sacraments

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Christian Mysticism? Calvin, Wesley and Spurgeon say ‘Yes’

A couple days ago I stumbled onto YET ANOTHER blog warning of the terrible dangers of mysticism.  Typically these sites warn of the mysticism in Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and the new emergent churches. The world is a fascinating place, and I find it ironic in the extreme that Fundamentalism, in order to protect Christianity from the modern scientific worldview, adopted the modern scientific worldview toward the Bible and the faith! Somehow these good folks are convinced that the Christian religion is a head-oriented, logical, rational set of beliefs devoid of mysticism.

No mysticism in Christianity? How about the Holy Spirit being present INSIDE believers? How about prayer? How about  communion and baptism? How about the Spirit testifying to our spirit that we are children of God? How about dreams and visions? How about the Creation itself yearning for the sons of God to be revealed? How about the Inspiration of Scripture? How about “You will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you”? Can you call all that something other than mysticism?

No, no – they say –  mysticism is part of Eastern religions.

Ummm…  Judaism and Christianity were born in the Near EAST. They ARE  Eastern religions! They aren’t French or German. Christianity actually predates Calvin and Luther.

The blog I stumbled onto traced the etymology of mysticism to ‘mystery’ – aha! The mystery cults! Uh, box canyon. Blind alley. Circular go-cart track. Etymologies don’t really prove a point in this context.

Words, you may have noticed, are like bright-eyed toddlers who refuse to sit still where you tell them to. They run all over the house – and the pandemonium gets even livelier when they collide with their Latin cousins.[1] The word ‘mystical’ has been used by Christians to describe the mystical, spiritual experiences  of Christians throughout our history. Even many of the fundamentalists’ favorites!

John Calvin speaks of “the residence of Christ in our hearts, in fine, the mystical union…”; refers to Jesus’ words at The Last Supper as “a mystical benediction” and calls our incorporation into Christ’s church “a mystical marriage” throughout his sermons and Institutes.

Charles Spurgeon uses the word these same ways, and calls both the prophet Daniel’s visions and dreams “mystic,” as well as the Apostle Paul’s experiences.

John Wesley called Psalms which pointed forward to Christ  ‘mystical references to Christ’;  any reference in Scripture to Jerusalem that he took to indicate the church he said mystically refers to the church; throughout his sermons and commentary he refers to the church as Christ’s ‘mystical’ body and believers as “members of Christ’s mystical body”;  he refers to the Mystics of his day and the Middle Ages “those pious men who are usually styled Mystics” and calls the prophetic allusions in the Old Testament “mystical promises of abundant grace poured forth in gospel-days.”

The long and short of it is this. Somehow our fundamentalist brothers and sisters have gotten the idea that mysticism is something foreign to biblical faith and Christian experience. Whatever twists and turns of history resulted in them earnestly believing this, the fact is that mysticism – mystical experiences – have always been a part of both Jewish and Christian faith, starting in the Bible.

[1] Thank you Tom Wright for this delightful illustration.

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The Rabbit Trails of Revival and Anointing

A friend of mine recently described to me the experience of attending a church which was obviously losing its grip on its members. Week after week, year after year, the congregation was exhorted to “keep coming or you will miss God’s anointing! It’s right around the corner, we can feel it! God’s going to do something big! If you leave and go somewhere else, you’ll miss it!” This was accompanied by long prayers begging for God’s anointing.

I could relate. I grew up in an atmosphere where ‘revival’ was described and looked for in the exact same way. It was always felt that it was ‘just around the corner.’ “God’s going to do something big soon – I can feel it! We’re about to have revival!” This too was accompanied by lots of prayers for revival, eventually books and prescriptions were written for how to get God to pour out revival.  Previous revivals in history were studied to find the common elements – the key to unleash the power. Translation: if we would just get a little more earnestness, more committed, repent more, or develop some other spiritual attribute, God would finally relent of his chintzy, cheapskate tight-fistedness with his revival coin.

Sorry, I’m not buying.

The assumptions behind all of this are full of holes. It reminds me of the phrase used by Nazarene theologian Mildred Bangs Wynkoop forty years ago: “Credibility Gap”. First, what’s wrong with what happens in the faithful gathering for worship, week after week, year after year? For thousands of years God’s people have been sustained, nurtured, strengthened and empowered through gathering together for the reading of the Word, the celebration of the sacraments, the worship of God in song, praying together, and – not least – the community of togetherness in Jesus’ name. What’s lacking in that? The frantic pleas for revival and anointing imply that that’s not enough;  there’s a lack, a deficiency. All that happens in weekly worship: the lives changed, the attitudes transformed, the newness of life poured out, the life trajectories re-directed, the joy imparted, the welcome of new people with authentic love, the strengthening, encouraging, purpose, mission, community – nope –  apparently not good enough. Second, all this begging for revival and anointing  acts like God is really hard to convince, doesn’t like to part with his revival stash, or is bound by a notebook full of addendums and legal restrictions regarding when and when not He can do His thing.

Seriously?

In the sophisticated modern church of the second millenium, here’s what this tends to look like: pastors running around always working things up for the next push, the next event, the next program, the next Big Thing that will finally be the magic button to get their church to be whatever it isn’t, and flood their doors with urgent seekers. As soon as they finish the current  Big Deal, they start running toward the next one, rounding up (tired) ‘volunteers’ and urging people to give their spare time to this next big event they imagine will be the equivalent of rubbing the Genie’s Lamp of Church Growth.

I get tired just describing it. And I’m not going to spend my life doing any of that.

I don’t think God is reluctant with His unction. I don’t think He’s bemused watching us scramble trying to find the hidden cheese of revival in His maze.  I don’t think there is ANYTHING wrong with what God does week after week in the regular Sunday morning gathering of His people. New peoples’ lives are being visibly transformed;  longtimers are sustained, helped, encouraged; people are called into ministry; new ministries begin; people hear a call to pastoral leadership, get educated and start churches or join the work here; there is nothing wrong with what goes on.

What I do think is happening is that both Nazarenes and Charismatics can look back within living memory to the beginnings of both of our movements. The enthusiasm, newness, Big Push for the common goal and comradery of a fresh vision that characterize almost any kind of new movement, religious or not, gets longed for again, not to mention idealized. But anyone familiar with the sociological lifespan of movements knows that they don’t stay in that phase. Looking back longingly to the early part of the organization’s developmental phase is to miss out on the benefits of the current part of the lifespan. It’s like a parent looking back so longingly at the toddler phase of their children’s lives that they fail to enjoy them in their 20s.   They miss out on what is in front of them. You may have noticed that the 20-30 somethings that left evangelicalism for the Mainline churches (or started their own), don’t wring their hands week to week for revival or anointing.  They enjoy what the community of faith is and does.

I don’t think we are going to manipulate God into when He does extraordinary acts of revival.  History shows that if we think there’s a formula for that, we’re mis-interpreting those Bible verses. If it were as simple as us pulling the right levers on the heavenly machine, we’d have had God dancing to our tune like a puppet long, long ago.  I’m not going to wring my hands about what God does in church, wishing for something else. What He does with us week after week, just as He has for thousands of years, is a profound good. There’s no deficiency.