I continue to think about Reforming Spiritual Formation and so this builds on my earlier post distinguishing spirituality, Spirituality and Spiritual formation and my post on Reforming Spiritual Formation, as well as my guest post at Christians in Context on the nature of Spiritual formation. Here, I want to think about the reality of Spiritual formation as a work of the Spirit. As I noted, as Christians, we all must think about the work of the Spirit in our lives. The likes of Jonathan Edwards, John Owen and John Calvin (evidently anyone named John!), all had robust pneumatologies (theologies of the Spirit). As the work of the Spirit to sanctify therefore, anyone who calls themselves a Christian, regardless of whether or not they talk about it, believes in Spiritual formation, and that belief, whatever it is, informs their practice.

What we see in much of the evangelical church is a rather odd belief in moralism - that God has saved you and now He wants you to be a nice person on your own. This too, is a claim about the Spirit's work (or lack thereof). In other sections of the church, there is the belief that as long as I learn more and know my doctrine well, then I'm growing as a Christian. In other realms, there is a more experiential emphasis, and growth, in their mind, necessitates an experience of God's Spirit. No matter the case, our beliefs about these things guide and form our practice - no exceptions.

I will continue to claim that the Puritans, in my mind, are the best example of spiritual theology that helped to form and guide practice. Jonathan Edwards, one of the greatest theologians of the Reformed tradition, held together spirituality and practice better than almost anyone. But that is for another time. For now, I want to emphasize the reality that if we all have a belief in Spiritual formation, it is unhelpful (and I would agree unfaithful), to simply point to someone and say, "So and so said such and such, therefore since you both use the word "Spiritual formation" you must also believe it," or again, "Catholics believe this too, therefore you are Catholic." Not only are these statements false, but they tend to be spoken in a spirit of anger, condemnation and judgement (not referring to the person who commented on my last post who seemed to be honestly sharing concerns).

Therefore, since we all have an understanding of Spiritual formation that guides our practice (formulated or not),"Spiritual Formation" itself cannot be a closed set of people, unless we are just talking about Christians broadly. Now, certainly, there are people who write, speak and discuss Spiritual formation, and we can talk about them. This was my emphasis in the last post on Reforming Spiritual Formation. It is an odd occurence that Spiritual formation has been seen as a group of people or movement, because we don't designate certain people the "atonement people," because they speak and write on the atonement. Likewise, we don't call certain groups the "sanctification people," but that is exactly what Spiritual formation discuses. Spiritual formation starts with the doctrine of sanctification and then discusses the lived reality of this doctrine. Jonathan Edwards called this "experiential" theology and others called it "affective" theology. Edwards's work The Religious Affections is a good example.

Therefore, it would be both naive and unfruitful to claim that just because one person states something then everyone believes it, or state that just because another tradition practices something then we must agree with that tradition. A perfect example would be: "Muslims pray and Christians pray, therefore Christians must be Muslims." This is, everyone would agree, ridculous. On the other hand, what might be closer to home, "Some scholar, proclaiming to be a Christian, denies that Paul wrote Ephesians, therefore Christians do not believe Paul wrote Ephesians." Again, this is absurd. Or, more helpfully, how about, "Christians often either wear or display Roman torture devices (crosses), therefore, Christians believe in cruel forms of torture." As you can see, this kind of logic lacks...well...logic.

In summary, "Spiritual formation," because it is a work of God in Christ through His Spirit to redeem His elect for Himself, it can never simply be a group of people. The reason, I would argue, that "Spiritual formation" is so foreign to many is simply because our theology, since Edwards really, has become so academic and has failed to be, like Edwards's, experiential or affectional. The doctrine of sanctification and the doctrine of the Christian life are under studied and underdeveloped in theology today. Evangelicals have, in trying to fill in this gap, cherry picked from anywhere they can. Our task, therefore, needs to be prayerful, biblical and faithful reflection on the nature of life before the face of God - life under the risen and reigning Christ Jesus working by the power of His Spirit to justify and sanctify a people for himself. 

To engage in dialogue about Spiritual formation therefore, means that you must engage a person, a Christian person, about their beliefs concerning God's continued work in the world through His Spirit. You cannot simply point to someone else, and then write off that person because they both use the term "Spiritual formation," any more than you yourself could be considered Muslim because you pray. This will foster, through the work of the Spirit, unity in God's Church, and will, through His grace, help to sharpen and clarify our task in formation.