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Donald Bloesch surveys the history of Christian thinking on the nature of the spiritual life.
In his own charitable, ecumenical yet evangelical way he provides incisive guidance toward a genuine Christian spirituality that is firmly rooted in biblical faith and fully aware of the positive contributions of various streams of Christian tradition, while critically engaging the current plethora of options being offered today.
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Abbreviations of Bible Translations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Chapter 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Perduring Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Mentors and Teachers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
The Legacy of Pietism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Continuing Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Chapter 2 In Quest of Spirituality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Faith and Spirituality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
True Spirituality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
The Crisis in Spirituality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Chapter 3 Types of Spirituality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Mystical Religion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Biblical Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
A New Spiritual Vision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Ideal Types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Chapter 4 Classical Mysticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
The Mystical Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
The God Above God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
The Eternal and the Temporal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Ascent to Divinity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Call to the Desert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
The Church Within . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
The Biblical-Classical Synthesis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Appendix A: Christian Mysticism and Gnosticism . . . . . . . . . 71
Hallmarks of Gnosticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Differences from Christian Mysticism. . . . . . . . . . . 73
Chapter 5 Biblical Personalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
The Sovereign, Creator God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
The Divine-Human Encounter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
The Scandal of Particularity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Word and Spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Salvation by Grace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
The Paradoxical Love of the Cross. . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Holy Worldliness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
The Struggle of Prayer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
The Great Commission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Chapter 6 The New Spirituality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Historical Roots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
The New Metaphysics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Key Concepts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Secular Mysticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Rebirth of the Gods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Appendix B: The New Age Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Trademarks of the New Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Precursors and Proponents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Salient Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
A Royal Theology?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Afterword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Chapter 7 Worldviews in Collision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Anthropology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Doctrine of God. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Jesus Christ. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Life and Vocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Faith, Hope and Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Prayer and Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Ecclesiology and Eschatology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Life and Faith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Appendix C: An Unresolved Tension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Chapter 8 For Christ and His Kingdom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
A Churchly Spirituality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
The Dialogue with Mysticism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
The Dialogue with Pentecostalism. . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Freedom for Obedience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Appendix D: Therese of Lisieux: An Evangelical Saint? . . . . . . 151
Appendix E: A Hymn of Pietism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Name Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Scripture Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192