TODAY, there may be a growing interest in “spirituality” in wider society, and its application in, for instance, the mindfulness or well-being movements is increasingly divorced from all religious connotations. At the identical time, in some parts of the Church, there may be an increasing interest in Christian spirituality.
While spirituality more generally is commonly perceived as having an ethical component, and helping someone towards a selected goal, or to their most perfect state (“to live [my] highest life”, perhaps), the addition of the word “Christian” lends such goals a selected Trinitarian and Christological component.
As Jordan Aumann puts it, spirituality “refers to any religious or ethical value that’s concretised as an attitude or spirit from which one’s actions flow”, whereas, once we discuss Christian spirituality, the “spirit” is specifically the Holy Spirit, and is “a participation within the mystery of Christ through the inside lifetime of grace”.
WHILE the numbers of those in cloistered religious orders is decreasing, lay religious orders are increasingly popular; and lots of who are usually not professed religious have found specific traditions particularly influential for his or her life and faith.
These spiritual traditions have a protracted history, and we will situate ourselves inside their trajectories. As Philip Sheldrake notes, “Many of us belong inside living spiritual traditions [and many] are turning to the wisdom of the past, often through the medium of spiritual classics. . . The issue of historical interpretation is due to this fact a live one.”
The histories of those traditions are usually not owned by the fashionable religious orders that trace their foundation back to the spiritual giants who established them. By applying fresh perspectives to the histories of those traditions, we will learn latest lessons, and retrieve the lost voices of those that do hardly appear within the pages of history books.
Spirituality and its history are inextricably tied up together; Christian spiritual practices and movements almost all the time look back to their tradition, and adopt (or adapt) what has gone before. By interrogating this history, we will hope to learn lessons about how our predecessors (and our contemporaries) have made mistakes, and the way to move beyond these mistakes.
The desert traditions, which flourished in the primary centuries of Christianity, took their cue from Christ. Women and men (often generally known as the Desert Mothers and Fathers) retreated into the desert, particularly — from the time of Anthony the Great (251-56) onwards — the deserts of Egypt. Such figures emphasised solitude and contemplation and, in his text Praktikos, Evagrius Ponticus (345-99) highlighted the liberty to hope, and the liberation from obstacles and intrusive thoughts, that such retreat allowed for.
Many later figures and movements took up this concept and made “deserts” in their very own geographical landscapes, retreating into the countryside, into mountainous areas, or to islands. For most individuals today, such everlasting retreats or solitudes are usually not possible, but they take inspiration by finding opportunities to go on retreat, or to devote small parts of their day to quiet contemplation.
Many spiritual traditions are based on certainly one of the religious rules that were designed to emphasize a selected aspect of Christian spirituality. Of all of the religious rules within the history of Christianity, none has been as influential as that written by Benedict of Nursia (c.480-547). Benedict’s blueprint was for a life balancing prayer, work, and reading in community (or, for knowledgeable monastics, as hermits).
There are a variety of orders today (each Catholic and Protestant) whose lives are based on Benedict’s rule, however the rule can also be employed as a blueprint for business or institutional structures. Several practices taught by Benedict — reminiscent of lectio divina — provide frameworks for current contemplative practice, for instance in Christian meditation.
THE next significant revolution within the spiritual lifetime of Western Christianity occurred in the beginning of the thirteenth century, when a variety of social, economic, and non secular changes coalesced to vary the landscape of spiritual practice. A spread of latest religious (and semi-religious) orders and movements emerged, perhaps most famously those related to Francis of Assisi (d.1226), who had received oral approval for his lifestyle, but in 1223 was granted formal approval for the “Later Rule” of the Lesser Brothers.
Francis’s order was not enclosed (although early orders of Franciscan-aligned nuns were), but was one during which friars — not monks — went out and worked, or begged, for his or her day by day requirements. Francis’s key teachings emphasised humility, an immersive reading of the Gospel narratives, and a way that every one creation (including the fabric world, non-human animals, and humans outcast by society) was a fraternity.
Francis is amongst the most well-liked of saints, and lots of of his followers (including Clare of Assisi and Anthony of Padua) are likewise highly regarded. Today, a variety of orders (again, each Roman Catholic and Protestant) use Francis’s rule, or those related to him or his followers; and his teachings — particularly on the environment, the economy, and marginalised people — are sometimes invoked in ethical debates.
THE religious cataclysm of the sixteenth century is commonly marked out as a big stifling point within the history of Christian spirituality, but spirituality and mysticism flourished on either side of the Reformation/s. Within the post-Tridentine Catholic tradition, perhaps the three best-known writers are the so-called Spanish mystics: Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582), and John of the Cross (1542-1591).
The founding father of the Jesuit order, Ignatius, might be best-known for his spiritual exercises — a mix of meditation and contemplation that are respectively focused on considering and feeling. The spiritual exercises are particularly popular today in spiritual direction.
A century later, in England and its civil wars, George Fox (1624-1691) preached publicly and gained followers who became the primary “Friends”. The Society of Friends broke away from the Church of England, and quickly spread to North America, and, subsequently — from the late nineteenth century — to Africa and Asia also. Quaker spirituality emphasises the immanent Christ and the God inside, and motion on the planet as an expression of 1’s spirituality.
Each of those traditions has its own distinctive flavour, and we will consider how our spiritualities today will be inspired by the various traditions of the past.
Dr Michael Hahn is Programme Leader for Postgraduate Programmes in Christian Spirituality at Sarum College.
A FIVE-part series of webinars, hosted jointly by Sarum College and the Church Times, will run from 7.30 p.m. to 9 p.m. on one Monday every month from January to May. Each webinar will likely be led by an authority on the traditions referred to: Sister Laura Swan on desert spirituality; Rowan Williams on Benedictine spirituality; Michael Hahn on Franciscan spirituality; Gillian Ahlgren on Ignatian spirituality; and Madeleine Pennington on Quaker spirituality.
The course is an element of Sarum College’s offerings within the study of Christian Spirituality, which incorporates quite a lot of stand-alone courses; a part-time MA in Christian Spirituality; and M.Phil. and Ph.D. provision on this area. The stand-alone courses in spirituality are a component of our short courses provision, which features evening webinars, and day- and weekend-long courses taught in-person, online, or hybrid, on a variety of topics concerning Christian theology, spirituality, biblical studies, and interfaith dialogue.
Contact Michael Hahn (mhahn@sarum.ac.uk) or visit the Sarum College website, sarum.ac.uk, for further details about this particular course, or any of our other programmes.
