I’ve continued to kick around the ideas I put down in this post about the use of the phrase “spiritual journey,” and the journey metaphor as a way of understanding our lives as people of faith: It seems to me that the idea of a journey isn’t really a bad one–there’s enough mention in scripture of similar terms–but it’s the idea of my spiritual journey that really messes things up. God is certainly taking us somewhere–as he took the Israelites out of bondage, etc.–but it’s us, not me.
Spiritual growth (sanctification) is never an independent project. All of scripture’s sanctification language is inclusive, rather than exclusive: People of God, the church as body of Christ, the vine/branches metaphor, the list goes on.
Scripture’s sanctification language is also relational. This is fitting for a religion that worships a God-in-three-Persons; God-in-Communion. The Church is called the bride of Christ, we are called sons and daughters of God. Indeed, we cannot come to know Christ apart from the work of the Church, and knowing Christ means union with Christ.
Lutherans talk about the church as the “priesthood of all believers”. As Dr. Wollenburg has written:
Individual members of the priesthood receive their identity when the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is put upon them. The nature and character of the royal priesthood is that of a community or society. The identity of each member of the priesthood is determined by his or her relationship to the community in which God lives with his Spirit (Eph. 2:22). In contrast to idolatrous baalism, paganism, animistic religions, and gnosticism, both ancient and modern, no one can know or belong to God as an isolated individual. The worship of the community of the priesthood is not a crowd of individuals coming together, each to have his own religious experience.
In this light, the language of “personal spiritual growth plans” to help on “your spiritual journey,” is really counter-Christian, regardless of the appeal to a culture defined by its icons of segmentation. If I want my family to participate in music together, I give them all instruments, not iPods.
Our sanctification is in communion with Christ and His Church. This doesn’t mean that individuals can’t each be at different places in a life of sanctification. Quite the opposite–the diversity-within-unity of the church is what makes it a community, and the blood of Christ for all is what makes it His bride and body.
I’ve been reading your thoughts on the journey, and I know where you’re coming from, having grown up in similar types of churches to those you’ve described. I think the journey mindset can cause people to be self-centered, because you are simply focused on your own growth and change and new insights and all that jazz.
We’ve been attending a Presbyterian church for several months now, and the huge difference I’ve noticed between our new church and all the ones I attended growing up is the focus on families – the family unit and how it relates to God’s plan for his people and for the spread of his gospel. They put a LOT of emphasis on this – sometimes too much, in my mind – but it’s been really good for me to hear. It’s given me a new respect and appreciation for the biblical roles of husbands, wives, parents, children. They also emphasize how the family fits in with the church as a whole. I’ve noticed that the pastor always refers to my husband when we’re around. He speaks with me, but his focus is always on Davy when he’s introducing us, talking to us, etc. I have to admit, it kind of bothers me, because I’m not used to it. And I say this to my shame – I know my attitude isn’t godly. It makes sense for him to address the head of our family when he’s speaking to or about our family.
Hm, slight tangent there.
I wonder if some of the “life as a journey” mindset stemmed from “Pilgrim’s Progress”? Obviously that’s been a very influential book, and its basic premise is the spiritual journey of an individual.
Anyway, good thoughts.
Kristy
You know, I have to say that I’m pretty tired of hearing about this GREAT either/or of communal/individual salvation, spiritual journey, conversion, relationship with God, union with Christ, etc.
I’m all into the speech about community. But I’m alone a lot of the time. Lots of my day is spent in my own little world. And even when people are working around lots of other people, in our late capitalist society, they may be even more alone in such settings than I am when I’m holed up in my study all day.
It’s actually quite comforting to me to know that Jesus loves ME. Sure he loves his bride, and I’m not his bride, exactly. But I’m his and he’s mine.
Not everything in the NT, or even in the OT, can or must be read with a heavy-handed “NOW, DON’T ABSTRACT THIS INDIVIDUALISTIC-SOUNDING COMMENT ABOUT ME AND JESUS FROM THIS INDIVIDUAL’S COMMUNAL IDENTITY” hermeneutical grid. Can’t we just say that we affirm both the one AND the many, and that both are absolutely vital. If you don’t pray on your own, you probably aren’t a Christian.
Now, this sounds harsh—I know. This doesn’t mean that I don’t think this business about “personal spiritual growth plans” isn’t ludicrous. I’m just saying that what I hate about it is the business metaphor that undergirds the whole discussion among the Willow gurus. I don’t hate—and will absolutely never talk negatively—about folks who are more mature in Christ taking less mature folks under their wings and bringing particular aspects of the glorious gospel message to bear on their particular circumstances. And I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with gaining fresh insight from God’s word that helps us live individually and communally in a more genuinely human way.
Other than those things, great points!
Forgive the sloppiness of that comment, along with its “more polemical than thou” tone. It came as my one and only independent thought sandwiched between grading 90 HIST 102 exams and a 3am retirement to bed.
I explained myself poorly, but my point here was not to say that we should never talk about Christians as individuals. The thing I’m trying to get across is that within this lonely late capitalist society, we have a tendency to eliminate the communal and privatize as much as possible, including spirituality. The metaphors of scripture sound foreign and odd to ears that have been raised by television advertisements and individual personality tests. But those metaphors under gird a theology of community that can’t be lost–in fact, that theology just might crack through some of the evils of this present age.
A lonely people won’t be made whole by a lonely theology.
I absolutely agree. I just think we should give equal time to all three realities: the Christian, the church, and the Christian-in-communion. Scripture has plenty of time for each, I think. And this diversity of categories helps hold all of them together and underscore the fact that if you don’t have all three, you don’t have any of them. While fresh theologizing and even polemicizing is necessary as we respond to the peculiarities of our time (i.e., the lonely individualistic times we live in), I just don’t want to be overly reactionary to the point of reductionism. The Emergent Church and the NT Wright movement, it seems to me, both have great critiques of the “individual comes first and then maybe later we’ll talk about the church”. But I don’t think it’s wise to go the other way round completely and say “the only dynamic religious identity the bible contenances is a communal one”. We need to think of these three relations—individual/God; church/God; communning individuals/God—in the way that we think of the Trinity.
By the way, I’m finally getting round to the lectures and interviews of NT Wright in the latter half of the MP3 CD you gave me. Very juicy; very provocative.