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Prominent Reformed Evangelical Promotes Medieval Mystics
This headline seems to fall in the "man bites dog" category. From a professor (also dean and VP) of Westminster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, we expect precise articulations of Reformed doctrine. Defenses of biblical inerrancy. Disquisitions on the priority of theology over experience.
We don't expect a spirited exhortation to read thousand-year-old mystical texts.
But that's just what we get in Carl Trueman's article Why Should Thoughtful Evangelicals Read the Medieval Mystics. And it's worth reading - whether you share Trueman's Reformed stance or not. In a nutshell, after acknowledging difficulties, he enumerates four reasons we should read such luminaries of the Middle Ages as Bonaventure, Hildegard of Bingen, and Julian of Norwich. For those wanting to cut to the chase, here's my brief commentary on Trueman's article.
Medieval mysticism? Surely not!
On the "con" side of the ledger, Trueman diagnoses the fact that many unchurched folks and many ill-informed Christians eat up paperback editions of the mystics because they are seeking an antidote to what they see as the excessively propositional faith of conservative churches. Living in a world in which "experience is the hallmark of authenticity," such readers take the mystics' experience to be "separable from or prior to religious belief," and this attracts and comforts them.
Trueman likens this doctrine-allergic view of religious experience to such deceptive, escapist indulgences as "the increasingly fabulous special effects of movies" or "the intricate, kaleidoscopic plots of fantasy novels." The mystics' "highly symbolic and visionary manner of expression appeals to a world tired of propositions." A superficial reading of the mystics allows such readers to dabble in the transcendent without submitting themselves to the rigors of biblical faith.
I'll go at least partway with Trueman on this. An intellectually incoherent Christian religious experience is an experience that frankly is not very deep - it is not grounded in the truth of the gospel! I don't believe you have to be an intellectual to be a faithful Christian (a belief that has often seemed to hover around the Reformed intellectuals I have met, akin to the kind of charismatic elitism that says you have to speak in tongues to be a faithful Christian). But you do, at least to reach the maturity that eats meat rather than sucking on a bottle of spiritual milk, have to have a firm grasp on the shape and content of the gospel testimony.
Other readers, adds Trueman, want to hold up the mystics as precedents and paragons for the enterprises of environmental theology and feminist theology. His antipathy to these enterprises goes well beyond mine (I'd say these are important theological conversations that can and must address some of the unpaid bills of Western theology), but it's an interesting point.
Yes, Virginia, there are theologically grounded mystics
Despite these problems with how many folks read the mystics, Trueman believes the pros outweigh the cons: "I think the medieval mystics should form a staple of the literary diet of all thoughtful Christians," he says. Why?
First, Trueman says that Christians today "live in a casual age when we stroll flippantly in and out of God's presence." We should read the mystics as a pointer toward our lost "sense of God's holiness and transcendence." I'm partially with him here: I once attended the service of a charismatic church in Massachusetts in which the communion elements were placed on a chair at the front of the gymnasium-cum-sanctuary, and while a song played, people came up to partake as and when they felt like it. All very well, but some of the children seemed to think the bread, wadded up, made neat projectiles, and the juice was good enough to merit coming back for seconds and thirds. No parent or other adult seem to feel it was important to intervene and correct these childlike impressions. This level of informality bespoke, to me, the kind of flippancy Trueman is addressing here.
However, although I've often seen Trueman's Reformed compatriots issue blanket condemnations of charismatic churches for treating God as a buddy, singing about self rather than God, failing to revere God's holiness, and so forth, my experience in such churches has usually been the opposite. That is, expressions of worship which may seem flippant or content-less to the "cultured despisers" - perhaps because expressive churches are often unschooled in the niceties of doctrine - have in fact been deeply God-centered. They have impressed on me thoughts of God's transcendence that are both sublime and reverent. And interestingly, this seems to be something like what Trueman is saying: mystical modes of experience can indeed lead us into a deeper sense of God's holiness and transcendence, and reading the medieval mystics can be one route to that deepening (as charismatic worship can be another such route).
Second, Trueman points out that Christian mysticism has not historically meant chucking robust theological understanding or doctrinal fidelity out the window. His Exhibit A is Thomas Aquinas, but you can go to the writings of almost any medieval mystic and see that for them, experience "is ineradicably doctrinal and connected to distinct beliefs." Of course, as he notes, some of those beliefs would not be shared by Reformed evangelicals. But the point is that their experiences were tied to and structured around their theological understandings of the biblical witness. Truth first, experience after. I am less insistent on this priority than Trueman and others who share his Reformed convictions. But I agree that the mystics' experiences and their devotional writings are thoroughly grounded in doctrine and Scripture.
Third, medieval mystics often practiced apophatic or "negative" theology, which turns some evangelicals off: We want to emphasize the "positive" statements about God found in Scripture - specific revelations about his character, his relationship with humanity, and the nature of his economic Trinity as he sets about repairing that relationship. Nonetheless, when it comes to the mysteries of the immanent Trinity, we share the mystics' apophatic bent, whether we know it or not. Words we use about God's essential nature, which we think fall into the category of positive, concrete statements about God, turn out to be negations: "Infinite means without limits. Impassible and immutable mean without suffering or change," and so forth.
And, I would add, beyond this apophatic bent of our own theological language, most modern evangelicals have a common-sense understanding of the "fragility and inadequacy of language" to address "the transcendent mystery of God." This is not a problem for us, and it should not put us off of reading the mystics that they sometimes press this claim of ineffability when talking about their experiences. As Trueman puts it, "medieval mysticism is sometimes closer to our theology than we realize."
Reading the mystics as preparation for evangelism
Fourth and finally, Trueman finds a most compelling reason for us to read the mystics in the very fact that many unchurched and anti-church folk are reading them. These are books, as he points out, available in popular Penguin editions at any major bookstore. You don't have to look to "specialist presses that serve the narrow evangelical community" to find these mystics.
Returning to his opening remarks, Trueman concludes that "in an age that craves transcendence and mystery to lift it above the banality of a bankrupt consumerism, these authors seem to have struck a chord." Those who are reading them are probably not "reading them aright." But don't let that stop you from looking at the books read by the disaffected and the anti-church - books that "shape their spiritual aspirations" and feed their "critique of contemporary church life." In the end, "an acquaintance with the medieval mystics will not just enhance your knowledge of the Middle Ages; it may also equip you better to reach out to the lost souls of the current generation."
Amen!
Now the question is, to which modern evangelical specialists in medieval Christianity can we turn for interpretive assistance as we read the mystics?
That's easy, we'll read Doctor . . .
Umm, we'll go to Professor . . .
Hmm. Tom Oden, Christopher Hall, D. H. Williams,. . . It seems that these and most other scholars who agree with Bob Webber that "the path to the church's future runs through our past" are convinced that all the good stuff is to be found in the first six centuries of the church. The unspoken, but nonetheless potent assumption seems to be that after, say, Gregory the Great, the church becomes so hopelessly corrupt as to be more toxic than nourishing as a resource for modern Christians.
But if Carl Trueman of Westminster Theological Seminary says that not all the good stuff is to be found in the church's first few centuries, then I won't disagree!
So who do we turn to for guidance in this area?
There are a few evangelical scholars specializing in medieval Christianity, but books on this period from evangelical presses are still thin on the ground.
Likewise, a few evangelical seminaries offer courses on the medieval church as a discrete topic, and not just as fly-over country hurried through by the professor in the midst of the church history survey course. But in our seminaries these voices are all but drowned out by the chorus of Reformation and early church history courses, which in turn are drowned out by the deafening roar of biblical studies courses.
In other words, evangelicals seem very little attuned to the medieval period, apart from a small minority of scholars and a small but growing interest in medieval spirituality, led by such authors as Richard Foster and Dallas Willard.
So what do you think? Is Trueman right? Should the medieval mystics "form a staple of the literary diet of all thoughtful Christians"? I'd love to hear from you on this.
Christian History and Biography explored the Middle Ages in 10 of its 99 issues. Explore those issues here.
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Comments
I say "Amen" to that, not so much because the medieval mystics are mystical as because they are medieval, and I'd like to benefit from my brothers and sisters in all eras of the church.
What I would like is a "Medieval [Western] Christian Commentary on Scripture" along the lines of the Ancient Christian Commentary published by IVP. Then when that easy task gets polished off, a "Reformation Christian Commentary," then a "17th- and 18th-Century Puritan, Pietist, and Evangelical Christian Commentary," and so on. Piece of cake, right?
Posted By: Cory Hartman | December 13, 2008 11:03 AM
I was actually thinking recently that we need to regain the Middle Ages. A Catholic friend and I realised in the midst of a course on Medieval Society that Medieval Man was simply the Postmodern Person -- only Christian! Medieval writers, I believe, will help guide through an age of uncertainty with truer bearings and a footing in Scripture.
We Protestants ought not to fear the mediaeval mystics. Luther, besides being impacted by the Early Church, was powerfully impacted by St. Bernard and St. Thomas a Kempis; the latter was also an influence on the Wesleys. I welcome this news and hope to find serious inquiry into the Middle Ages and Medieval Mysticism growing!
One last note: Edith M. Humphrey, in Ecstasy and Intimacy gives a brief run-through of major "spiritual theologians", stopping off in the Middle Ages for Julian of Norwich and Thomas a Kempis. Another Anglican, Benedicta Ward, has written about Anglo-Saxon spirituality and produced a translation of the prayers and meditations of St. Anselm.
Posted By: Matthew H | December 13, 2008 12:13 PM
Brilliant article! I have been a Christian for many years in a more "relaxed" style church setting. Many here would fall into the trap of following mystics but not have the grounding in the word to discern those things which were simply points of the past.
I also spent years in the more conservative "faith" style church. Here I found many who did not know Christian history, and were not even curious as to the foundations of the beginnings of the faith which they profess!
Lastly, I did not find anywhere where the awesome respect for God's Holiness was really present in a congregation wide sense. I never found that church where there was a deffinate line of "pass this threshold and enter into God's holy sanctuary".
People were just as freely seeking their own thoughts and conversations after they've entered and even during the time supposed to be devoted to God.
I now am a charismatic Christian who worships at a Catholic church. (I witness no Mary worship in my particular church) It provides me personally with what I expect a sanctuary which is set apart for God to be. And the people enter early, prepared, kneel and pray before God individually and corparatly.
I personally have been challenged to live a semi-monastic lifestyle and have a blog which explains further.
http://orderofchristiansisters.blogspot.com/
Posted By: Sister Anna | December 13, 2008 12:14 PM
The medieval mystics that can be read are, of course, the few(?) that wrote and whose writings have been preserved over the centuries. There may have been many who would have been at home "in a casual age when we stroll flippantly in and out of God's presence," but would they be inclined to write and would others preserve what they wrote? If human nature hasn't changed, shouldn't there be some percentage of modern Christian mystics who are writing?
Posted By: Lauston Stephens | December 13, 2008 3:53 PM
Of course! They are our spiritual forebears who wrote down the fruits of their personal relationships with God to share with us who came after. They can't help when they were born or the condition the church was in when they wrote any more than we can here and now. In fact, it's quite biblical to expect that the Holy Spirit invested some kind of talent in them designed to address the spiritual needs of the time. And isn't it logical to search them for treasures of value not only to our own era in church history but to our personal devotions?
I was raised a Methodist, became a charismatic in college and am now a member of an evangelical church married to a Spirit-filled Catholic. My prayer life has been touched by John of the Cross, Catherine Dougherty, Watchman Nee, Therese of Lisieux, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Basilea Schlink, Julian of Norwich, Brother Lawrence, The Way of the Pilgrim.... and I'm really excited to start in on John Woolman (whom I found out about through CH.net!). The longer the Lord tarries, the fuller the treasure box.
I am an active evangelical today because I have a sense of personal placement within an enormous tapestry of Christian history and geography. And from where I stand, it's my opinion (I'll give it no more weight than that) that Trueman's doctrinal warnings are an essential voice in the whole mind of the Church. But any single vantage that is taken for the whole picture will always lead its followers with a limp or worse. I'm delighted to know that reformed scholarship has cracked a door to the mystics, even with reservations. And I see no reason to avoid modern Catholic commentary on them. Bert Ghezzi's books have helped make many otherwise goofy saints quite accessible to me. And although I've only read other things by Ralph Martin so far, I won't hesitate to read his material on Catherine of Siena should I decide to tackle her writings.
Posted By: Martha | December 13, 2008 6:12 PM
As a bit of a history buff, I'd purely love a chance to get to know more about this period of history. One of my first tastes of it was a biography of Teresa of Avila that I still remember well. But considering that many of those I've listened to from the Reformed side don't think that WOMEN have much to say, well, I'll admit to being surprised that they're reading things like Hildegard of Bingen!
Is that just me?
Posted By: DJ Knight | December 13, 2008 6:48 PM
I think I'll like this blog...
Martha, I'm a firm complementarian and I'd love for you to note that there is a difference between believing that men should be doing the "heavy lifting" in church leadership - administering the word and sacraments; and believing that women have "not much to say".
Thanks...I've been seeking guidance on the best place to start with the early church and I'm attracted to the mysticism.
Posted By: MzEllen | December 14, 2008 12:22 PM
I think Trueman is mistaken when he assumes that those who read Hildegard and Julian are unchurched; based on my experience as a bookseller with knowledge of both the new age and liturgical Christian markets, the writings of the Christian mystics are far more popular among Catholics and Episcopalians (and, increasingly, the Emerging crowd) than among new agers or secularists. But he's dead on in terms of how Christian mysticism is deeply embedded in theological values and knowledge. Eastern Orthodox Christianity never suffered the split between "spirituality" and "theology" that has dogged the west, where the Reformation led to a growing suspicion of "experience" on both sides of the Catholic/Protestant divide. I think today's Postmodern world where propositional truth has been eschewed in favor of "experience" might be a reaction against that split. Perhaps if more evangelicals read the mystics — and more Catholics read the Bible — a deep ecumenism where spiritual experience that is truly embedded in doctrine might lead us to that place where our "sad divisions cease."
Posted By: Carl McColman | December 14, 2008 2:26 PM
To DJ Knight who wrote so blithely on my 70th birthday that "men should be doing the "heavy lifting" in church leadership - administering the word and sacraments;" my question is "why?". When women join in the "heavy lifting" we benefit from new and exciting views of our faith. But then again, if we truly respect women in this way, who will we ask to do the real "heavy lifting" of running everything in the church from garbage removal to secretarial work to the altar guild? How many men do this type of work in your church?
Posted By: Lynn Brubaker | December 16, 2008 5:59 AM
I am a life long evangelical exploring the ancient churches and leaning toward Eastern Orthodoxy. Orthodox writers seem to have a beautiful mix of dogmatic and mystical theology.(Lossky would say that all theology is mystical). But they do not compartmentalize things (now we feel, now we reason) All of life is sacramental, yet everything is contantly underlied with the foundation of precise Conciliar statements of truth. Fine tuned Trinitarian and Christological theology wed to a constant longing to partake of the divine nature, as St.Peter mentioned. Here's an analogy I have used:
If God were compared to a large lake or oasis, I as a Reformed protestant would likely carefully walk down the shore with shoes on scrutinizing the surroundings. I would take a jar, put some water into it and take it home to my personal spiritual lab for testing. Then I would allow my sample to be analyzed by my favorite spiritual scientists (exegetes) and once that was complete, I would write a paper to show my testing results to others for their cognitive pleasure. The Orthodox would be more interested in tossing the shoes, running down the beach, hitting the water face first, immersing themselves, and slaking every thirst of both soul and body with deep refreshing gulps. Now I know that they have just as many disinterested, lifelong, casual members as anyone else, but it seems to me that everything is in place for the people of God to experience him deeply in sacrament, ancient liturgy, reverent and rich worship that engages all the senses, and a deep abiding foundation of belief that is not subject to the whims of personality.
Pax Christi,
Darrin
Posted By: Canadian | December 18, 2008 2:42 AM
Your RSS feed is showing all kinds of HTML tags in my feed reader. Can something be done?
Posted By: David Troidl | January 9, 2009 4:52 PM
To supplement much of what you have been saying, please refer to this website as well http://christianmysticism-warning.blogspot.com/
Posted By: Whistleblower | September 28, 2009 6:20 AM
Charismatic Christians in particular, and evangelicals in general, have felt the spirit, have known God's presence, share in the universal joy of divine life. So have mystics, in mediaeval times and today. We often get so caught up in the terminology, the concepts, the names that we cannot feel the spiritual essence which unites not just humanity, but all of creation. For years, and even now, most Protestants have rejected mysticism, as do most Jews, Muslims and atheists. How can we dismiss the most fundamental teaching of Jesus: "the Kingdom of God is within us."
Posted By: Ron Krumpos | February 18, 2010 2:35 PM