Part II – Spiritual Formation In Youth Ministry and Higher Education

Contributions from the Discipline of Spiritual Formation

I am convinced that if we are to produce the kind of students who have the capacity to implement a faith and vocational approach to their life, then we must begin with the foundational issue of their Spiritual Formation. It's the challenge of enabling them becoming whole and complete in Christ. Therefore, what is meant by Spiritual Formation is more than (what in principle is practiced in many evangelical contexts) as "verse-a-day" to keep the devil away". And/Or what Dallas Willard brilliantly describes in his seminal work: The Divine Conspiracy, as "Sin Management."

Can we validly interpret it's (the Bible) portrayal of faith in Christ as one concerned only with the management of sin, whether in the form of our personal debt or in the form of societal evil? …History has brought us to the point where the Christian message is thought to be essentially concerned only with how to deal with sin: with wrongdoing or wrong-being and its effects. Life, our actual existence, is not included in what is now presented as the heart of the Christian message, or it is included only marginally. That is where we find ourselves today… When we examine the broad spectrum of Christian proclamation and practice, we see that the only thing made essential on the right wing of theology is forgiveness of the individual's sins… The current gospel then becomes the gospel of "sin management." Transformation of life and character is not part of the redemptive message."

To put it another way, one's ability to manage their sin, to keep it from influencing negatively and overtly one's life, is often seen as the primary goal of Christian maturity and discipleship. Willard's critique, directed mostly towards evangelicalism, goes on to argue in his book that transformation of life and character necessarily means that one must engage the world… In short, according to Willard, our faith is to be all about the Kingdom of God, as it was for Christ. There can be no decompartmentalization, for the Christian, between faith and the rest of one's life. We cannot continue to practice, as many Christians do: Live in the world, despite the world; and not for Christ, to change the world.

Evangelists as Modern Day Gnostics:

In like manner, there needs to be an overhaul for many of us in how we present the Gospel to young adults. Numerous students hear the Gospel presented to them in what is nothing more than a form of modern day Gnosticism. The-would-be evangelist presents it in the following manner:

"I have some important information that you need to know about and if you listen to me and choose to respond, you can go to heaven and not to hell."

In other words, it's all about collecting vital life-saving information that in turn becomes an almost magical incantation. Once the words are spoken, then heaven is all but assured. The new believer then enters into a life of doing those things that will mostly "maintain" their faith; so that they are confident enough that if they died they would go to heaven and not to hell. This is the lowest common denominator of what can be offered still be considered the Gospel. Very little is said about counting the cost and the Lordship of Christ. Instead of enhancing their restored relationship with Christ, they craft into their life only those things that give them comfort of their eternal standing. There is a very felt need to grow into the image of Christ, because the emphasis is all about doing the right things… The unfortunate repercussions of this kind of Christian life style are disastrous and feed directly into a maintenance only mentality.

Right Being vs. Just Right Knowing or Right Doing

Nor should we, on the other hand, mistake Christian maturity as just having the ability to master intellectually and articulate correct theology… They are not the same. Soren Kierkegaard notes the following in his essay entitled: The Weight of Inwardness

… Certitude and inwardness determine whether or not the individual is in the truth. It is not a lack of content that gives rise to arbitrariness, unbelief, mockery or religion, but a lack of certitude. Whenever, inwardness and appropriation are lacking, the individual is unfree in relation to the truth, even though he otherwise "possesses" the whole truth[…]"

[…]our age is a master in developing truths while being wholly indifferent to certitude. It lacks confidence in the good."

"Truth exists for the particular individual only as he himself produces it in action. If the individual prevents the truth from being for him in that way, we have a phenomena of the demonic. Truth has always had many loud proclaimers, but the question is whether a person will in the deepest sense acknowledge the truth, allow it to permeate his whole being…
…Without inwardness, an adherent of the most rigid orthodoxy may be demonic…"
Kierkegaard passionately believed that right knowing did not always mean right being. He believed that while right doing didn't always mean right being… right being did always mean right doing… I am reminded of J.I. Packer's comment on the world "theologia" from which we get our world theology. Prior to the Reformation, according to Packer, the word "theologia" meant: "To study God in such a way, that what you learned became a part of you." After the Reformation, "theologia," in many Christian circles, came to mean simply the intellectual and scholastic study of God. Mystery and emotion in the Christian experience were disabused and deemed irrelevant.
Many Christian traditions eventually gave themselves permission to see one's Spiritual Formation as that of knowing only about God rather than the experience of knowing God personally. Again, I quote Kierkegaard: "Nobody knows more of the truth than what he is of the truth. To properly know the truth is to be in the truth; it is to have the truth for one's life. This always costs a struggle." Theology then must be internalized inwardly, in order that it be authentically manifested and represented outwardly.
What is Spiritual Formation? It is the commitment to the process of inwardly becoming like Jesus Christ, so that you can outwardly do the things that Jesus would do, if He were you, in the here and now.

Spiritual Formation in Christian Higher Education

The connection to Higher Education to me is obvious. Those of us in Christian Higher Education must challenge our students to advance further from the weak praxis of what it is popularly believed it means to be "Christian." They must move beyond practicing the Christian faith as a form of cheap fire insurance (i.e. "cheap grace" according to Bonhoeffer), the belief that Jesus came only to save them from their sins. They must understand that the decision they make for Christ necessarily means a life transforming encounter with the person of Christ… …that they have been saved "to" (Christ) and not just saved "from" (hell). That it's a decision having mostly to do far more with restoration (of relationships) rather than a region (heaven over hell).

Transformed, Transcend Transformational

O eternal truth and true love and beloved eternity! You are my God; to you I sigh by day and by night. And when I first know you, you raised me up so that I could see that there was something to see and that I still lacked the ability to see it. And you beat back the weakness of my sight, blazing upon me with your rays, and I trembled in love and in dread, and I found that I was far distant from you, in a region of total unlikeness, as I were hearing your voice from on high saying: "I am the food of grown men, Grow and you shall feed upon me. And you will not, as with the food of the body, change me into yourself, but you will be changed into me." Augustine Book VII pg. 149-50
It's crucial for them to understand that their Spiritual Transformation must lead them to the hard belief and practice that the more they are inwardly transformed, the more capable they are of transcending those compartmentalizing personal and cultural inhibitors that keep them from being transformational agents within the world of their private and professional lives.
Johann Arndt, German Lutheran pastor who heavily influenced German Pietism in the later 15^th and early 16^th centuries, noted in his essay on True Christianity the following:

Everyone wishes very much to be a servant of Christ, but no one wishes to be His follower… And although we cannot, in our present weakness, perfectly imitate the holy and noble life of Christ… nevertheless, we ought to live it, and yearn to imitate it, for thus we live in Christ, and Christ lives in us, as John in the first Epistle 2:6 says: 'He who says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked.' …No one can love Christ who does not follow the example of His holy life… True Christianity consists, not in words or external show, but in living faith, from which arise righteous fruits, and all manner of Christian virtues, as from Christ Himself."

And so we have this challenge before us… The challenge of helping our students transforming their inward nature into the nature of Christ Himself, so that no matter where they go and what they do, they would do it has if Christ Himself where doing it. I believe that it's only with this kind of heart and mind, that our students will have the motivating passion (because it's Christ's) and the moral and spiritual resolve (because it's the character of Christ, redeeming and energizing their own) that will enable them to be toxic to the very worldliness in which they find themselves. They will truly be able to believe: "Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world." (1 John 4:4) It will be then, and only then that we will be able to penetrate and transform those major institutions in our world e.g. the worlds of Business, Government, Education etc., that heretofore have been impenetrable and any substantive manner.

Christ in and Through Us, In the World

What the world desperately needs to see is not a Christianized us, but rather us, in Christ, in the world. In essence, it's the practice rejecting the corrosive values of the "world" and instead, choosing to connect lovingly and meaningfully with Christ's omnipresence within the world. It is not our job to take Christ into our professional work and world… He is already there! It's a matter of deliberate choice to have our life resonating with and accommodating His presence so that what He is reflected in and through us in a powerful, authentic, compelling and restorative manner to all of those people that He had determined to restore to Himself.

The love of God is hatred of the world and love of the world hatred of God. This is the colossal point of contention, either love or hate. This is the place where the most terrible fight must be fought. And where is this place? In a person's innermost being. Whether the struggle is over millions or over a penny, [in the world of business for example…] it is a matter of loving and preferring God – the most terrible fight is the struggle for the highest. What immeasurable happiness is promised to the one who rightly chooses. If anyone is unable to understand this, the reason is that he is unwilling to accept that God is present in the moment of choice, not in order to watch but in order to be chosen…"

What does the world need more than Christ? In Acts chapter one Christ ascended. In Acts chapter two the Holy Spirit descended... to live in us... that we might become the image of Christ once again in the world.