I’m currently reading a book entitled The Spirituality of the Cross: The Way of the First Evangelicals
By “spirituality,” I do not mean any kind of content-free, theologically-vacuous quest for transcendent experiences for their own sake. Rather, “spirituality” has to do precisely with the content, what fills abstract theology, mundane institutions, and the everyday life of the Christian with their real substance.
The quest for this kind of spirituality is, I think, genuine and important. Many people today, in our shallow, mass-produced, materialistic culture, yearn for depth, for richness, for transcendence. Many do not even find spiritual substance in their churches, many of which have adopted the slick superficialities and manipulative commercialism of American pop culture, mutating into what can only be described as pop-Christianity. Interestingly, many casualties of pop-Christianity are drifting into older faiths that do seem to offer a measure of spiritual substance. A huge exodus is taking place from Protestantism into the Roman Catholic Church and, perhaps even more significantly, into Eastern Orthodoxy (p. 14).
In the past I’ve written that for most folks in our society, it is cool to search for God, but it’s not so cool to find Him, but the meaningless fad “spirituality” that our culture seems obsessed with seems to run deeper than just our culture. This culture has also permeated the church. I myself have even spoken with an Eastern Orthodox priest and my wife and I attended a young adult ministry of the Roman Catholic Church. Why? Because we have been yearning for substance, not the fluff that consumes our culture and most Protestant churches.
Much of American Protestantism has become little more than another false religion on the smorgasbord of faith groups, because it has drifted into moralism, speculation, and/or mysticism – all which are us striving towards God. But the reality of true Christian spirituality is that all human effort to reach God is futile. Christianity is all about what God does, not what we do.
Fluffy teaching may show me how to be positive, it may even help me become a better person. The Law is good at making us feel guilty about our sins and eager to try harder next time. The problem is, we always fail. We can never be good enough. That’s why we also need to hear the Gospel: Jesus Christ was credited with our sins and we are credited with His righteousness. What gets us into heaven isn’t how good we are, it’s how perfect Jesus is. Teaching with real substance uses the Law to show me my sin, but then shows me my Savior through the Gospel.
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We’ve definitely witnessed lots of people embark on that kind of “content-free, theologically-vacuous quest for transcendent experiences for their own sake”, and we’ve certainly encountered a fair share of “pop-Christianity” as well! There does definitely seem to be a sort of cause/effect type of thing going on there, whereby many people who gag on the superficiality of consumeristic Christianity, wind up turning to things like Jewish mysticism or something else that seems more ancient and “deep-rooted”, when compared to the types of faith-expression that are mainly centered around entertainment…
I was a little confused by the quote though, as I wasn’t sure exactly what point he is making there. Is the author saying that the “huge exodus is taking place from Protestantism into the Roman Catholic Church and, perhaps even more significantly, into Eastern Orthodoxy” is an example of people actually finding genuine spirituality, or just chasing after another type of vacuous, transcendant type of experience?
From our perspective, we’ve found the “stability” of Catholic liturgy or ancient Orthodox ritual to be more or less just as empty as pop-culture Christianity. Kind of like they’re on the two opposite, extreme ends on the spectrum.
The living, resurrected Jesus is all the substance we need! Amen?
This is also a quality read.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/luther/galatians.toc.html
I have read Vieths books several times. It is a good read.
This is another one.
http://www.lutherantheology.com/uploads/works/walther/LG/
As I look at the Church Culture it is wanting microwave matuiruty/ fixes not Spiritual disciplines for life.
Yes Daniel, the author’s point is that people shouldn’t have to leave Protestantism to find substance. He certainly isn’t defending the Roman Catholic nor Eastern Orthodox faiths. Roman Catholicism often slips into moralism, while Eastern Orthodoxy is heavily entrenched in mysticism – both simply being ways that we strive for God. The author is making the point that Protestantism originally focused entirely on how God reaches for us, not vice versa. The author makes it clear that this doesn’t seem to be happening anymore and argues for a return to the way of the “first evangelicals,” the original followers of the Protestant movement. These followers broke away from the molds and desired to simply follow Christ and focus everything on Him, not on anything else. While the book is distinctly Lutheran (Luther essentially began the Protestant reformation), the content is written towards grasping Christian “spirituality,” not religion. It is written by a “layperson” (I despise the term but it serves my point), not a pastor or theologian. I really resonate with the Lutheran beliefs/doctrine, I’m just not so keen on how they practice their faith. If you read a lot of the early literature of the Protestant movement, it really is very similar to how many organic church advocates think today. Unfortunately much of modern Lutheranism (as well as most Christendom) has moved away from many of these ideals.
Sounds like a pretty interesting book, thanks for taking the time to break that down for me…
your bro, D