with some wise guidance from
Soul Recreation:
The Contemplative-Mystical Piety of Puritanism
by Tom Schwanda
This is not a Book Review.
This is a bit of my spiritual autobiography that emerged as I meditated on the final page of Tom Schwanda's book as I considered my own contemplative journey. The words in blue/bold/italic are his text from Soul Recreation, (page 245). The black/regular font are my reflections.
A typical pattern for many Protestants who become interested in the practice and study of Christian spirituality is to bemoan the lack of models and resources within their own heritage.
It is 1999. I am VERY INTERESTED in spirituality. I have an M.A. in New Testament from Gordon-Conwell and a Th.M. in theology from Westminster. I have been a pastor since 1982. I have thousands of books in my library. I can discuss (argue) theology and biblical interpretation with just about anyone. I am teaching in Bible colleges and seminaries overseas. Leading a growing church. Training leaders.
And I am just about burned out. Disillusioned. Disappointed. While my mind is full of theological truth, somehow it has not penetrated to my heart. I have almost no experience of God. I have a dry orthodoxy, an external behavioristic conformity to Christian morality . . . but no sense of relational intimacy with Jesus. I have no spiritual life, or at least nothing that is worthy of the name.
That restless Augustinian heart of mine? It is weary, tired, empty and desperate to find help. But where will I find this help? This is why I am interested in spirituality!
It is not uncommon to find Reformed and Evangelical Christians searching the lives and writings of the spiritual giants of the Roman Catholic tradition because of its rich spiritual reservoir of resources.
While, on the one hand, there is nothing wrong with this, yet, on the other hand, there is often a feeling of embarrassment that certain Protestant traditions are devoid of similar resources and that there appears to be an emphasis on the overly intellectual or cognitive without any great sensitivity to the affective.
My heritage is that of the Evangelical tradition (broadly defined) and the Reformed tradition (through my seminary training). While I remained an eclectic Evangelical in many ways, in others, I settled into a general and moderate Calvinism, Puritanism, and eventually a neo-Calvinism.
But that was my part of my problem. For some reason those traditions hadn't nurtured a spiritual life within me. I am more than willing to accept responsibility and say, I didn't engage those traditions in a spiritually transformative way. Still, no one in my orbit had modeled the way of an Evangelical or Reformed spirituality that was relationally rich in its connection to Christ, and thus affectively and experientially nourishing No one had shown me what this way would like like, lived out. I just didn't know how to have an Evangelical and Reformed spiritual life.
Actually, I assumed (from my experiences) that my traditions were more interested in theological precision than spirituality (a sad dualism if there ever was one). And then in fierce arguments and debates on these matters.That WAS modeled and that I absorbed. I learned how to be theologically precise and how to argue rather strenuously for that preciseness as well.
So when I needed help, I didn't go looking for it in my own traditions. I turned elsewhere. Initially to writers like Richard Foster, Eugene Peterson, James Houston (and to a lesser degree Dallas Willard). Through them, I started investigating what many refer to as "The Contemplative Tradition" of the great spiritual classics, often written by Catholics.
I found help among these writers. I found "texts" that continued to have great meaning as the centuries went by. I found "methodologies" of "deep reading," meditation, prayer, discernment and contemplation. I learned (or re-learned) a wide variety of spiritual disciplines and slowly began to build a Regula and a Rhythm of spiritual formation.
I was never bothered by any specific Roman Catholic theology in these writings. I simply substituted my own evangelical and Reformed theology into the spiritual formation process wherever it was needed. I was especially drawn to lectio divina as a pathway, due to my abiding interest in and commitment to Scripture. Scripture remained the Revealed Word of God. Only now, I was not just exegeting the Bible, the text was exegeting my heart and soul (one way I like to understand Hebrews 4:12-13). I was no longer just questioning the biblical texts. Now, Christ was questioning me (and meeting me) through those divinely sourced words we call the Bible.
Jesus was using those other texts I mentioned as well. In the dozen years since then I have read rather widely across the 2000 years of spiritual classics. I have gone somewhat deep in the Ignatian-Jesuit tradition. I am now moving further along in other parts of the tradition. The Desert Fathers, Augustine, Benedict, John Cassian, and Bernard in particular (I appreciate and value the Augustinians, Benedictines and Cistercians). Teresa, John, Francis and others are still acquaintances and not yet friends, much less mentors and guides.
Back to Loyola. For many years I was very comfortable seeing myself as an Evangelical on the Ignatian Way of (Spiritual) Proceeding. I was a theological card-carrying evangelical-Reformed type, who had been flavored (in an enhanced way) with the seasonings of Ignatian spirituality. I was, am and remain grateful to so much guidance I have received through the missional minded, organization leading, world engaging, gospel loving, Christ desiring Ignacio. I will be learning from the Jesuits for many years to come.
However, this book has demonstrated that contemplative-mystical piety, is not absent from the Reformed and Evangelical traditions. Therefore, the challenge is to recover the lost heritage of piety within Reformed theology that itself is certainly not exclusive of patristic and even medieval piety.
From time to time I thought, "One of these days I have to go back and revisit the Puritans and Reformed writers, along with a few of the Pietists (in the Wesleyan and Holiness traditions) and read them again to see what they have." I'd pick up a book or two here and there. I'd get a few snippets of illumination and encouragement which reinforced the idea that reconnecting with my core tradition for spiritual formation, would, indeed, be a worthwhile endeavor.
And then, quite recently I read Tom Schwanda's, Soul Recreation. I was hooked and knew I found a mentor who was intimately familiar with these traditions.
Through this book (and its magnificent bibliography) I am ready to re-engage with the spiritual treasurers of my theological tradition.
And I can do this while retaining my interest in and appreciation for the patristic and medieval spiritual traditions that I have nourished my soul. One of the very nice contributions of Schwanda's book is he shows how the Puritans and Reformers, themselves, borrowed (selectively, critically and also warmly), then adapted and fruitfully used the patristic and medieval resources for their own journey and for their work of caring for and curing souls.
Not only do the Puritan and Reformed authors (and especially Isaac Ambrose who is the lead Puritan used in this book) model the way of contemplative-mystical piety, they also turn out to model a way of borrowing from others outside their own tradition. For my post-modern, generous orthodoxy mindset, this is a very good thing.
Not only does the Reformed and Evangelical tradition include many historical examples of contemplative-mystical piety, more importantly, this theology supports and actually encourages the cultivation of "soul recreation" that delights and enjoys God with both head and heart.
One thing I deeply appreciate about Tom Schwanda is that he is equally adept in historical studies, theological reflection and spiritual formation. History, theology, spirituality weave together and emerge with sound perspective and useful practice. Which, by the way, is what he values in the Puritan and Reformed sources to which he is drawn. There are profound themes of union with God, communion with Christ, fullness of the Spirit, the imitation of Jesus, the people of God, the tragedy of sin in a ruined soul, the wide and deep scope of redemption, the integration of faith and life, and the desire for and delight and enjoyment of God - that are well covered and then well lived in the Puritan tradition.
These are the biblical realities that call to me as well. I have long believed them. I just didn't find (at the time) help in experiencing them. I want these themes to increasingly shape my spirituality and how I experience the fullness of life with Father, Son and Spirit.
It is my desire that this work might provide some impetus to, and help in, retrieving and nourishing the holistic Christianity that so characterized the earlier historic faith of the Reformed tradition.
The ultimate compliment I give to any mentor/leader/formator/teacher is that they imbide a living tradition in fresh, innovative ways, passing that tradition on by (1) modeling it personally, (2) showing the way forward and (3) encouraging the Augustinian heart that is in us all (these are essential leadership tasks according to Kouzes and Posner, The Leadership Challenge). Tom Schwanda does all this admirabily, for me, in his excellent work.
To my evangelical and Reformed friends and readers who are a bit wary of the contemplative stream - this book will serve as a reliable guide to join together what is so often torn asunder (mind and heart, theology and spirituality, justification and sanctification, grace and spiritual discipline).
To my contemplative friends who are less evangelical, not so versed in theology, and more interested in the experiential than the Scriptural, - this book is a welcome invitation, a gentle corrective, a wise teacher and an inspiring illustration of a contemplative-mystical piety that is rooted in the Bible, centered on Christ, dependent on the Spirit, richly experiential, affectively sound and ultimately transformative of one's life.
It is 2012. I am still very interested in spirituality. I hope I will be for the rest of my life. I hope you will be as well.
Grace, joy and peace . . .
Brian K. Rice
Leadership ConneXtions International
brianrice@lcileaders.org
