January 2011: The Rich Vein of Evangelical Spirituality

     It is safe to say that evangelical Christianity has experienced a renewal of interest in spirituality in the past thirty years. Since I first read Richard Foster's landmark Celebration of Discipline in 1980 (it was first published in 1978), I have seen entire lines of books emerge (for example, the "Formatio" line of InterVarsity Press publications). Since I joined the Masters Program in Christian Spirituality at Gonzaga University in 1988, I have seen many seminary programs in spirituality emerge in evangelical institutions (for example, the program in spiritual formation at Denver Seminary). I served as a spiritual director and consultant for a conference of the overseas missions department of the Association of Vineyard Churches in October and was touched to see how so many leaders were deeply nourished these days drinking from the wells of the spiritual formation movement. For many evangelicals these days spirituality is "in." And I say "Amen"!

     Through this renewal our horizons have been expanded. We have recited the Jesus Prayer, a phrase deeply embedded in the Orthodox tradition. We have practiced lectio divina, a pattern of meditating on Scripture often associated with the Benedictine tradition. We have started taking retreats, an habit rekindled in recent decades especially by the Jesuits. We have read classics of spirituality: the desert elders, Teresa of Avila, and Henri Nouwen. And through all this our world has grown larger. We were hungry for the things of the Spirit and we have received (not to mention what we have received from the charismatic renewals in the past 50 years).

      And yet aspects of our own evangelical tradition have gone relatively unexplored. We have studied Charles de Foucauld on holiness, but have we read Charles Finney? We have read Thomas Keating on prayer, but have we read Thomas Chalmers? We have instituted recitation of the divine hours as an intentional discipline, but have we forgotten the practice of preaching, hearing, and reading sermons as an intentional Means of Grace?

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