls a “theology of dialogue” that seeks to go beyond the “history of religions” or “religious studies” models of understanding the religious “other.”

If space had permitted, the final part, Part VI (Special Topics in Contemporary Christian Spirituality), could have been expanded to include many more topics. But the seventopics chosen represent some of those that have garnered the most scholarly attention in recent years, and promise to do so for some time to come. David Hay’s essay on religious or spiritual experience provides both philosophical reflection and empirical data concerning this fundamental aspect of Christian spirituality, which has often been challenged as illusion or neurosis but continues to stimulate research by biologists, psychologists, sociologists, and many others. Defining mysticism as “[t]he experience of oneness or intimacy with some absolute divine reality,” David B. Perrin investigates the relationship of mysticism to “ordinary” religious experience, to language and text, to body and soul, and to the prophetic and charismatic dimensions of Christian faith. In an essay that can fruitfully be read in conjunction with the historical essays in Part III – indeed, in relation to all efforts at finding meaning in the “classical texts” (written and otherwise) of Christian spirituality – Philip F. Sheldrake considers the task of interpretation: how can communities of Christian readers find wisdom in what they read? A fine example of just this sort of interpretation is provided by Douglas Burton-Christie in an essay reflecting on contemporary writing on the spiritual significance of nature, and especially the experience of loss on both personal and cosmic scales, in what has been described as an “age of extinction.” Returning to the notion of “practice” and its role in the study of Christian spirituality, Elizabeth Liebert appeals to parallels with the field of pastoral theology and insights from educational theory to advocate practice in the classroom as an aid to scholarship, as well as a means of spiritual growth. Michael Battle asks what a Christian spirituality of liberation might look like if based on relationality and inclusion instead of identity politics, with Desmond Tutu as a contemporary example of a theologian and activist who represents both confirmation and critique of the perspectives of liberation theology. Finally, Kwok Pui-Lan brings the volume to a close with an essay in which she engages the increasingly pressing issues of interfaith worship and multiple religious identity, at the same time reminding us that interfaith encounter (with its attendant charges of “syncreticism”) is as old as Christianity itself.

The Present, Past, and Future of a Discipline

This Companion can with justification claim to represent the current “state of the art” in the academic discipline of Christian spirituality. It should be noted that a number of important topics that do not appear in the table of contents are nevertheless dealt with in some of the essays collected here. For example, there are substantial treatments of “culture” as a category for Christian spirituality in the essays of Young, White, and Sheldrake. Readers who regret the omission of literary studies from the list of interdisciplinary dialogue partners are invited to look at the essays of Young, Hollywood, and Burton-Christie to find excellent examples of fruitful engagement with literature and literary theory. And the complex and contested relationship between spirituality and religion is explored from various angles by Bass and Stewart-Sicking, Coleman, Hay, Burton-Christie, and Kwok, while gender issues are treated not only in Hollywood’s essay on feminist studies, but also in the essays of Wiethaus, Loades, and Kwok.

Although this volume focuses on the present state of the discipline, there is ample material here for readers who wish to get a sense of its past. Schneiders and Endean, as well as Hughes, Perrin, and Sheldrake, discuss aspects of earlier scholarly approaches to the subject, and the bibliographies they provide will guide readers toward other helpful sources. But perhaps the most effective testimony to the progress that has been made in the development of Christian spirituality as an academic discipline is simply the cohesiveness (which is not to say uniformity or unanimity) of the essays in this Companion. Notice how often contributors coming from very different perspectives and writing on quite disparate topics cite many of the same sources, including one another. Judith Klein has written: “The term discipline signifies the tools, methods, procedures, exempla, concepts, and theories that account coherently for a set of objects or subjects. Over time they are shaped and reshaped by external contingencies and internal intellectual demands. In this manner a discipline comes to organize and concentrate experience into a particular ‘world view’” (1990: 104). If this is the case, then there is abundant evidence here that Christian spirituality is no longer merely “emerging” as a discipline, but has clearly arrived.

Klein’s primary interest, however, is not in the establishment of disciplines but in the creative interstitial work of interdisciplinarity that goes on between and among disciplines. Thus she makes us aware that any discipline inevitably loses sight of whatever it chooses not to notice, and is unable to study whatever does not respond to its tools and methods. Scholars of Christian spirituality hope to minimize such disciplinary losses when they claim that theirs is an inherently interdisciplinary field. Will this “interdiscipline” or “field-encompassing field” be able to maintain its characteristic energy, its expansive vision, and its eclectic yet ordered approach to research? I believe that it will – that we as spirituality scholars and practitioners will do so – as long as we keep our focus on the lived experience of Christian faith and discipleship.