David Runcorn, Spirituality Workbook. A Guide for Explorers, Pilgrims and Seekers (London: SPCk, 20060, 202 pages. ISBN0281056455.
The use of the term workbook can either enhance or reduce our perception of a book's usefulness. Especially in the field of Christian Spirituality, there is a proper hesitation about practical workbooks, fast track 'how to' manuals, programmes that reduce mystery to mastery, the urge to dumb down in order to market a level of engagement indexed to a gradually lowering common denominator. Christian spirituality is not simple. Christian spiritual growth can't be fast-tracked. Spiritual theology, Christian mystical experience, diversity and plurality of traditions within the Christian faith, make Christian spirituality a field of knowledge and experience that can't easily be made immediately accessible and step by step practical.
The study and practice of Christian spirituality is of necessity a wide ranging study, and a life changing practice - and each of these takes time, commitment, sufficient humility and enough patience to recognise that here at least, our mental, emotional and spiritual consumerist habits of wanting it all, now, on demand, designed to my needs, on a take it or leave it basis, in which I as the customer have to be satisfied, and at the right price - well frankly, they don't, can't, shouldn't work!
Runcorn's book is one of those where the term workbook is a positive descriptor. This is one of the best introductions to Christian Spirituality I've read for a long time. The book is divided into five parts. In part one, several significant strands of the historic Christian spiritual tradition are chosen as examples - the desert tradition, Anglican spirituality, the Jesus prayer, Pentecostal spirituality and Evangelical spirituality, are each introduced with a balanced sympathy and an open spirit. Part two explores how spiritual life is worked out in community, dealing with the givenness of community, rule of life, the Lord's Supper and the significance of personality and individuality. A third section then opens up the importance of identity, person hood and spirituality, dealing honestly with the riddle of who we are, our embodied existence, our sexuality and our experience of life's stages. The fourth section deals with prayer as intercession, confession, the work of the Spirit in our praying, and the relation of prayer to the Bible. A final part hauls us into the real world of created things, our experience of hardship and suffering, spirituality and justice and peace in a violent world, and developing an attitude at once contemplative and open - to God and world.
Twenty three chapters, each of them written by someone familiar with the relevant literature, modest in size but written with clarity and a sense of what is important. What makes it a workbook is that each chapter has a concluding section of material for thought, prayer and activity.' These are much better than the usual practical add-ons often bolted on to a text to make it into a group study or personal workbook. These are of a quite different value; carefully thought through suggestions which if followed, enable the reader to grasp at a deeper range of experience, the spiritual significance of what has been expounded in the chapter.
Christian spirituality is now a fully recognised subject in academic research, a popular field in higher theological education and attracts scholars of immense learning, such as Bernard McGinn, Andrew Louth, Oliver Davies, Ellen Charry, John Meyendorff. But scholarly activity is at its best when it stimulates the next stage, of harvesting the insights of the ages and shaping them in ways that while being faithful to their truth, unfold for us the mysteries and discoveries embedded in the writings and studies of those who have gone before us.
As a spiritual workbook this volume avoids the impression that everything important can be reduced to technique; as an introduction to the generous and prolific stores of the Christian spiritual tradition it gives just enough information to provide the proper balance between theory and practice. In spirituality more than most academic subjects, applied knowledge becomes personally transformative. This won't sell as many as Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline, (which I think is beginning to show its age), but it is more contemporary in its feel, is arranged in carefully worked sections, is written with pastoral carefulness, and would offer any half-serious reader important guidance on the story, the terrain, the directional options, and the real and practical goal of a spiritually serious search - here it is in the last words of this very good book:
The vocation of the Christian community is to be a hospitable place in which all the life of the scriptures, the shared wisdom of fellow travelers, and the discipline of prayer and worship offer the space needed where people may come to discern the life and call of this mysterious searching Spirit. (194)
I am doing several posts on this book at my own blog, which you can access here. From time to time I'll post reviews of books and articles on Christian Spirituality here at our College blog.
Posted by Jim Gordon
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