Month: January 2012

My thoughts on current English denominations and their key aspects of Spirituality. Pentecostal – like to feel God, hear from God (prophecy), speak in tongues (want to see stuff)! Prophecy and the hope of revival very important. Looking for perfection. Faith based. Often anti-intellectual. Church of England – Middle class. Not too serious, but not…

Luther had some positive and negative influences on Christian Spirituality. His positive influences included his promotion of meditation on God’s word. For example his work A Simple Way to Pray, 1535. This was popular and gave a four fold framework to meditation. This included Instruction, Thanksgiving, Confession and Prayer. In instruction the seeker looks to God for instruction and all his needs. In thanksgiving the…

The Desert Fathers went to great lengths to find silence. How can modern Christians incorporate more silence into their lives? First I would like to say that often when people talk about practices that are acknowledged to be very good, yet poorly practised it is common to think that bigger is better, or more is…

Of great importance to the idea of The Desert is the wanderings of Israel in the wilderness. Here we get the two images of “journey” and “desert” together. The Desert Fathers sought solitude so that they may experience a fuller vision of God undistracted from business and temptations. Often people who were not ready for…

I don’t think modern Christians are particularly against poverty, but I think that the idea is strange to many of them. Jesus did say, “if you want to be perfect…” sell all your possessions. For many in the middle ages, poverty was thought of as being a necessary step on the journey to Christian perfection.…