While writing my last post, one phrase used over and over by Hybels and Hawkins has been sticking in my brain: “spiritual journey.” There’s nothing uniquely Willow Creek about this term, it’s pretty much everywhere you look when it comes to American spirituality. Christian or otherwise, everyone’s talking about their spiritual journey; it’s as much a New Age term as anything else.
So, some rambling thoughts on the phrase: Is this a term Christians should be using? Does “spiritual journey” really capture the Christian hope in the resurrection of the body, the restoration of earth and heaven, the union with the Christ and all saints? The journey underscored by Christ and the disciples isn’t some sort of traversal of higher planes of Christian understanding, but a move from life to death to new life. And I mean physically, too.
To my ears, these words have lost a lot of their saltiness. In the context of the video clips Willow Creek leadership summit, they somehow sounded more gnostic and narcissistic than Christian.
Eugene Peterson has done a lot of work in his writing to recover this phrase, and really to recover the word “spirituality” in general. I highly recommend his books “Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places,” “Eat This Book,” and “The Jesus Way” on the subject.
Peterson’s primary thrust is that you can’t go talking about spirituality without talking about a Christianity that’s lived. Not lived in the sense of a life that follows some sort of principles for success, but a Christianity that’s lived in places, conversations, meals, lived while driving the minivan, walking the dog, tending to your sick children, getting up and going to work and coming back and lying down again. That’s not to say the Christian spiritual journey is the “same old” life. No, but it’s life where the journey happens, life shaped by the cross.
Maybe it’s worth saying that the Christian spiritual journey has more to do with waiting than escaping. The Apostle Paul’s image of the long and painful footrace of perseverance is also a good one, if you can put yourself in the mind of the runner trudging along mile after mile, and not the spectator tuning in only to catch him crossing the finish line.
Yes, waiting.
I love how Paul encapsulates the Christian life at the end of 1 Thess 1: His beloved disciples had turned from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, who saves us from the coming wrath. In 1 Cor, he sums up the gospel as “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and was raised, according to the Scriptures.”
All of sanctification could be summed up by “waiting”. Our pastor talks about sanctification as having a “reserved” tag on our shirts–we’ve put all our chips on Christ’s second advent, and our distinct way of being-in-the-world is marked by this reservedness, this waiting, this hope of glory.
All this renders the jargon of “spiritual journey” pretty vacuous. Are you preparing your disciples for an eternal weight of glory? Or are you helping them become more excited about their spiritual journey? Good grief.
I’ve been thinking about something similar, Rob. I read a book called Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain by Dr. Elio Frattaroli, which is about psychotherapy. The relevant piece is that he talks about therapists having two primary dominant metaphors, the swimming pool and the journey. For those with the former core metaphor, life is like swimming laps in a pool, you keep your head down, occasionally bump into other people, and try not to drown. On the other hand, those with a dominant journey metaphor think of life as an adventure, presumably with themselves as the hero, with excitement and opportunity around every corner.
As I read Roman Catholic doctrine (most notably the recent Catechism), I’m struck with what appears to be a journey orientation. Or even better, an ascent metaphor. The Eastern Orthodox are much more explicit about this with their notion of theosis, but it certainly seems to be there in RC teaching as well.
For American Evangelicals, it seems that the journey metaphor is dominant, though not in as much in the sense of an ascent. I don’t know how to articulate this entirely, but it seems as if there is a sense in which people expect “growth” and “sanctification” to include, perhaps not secret knowledge, but maybe, secret feelings or secret insight. People expect change in their spiritual lives. Granted that change is inevitable, but I’m wondering if this has anything to do with the willingness of people to follow fads and change church bodies so readily.
The swimming pool metaphor that Frattaroli uses as a counterpoint is certainly not satisfying as an alternative, though, and I think this might be the alternative that people imagine when thinking about what Lutheran’s mean when they say ‘vocation.’ Life becomes a drudgery that you endure for the sake of “being faithful to your callings.” It’s interesting to me that Dr. Luther teaches the Lord’s Prayer, the Decalogue, the Creed and the Sacraments as a lifetime practice. It’s as if his metaphor is of a defensive war. Spiritual warfare in a journey orientation is seeking out the enemy and attacking whatever cultural vestige he may take, whereas in the defensive metaphor, we are to repair the walls and let our Champion fight.
I know that the metaphor breaks down and can become escapist, but I think it might fit with the idea of waiting that you expressed. I’d like to hear your thoughts.
By the way, from my perspective, our metaphors are extremely important because they shape how we think, even when they are not consciously engaged. This is why I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how important it is to steep your mind in the scriptures (tea bag metaphor). When your mind becomes so saturated with the words of God, it certainly influences how we see everything.
Andy, I like that “reserved” tag idea. Fits nicely with the idea that baptism places a seal on us that marks us as belonging to Christ.
Funny, I just had to read an excerpted chapter today from a book called Metaphors we Live By by Lackoff and Johnson. It’s in the philosophy of language literature.