AUTHOR: Christopher W. Morgan
PUBLISHER: Wheaton, IL: Crossway Publishers, 2019, (304 pages)
Paul R House gives us a view of spirituality based on the Imago Dei, the Image of God, contending that we need lifelong learning and practice in order to attain the fullest versions of ourselves to reflect God's Image. Charles L Quarles looks at the New Creation Spirituality, to help us see the way Jesus has transformed our spirituality. On our own, we can never attain true spirituality. Quarles covers a lot of ground pertaining to the role of Jesus transforming us through the many teachings in the gospels. Benjamin M Skaug and Christopher W Morgan looks at the spirituality from Paul's perspective. In particular, they examine Paul's inner tensions between knowing the good he ought to do and battling the evil he ought not to do. These tensions personify the clash between the effects of sin and the purpose of humankind. They examine six different kinds of tensions based on Romans 6-8. Christopher W Morgan adds to Paul's spirituality with a look at James's "Integrated Spirituality." He argues from four different passages in James to help us connect faith and works; faith and trials; personal holiness and community love; teachings and church health. He sums up the integrated spirituality as loving one another through words and deeds. George H Guthrie describes biblical spirituality from the holiness angle. For a Holy God requires holiness in us. The five dynamics of holy walk are described as: holy presence; holy space; holy time; holy sacrifice and cleansing; holy words. Anthony L Chute brings us a heritage of evangelical spirituality using six famous historical persons: Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Owen, John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, and JC Ryle. Using Titus 2:11-14 as his framework, Chute is able to draw in the specific spiritual emphasis of each character. Nathan A Finn follows up with spiritualities from the Christian Tradition, asking how each of these traditions have approached holiness. He first compares and contrasts the Roman Catholic and the Protestant traditions. In the second half of his work, he shows us the three evangelical traditions: Born again; Born in the Spirit; and Spiritual Disciplines. Gregg R Allison deals with how to bridge the "great divide" between the material and the immaterial; body and spirit; etc. He goes into the history of dualism followed by the need for disciplines to train our practice of embodied spirituality. He even shows us the importance of physical health as part of holistic spirituality. Finally, Gregory C Cochran concludes with an article on "Spirituality and our Work." He shares with us the principle of honoring all work as valuable to God; expect God to bless our work; to esteem others in our work; and to avoid the futility and vanity of work.
My Thoughts
In a world where some say everything is spiritual, Christopher W Morgan and his fellow contributors have helped us bring true spirituality down to earth. We see it incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ. We are reminded that God is holy and we are called to be holy. We appreciate the history and traditions behind each spiritual emphasis. We understand how the present focus on disciplines is just part of the bigger picture of biblical spirituality. Let me offer three thoughts on this book.
First, the contributors are spot on to anchor all the spiritualities on the Bible. True spirituality is biblical spirituality. This is important because nobody can invent spirituality on their own. Spiritual things must be revealed to us by the Spirit. The contributors are all convicted in the centrality of the gospel. This enables them to explore the trajectory of spirituality from the many different angles: Historical, Contextual, Evangelical views, work, etc. Without an anchor, it is easy to head in all kinds of direction. Thankfully, the revealed Word of God gives us the needed platform to discuss biblical spirituality.
Second, this book is an exercise in integrated spirituality. All the contributors play their role in ensuring that there is a unified perspective with regard to their treatment of spirituality. The pattern is similar throughout. Each contributor comes with a central big idea in their articles. In spite of the diversity of ideas, they frequently come back to this center, that God is Creator, God is holy, God is the reason we live for. We are also reminded that spirituality is not only the domain of spiritual disciplines. Throughout history, spirituality has already been practiced, albeit in a different format and manner.
Finally, this book is practical. A book like this may be written by academics and theologians, but there are ample examples of how we should live our spiritualities. I credit this to the authors' care to use simple layman language in their writings. The doctrinal material in the book are properly described with easy to understand terms.
All in all, I warmly recommend this book for reading and for reference for any believer wanting to grow spiritually.
Christopher W Morgan is professor of theology and the dean of the School of Christian Ministries at California Baptist University.
Rating: 4.5 stars of 5.
conrade
This book has been provided courtesy of Crossway Publishers and NetGalley without requiring a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.
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