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Proleptic spiritual transformation: Living in the not yet

This doctoral work has been removed to make it more accessible in book form as Relationship Is the Transformative space.

Present Practice And Implications

Much of the present day spiritual discipline and practice owes its foundations to the early mystical fathers and mothers and their developments over more than a thousand years (from Origen [c. 180-254] to Catherine of Siena [1347-1389]). The single common practice was to seek a state of prayer without ceasing—to bring themselves into intimate communion and union with God.[1] There are, now, active monasteries and various religious orders that continue this goal, along with other practices, with strict adherence to their predecessors’ ways of life. In fact, there is an evident need for a reapplication or regaining of the early practices, many associated with mysticism. The shallow living of most Christians and the church at large give no alternative to a world’s increasing desire for the spiritual. Spirituality is an increasing awareness and growing industry among the Western satiates and the world’s never-ending have-nots.[2]

The Catholic, Protestant, and various Orthodox churches all have many religious orders, teachers, and practitioners of the mystical ways. Yet there seems to be a dearth of evidence of any general or large examples of encounter with God and subsequent kingdom of God living (Matthew 5-7). Such a living should result from an encounter with the living God. Yet this testimony is lacking in this dark and dieing world. The light and salt of the Christian testimony is too often absent from the affairs of this world and rather supplanted by the abusive and godless powers of this world.

To slake the desires and needs of the multitudes, the church must first begin to answer the departing call of the Lord Jesus Christ: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20 [italics the author’s]). It is such a discipled church—practicing the presence of God and living from the very being of God—which they have experienced. It is such a church peopled with these kinds of disciples that is equipped to make disciples and not simply converts.

Rowan Williams speaks to a profound, but most often overlooked, need among the members of the body of Christ. It is selfless, even self-humbling, and enabling discipline to facilitate the opportunity for others to encounter the life-giving presence of God. He is speaking of discipling.

What if the real criteria for a properly functioning common life, for social existence in its fullness, had to do with this business of connecting each other with life-giving reality, with the possibility of reconciliation or wholeness? What if the deepest threat to life together were standing in the way of another person’s discovery of wholeness by insistent clinging to self-justification? Our success . . . would be measured only in the degree to which those around us were discovering a way to truth and life. . . .[3]

It is a loving of “your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39b) that is illustrated by Williams in these questions. The mystic’s goal is not isolation and only self-serving but rather to be equipped to love God and neighbor. Having missed this mark the mystic’s efforts are simply self-aggrandizement. Facilitating and loving others into the presence of God is being the good neighbor. This is loving “your neighbour as yourself.” Loving God and neighbor is to fulfill the law; it is the disciple’s expression of spiritual 

transformation.

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[1]I Rowan William, Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another and Other Lessons from the Desert Fathers (Boston, MA: New Seeds, 2005), p.160.

[2]Harvey Cox, Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality And The Reshaping of Religion in The Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2001), pp. 83, 146-147.

[3]Williams, Where God Happens, p. 25.

Good News (Rob Bell)

If the gospel isn't good news for everybody, then it isn't good news for anybody. And this is because the most powerful things happen when the church surrenders its desire to convert people and convince them to join. It is when the church gives itself away in radical acts of service and compassion, expecting nothing in return, that the way of Jesus is most vividly put on display. To do this, the church must stop thinking about everybody primarily in categories of in or out, saved or not, believer or nonbeliever. Besides the fact that these terms are offensive to those who are the "un" and "non", they work against Jesus' teachings about how we are to treat each other. Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor, and our neighbor can be anybody. We are all created in the image of God, and we are all sacred, valuable creations of God. Everybody matters. To treat people differently based on who believes what is to fail to respect the image of God in everyone. As the book of James says, "God shows no favoritism." So we don't either.--Rob Bell