The Future of Christian Spiritual Formation

Abstract

Introduction If we are not following Jesus in the way he is leading, then we are not following Jesus. We have been told the road is narrow and few are those who find it. Indeed, there are a great number of alternative, broad ways vying for our attention that subtly or not so subtly distort Jesus and his overall manner of life. In our day, this includes the broadest alternative there could possibly be: the modern way of life that holds out to us that there is no way except whatever way you want. Something like “each one does what is right in their own eyes” has become a basic human right, at least in the western world. To proclaim, instead, that there are better paths of life than whichever we might find personally appealing—even a best way of life—cuts against the grain of what Charles Taylor has called “the immanent frame.” The immanent frame of modernity sets our eyes on the concrete immediately in front of our own two feet, our inevitable and causally closed next step. The call to a big-picture, transcendent frame that leads us in “paths of righteousness for his name’s sake” tends to fall flat these days. The future of Christian spiritual formation has everything to do with whether Jesus and his way, truth, and life—a kingdom “not of this world”—will be seen as a viable vision of living a good life and becoming a good person. And this, it seems to me, has everything to do with whether Jesus’ people—the body of Christ—effectively model the actuality of such a life.