surprise. When you realize its implications, you may find yourself changed. On the other hand, you may feel a sense of coming home.
For at least the past century, with roots going back much earlier, most of the Christian West has defined itself by doctrine or dogma. Creeds, confessions, and doctrinal statements described the nature of “faith” (which was basically intellectual assent). While I’m not saying that the interest in doctrines is misplaced, it has often crowded out other aspects of faith.
Christianity should be a way of life—one characterized by communion with God. Jesus was a religious bombshell in people’s thoughts because they eventually realized that He was God interacting with humanity. Matthew called Him “Immanuel”—which means “God with us” (Matthew 1:23). The divine-human communion (a close two-way relationship) that humanity had lost in Eden, Jesus was now in process of restoring. When He left our world to return to heaven, He bequeathed His Spirit to His followers. The Holy Spirit was His ongoing presence. God meant Christianity to be an ongoing communion of interaction with Him via Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
This book aims to explain some of this, but even more than that, it seeks to be an invitation to you. I call you to accept this original definition of the Christian religion and decide to live a life of communion with God. I outline suggested steps to satisfy the hunger that the unbalanced interest in and use of doctrines has left in so many lives.
Please come on this journey with me. Some parts of what I say need careful attention and thought. You may not always agree with what I say, but I believe that if you listen and follow it you will find yourself changed.
Note: 1. At the beginning of each chapter you will find quotations attributed to FELLOW SPIRITUAL PILGRIMS. Who are they? For years as I have taught biblical spirituality to students, I have found it to be a two-way street. They teach me too. Their words and papers (these quotes are from them) have also blessed me. Please join us as fellow pilgrims on this spiritual journey.
2. Please remember that when I quote or refer to other sources or authors it does not imply I agree, in all respects, with these authors or their writings, and/or beliefs and ideas.
Chapter 1: The Universal Hunger
“I sense that my deepest need is to make myself available to God so that He can speak to me. I really want to experience God in a full measure—not in some extraordinary way, but just to be able to feel His presence and guidance.”
“Theology may give you information that is important, but it cannot fill the deepest longings of the broken soul.”
“There is no journey to God—only a journey with God.”
— FELLOW SPIRITUAL PILGRIMS
An Urgent Hunger
Human hunger for God is intense and universal. Even if suppressed or denied, it cries out silently from the depths. Such hunger is not a wish to know about God, but rather a quest to encounter Him. People want to touch, experience, and feel the divine—not just discover facts about God. While the hunger affects all people, it is especially evident in the Western world, especially those places in which secularism and traditional Christianity have become most prevalent.
I understand the hunger because it has also gripped me. In 1984 I had recently finished doctoral studies in religion and was teaching at a Christian college. Earlier I had suffered a spiritual crisis while serving as a missionary in Thailand. Though raised as a Christian and knowing my beliefs intellectually, I had never come to an experience that told my heart that God had truly accepted me. Serving in another culture upset my equilibrium and brought me to a crisis. In the end, after an intense search and struggle, I found an assurance of forgiveness and acceptance by a gracious God. I had, in common parlance, been “born again.” It led, however, to challenging questions. How could one so socially and educationally steeped in Christianity and who had even been “born again” still feel so spiritually hungry and thirsty? I knew that God loved me, but why did I feel distant from Him? What was going on?
I began a search—a not-so-secret quest to find God. The Lord started me down the road by beginning to teach me about worship. He used the simple testimony of one who had seen renewal come to his church through heartfelt worship to awaken me to the wonderful sense of presence that comes as Jesus is adored. God used Quaker Thomas Kelly’s story in A Testament of Devotion1 to warm my heart and instruct me. Henri Nouwen intensified the craving.2 Through them and many other sources I slowly began to recover a sense of God’s presence and to transform a devotional life that had once been dry and almost nonexistent, even though I had served as a missionary and pastor.
As I began, at first hesitantly, to speak of what I thought was my solitary search, I quickly learned that I was not alone. Teacher colleagues of mine in other disciplines as well as my own began to talk about their own spiritual hunger. In fear and trembling a colleague and I taught an experimental class on the spiritual life. We took students on a retreat during which in small groups they talked about their spiritual journeys. To our surprise, students flocked to the class. Students of all types in large numbers took the class for general elective credit, something virtually unheard of. Clearly faculty and students alike shared the same hunger that I had experienced. I clearly remember the response of one student when I asked, “Why are you taking this class?” With clear conviction he said, “All the beliefs we’ve heard before, but this is what we need for our life.”
In the years following I have learned that this hunger is universal in my church. When they receive clear teaching on actually experiencing God, people respond, because it is food for their hungry souls.
The explosion of interest in spirituality in Christianity indicates that my hunger is a universal one in the Christian church. Books on prayer, meditation, Bible study, worship, and other topics of devotional theology have proliferated. Courses in Bible schools and Christian colleges as well as seminars for the general public have rapidly spread. The demand continues to grow.
It is easy to see the same trend in the West even outside the Christian stream. One can easily document the growing popularity of Eastern religions. New Age gurus find an eager hearing, and books and magazines on spiritual topics are popular. The issue today is deciding which spirituality to follow. Television, movies, and other popular media are full of angels, demons, spells, and every imaginable kind of supernatural occurrence. Even if people are not so interested in following traditional religions, at least they’d like to touch divine or supernatural power. The basic hunger is the same.
Reasons for the Hunger
The natural question that one asks at this juncture is “Why is such hunger so acute at this time in the Western world? What drives this insatiable craving?”
Part of the answer is our recent history and culture. As physical hunger results from the absence of food, hunger for God arises out of the absence of the divine. The “enlightenment” period of the past 150 years has intellectually squeezed God out of life. Even where a theoretical belief in God’s existence has lingered, He usually has little direct contact with daily life. Science can explain just about everything, even for many Christians. A subsequent chapter (12) will explore this in more detail.
Four main factors especially trigger this hunger among Christians and those in societies heavily influenced by the Christian faith. The first results from the way we have defined religion as accepting certain ideas with the mind. We traditionally use statements of belief to explain our brand of religion. Many churches employ such documents as the Apostles’ Creed. Denominations in the reformed tradition have “confessions,” such as the Westminster Confession. As theology students soon learn, these confessions are not acknowledgments of sin, but statements of doctrinal orthodoxy. Christians use such statements to show their orthodoxy and make clear their
