Spirituality for Leadership: History, Conflict and Challenge Garnett E. Foster, DMin., Director of Vocational Formation
Louisville Presbyterian Theological SeminaryIntroduction You know the familiar parable of Jesus from Luke 18.
Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, "God I thank you that I am not like other people; thieves, rogues adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice weekly; I give a tenth of all my income." But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, "God be merciful to me, a sinner.!"
Both the Pharisee and the tax collector thought they were spiritual. Both were responding to God according to their understanding of spirituality. But their understanding of spirituality was poles a part. In the church today - in seminary education - there is an outcry for a greater depth of spirituality, but there is little consensus on what is meant by spirituality. We know both the Pharisee and the tax collector - and all kinds of folks in between.
There is a search for a deeper spirituality, a search for God both as immanent and transcendent. But there is little consensus on what spirituality is. Research shows that baby boomers are spiritual - but not religious or attached to religious institutions. In the Presbyterian Church USA the vast majority of congregations seeking a pastor list spiritual formation as their second priority after worship leadership, but most would be unable to explain what they meant by spiritual formation.
This call for spiritual formation appears to be an outgrowth of a number of related factors:
The search for spirituality sometimes reminds me of the church growth movement. It has a utilitarian thrust - new members are needed for institutional maintenance and folks want a new depth of relationship with God in order to counteract burn out and the dis-ease of transition. I find often that students want to be more spiritual, imagining that means they will always feel good and have warm fuzzy feelings about every aspect of life. Spirituality joins running and self-help programs as one more way persons attempt to fill the emptiness in their lives.
Yet in many people I also sense a genuine seeking for God, a hunger that acknowledges that there is more than most of us realize or experience. This search can take many paths, but all point to the depth of need for an encounter with the living God. This potential hunger presents a profound challenge to the church and seminary.
There is little consensus in defining either spirituality or the process of spiritual formation. The definitions are all over the map: from a desire for transcendence to I Ching, to crystals, to belief in reincarnation, to Buddhist meditation. That hardly encompasses the spectrum - just look at the spirituality section of any bookstore.
However, as a Christian of the Reformed tradition I respond most positively to the definition of spirituality from Roy Fairchild of San Francisco Theological Seminary: Spirituality is "one’s unique and personal response to the call of Christ through the Spirit in the world of inner and outer realities." This is an incarnational definition, recognizing that the vertical and horizontal relationships are interdependent. It is an integrative definition, concerned with both the inner and outer, objective and subjective, mind and heart. It take seriously the world for which Christ died.
As John Calvin noted, there are three dimensions of the Christian life: knowledge, experience and service. Knowledge and understanding of God, humanity, and creation comes through careful understanding of the Word revealed in creation, the Bible, and especially in Christ. Experience and encounters with God come through prayer, sacraments, and other disciplines. And then there is service of God and neighbor and a deep concern for justice. Calvin knew that true piety required all three of these dimensions interacting with one another.
For those of us from the Reformed Tradition, Howard Rice’s book "Reformed Spirituality" has become a classic in trying to define spirituality. Rice understands the tensions in Calvin’s teachings and emphasizes the need for balance:
Being part of the Reformed tradition means that we are also ecumenical. We are beginning to recognize the history, beliefs, and experience of our forebears in faith, no matter their tradition. Folks like Presbyterian Kathleen Norris have opened many people to the Benedictine tradition. Protestants are beginning to practice disciplines such as lectio divina and breath prayers. I have come to value praying with icons, especially those of the Russian Orthodox tradition - but I know my practices must cause my Calvinistic ancestors to turn over in their graves.
A Brief History of Spiritual Formation in the Church Spirituality and the spiritual formation of Christian leaders has been important throughout the history of the church. However, at different periods, formation received different emphasis. A brief and very superficial review of this history will enlighten us as we look at our current situation.
The First three Centuries of the church: In the early days of the church, spiritual and pastoral formation grew out of on-the-job training. Leaders were chosen by the community because of their gifts and their depth of spirituality exhibited within the community. Older, seasoned leaders supported and trained younger leaders. This is the model we see with Jesus and the disciples, with Paul and Timothy, Silas, and John Mark. The reality of living as a minority community, often threatened by martyrdom, demanded a profound spiritual formation if leaders were to remain faithful to Jesus Christ. Mentoring was the key process use and the responsibility fell to the bishop.
The Monastic Model: During the reign of Constantine and the establishment of Christianity, spiritual formation was no longer of vital importance. As the depth of faithfulness of the church decreased, many Christians responded by a flight from the world and church into monasteries. Celibacy became the norm. Augustine formalized this model, educating clergy like monks and often involving monasteries in the process. The Rule of St. Benedict was a powerful influence with its emphasis on lectio divina, meditation and a life designed to form persons spiritually. In reaction against this model certain monks led in the development of universities. The universities usually pulled away from contemplative piety and toward more rigorous academics. Thus scholasticism emerged.
The Protestant Reformation: The early reformers such as Luther and Calvin emphasized a very Christ centered piety, with an emphasis on both head and heart. However, those who followed often moved away from piety to an intellectual understanding of faith. Protestants closed monasteries and required a university education of clergy. The emphasis on sola scriptura led to a clergy education that centered on study of scripture. Greek and Hebrew became central to a university education.
In the 19th Century, to compensate for the weakness of the university in spiritual formation, seminaries were founded. In our own country institutions like Harvard and Princeton began as training grounds for clergy but soon formed seminaries that had a separate identity from the university. Seminaries not only taught scripture but also saw themselves as "training in piety" and a "workshop for the Holy Spirit" as well as teachers of the practical skills needed for pastoral ministry. Faculty were the critical piece of spiritual formation, usually coming to the seminary from effective congregational ministries.
In the 1960's much of the thrust of seminary education moved out of the ivy halls of institutions and into the world. Training was "on the job" in the ghettos of the major cities of our nation and on the picket lines of the civil rights movement. But slowly the realizatin came that a deep spirituality is need to sustain people in the long term struggle for justice.
Historically we see a cyclical process in theological education - from an emphasis on spiritual formation to a more intellectual and academic emphasis and then reaction that raises again the issues of spirituality. Current trends seem to indicate that spiritual formation is rising again in importance.
Can Spirituality be Taught? Spiritual formation is not an emptying of ourselves, but creating openness to what God is already about in our lives and in the world. It is growing in awareness to the directions where God is already drawing us. It is attending to the work of grace in our lives and in the world. Can persons be taught to become aware of God’s spirit? Can attentiveness to the Spirit be developed in folks?
Think about your own experience? What were the key people, experiences that formed you spiritually? If you have been to seminary, was it a seminal experience in your life of faith?
With the portfolio of Director of Vocational Formation, I wrestle long and hard with these questions. Our relationship with God and knowledge of God’s love for us and call to us is a gift of grace. But in what ways can seminaries help students gain knowledge, skills, awareness, to be more open to the grace of God that is at work in our lives, our congregations, our seminaries, our world?
Following are some ways that historically the church has sought to teach spirituality - or perhaps has thought it was teaching spirituality. Drawing on the wisdom of our tradition, it is helpful to utilize again that which is formative of the spiritual life of students and communities. There is wisdom in the tradition.
Academic Approaches: In response to the cry for an emphasis on spirituality, an academic introduction to the history of Christian spirituality has sometimes been added to seminary curriculum, either as a specific course or incorporated into already existing courses. I remember vaguely in church history talking about the 4th century movement of folks to the desert, but these persons were basically dismissed as unbalanced, running away from the evils of society. It is only in the last fifteen years that I discovered the wisdom of the desert mothers and fathers. Feminist theologians have surfaced a number of wonderful medieval mystics. It is amazing in how short a span of time numeours people have heard of Hildegard of Bingen and Julian of Norwich. Professor Roberta Bondi of the Chandler School of Theology, more than other academics of whom I am aware, has sought to integrate spirituality with church history. There is potential for an academic encounter with spirituality through numerous fields. But does such knowledge form persons as deeply spiritual beings? Can one know about spirituality without experiencing that which is studied? Is academic theology too divorced from the realities of life in the real world to impact lives or society? Does the grading system of academic work hinder formation from occurring.
Role Models: Reared as a Protestant in a strongly Roman Catholic area, I was taught to discount the stories of the saints and yet was given biographies of missionaries like Jim Elliot who was killed by members of a tribe in Equador. His life was held up as that for which I should strive. Hagiography was verbally discounted but in reality transformed with a new set of saints. Spiritual autobiographies are now studied in academic courses. Most of us have models for what it means to be faithful. Perhaps it is a childhood pastor who continues as a role model or someone on who lived with a profound awareness of God’s presence. But what is the value and impact of role models in spiritual formation? Do they limit our understanding of spirituality to one model?
Presenting a set of principles: In a number of traditions and congregations there is a right path, a proper way to do things. Children, youth, and adults are instructed in this way and are promised a profound spiritual life if they follow the way. Years ago a number of college age members of a congregation I served left a mainline church for a Charismatic Fellowship. Heads of cell groups taught the way of that community. Each participant learned texts, forms, behaviors, lifestyle. There was a right way, and following that way led to a deep spirituality. Participants felt they knew God through the activity of the Spirit in their lives in a way they never had in a mainline congregation. However, after several years, many of those who had left returned to the mainline congregation. Their critical mode of being could no longer be repressed and they needed a less authoritarian, less legally centered world.
How do we present principles and guidelines without squelching the Spirit moving in new and fresh ways? How do we help persons integrate intellectual integrity and spirituality?
Learning and Practicing Disciplines: In over 30 years of parish ministry I cannot remember seeing a denominationally produced church school lesson for children or adults that taught how to pray or how to read scripture, although I understand that is changing in the new curriculum being produced by my denomination. There has been an underlying presumption that if one participated in the community of faith and its education one would automatically know how to do these things. A couple of months ago I attended the mega-church in Louisville. I wanted to see what was so attractive to thousands of mainly younger folks. I was intrigued by the sermon. The preacher gave very specific instructions on how young families were to rear their children in the faith. The instructions were basic, practical, and not bad theology. When have you heard a sermon that gives clarity on how in concrete ways to engage in Christian parenting?
We have a tendency to presume that these things come naturally. However, when it comes to learning how to engage in traditional spiritual disciplines, knowledge doesn’t come naturally. Many seminarians - and pastors - don’t know how to pray. We have sometimes done a decent job of teaching the biblical story - or parts of it - but we have not taught classical Christian disciplines such as lectio divina or centering prayer. And keeping the Sabbath in a day of Sunday soccer practice seems archaic. Not only have we not taught the disciples, we seldom talk about the need to practice. Dorothy Bass in "Practicing the Faith" reminds us that like playing the piano, praying and other spiritual disciplines need practice, practice until they become part of who we are. But does practice become so routine that persons miss the inner meaning of the practice?
Spiritual Formation in Seminaries Many on seminary faculties, administrations and boards are asking how we maintain the academic strengths of our institutions and at the same time be a place where the spiritual life of students and faculty is deepened. To quote John Calvin, our challenge is to develop "a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts . . . " (Calvin, 3.2.7) Can seminaries become places of revelation to both our minds and our hearts, places of both faith and learning?
Growing out of the history of spiritual formation and theological education - a history where one period is a reaction to the excesses and weaknesses of the preceding period - and reflections on whether spiritual disciplines can be taught, let me suggest some areas seminaries and, for that matter congregations, can explore as they seek to be more intentional in spiritual formation. I have no answers - I’m in the midst of a journey of exploration and I ask you to wrestle with me on where we go from here. I would wager that my issues are reflective of those of most mainline seminaries. We are all "in process."
Spiritual Formation is an outgrowth of the Ethos of the Seminary: An awareness of the presence of God’s Spirit in our lives, in the community of faith, and in the world is caught as well as taught. This is what John Westerhoff, C. Ellis Nelson and others refer to as socialization or enculturation. This points to the reality that it is the experiences a person has or does not have in the community of faith determines whether or not the faith will become real. The seminary is called to live the faith as well as to talk it, to provide experiences where the faith takes human form. Spiritual formation grows out of faith that is embodied in a community.
The hidden curriculum of the seminary is, I believe, a more powerful former of students spiritually than is the official curriculum published in the catalog. Students are formed by the way faculty relate to one another and to students, the way conflict is handled, the response to theological and ethical differences, the value placed on worship, the institution’s priorities for use of funds, the nature of the buildings. Even when students are unaware of its power, the institution by the way it lives its institutional life is a powerful shaper of spirituality. It is hard for seminaries to evaluate its ethos - much is so subtle that the institution is not aware of it. A challenge is to surface this hidden curriculum for examination . . . and affirmation or transformation.
Spiritual Formation is Grounded in Scripture: Biblical illiteracy is a rampant in our churches, and a large number of entering seminary students have only a very superficial experience with the Bible. Spiritual formation grows out of a grounding in the God whom we come to know and whose ways we understand through the biblical story. Christian spirituality grows out of an encounter with Jesus, the Word, as we meet him in the biblical story. This story forms the master story for persons, provides the means through which persons see and compose their life. Often seminary teaching is academic and students do not see how the biblical story touches their lives directly. A challenge for seminaries is to maintain their high standards of biblical scholarship but also to help students make the biblical story their story, to release scripture to become the lens for seeing life and ministry.
Spiritual formation is an integrative process. The first of Jesus’ two great commandments teach us to love God with heart, soul, and mind. We are to love God with the whole of our being - not just with feelings, not just with mind. This integration means that students and faculty work together to integrate academics and spirituality. As Professor Christian Becker of Princeton Seminary stated: "Faculty feel enormous pressure to impress their peers in various segments of the biblical disciplines in order to secure economic well-being and promotion within their departments. Indeed the way to impress colleagues is to conform to the standards of the learned societies which are guided by the model of the scientific study of religion - a model that shuns or looks down upon any confessional commitment." (Christian Century, p. 515 - 16) There is a need to integrate the academic and the spiritual. I have watched students in our introductory course Scripture I change their intellectual understanding of the nature and activity of God - but this change did not affect the way the student related to God or lived or acted. Connections between the biblical story and academic theological reflection and life in the real world need to be enhanced.
As a pastor I found that my session had great difficulty with the question: "Where did you see God at work in our meeting together?" Seminarians too have a difficult time seeing God at work in their lives. Warm fuzzies from God are what is wanted - and how difficult to move toward understanding the hard stuff if one of your evaluations as being the voice of God or the upsetting question from a theology class as a word from God. Since our theology is incarnational, our challenge is to become attentive to God active in our lives and the world - not just active in a spiritual realm "out there." We need to learn to recognize God with us the everydayness of our lives. The challenge of spiritual formation is to foster this integration of thought and feeling, mind and heart.
Spiritual formation has a strong justice component: The second of the two great commandments requires us to "love our neighbor". Thomas Merton from a Trappist monastery realized: "Prayer does not blind us to the world, but it transforms our vision of the world." Or as Dietrich Bonhoeffer stated: "One cannot sing Gregorian chants if one does not also cry out for the Jews." True awareness of God’s presence frees us to risk being out on the forefront of struggles of justice and liberation. In the 60's it was in the struggle, on the bridge with dogs barking at their heals, that persons were aware of the presence of God as they had never known it before. In the 1980's Witness for Peace in Nicaragua provided the same type of experience. Yet this understanding of spirituality seems to be discounted at this time.
Spirituality has a strong corporate dimension and involves connectedness. Spirituality is often seen as between an individual and God. I found this perspective reflected in the blended worship of our denomination’s General Assembly. Praise songs were used as well as traditional Protestant hymnody. I was horrified that the theology of these new songs was that of the old hymn "I Come to the Garden Alone". As I heard these words I thought, "It is no wonder that we cannot work for the common good in decision making. We are taught God is just for me."
The church often affirms the "expressive individualism" or "Sheilaism" about which researchers write: We are willing to use that individualism to attract younger folks who have great distrust of institutions, but then the challenge is to help them understand spirituality as corporate, as a spirituality of connections. Letty Russell reminds us that "A Christian spirituality is one that finds the guidance and source of transcendence in the God of Jesus Christ, and guidance in our life choices through the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus’ story. It makes connections not only to ourselves, to God, and to the needs of the world, but also to communities of faith and struggle for justice which seek to live out the liberating story of Jesus of Nazareth day by day." Spiritual formation is dependent on connections, with God, with one another, with all who are in need of justice.
Spiritual formation is active, not passive and requires practice, requires discipline. Craig Dykstra’s book "Growing in the Life of Faith" notes that historically in the church these practices have created a distinctive way of seeing, understanding, and believing. (Dykstra, p. 7) We grow in faith through practicing these disciplines. By placing ourselves where God historically has worked in lives and communities, we create openings where God can come to us. In reviewing Dykstra’s book, Tom Long summed it up well: "When we place these seemingly routine churchly activities under the microscope, they disclose remarkable vitality and complexity. Practices are the nuclear reactors of the Christian faith, arenas where the gospel and human life come together in energizing, even explosive ways. Practices create opening in our lives where the grace, mercy, and presence of God may be made known to us. They are places where the power of God is experienced." (Presbyterian Publishing House advertisement) We need to know the "how to" well in order to be free to experience the inner meaning. The practice of disciplines provides the groundwork for being open to God even though it doesn’t guarantee experience of God.
The new abbot at Gethsemane monastery was recently interviewed by our local Louisville paper. He noted that Protestants were grabbing at traditional monastic disciplines, but that they were unwilling to live with the discipline of a monastic community where these disciplines could take root in transforming ways. Most Americans avoid even the word discipline. But spiritual formation requires discipline and regular participation in the traditional practices of the church - even when they seem to have no meaning. Spiritual formation is a process that demands discipline. And that is not easy for many who claim to want to be formed spiritually.
Spiritual formation benefits from an action-reflection model of learning. Most of us do not cultivate the gifts of awareness, of attentiveness, of receptivity. Acting in the world and reflecting on God’s presence in our living, noting the feelings of an encounter and reflecting on their spiritual meaning is a gift to be cultivated. It is intimately connected to the ancient practice discipline of examen. St Ignatious in Spiritual Exercises asks for a monitoring of feelings - desolate or consolate - as one way that God ‘s will can be discerned. Healthy theological reflection and awareness of God’s presence can lead us to alter and adjust our praxis in the light of reflection. For example, reflecting on our prayer style can perhaps lead to a new way of praying. Such reflection has value alone and in community.
There is no one way of spiritual formation. Insights into spirituality from the Myers-Briggs temperaments and other instruments help folks grasp that each of us relates to people and experiences in different way. In like manner, we do not all have the same style of relationship with God. I practice various forms of prayer and meditation, but the most powerful means of spiritual growth for me is to plop myself down in a poverty ridden village in Nicaragua or the Gaza Strip and have to wrestle with the question: "How do I as an American trust God when I have so many things around me?" But this would have little meaning to other folks. The wholeness of the body is dependent on our various styles of spirituality. The wholeness of the body needs a variety of approaches to spiritual formation.
Each seminarian, each faith community, is called to explore a wide variety of spiritual disciplines and determine what is right for them. I also find it helpful to keep working on disciples with which I am not comfortable. After awhile I sometimes settle into them and at other times discard them as not for me.
After all this reflection, I wonder if the term "spiritual formation" is too domesticated to reveal what the church truly needs. I fear that we all, even those who seek to be faithful, are so bound into the ways of our culture that our enculturation into the American way of life overwhelms any encluturation into the Christian faith. Perhaps the gospel is about transformation, not formation. Perhaps a better question would be: "How do seminaries help persons become open to God’s transforming power. Perhaps exploring transformation, not formation, is more faithful to the Christian tradition..
Ground Tilling I often pace the floor seeking to understand how one "teaches" spiritual formation, how a seminary seeks to stimulate the spiritual as well as academic and pastoral growth of students. How does an institution till ground in ways that ready students for the formative work of God’s Spirit? How do we prepare for and take advantage of those Kairos moments that are a gift of God’s grace? For me there are two images that describe the key aspects of a seminary’s role in spiritual formation.
The first image is that of "falling in love." How do we as a seminary create an environment in which students can fall in love with God - can be touched at the core of their being by God - and respond with faithful living? Falling in love with God is like falling in love with another person, we are not quite sure why it happens. We can’t manipulate it, but we can till the ground in ways that make it fertile for love to happen. Ultimately falling in love with God is a gift of grace to be gratefully received.
Ground tilling for falling love - that is one dimension of spiritual formation. However, this image must be held in tension with another image: that image is wrestling with God.
"Wrestling with God" is an image for spiritual formation that grows out of biblical experiences - and the experiences of many Christians. Jacob wrestled with the Angel/with God/with a man and came away changed, even wounded (Genesis 32). Jesus wrestled with Satan in the Wilderness (Luke 4).
Spiritual formation is the gift of God’s Spirit, but seminary can provide an environment - and it sometimes will be a lonely wilderness - where students and faculty together wrestle with who they are in relationship to God, grow in their understanding and relationship with God, and how one lives faithful to that God in the real world. That’s not what many students want or expect from seminary. Many want the warmth of a senior high fellowship where their theology is affirmed - no matter how childish - rather than challenged. Yet if folks are to be formed spiritually for today’s church, a new depth of maturity will need to be cultivated. And that requires wrestling with God, requires openness to being changed and perhaps even wounded.
I imagine most of you are like I am and have learned through hard experience that spiritual formation often happens when we are pushed against what we hold firmly, when our boundaries are prodded, when our assumptions are challenged. Spiritual growth most likely will take place when students find themselves confronted by new and unfamiliar experiences, when familiar grounding is shaken, when routines are broken, when defenses and censor systems are broken down. Growth happens when unexpectedly our lives are broken open. God has to work hard to get through to us!
Much of the tilling is done outside the classroom and institutional life of a seminary. I’ve pondered a reflection made at a recent Presbytery meeting. After hearing the faith journey of four excellent candidates for ordination, a sixty year old pastor mused: "When I was examined for ordination, I and most of my colleagues talked about the influence of congregations and summer conferences as key in our call to ministry. Today’s candidates talk about divorce, job loss, critical illness, failure - other life shaking experiences. It’s a different world now." There is truth in his musings.
But that does not eliminate the challenge of the classroom to shake childish understandings, to foster relationships with folks whose understanding of the faith and ministry are different, to provide field education in a church that isn’t like the one in which the student was nurtured. Often God creates a wrestling match in surprising ways and places, but that does not release the seminary from seeking to stimulate spiritual formation by providing challenges that create dissonance and yet provide a safe environment in which wrestling can occur. Finding that balance of challenge and support is difficult and one with which the seminary community struggles.
Conclusion Throughout its history the church has needed leaders with deep spirituality. In our time I sense the intensity of this need for several reasons.
First, the nature of the church in changing. Most of us know frustration and anger at what we perceive as the failure of the church. However, in this post Christian era, the nature of church is in flux. On good days, I believe that God truly is doing a new thing, and we have to live through a lot of dissonance as we slowly discover what that new thing is. Discernment of that which is radically new demands a depth of spiritual grounding, a firm grounding in the tradition of the faith and in living the faith.
Second, the nature of ministry is changing. No longer are clergy highly respected - look at what buffoons clergy are in our media. Churches sense their clergy have failed them. On my cynical days I perceive that clergy are the recipients of a congregation’s anger at its own weaknesses and its anger at God. Developing a healthy clergy - congregation relationship demands that clergy have not only a healthy self-knowledge but also a deep spiritual maturity that can see God’s hand leading a congregation even amidst much conflict and difficulty.
Our seminaries are called to become places of faith and learning. Not only are they academic institutions, graduate schools with high standards, but they also need to be places where one experiences the faith, where one engages in spiritual practices - institutions where an integrated life of faith, not only high intellectual achievement, is the norm. Many institutions are dancing around this challenge now - the Lily Foundation has given more than 70 grants to seminaries to work in various areas of spirituality.
A depth of relationship with God is needed if pastors are to live creatively with the ambiguities of religious leadership today. Leaders need that firm and stable relationship of being in love with God that is not rigid but able to grow and the ability to keep wrestling with God even when the ground shakes beneath them. Creating such leaders is the challenge facing seminaries today.
Bibliography Dorothy Bass: "Practicing our Faith: A Way of Life for a Searching People", Jossey-Bass, 1997.
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Craig Dykstra: "Growing in the Life of Faith: Education and Christian Practices." Geneva Press, 1999.
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Jill Robson and David Lonsdale, eds: "Can Spirituality be Taught? Exploratory Essays." Association of Centers of Adult Theological Association and British Council of Churches, London.
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