Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality
Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality - Editorial Introduction
Douglas Burton-Christie
Breathing, breath, wind, spirit. The Latin word spiritus evokes all these. It is our hope that Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality will evoke for you the living, breathing conversation about Christian spirituality that is alive among scholars and writers today. With this first issue, we invite you to enter into that conversation.
Spiritus is the official journal of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality (SSCS). Since its inception in 1992, the SSCS has been a gathering place for scholars, writers and practitioners interested in studying Christian spiritual traditions and reflecting on the emerging scholarly field of Christian spirituality. During this time the SSCS produced a small journal, the Christian Spirituality Bulletin, which published important essays on the methodologies of and resources for this new field of study as well as substantial reviews of the most interesting new books in the field. Spiritus will continue these traditions while also, we hope, expanding and deepening the conversation already underway.
What does it mean to say that this is a journal of spirituality? This should be the easiest question to answer. It isn't. In spite of the increasing prominence of the term spirituality within contemporary popular and scholarly discourse, its precise meaning remains maddeningly elusive. Part of this elusiveness no doubt has to do with the relative newness of the term. Although its roots are ancient, it has only recently begun to be used to describe religious experience and the discipline that reflects upon that experience. In popular usage, spirituality seems to mean something roughly equivalent to "the inner life," or the "transcendent dimension" or "depth dimension" of human experience, which may or may not involve an explicitly formulated understanding of the divine. To "have" a spirituality in this sense is to be aware of this dimension, and to give it expression in one's life.
There is much in the contemporary use of the term to suggest that spirituality is largely if not exclusively a personal, individual, interior matter. We believe, however, that studying spirituality from the perspective of a particular religious tradition reveals how inadequate such an understanding of spirituality is. Certainly it is impossible to study Christian spiritual traditions and not be struck by how Christian spirituality has informed and been informed by critical political discourse, scientific discovery, and postmodern thought. It is impossible to study the full range of Christian spiritual traditions without discovering the countless ways the spiritualities of individuals and communities have affected the world around them for good or ill, and how the world around them has shaped their spiritualities. The best scholarship in the field is undergirded by a lively interplay with the wider arena of concerns to which the study of spirituality is attentive: concerns for justice, for stewardship of the earth, for human flourishing.
To locate our primary focus in the critical exploration and interpretation of specifically Christian spiritual traditions is not, we hope, to suggest a narrow or exclusive focus for the journal. To the contrary: it is our hope that the reflections on Christian spirituality presented in these pages will be situated within the wider conversation about spirituality unfolding within the great religious traditions of the world and within human culture generally. Still, we want to provide a place where the distinctive character of Christian spiritual traditions can be examined, scrutinized, and critiqued, where scholars and writers can meet and engage one another regarding the most pressing questions the study of Christian spirituality can raise.
The ecumenical character of the journal is no less important than its location within the Christian tradition. The Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality came into being as a fundamentally ecumenical venture because of a conviction that ecumenical conversation that both recognizes difference and is willing to listen to the voice of others is crucial to the larger task of interpreting Christian spirituality. It is our hope that Spiritus will provide a space where scholars can articulate the distinctive characteristics of a particular spiritual tradition while also allowing for the exploration and possible discovery of real commonality among different traditions.
If there is need for conversation among members of different Christian traditions, there is an equally pressing need for conversation among and between disciplines. The discipline of spirituality was at one time conceived of as a small sub-field within Roman Catholic Theology (sometimes described as "Ascetico-mystical Theology" or "Spiritual Theology"). This is no longer the case. The discipline as it exists today is neither narrowly sectarian (i.e. largely Roman Catholic) or exclusively tied to theological discourse. Rather, it is emerging as a field of tremendous interdisciplinary creativity in which historians, philosophers, literary theorists, scientists, poets and theologians all have crucial contributions to make. We hope that this journal will be a place where such contributions can be made and explored, tested and discussed.
The interdisciplinary, ecumenical character of the field inspires some of the most creative work in Christian spirituality—not because Christian spirituality is not rooted in particular theological traditions but because scholarship on spirituality can no longer take particular doctrinal perspectives for granted. Scholars can no longer write in a kind of theological shorthand; we must be able to account for every idea we put forward, every resource we employ. This is good news for the study of spirituality because it challenges all of us to consider a wide range of theological and disciplinary perspectives in our scholarship. Essays in Spiritus will draw on a deep understanding of Christian spiritual traditions, but will speak in a democratic voice that can be heard and received by scholars in diverse fields and practitioners from many traditions.
The best work in the field speaks in such a voice and, through careful scholarship in one field, opens vistas onto many others. Bernard McGinn's pathbreaking history of Christian mysticism, for example, has helped us to rethink the theology of mysticism. Caroline Walker Bynum and Barbara Newman's studies of medieval women's spirituality have led us to revise not only our understanding of history and theology, but of literature as well. Sandra Schneiders' studies of biblical spirituality, which raise important hermeneutical questions regarding how to read for the spiritual meaning of a text, draw upon and resonate across many disciplines. The social and political analysis expressed in the writing of Jon Sobrino and Gustavo Gutierrez and so many others whose work arises from a commitment to the poor and marginalized serves as a reminder of the kind of critical, prophetic spirituality that can emerge when one attends to fundamental social, economic and political realities. The critical exploration of the spiritual practices of postmodern thinkers seen in Amy Hollywood's recent studies helps us to realize that there is yet more to study under the heading of Christian spirituality than we may have thought.
Spiritus is committed to a sustained conversation with the classic texts of Christian spirituality and to the "yet more." We hope to publish in the pages of Spiritus the very best of the diverse scholarship emerging in the field of Christian spirituality. To this end, all essays submitted will be subjected to a careful peer-review process. We will also publish two features in each issue of Spiritus. One, called "Perspective," will focus attention on the contemporary scene, examining the spiritual dimension of art, literature, music, and politics. A second feature, called "Rereading Spiritual Classics," will do just that—critically examine a classic spiritual text and inquire into its possible meaning and significance for us.
We hope, in short, to address the deepest questions that the study of Christian spirituality can evoke. These questions may not all be solvable. But, like all the best questions, they are certainly breathable. It is possible to draw them into oneself and to exhale them again, in new and different forms, in conversation with a whole host of interlocutors.
In this first issue of Spiritus, you will find scholars breathing out their questions with great care. They ask about the relationship of geography and spirituality, of solitude and theology. They reflect on what it is we think we're doing when we teach spirituality, what we understand the formal object of our studies to be, and what it means to practice the discipline of spirituality, in every sense of the word. They have breathed in the work of John Calvin and Pierre Hadot, Emily Dickinson and Jonathan Edwards, Pattiann Rogers, Krzysztof Kieslowski, and Michel de Certeau. They have listened for the resonance between ancient texts and contemporary questions, the concerns of students and teachers, the challenges of methodology and the way people live. Breathing in and breathing out, they open a range of questions that we hope future contributors will continue to take up and transform.
We hope that you will find Spiritus an important companion to your own work in Christian spirituality. We hope you will find in its pages words and ideas and questions that you might breathe in and then exhale in your own distinctive way into the conversation we hope to support.
Welcome.
Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality is the official journal of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality. Volume: 12 (2012)Frequency: Semiannually Print ISSN: 1533-1709 Online ISSN: 1535-3117 |
