Is spirituality purely individual or is it to be social? That is the central question tackled by this book. ‘The issue lies at the heart of Contemporary Search for holiness, wholeness and the fullness of discipleship.’ Since there is no spirituality without theology Sheldrake sketches in a theological framework which is tri-partite. The trinity points to relationships within community, the Incarnation shows how God enters our human experience and the cross holds together the vertical and horizontal planes.
Stress is laid on the cross—‘The Cross of Christ undermines all attempts to spiritualize the meaning of salvation.’ Suffering together with Christ means suffering in solidarity with others. Since spirituality is concerned with the whole person there must be a move from inwardness and introspection to a spirituality of social compassion.
This is the thesis of the book and at this point the Roman Catholic scholar stands with the radical discipleship group within evangelicalism represented by writers like Ronald Sider and J. H. Yoder. They would understand Dag Hammarskjold’s (the former secretary of the United Nations) famous statement that ‘In our age, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.’ This is a fundamental biblical position.
But there are dangers in an unbalanced approach and these are faced. ‘While contemporary holiness should involve some degree of social awareness and even engagement in the face of the dehumanized world, it is also important to stress that engagement, or awareness of action, without contemplation is always in danger of remaining at the level of social theory.’
The ‘spirituality of Struggle’, or the knowledge that ‘humane holiness’ is a process of interaction, are essential if believers are to be true to Scripture and relevant in today’s world. The writer lives what he teaches—living in a small community in East London as well as being co-director of the Institute of Spirituality at Heythrop College.
I gained most from the practical application of the theological scaffolding. The stress on community living and the simple lifestyle is matched for seminal chapters on prayer. These begin with a searching analysis of the way our images of God (Father, despot, distant …) affect both the style and the content of our prayers. False images lead to negative prayers. Then follows the intriguing sight of a member of the Society of Jesus, that disciplined Catholic brotherhood, seriously questioning the long-accepted need of ‘times of prayer’. Arguing that all life is to be prayer he says it is ‘possible to turn all activity into a work for God and it is possible to conceive of prayer as unceasing’. This emphasis on the ‘sacrament of the present moment’ I found personally helpful and liberating.
But it is the section on ‘Prayer and Social consciousness’ that is at the heart of the argument. ‘Religious experience is essentially communal and involved with the world of ordinary experience precisely because God is social and involved.’ Privatized religion and spiritual introspection are both knocked hard by the interpretation of religious experience and everyday life, and by the essentially communal or social nature of Christian religious experience. One of the ways of making this live is by the use of imagination in prayer. ‘Gospel contemplation’ means taking a scheme from the gospels and ‘putting myself in the midst of the action’. In this way scriptural tradition, the life of Jesus and the present life of the believer fuse together at both emotional and volitional levels.
The value of the book lies in the reason and the writer. It is written in an attempt to hold together the richness of tradition (however that is spelt out) and the reality of life today. The writer holds together in himself and in his thinking the deepmost of traditional Catholic spirituality and the contemporary shoots of life.
For me, there are two weaknesses in the book. It suffers from being a collection of papers, articles and talks linked together but sometimes lacking a coherent unity. The use of ‘Ignatian spirituality’ and frequent reference to the spiritual exercises fall awkwardly on Protestant ears! But these are minor irritants to set beside the sustained and convincing setting out of the key argument that ‘we should not be concerned merely with our individual growth but with the communal and social dimensions of our existence’.
Living, as I do, in the inner city has taken me on a similar pilgrimage and I understand and echo Sheldrake’s comment—‘The trouble with much contemporary spirituality is that its emphasis on direct experience, good feelings, joy, praise (while not of course bad in themselves) is not always accompanied by contemplative struggle, conflict with a fallen world, solidarity with the whole of humanity and preaching the Kingdom of God in its full radicality.’
Images of Holiness is a bridge book. It bridges the gap between inherited spiritual tradition and contemporary experience; between the individual’s search for God and wider social realities; between scholarship and life; between Roman Catholicism and the whole church; between contemplation and social justice. I suspect a lot of us are now on this bridge that moves from personal faith to social action and others will follow us. If that is so this book is an offering contribution for those of us belonging to a different tradition.
