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''Editor’s Note:'' Readers should be aware of the forum’s format. D. A. Carson,
Mark Coppenger, Joel R. Beeke, and Pierre Constant have been asked
specific questions to which they have provided written responses. These writers are not
responding to one another. The journal’s goal for the Forum is to provide significant
thinkers’ views on topics of interest without requiring lengthy articles from these
heavily-committed individuals. Their answers are presented in an order that hopefully
makes the forum read as much like a unified presentation as possible.

'''SBJT: Could you briefly lay out the opportunities and dangers in the current interest in spirituality?'''

'''D. A. Carson:''' So many books on the
subject of spirituality have been written
during the last two or three decades that
it is an impertinence to address the topic
in a few paragraphs. In the hope that
brevity may serve some useful functions,
however, I’m inclined to say at least the
following.

Before I answer the question directly, it
is worth remembering that “spirituality”
has an intellectual history that is worth
thinking about. I summarized that history
elsewhere (in an Appendix to ''The Gagging of God''), and I need not repeat
here everything I said there. Nevertheless
a handful of remarks from that survey
will not go amiss. (1) Until a few decades
ago, “spirituality” was not an expression
much used in Protestantism. Nowadays,
however, the expression is used not only
by Catholics and Protestants alike, but
also by almost everyone, including completely
unchurched people who think of
themselves as in many respects secular.
“Spiritual” may hint at some sort of connection
to eastern religions or to new age
thought, but it might mean something like
“aesthetic,” and it might be tied to fairly
mystical quasi-materialist beliefs (e.g.,
some keep crystals close to them in the
belief that they vibrate and improve the
holder’s “spirituality”). (2) In the Western
world, the term was, as I’ve just said, until
recently tied to Catholicism. But what did
Catholics mean by it? One of their usages
meant something like “devotional.” While
Protestants might write either academic
or “devotional” commentaries, Catholics
might write either academic or “spiritual”
commentaries—and meant much
the same thing. (3) Another traditional
Catholic usage that stretches back many
centuries has to do with forms of ''superior''
Christian experience. In other words,
ordinary Christians might believe certain
things and act in certain ways, but to be a
really spiritual Christian meant to engage
in certain ascetic practices, adopt certain
spiritual discipline, and so forth. In other
words, to be “spiritual” was something
akin to being a more serious Christian,
or a more advanced Christian, or a more
holy or godly Christian. (4) Because “spirituality”
today is often applied not only to
Protestants and Catholics alike, but also
to adherents of completely non-Christian
religions—for instance, many writers
probe what we ought to be learning from,
say, Buddhist “spirituality”—the word is
less and less tied to any identifiable belief
structure, and more and more tied to
technique. The assumption is that techniques
of “spirituality” may be readily
transferred from religion to religion, from
belief structure to belief structure.
So now it is time to address the question
directly. ''First'', some of the opportunities
bound up with current interest in
this vague thing called “spirituality” may
usefully be identified.

(1) Although the term “spirituality” as
it is now used is astonishingly broad, it
usually signals a reluctance on the part
of those who espouse it to embrace philosophical
materialism. In other words,
being committed to “spirituality” usually
means one is committed to a universe that
has something in it beyond matter, energy,
space, and time. The sheer reductionism of
philosophical materialism is thus avoided,
even if the nature or even the rationale
of this “spirituality” is more than a little
fuzzy. That means the beginning point
in conversation with such “spiritual”
people is never quite the same as with,
say, a scientist committed to philosophical
materialism.

(2) Epistemologically, those who
espouse “spirituality” are more open to
diverse channels of acquiring “knowledge”
than are those who buy into logical
positivism. To (over)simplify: While logical
positivists think that the only things
human beings can “know” are those
that are tied by observation and reason
to the material world, those interested
in “spirituality” are open to intuitions,
faith, extra-sensory perception, aesthetics,
and sometimes a range of supernatural
beings. I am far from saying that all of
these epistemological claims are wise or
defensible; I am merely saying that they
avoid one common form of reductionism,
and so how people may come to “know”
things about Jesus, and truly to “know”
him, can happily proceed along broader
lines than those acknowledged by reason
alone or by the senses alone.

(3) In particular, those who espouse
“spirituality” can be praised for their
appreciation of the complexity of human
existence, of a non-material component.
One remembers Paul’s careful opening
remarks when he addresses the Areopagus:
“I see that in every way you are very
religious.” He then adduces, as evidence,
their “objects of worship” and even the
altar “To an Unknown God.” Today, for
most people in the Western world, being
labeled “religious” would not be taken
as any sort of compliment, ambiguous
or otherwise. I suspect that if Paul were
beginning his address today in New
York of Chicago or L.A., he would say, “I
see that in every way you are very spiritual.”
Of course, that would not prevent
Paul from chiding them for some of their
understanding of what it means to be
“spiritual,” or from providing a Christian
understanding of what it means to be
“spiritual”—just as he insists on a Christian
understanding of true “religion.”
Nevertheless, as the apostle detects some
measure of common humanity in the
desire to be “religious,” we ought to detect
some measure of common humanity in
the desire to be “spiritual.”

That brings us to the ''second'' part of the
question: What are the dangers in the
current interest in spirituality?

(1) For many people, “spirituality” is a
word with only positive connotations—a
bit the way “apple pie” or “motherhood”
functioned in the Eisenhower years. The
upshot is that encouraging people to be
discerning in spiritual matters sounds
hyper-critical, for it presupposes that not
everything that passes for spirituality
is good. Yet diminished discernment is
rarely a good thing, and so we have to
make the attempt to avoid the clichés
surrounding “spirituality” and try to
encourage rigorous biblical fidelity.

(2) The result of the current naïveté
about spirituality is that many people
have begun to appeal to their own mystical
experiences over against claims of
truth. An explanatory aside: Historically,
people have tended to base their religious
claims on reason, mysticism, or revelation.
This is not to say that there may not
be some overlap of these categories, of
course, but this analytical breakdown is
helpful. The current appeal to spirituality
is very largely an appeal to highly
diverse forms of mysticism—forms that
brook very little space for revelation in
any biblical sense, and not even much for
reason. Another way of saying this is that
personal experience trumps everything;
indeed, it becomes an end in itself, which
of course feeds that which, from the biblical
perspective, lies at the heart of human
rebellion, namely, self-interest.

(3) To put this another way: the current
shape of spirituality largely sidesteps
very substantial matters dealing with
history and truth. Did Jesus rise from
the dead, or did he not? If he did, what
does his resurrection mean? What does
it say about his own personal claims and
his own understanding of the human
beings? Is he truly the unique Son of God,
the “Word made flesh”? From a biblical
perspective, can one be “spiritual” while
still rejecting the Son of God? And such
matters as these are nestled within huge
questions of worldview: human beings
are important because we have been created
in the image of God; we are guilty
because we have chosen to go our own
way; salvation consists first and foremost
in being reconciled to the God from whom
we have alienated ourselves, and whose
judgment we must face; the only escape is
what this God has provided. Within that
sort of framework, then, Paul insists that
the “natural” person, the person without
the Spirit, “does not accept the things that
come from the Spirit of God but considers
them foolishness” (1 Cor 2:14). Only the
person who has received the Spirit, the
Spirit whom Jesus himself bequeathed
and who is the down payment of the
ultimate inheritance, is truly “spiritual.”
Thus being “spiritual” is tied irrefragably
to the gospel itself—in the context, to
“Jesus Christ and him crucified” (2:14).
Even when Paul refines this fundamental
polarity in the next chapter, and painfully
writes that some who are “spiritual” in
this fundamental sense are acting immaturely,
he assumes they are Christians:
their immaturity does not manifest itself
in the repudiation of the Christian faith,
but in one-upmanship and bickering (1
Cor 3). Certainly Christians are responsible
to “keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal
5:25). Yet the fundamental polarity of the
new covenant must not be ducked: those
who have the Spirit (a state bound up with
saving faith in Christ and his cross-work)
are spiritual, and those who do not have
the Spirit are not. Whatever else is said
about not quenching the Spirit, about
spiritual growth and knowledge of God,
about conformity to Christ—all of which
are regularly tied up with “spirituality” in
current discussion—must begin with this
fundamental polarity, or shunt to one side
the Bible and the gospel it announces.

Again, one should be suspicious of
generalizations of this sort: “By all means
read the evangelical literature if you want
to understand the cross, but if you want to
grow in spirituality, read the Catholics.”
The bifurcation is deeply troubling. Of
course, some Catholics have understood
the cross profoundly: we still sing, for
instance, some of Bernard de Clairvaux’s
cross-centered hymns (at least we did
until they were largely displaced by choruses
telling God that we are worshiping
him). But I have not read literature that
is more “spiritual” than the best of the
Puritan classics, for instance—literature
that is, on the whole, deeply imbued with
a profound grasp of the gospel. Is it really
biblically-defined spirituality which is
found in traditions that are ''less'' clear on
the nature of the gospel?

(4) Within the broadly Christian
heritage, a very large amount of current
discussion turns on technique, asceticism,
monastic practice, and the like. Not for a
moment would I want to deny that there
are degrees of knowledge of God (as there
are degrees of knowing any person), and
that some Christians are more mature
than others. One needs only to read Philippians
3, for instance, to remember how
Paul yearned for continued growth and
conformity to Christ. Moreover, disciplined
practices may prove to be a helpful
part of such growth for some believers.
For instance, Christians who commit
themselves to daily reading of substantial
parts of the Bible, along with the
journaling that keeps records of personal
reflections as one reads the text, may find
themselves growing substantially. But is it
the reading and journaling, ''considered as
techniques'', that are achieving these ends?
Or is it the truth of the Word? After all, on
the night he was betrayed, Jesus prayed,
“Sanctify them by your truth; your word
is truth” (John 17:17). There are myriads
of passages that stress the importance
of meditating on, believing in, obeying,
learning, memorizing (“hiding in one’s
heart”), God’s truth; there are none that
mandate journaling. I hasten to insist that
I am not unalterably opposed to journaling.
But I am deeply suspicious of any
appeal to technique in spirituality that
is not mandated by Scripture, the more
so if it has the effect of masking what the
Scripture is actually talking about.

Sometimes the technique that is being
urged is so heavily horizontal that it
barely acknowledges God. One recent
influential book, for instance, urges us to
move through distinct phases of spiritual
exploration, regardless of the particular
object of our faith (i.e., what we believe is
unimportant; the categories of spiritual
growth are sociologically determined): (1)
discovery, i.e., we find God on the particular
path we have chosen; (2) belonging, i.e.,
we attach ourselves to a particular group;
(3) working, i.e., we commit ourselves to
this religious cause; (4) questioning, i.e.,
at some point we may begin to wonder
what we are doing here; (5) the wall, i.e.,
we hit an impasse; (6) living with uncertainty,
i.e., we work through the impasse
and choose deeper confidence on the
God we believe in, while we hold other
things more loosely; (7) living in love,
i.e., we learn better how to live for God
and others. Regardless of the accuracy
or inaccuracy of this sociological profile,
it is utterly detached from ''any'' particular
belief system, including the gospel. We
are a long way from 1 Corinthians and
Galatians, from the Farewell Discourse,
from Ephesians, from Matthew’s form of
the Great Commission.

What we must see is that only what
is valuable is counterfeited. One does
not bother to counterfeit pennies; one
counterfeits $20 bills or $100 bills. A great
deal of biblically-mandated spirituality is
counterfeited by those who will not come
under the biblical frame of reference,
precisely because ''biblical'' spirituality is
glorious, so it seems worth counterfeiting.
Sadly, Christians are easily taken in by
such counterfeits, unless they relentlessly
return to Scripture to test all things.

(5) It may seem a tad harsh to say it,
but in my experience, many (though
certainly not all) of those who buy into
contemporary approaches to spirituality
have no hesitation about saying things
like “I really am quite a spiritual person.”
This is not surprising. Once spirituality is
tied to technique, personal mysticism, and
self-discipline, it can easily become a basis
for pride. This is a long way removed from
the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5).

Perhaps it is the fruit of the Spirit that
gives us an important clue to what we
should be pursuing. We often encourage
people to memorize the nine-fold fruit
of the Spirit, but observe carefully the
references to the Spirit in the context: “So
I say,'' walk by the Spirit'', and you will not
gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
For the sinful nature desires what is
contrary to ''the Spirit'', and ''the Spirit'' what
is contrary to the sinful nature. They are
in conflict with each other, so that you
are not to do whatever you want. But
if you are led ''by the Spirit'', you are not
under the law. . . . But ''the fruit of the Spirit''
is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and
self-control. Against such things there is
no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus
have crucified the sinful nature with its
passions and desires. Since we ''live by the
Spirit, ''let us'' keep in step with the Spirit''. Let
us not become conceited, provoking and
envying each other” (Gal 5:16ff.). This
is where our future lies: walking by the
Spirit, being led by the Spirit, keeping in
step with the Spirit, growing in the fruit
of the Spirit. Here is spirituality alive with
Christ-centered awareness, a passionate
desire to bring glory to God and good to
his people, a love and a joy and a peace,
and all the rest, that are cruciform.

The SBJT Forum: Thinking about True Spirituality - Revision history

JoyaTeemer: Created page with '{{info}} ''Editor’s Note:'' Readers should be aware of the forum’s format. D. A. Carson, Mark Coppenger, Joel R. Beeke, and Pierre Constant have been asked specific questio...'