I have become convinced (and you can push me on this) that inherent to what we now consider "evangelicalism" in America today has either genetic or ideological links with the revivals arising from the first and second great awakenings in early America/New England. "Religion" took a decisive shift in this era, and, in many ways, the American identity itself was forged in the revivals - where "we the people" became the battle cry over "they the clergy." It is also out of the revivals that evangelicalism developed "sure fire methods" for conversion, which paved the way for the modern seeker movement and the megachurches which institutionalized revivals.

It is interesting therefore that this group has grown interested in spiritual formation. As an evangelical myself, I realize that there are some immediate dangers here. First, just as the revivals under Edwards started as an organic and relational movement of the Spirit within the body of Christ, but quickly moved to more para-church (and even anti-clergy) movements that sought to develop clear cut steps and means for conversion, so the various groups speaking of spiritual formation has been tempted (with some succumbing to the temptation) to develop sure fire tactics for growth. The church, all too often in my opinion, has be willing to hand out programs, methods and promises, but has been much less willing to wrestle with the messiness of spirituality with its people.

Second, evangelicalism is distinctly a-theological. This point needs emphasis. I am not saying that evangelicals tend to be non-theological, though that is true, but that we tend towards an anti-theological understanding of things. In other words, we tend to assume a certain simplicity to things, as well as a certain amount of "intuitiveness" to the Christian faith. This leads to a certain reading of the Bible where we assume that as long as we string these words together correctly and try hard to do what they say, then we are "in the clear" as it were. Therefore, it is not surprising that there are so few (if any) evangelical theologians talking about spiritual formation, with the gap being filled by psychologists and philosophers. If these disciplines end up doing too much work, I fear that we will have nothing more than a semi-Christian account of human formation.

Last, evangelicalism, through the revivals, has learned to tie religious experience and the movement of the Spirit tightly together. The problem is that much of Christian spirituality focuses on the reality that these are not, in fact, tied together. The whole premise of the dark night of the soul, for instance, is that God is close without the experience of God's presence.

Do you know of instances where spiritual formation discussions have been commandeered by any of these issues? Can you see places, situations or theories that get pulled astray because of this?