THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
The Ethical Conscience
The theological affirmations that inform spiritual practices need to be consonant with the Protestant heritage that has brought many blessings to its communities of faith. At their best, mainline Protestant traditions exercise judicious leadership in the arenas of ethical reflection and social action. Those in positions of church leadership frequently feel a sense of solidarity with victims of oppression and work to rectify social, political, and economic inequities. Women's rights and issues, from ordination to the prevention of physical abuse, have become important on denominational agendas; ministries of social justice and economics both domestically and internationally are supported; issues involving human rights and sexuality—abortion, sexual expression, justice for gays and lesbians—are being debated. Although policies related to social issues do not always receive enthusiastic endorsements from all quarters of the church, attention to them is still a defining characteristic of mainline Protestant traditions.
The ethical conscience, especially as it relates to social concerns, is at the heart of mainline Protestant life. Pastoral theologian Seward Hiltner probably speaks for many mainline Protestants when he says that people come closest to God when they come closest to following their ethical conscience.1 The identification of “God's voice” with the ethical conscience is a strength of mainline Protestant traditions.
Unfortunately, many Protestants fail to see their ethical commitments to social justice as gracious gifts from God. They affirm that God is a force of love and compassion at work in the world, but inasmuch as love and compassion are not the sole prerogatives of religious folks, mainline Protestants often minimize the extent to which these powers are associated with divine activity. Lacking a propensity for theological interpretation, they view ethical actions in behalf of others not expressly as God's handiwork, but as the work required of any good citizen. By so doing they minimize the theological significance of their ethical conscience and the actions that flow from it.
The commitment to social justice is an inestimable spiritual gift integral to mainline Protestant spirituality. This commitment allows mainline Protestants to affirm that God is at work in the daily lives of people struggling for justice and peace. This recognition has the potential to augment the mainline Protestant tendency to limit God's voice to the ethical conscience. It is an irony that although official Protestant teachings—for example, church doctrines—avoid claims that limit God's sphere of influence, in the “lived experience of faith” of many Christians, God's leading is largely restricted to two areas—the ethical conscience and the response to profound grief.
During times of crisis, when our radical dependence on God becomes a daily act of faith, mainline Protestants often speak of God's presence with them. The affective depths at which daily life has been impacted legitimizes this often-passing sense of personal relationship with God. Mainline Protestants live their faith in the paradoxical space between being too modest to speak for God except on social issues, and too reasonable to be truly dependent on God except in times of tragedy.
If ethical responsibility at the social level is a spiritual asset of mainline Protestants, it is the complementary development of the personal aspect of a relationship with the sacred—briefly present at a time of crisis—that is required for a more holistic stance to spiritual development. The development of a personal relationship with the sacred may inform the nature of one's social vision and sustain persons who work for social justice. It is the development of this personal relationship that this book addresses by providing a theological grounding and historical background for the practices included in the final chapter. This correcting does not deny the role of God's voice in the ethical conscience. If anything, the ethical conscience is enhanced by acknowledging the links between a prophetic vision and the spiritual practices that keep it alive, vital, and faithful.
Critical Study
Mainline Protestant spirituality has been shaped by a commitment to critical reflection. As noted in this book's Introduction, since the Enlightenment mainline Protestants have been committed both to the worldviews of their surrounding cultures and to the truths of Christian faith. That is to say, as advances were made in science and in the understanding of the workings of the universe, many Christians in Protestant traditions sought to reconcile the truths of faith with the findings of science and the insights of philosophy.
In the sixteenth century Protestants challenged the Roman Catholic Church on matters of doctrine and authority; in the eighteenth century they challenged the worldview that supported the church of the later Middle Ages. The advent of the Enlightenment established a new standard of truth. No longer was the authority of the church a sufficient standard of truth. Inquiring Protestants adopted a sense of skepticism and doubt toward truths that appeared grounded solely on church traditions and religious authorities. Reason became the celebrated human faculty.
Although by the nineteenth century this commitment to reason did not eliminate a commitment to revelation, it firmly committed mainline Protestant traditions to scholarly inquiry. For Protestants, the question kept arising: How can God's truth be an aspect of both the world of nature and the Word of faith? The truths of faith, the revelation of God in Jesus, and the teachings of the church were submitted to the bar of reason. Biblical texts and historical traditions were subjected to the same scrutiny as so-called secular literary works such as The Iliad or a text attributed to Shakespeare.
The biblical scholarship of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries easily found its way into the Protestant religious scene of the United States. For example, when the works of German scholars of the Scriptures became known in the United States, mainline Protestant denominations ultimately embraced their analytical approach to the Bible. Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969), minister of Riverside Church in New York City, was a well-known apologist for the scholarly approach to the biblical texts. Critical reflection not only on the biblical texts but also on church dogmas and traditions has been a hallmark of mainline Protestant religious life.
A recovery of the spiritual practices and disciplines advocated in this book does not compromise the mainline Protestant commitment to critical reflection. It does, however, challenge the notion that only analytical—in contrast to devotional—approaches to biblical texts and Christian classics have merit. Devotional practices do not displace critical aspects of faith development; rather, they develop the affective nature of the human capacity for relationship. In addition, devotional practices themselves are always subject to critical reflection; the dialectical process between devotion and critical reflection provides a more holistic approach to spiritual development than either alone.
Foundational Theology
Mainline Protestants are committed to an understanding of God that views all of life as grounded in God's abiding love. As noted by my African American colleague at the beginning of this chapter, mainline Protestants are in general not afraid that God will curse or condemn them. The God who receives their allegiance is the God of the early reformers, the God whose position in the universe is above all human folly and whose message is present in Jesus Christ. As mainline Protestants interpret God's transcendence, they contend that God cares about the big picture, not about the minutia of daily living. The principal concerns of this God have to do with “meaning writ large.” The creative and sustaining energy needed to manage the universe leaves this God little time to mess with the trivia of daily life. Karl Barth's focus on God's transcendence—beyond all human manipulation—and Paul Tillich's focus on God's power to ground human existence are concepts that shape and guide the lived experience of faith of many mainline Protestants.
Jesus Christ reveals God's purposes for daily life. The message of this Jesus is primarily one of love, justice, and social obligation. Mainline Protestants often feel that Jesus provided them with all they