Rehabilitating the Spirit
In conventional Christian theology, God the Father comes first, as creator and sustainer of all that exists. The Father sends the Son, to rectify and redeem a flaw in creation, specifically in humans. And the Holy Spirit is variously explained as a third mysterious force brought into being through the mutual love of Father and Son.
Christian theology presents quite a confusing description of the Holy Spirit’s role. According to Genesis 1:1, the Spirit is at work at the dawn of creation, infusing pattern and meaning into the chaotically unfolding process. This would suggest that the Spirit is operative in all creative unfolding thereafter. Yet Christianity claims that the Holy Spirit was not fully available to the Church till after the event of Pentecost (about 2,000 years ago) and that the Spirit only fully relates to the individual person after the reception of Baptism. Sounds like the Church is trying to control the work of the Spirit, and not doing so very ingeniously.
It strikes me that the new spirituality is infused (inspired?) by a sublime desire to rehabilitate the Holy Spirit. Contemporary spirituality does not seem to be consciously aware of this prospect, nor can it seek guidance through the conventional theology of the Holy Spirit, itself hidebound by metaphysical and doctrinal strangulation. Firstly, the history of theology seems to have had long held reservations about the diminished role of the Spirit, playing second-fiddle to Father and Son; the new spirituality wants to address this imbalance, seeking a much more exalted role for the Spirit. Secondly, the notion of the Great Spirit in indigenous spirituality (all over the world) incorporates understandings that theology has never considered and that seem to be gaining more significance in our time. Thirdly, the rapid and extensive rise of the Pentecostal movement throughout modern Christendom seems to be a sign of our time that deserves a far deeper discernment, a movement that has been widely recognized but not investigated with either spiritual or theological depth.
Are these three factors inter-related? Who in the modern world is exploring their relevance, meaning or integration? And what might be their potential to illuminate the spiritual awakening of our time? These might well be among the most serious questions confronting humanity today, particularly the millions hungering for spiritual meaning, and expressing that hunger in ways that feel ever more scary for mainline religions….
Meanwhile, the Spirit broods where the Spirit wills. Fundamentalist religion is certainly on the ascendency and is often the subject of formal research. Spirituality is viewed more negatively, and often dismissed as a new-age phenomenon or a post-modern social trend. The latter deserves a far more nuanced view and a much more thorough investigation, not merely with the tools of standard research but by researchers with a more discerning eye and an open heart for the surprise, creativity, and unpredictability that characterize the operations of Holy Wisdom in every generation.
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