In his brilliant article on the nature and genre of the The Book of Steps: the Syriac Liber Graduum (LG), a fourth to fifth century Syriac guide to the spiritual life, Robert Kitchen highlights the pneumatic character of the LG. This is basically the strong emphasis that the author puts on the role of Spirit/Paraclete in the spiritual life, especially when compared to the role of Scripture in the LG's vision of the spiritual life.
At the end of the article, Kitchen highlights an interesting point made by J Sanders that continues to make me think about the LG and about the place and emphasis on the Spirit and the Word in our time and place. Sanders writes:
Since the turbulent 1960's one has seen a rather massive turning from the Word to the Spirit as central focus for theologizing [talking about God and the spiritual life]. This is a common move in the history of Christianity. When the doctrine of the Word no longer has seemed to provide the grist for theological mills the church has often turned to the doctrine of the Spirit.
What do you think? Is Sanders right? If you consider the church today, how would you characterize us: Word-centered or Spirit-centered? How are the two different? How similar? How, if possible, can we keep a balance and tension between the two?
(Of course, this post assumes that someone's out there in cyberspace reading this drivel. If not, my thoughts and questions will once again be sucked into a cyber black hole.) ;-)
1 comment:
Hmmm- Eric- you are a deep human being and I want to give you a deep answer. God is moving, has been moving and continues to move. It seems to me, in my experience as I don't have much research into such things, that the people who are concerned with the Spirit are also concerned with the Word. Of course you can lean more either way, but surely there is some interaction between the two. Reading GKB's blog, there might be some evidence that there are people who take the Word to be too much- to be God himself.
I wanted you to know that we're listening and learning along with you. Thanks for blogging.
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