Re-Drafting My Spiritual Formation-- Log #1: What Characterizes the Journey?

At the outset of this series of posts I need to mention two things: First, I’m a “product” of the modernity era where we trusted a lot in “absolutes” (in contrast to the post-modern, more "relativistic" era in which we now live). We’ll chew on the significance, or non-significance, of this in later posts.

And secondly, I’m also a spiritual “product” of a “fundamentalist” childhood and youth environment which gave way in college to a less rigid but still conservative “evangelical” faith and practice. Unfortunately for me, I wallowed there for almost four decades, always keeping one eye open for a faith with more substance.

Several years ago, influenced to a degree, I’m sure, by my sons’ interest and higher education accomplishments in theology and faith practice, I began to sincerely question the apparently eroding foundation of my own faith, and, increasingly, it took on a life of its own. A few of those queries I chatted about in a recent post.

This expanding interest in exploring the historical and theological foundations for my faith resulted in my reading a number of books that dealt with the topic. Among these books are The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard, Practical Divinity by Thomas Langford, Rethinking Wesley’s Theology by Randy Maddox, The Challenge of Jesus by N.T. Wright and I’m currently reading Exclusion & Embrace by Miroslav Volf.

The experience of indulging in the content of these books has profoundly affected me and has resulted in a paradigm shift in my Spiritual Formation (the foundation on which we base our faith – or lack of it).

My spiritual foundation, before the quest, consisted of a “Sunday School” Christian education in my youth plus a few college Bible courses, good as they were, and a legion of discussions with college friends and adult friends through the years, plus hundreds – maybe thousands – of sermons and even some personal and group Bible study – hardly enough for a reliable keystone.

All of this, then, precipitated my search for a faith of substance that has resulted in the current course adjustments in my spiritual voyage. In this first post, I’d like to think about the starting point for anyone’s faith journey. How does it all begin?

Most would agree it begins with a “conversion” to the faith – in our case to Christianity. But how does this happen? Is it being “saved”? Is it simply “a personal relationship with Jesus Christ”? Is it a Catechism? Is it Confirmation? Is it Baptism? Is it Holy Communion? Has conversion always been thought of consistently by the Church?

When I discovered in recent years that protestant “evangelicals”, and more pointedly “fundamentalists” of the early 20th century, had radically altered the sense of conversion during their comparatively brief history, I was taken aback.

When I further learned that the terminology “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” likely didn’t even exist – as we know it – at the time of the Reformation, I was more astounded. I make this observation not in any way to denigrate the term – it surely has valid meaning – but instead to point out the changes that have occurred in protestant “evangelicalism”.

I’m the kind of person who needs authenticity as an integral part of my spiritual formation. In examining “evangelicalism” I found its “ancestry” to be quite genuine but its “evolution” to be suspect. And here’s my reasoning.

For most of the first 15 centuries after Christ, and in mainline denominations even since the Reformation, the church considered the meaning of conversion, more or less, to be along the following lines.

A child is baptized – or christened – into the Church by a pastor or priest in the environment of caring parents and a nurturing congregation. (This purposefully ignores "Believers Baptism", which has its own symbolic connotations.)

At the age of “accountability”, about 12, when the then youth can make his or her own cognitive volitions, after going through a comprehensive "catechism", or religious training, he or she is “Confirmed”. But what is one “confirming”? According to the historical church it is confirming one’s baptism into the church – the “body” of Christ – at a point in life where the youth fully understands the meaning of his or her actions and chooses to become a follower of Christ. (This, also by design, ignores how an adult experiences "conversion", but the basic elements are parallel.)

(It is interesting to note that both Christening and Confirmation had corresponding rites in Judaism, from whence came Christianity. Also noteworthy is that it was at the age of “confirmation” that the young Jesus began engaging the spiritual leaders in the Temple, completely ignoring his parents’ plans.)

To continue in the “conversion” progression, by participating in the holy sacraments (Holy Eucharist and/or Communion) in the cultivating context of the Church, one matures in the faith. sharing the liturgies, creeds and ancient traditions. The Christian thereby becomes strengthened in the comprehension and mystery of God so he or she can live out the faith daily, and, in so doing, be the “salt of the earth”.

It seems to me that this old and traditional church concept of conversion is far more encompassing and compels much more understanding and involvement than the “evangelical” interpretation, which focuses primarily on “getting saved” – important – but then relatively ignores nurturing and maturing aspects of the faith.

Often, at the same time, evangelicals focus their endeavors on trying to create a mega-church or a Christian campus "safe haven" where they then cocoon themselves away from the world to whom they’re supposed to be a savory, co-mingling model.

In my opinion, therefore, “evangelical” Christianity, reflected by its worship, has “de-volved” into repetitive praise-choruses, piecemeal Scripture readings, "entertaining" dramas, “Power Point” computer-illustrated, projected sermon outlines and altar calls, whose varying format is determined, to a great degree, by what will “attract” the greatest number people - many of whom are dissatisfied evangelicals from other churches. Could the federation of evangelicals just be missing out on a whole gamut of meaning in traditional Christianity?

On the other hand, it is likely that evangelicals themselves don’t feel that way, as I’m sure they believe they are just as committed to and maturing in their faith as those in mainline churches.

The appearance, to me, however, is that evangelicals have become more enamored, perhaps, with a more “appealing” individualistic, “cafeteria” religion, rather than the rich, but obligatorily more demanding, traditional faith practice of two millenia.

This is not to propose that evangelicals are necessarily “wrong” or “not truly Christian”; it’s just to observe that they may be inadvertently ignoring a vast, deep reservoir of centuries of traditional faith and practice, perhaps in the interest of “popularizing” religion. But that nuance is a whole other post.

Happily, I’m finding the traditional kind of faith, with the authenticity I yearn for, in the mainline Lutheran Church we’ve been attending. And it’s radically enriching the meaning of my journey.