Journal of Spiritual Formation & Soul Care Copyright 2009 by Institute of Spiritual Formation

2009, Vol. 2, N o. 2, 2 1 9 -2 3 7 Biola University, 1939-7909

N ew D ir e c t io n s in
E v a n g e l ic a l Sp ir it u a l it y

Si m o n C h a n
Trinity Theological College (Singapore)

In t r o d u c t io n

For much of its history, evangelical spirituality has tended to revolve

around a limited number of predictable practices: the daily personal devo-
tion or “quiet time” consisting of Bible reading, study and meditation on
the passage of Scripture read, prayers of praise and intercession; regular
church attendance; and evangelism or sharing one’s faith with others.1 Un-
derlying these observances is the evangelical conviction that the Christian
life is “a personal relationship between the believer and God, through the
indwelling, regenerating power of the Holy Spirit by virtue of the merits of
Christ’s atoning death and resurrection.”2 The evangelical emphasis on di-
rect and personal relationship unmediated by the church explains why it
“prefers dynamic concepts such as holiness, holy living, godliness, walking
with God and discipleship.”3
In more recent times, however, evangelicals are discovering a broader
range of spiritual practices that go beyond their traditional practices. Since
the publication of Richard Foster’s Celebration o f Discipline (1978), many
evangelicals have been drawing more freely from ancient sources. Disci-
plines like solitude, spiritual direction, and centering prayer have become
an important part of evangelical practice. Over the last thirty years, the
number of spiritual exercises has burgeoned.4 Other evangelicals are not

1 See David Parker, “Evangelical Spirituality Reviewed,” Evangelical Quarterly

63.2 (1991): 123-148 and David K. Gillett, Trust and Obey: Explorations in Evan-
gelical Spirituality (London: DLT, 1993). Ian Randall paints a slightly different por-
trait of evangelical spirituality but not so radically different. See Evangelical Expert-
enees: A Study in the Spirituality o f English Evangelicalism 1918-1939 (Carlisle:
Paternoster, 1999), 5-6.
2 Parker, “Evangelical Spirituality Reviewed,130 ‫ ״‬.
3 Ibid., 129.
4 E.g., Foster,s Celebration o f Discipline lists 13 disciplines under three cate-
gories: inward, outward and corporate disciplines. Siang-Yang Tan and Douglas H.
Gregg, Disciplines o f the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997) lists 12 disci-
plines in three categories: disciplines of solitude, disciplines of surrender, disciplines

219
220 Journal of Spiritual Formation & Soul Care

content with just appropriating the ancient spiritual heritage; they are real-
izing that there is more to spiritual formation than just individual forma-
tion. The spiritual life is not just about one’s personal relationship with
God. There is a corporate dimension which is supremely realized in the
church especially through its worship and liturgy. The works of Robert
Webber have been influential in this new emphasis.5
This paper will briefly look at some movements that reflect the newer
emphasis on ecclesial practice and offer a preliminary assessment. My ten-
tative conclusion is that while the new evangelical spirituality does involve
a major paradigm shift from individual to ecclesial formation, the attempt
of most of these movements to recover their “catholic” identities, that is, to
recover what they hold in common with the church universal and the larger
Christian spiritual tradition, is a hopeful sign of a maturing evangelical
spirituality.

Fa c t o r s C o n t r i b u t i n g to the N ew
Eva n g e l ic a l Spir it u a l it y

There are at least two major factors giving rise to these new devel-
opments. The first is the impact of the Pentecostal-charismatic renewal
movements across different church traditions since the 1960s. It is no exag-
geration to say that contemporary Christianity has been largely “charis-
maticized,”6 so that practices that used to be associated with a particular
church tradition are freely assimilated into other traditions. If evangelicals
and Catholics have no qualms using the Anglican charismatic Alpha Course
(which includes a component on the “filling of the Spirit” as a distinct ex-
perience in the Christian life),7 it would not be surprising to find evangeli-

of service. Dallas Willard, The Spirit o f the Disciplines (San Francisco: Harper-
Collins, 1991) divides the exercises into two categories: disciplines of abstinence
(solitude, silence fasting, frugality, chastity, secrecy, sacrifice) and disciplines of en-
gagement (study, worship, celebration, service, prayer, fellowship, confession, sub-
mission). The Renovaré Spiritual Formation Bible edited by Richard Foster, Dallas
Willard, Eugene Peterson and others lists 17 spiritual disciplines. Adele Ahlberg Cal-
houn, Spiritual Discipline H andbook: Practices That Transform Us (IVP, 2005) enu-
merates 62 disciplines organized around the central focus on worship.
5 E.g., Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail: Why Evangelicals are Attracted to
Liturgical Worship (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 1985). The Institute of Worship
Studies which Webber founded has produced an impressive amount of resources for
worship and the liturgy. See http://www.iwsfla.org/alumni/ resources.html (accessed
28 March 2009). Many leaders of the convergence movement (see below) have ac-
knowledged their debt to Webber.
6 Dave Tomlinson, The Post Evangelical (London: SPCK, 1995), 15-21.
7 Joyce Gan, “Try Alpha,” <http://www.catholic.org.sg/cn/wordpress/?p=1945>
(accessed 2 Feb. 2008).
Chan: N ew Directions in Evangelical Spirituality 221

cals and charismatics gravitating towards traditional Catholic practices like

centering prayer and silent retreat.8 Furthermore, Christianity from the
Global South is not only gaining the attention of Christians from the North,
its charismatic and sacramental expressions could not have been missed.
Studies of Christianity in the non-Western world have all noted its deep
affinities with primal spirituality and its sacramental universe.9 The sight of
a charismatic bishop of an African church sprinkling holy water on the sick
or demon-possessed may initially jolt some N orth American evangelicals,
but it also forces them to rethink the place of the sacrament from the larger
Christian tradition.
Second, the new developments in evangelical spirituality must be un-
derstood in relation to shifts in spiritual patterns in the wider society.
Robert Wuthnow has noted that since the 1950s American religion has
shifted from a spirituality of “dwelling” i.e., a spirituality stemming from
the assurance and certainty of home, tradition and institution to a spiritual-
ity of “seeking” which is not plugged into any preexisting institutions and
stable structures. Wuthnow, however, notes that the spirituality of seeking
is often “too fluid to provide individuals with the social support they need
to encourage the stability and dedication required to grow spiritually and
to mature in character.”10 The failure of these two types of spirituality has
given rise to a third type: a spirituality of “spiritual practices” which draws
resources selectively from institutions without succumbing to the rigidity
associated with the first type.11
These shifts reflect a basic shift from the culture of modernity to post-
modernity. Postmodernity covers a broad range of concerns, but one aspect
of it has been especially influential in shaping the evangelical conscious-
ness, namely, its epistemology. The concept of truth as timeless, universal
principles that shaped modernity has given way to the concept that truth is
irreducibly particular and narratival in character, and makes sense only in
relation to the interpretive community that “indwells” the narrative. This
does not mean that truth is purely relative (Christians claim that their par-
ticular story revolving around the person of Jesus Christ is universally sig-
nificant); what it does mean is that this particular story can only make sense
when one participates in the community where this claim is lived. It will

8 Rich Heffern, “The Pentecostals and the M onks,” National Catholic Reporter
(Dec 15, 2006): 9a, 10a.
9 See Harvey Cox, Fire From Heaven: The Rise O f Pentecostal Spirituality A nd
The Reshaping O f Religion In The Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, MA: Da
Capeo Press, 2001); Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global
Charismatic Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Philip
Jenkins, The N e xt Christendom: The Coming o f Global Christianity, rev. (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
10 Robert Wuthnow, After Heaven: Spirituality in America Since the 1950s
(Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1998), 15-16.
11 Ibid., 16.
222 Journal of Spiritual Formation & Soul Care

become apparent in what follows that this aspect of postmodernity has the
greatest impact on the new development in evangelical spirituality. The
moral philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre has been especially influential in
promoting this vision of reality among postmodern evangelicals;12 and the
most influential theologian who has systematically applied this Macln-
tyrean vision is probably Stanley Hauerwas.13
In what follows I will look at four movements within the evangelical
world focusing primarily on their understanding of the role of the church in
spiritual formation.14

E m e r g in g C h u r c h e s

Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger describe emerging churches as “commu-

nities that practice the way of Jesus within postmodern cultures.” 15 They
identify three “core practices” of emerging churches: Emerging churches
“ (1) identify with the life of Jesus, (2) transform the secular realm, and (3)
live highly communal lives.” These core practices lead to other concrete ac-
tivities such as welcoming the stranger, serving with generosity, etc.16 These
practices in themselves are unremarkable; what makes the movement
unique is that advocates of the emerging church see the shift from moder-
nity to postmodernity as a major cultural shift which cannot be understood
merely in terms of generational differences. In their view the church needs
to extricate itself from a dying modernity and address the challenges posed
by postmodern culture. This includes new modes of communication, new
organizational structures, and new spiritualities.

12 Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 2nd ed. (Notre
Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981). Cf. Nancey Murphy, Brad J. Kallen-
berg and Mark Thiessen Nation, eds., Virtues and Practices in the Christian Tradi-
tion: Christian Ethics After MacIntyre (Harrisburg, Penn: Trinity Press, 1997).
13 See, e.g. his A Community o f Character: Toward a Constructive Christian So-
cial Ethic (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986). For an introduction
to his thought, see The Hauerwas Reader, eds. John Berkman and Michael G.
Cartwright (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001).
14 I exclude from consideration those from mainline denominations who iden-
tify themselves as “catholic-evangelical.” Although theologically much closer to
evangelicalism than liberal Protestantism, their spiritual orientation has always in-
eluded a liturgical and sacramental dimension, and so what is new for many Free
Church evangelicals is not new to them. They are probably best represented by
Lutheran theologians like Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson and the journal Pro Eccle-
sia. Braaten is director of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology.
15 Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian
Community in Postmodern Cultures (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 44. Gibbs and
Bolger’s book offers a fair and comprehensive study of emerging churches.
16 Gibbs and Bolger, Emerging Churches, 45.
Chan: N ew Directions in Evangelical Spirituality 223

Given the fact that many evangelical churches are still operating within
the paradigm of modernity (timeless, propositional truth, objective knowl-
edge derived from rationalist thought processes, etc.), emerging church
leaders are calling for radical deconstruction. The “solid church” with its
rigid institutions, fixed time and space needs to give way to the “liquid
church.” Pete Ward describes the liquid church as one that “emerges out of
the active ministry of everyone who is joined to Christ. As people join to
Christ and communicate Christ with one another, the networked pattern
that grows from this faithful communication of believers is then identified
with the church.” 17 In this process they have found certain premodern
modes of thought and communication useful for reshaping the modern
church. This explains why emerging churches are experimenting with an-
cient visual symbols (art, icons, and candles), sacraments, signs and rituals.
These modes help to deconstruct the “solid church” and make it more in
tune with the realities of postmodern culture.18
Emerging churches have a number of positive features. First, they are
“missional communities” concerned with reaching the unchurched in the
new culture. They emphasize centrifugal rather than centripetal mission.
The idea of a “liquid church” makes the missional church highly adaptable,
and yet this does not mean that it is totally formless: the church is governed
by the “grand narrative” of the gospel of Jesus Christ.19 Second, the emerg-
ing church’s emphasis on kingdom goals and values is commendable as it
challenges some of the cherished values of modernity that modern churches
unconsciously imbibe: individual rights, privatized religion, etc. It chal-
lenges the modern notion that community is something extraneous to the
individual, something that one may choose or not choose to join. Con-
sequently, it fosters a spirituality of radical discipleship, communion, and
servanthood.
Some aspects of emerging churches, however, are problematic. For in-
stance, while the emphasis on the missional church is important, one must
ask if the church is primarily missional. For many emerging church leaders
the church exists primarily to serve the kingdom until the consummation of
the reign of God.20 But what happens when mission is finally over? Will
that mean the end of the church? Perhaps emerging church leaders might
say that the church’s function would change. But if this is so, then mission
is not what gives the church its basic identity. By making mission primary,
emerging churches may be failing to deal with what truly defines the

17 Pete Ward, Liquid Church (Carlisle and Peabody, MA: Paternoster and Hen-
drickson, 2002), 39.
18 Gibbs and Bolger, Emerging Churches, 220-23.
19 See e.g., Ward, Liquid Church, chap. 7, esp. 70-71.
20 E.g., Dan Kimball, citing Millard Erickson, sees “the primary function of the
church (people) [as] her evangelistic mission.” Dan Kimball, The Emerging Church:
Vintage Christianity for N ew Generations (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 93.
224 Journal of Spiritual Formation &c Soul Care

church. The church’s primary function cannot be missional but ultimately

eucharistic and doxological (see below).21
The emerging church has rightly criticized the old forms of the church
that fail to embody the kingdom, but it has not moved further to ask more
fundamental theological questions: W hat is the place of institution vis-à-vis
church as community or family? If the church is the embodiment of the
kingdom, what form of embodiment does it take? By treating the church as
ancillary to the kingdom, emerging church advocates seem to entertain
some kind of “Ebionite” embodiment so that when the kingdom is consum-
mated, the church is no longer necessary.22 There is a tendency to set church
conceived as a warm, intimate family in opposition to church as impersonal
institution.23 But what if the family fails (as often happens in a fallen
world)? Is there not a place for institution to deal with such failures? If so,
we cannot so easily dispense with the church as institution, i.e., a structure
in time and space, even though historically the institutional aspects have of-
ten overshadowed its communal life.24
Emerging church leaders cannot be accused of not taking the Christian
community seriously,25 but one does wonder if they have taken the Chris-
tian tradition seriously enough. They seem to think of tradition as essen-
tially a matter of beliefs or ideas rather than a history. They tend to retrieve
selectively useful things from the Christian tradition to build communities
that resonate with postmodern culture.26 The result is a reinvented church
with little sense of historical continuity with the Great Tradition. Alan Ja-
cobs in a recent review of emerging church literature calls this “do-it-
yourself tradition.”27 The concerns of emerging church leaders could be
better advanced if their idea of a liquid church could be linked to the living
tradition as found in Orthodoxy. In Orthodoxy, the church too is an

21 See Simon Chan, “The Mission of the Trinity” (interview), Christianity Today
51.6 (June 2007): 48-51.
22 I have in mind the Ebionite heresy of Cerinthus who taught that the preexis-
tent Christ descended on the man Jesus at his baptism, but left him before his death
on the Cross. See J. F. Bethune-Baker, A n Introduction to the Early History o f Chris-
tian Doctrine (London: Methuen, 1951), 66.
23 See Gibbs and Bolger, Emerging Churches, 90 cf. 99-105.
24 Gibbs and Bolger note that some emerging churches that initially tried to dis-
pense with “meetings” found themselves going back to meetings (106).
25 Some appear to take the Christian tradition more seriously than others. See,
e.g., the website “Deep Church,” http://deepchurch.org.uk/about/ (accessed March
8,2009).
26 Brian McLaren’s Generous O rthodoxy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004)
comes immediately to mind. On what basis, e.g., does McLaren select the Christus
Victor theme from (supposedly) Catholicism and the sanative view of salvation from
Orthodoxy?
27 Alan Jacobs, “Do-It-Yourself Tradition,” First Things 189 (Jan 2009): 27-32.
Chan: N ew Directions in Evangelical Spirituality 225

“event” but it is an event that grows out of a history: the living tradition as
the life of the Spirit in the church.28

B a p t i s t Sa c r a m e n t a l i s m

In recent years a number of Baptist theologians in both the United

Kingdom and America are calling on fellow Baptists to reassess their Bap-
tist identity.29 They argue that much of what modern Baptists believe to be
part of their distinctive identity has been shaped by Enlightenment concepts
of human reason and individual freedom. They therefore appeal to Baptists
to recover from their earlier history a strong sense of the church and its
sacraments as means of grace. Among those making such a call are signers
of a landmark document “Re-visioning Baptist Identity: A Manifesto for
Baptist Communities in N orth America.”30
Like the emerging church leaders, Baptist sacramentalists are deeply
aware of the cultural shift from modernity to postmodernity. This is re-
fleeted in their emphases on the church as a hermeneutical community,31 nar-
rative theology32 and sacraments as effective means of grace.33 But unlike the

28 See e.g. Alexander Schmemann, For the Life o f the World: Sacraments and
Orthodoxy (Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir Seminary Press, 2000), 26-28; Georges
Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern O rthodox View, Vol. 1 in Collected
Works (Belmont, MA: N ordland Publishing, 1972), 41-43.
29 E.g., Anthony R. Cross and Philip E. Thompson, eds., Baptist Sacramentalism
(Carlisle: Paternoster, 2003); Steven R. Harmon, Towards Baptist Catholicity: Essays
on Tradition and the Baptist Vision (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2006); Steven
Holmes, Listening to the Past: The Place o f Tradition in Theology (Carlisle: Pater-
noster, 2002); S. K. Fowler, More Than a Symbol: The British Baptist Recovery o f
Baptismal Sacramentalism (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2002); John Colwell, Promise and
Presence: An Exploration o f Sacramental Theology (Milton Keynes: Paternoster,
2006); Christopher Ellis, Gathering: A Theology and Spirituality o f Worship in the
Free Church Tradition (London: SCM, 2004); Philip E. Thompson, “A New Ques-
tion in Baptist History: Seeking a Catholic Spirit among Early Baptists,” Pro Ecclesia
8.1 (Winter, 1999): 51-72; M ark Medley, “Catholics, Baptists, and the Normativity
of Tradition,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 28.2 (Summer 2001): 119-129; B.
Harvey, “The Eucharistic Idiom of the Gospel,” Pro Ecclesia 9.3 (Summer, 2000):
297-318; Curtis Freeman, “Where Two or Three Are Gathered: Communion Ecclesi-
ology in the Free Church,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 13.03 (2006): 259-272.
30 The Manifesto was the work of members of the Cooperative Baptist Fellow-
ship and can be found in Perspectives in Religious Studies 24.3 (2006): 303-310 and
in H armon, Towards Baptist Catholicity (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2006), 2 1 5 -
229. Subsequent citations from the Manifesto are taken from Perspectives.
31 “Re-visioning Baptist Identity,” no. 1.
32 Harmon, Towards Baptist Catholicity: Essays on Tradition and the Baptist
Vision (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2006), 61-63.
33 “Re-visioning Baptist Identity,” no. 4.
226 Journal of Spiritual Formation &; Soul Care

emerging church leaders, Baptist sacramentalists have a deep respect for the
Christian tradition. They are not so much concerned with re-making the
church to address the concerns of postmodern culture as with re-establishing
a more catholic Baptist identity. This is why they are engaged in a much more
systematic retrieval of the Christian tradition, especially its patristic expres-
sion. Furthermore, they seek to retrieve not just specific aspects of patristic
theology but more specifically the patristic understanding of the centrality of
worship in the life of the church. Steven Harmon, for example, believes that

the renewal of contemporary Baptist life is not through the retrieval of

specific patristic theological perspectives or practices per se . . . but
rather through the recovery of worship as the primary means by which
people are formed in deeply Christian faith and practice, accompanied
by the recovery of particular patterns and practices of worship that are
patristic in origin yet have great potential for forming the contempo-
rary faith of the church.34

This means that the formation of one’s spiritual life cannot be realized
apart from the life of worship—a worship which necessarily involves
“sacramental and liturgical practices [as] the central means by which ‘the
ecclesial self’ is shaped as ‘the worshipping self,’ and vice versa.”35
One surprising feature of the Manifesto is that it displays a strongly
anti-authoritarian stance as it seeks to relocate authority from individuals
to the community, from Scripture as text to Scripture as witness to revela-
tion. It rejects “a coercive hierarchy of authority” and “all forms of author-
itarian interpretation” of Scripture.36 While authoritarianism is rightly re-
jected, the critical question is whether Baptist sacramentalists could
develop a theology of authority that makes sense of the liturgical leadership
of the church (a point to be taken up later). This question seems unavoid-
able if liturgical and sacramental worship is seen as necessary for ecclesial
formation. Yet, the issue does not appear to have been addressed.37

Fe d e r a l V is io n

If the Baptist sacramentalists’ recovery of liturgical and sacramental

worship is motivated by their concern to return to a more authentic,
catholic Baptist identity, federal visionists seem to be motivated by the need

34 Steven R. Harmon, Towards Baptist Catholicity, 153.

35 Mark S. Medley, ‘“ Do this’: The Eucharist and Ecclesial Selfhood,” Review
and Expositor 100 (Summer 2003): 383-401 (384).
36 “Re-visioning Baptist Identity,” 304, 305.
37 Harmon in his discussion on authority makes no reference to this issue. See
Towards Baptist Catholicity, 23-38.
Chan: N ew Directions in Evangelical Spirituality 227

to correct basic errors that have occurred within their own history.38 Fed-
eral visionists come mostly from the more conservative Presbyterian
churches such as the Presbyterian Church of America and the Orthodox
Presbyterian Church. The name federal vision is derived from the belief that
covenantal relationship, understood not in a legalistic way, but as the com-
munion of the triune God with humanity, is the all-embracing category for
understanding God’s relation with humanity and the entire creation. God’s
covenant is not subsequent to creation but inherent in creation.39 In other
words, God’s relationship with the world is conducted on the basis of
covenant—a covenant that is supremely realized in the church. In contrast
to the emerging church advocates, federal visionists do not regard the
church merely as an instrument of the kingdom; rather, the church is the
chief activity of the kingdom. According to Peter Leithart, one of the most
prominent advocates of federal vision,

In the Bible, the kingdom of God is mainly concerned with the church,
her sacraments and worship, her discipline and teaching, and her min-
istries of mercy. The kingdom has more to do with ecclesiology than
with eschatology (narrowly defined) or with political theory. The really
big kingdom activities do not take place in the halls of Congress. . . .
But the really big kingdom activity—the act that radically changes the
world—is the gathering of the people of God on the Lord’s day at the
heavenly banquet table, when God’s people hear His Word, offer hum-
ble petitions to the King, and feast on the flesh and blood of Jesus.40

If God’s relationship with humanity is covenantal, and worship is the “big

kingdom activity” to realize God’s covenant with humanity, then worship
could also be understood as essentially “covenant renewal”—an act which
“always climaxes with a common meal.”41 Federal visionists have thus de-
veloped a coherent theological vision in which the church and its worship
which is liturgically and sacramentally defined are unified around the
covenant.
The church is not only central to G od’s kingdom, it is a spiritual, visi-
ble and objective reality: “the visible Church is the true Church of Christ,

38 For a sympathetic summary of the main ideas of federal vision see Joseph
Minich, “Within the Bounds of Orthodoxy? An examination of the Federal Vision
Controversy,” http://federal-vision.com/minich.html (accessed 21 Jan 2009). A good
introduction to the central ideas of federal vision can be found in Steve Wilkins and
Duane Garner, eds., The Federal Vision (Monroe, LA: Athanasius Press, 2004).
39 Joseph Minich, “Within the Bounds of Orthodoxy? An examination of the
Federal Vision Controversy,” 11.
40 Peter J. Leithard, The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality
o f the Church (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1993), 212-13.
41 Jeffrey J. Meyers, The Lord's Service: The Grace o f Covenant Renewal Wor-
ship (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2003), 33-34.
228 Journal of Spiritual Formation &c Soul Care

and not an ‘approximate’ Church.”42 Federal visionists believe that this em-
phasis on the objective character of the church can help to address a peren-
nial problem in Reformed theology, namely, the doctrine of assurance going
back to some of the Puritans in the seventeenth century that led to excessive
introspection for subjective signs of saving grace in the individual. In stress-
ing the objectivity of the covenant federal visionists also affirm the objectiv-
ity of the covenant signs: baptism objectively places one in the covenant;
the eucharist is true feeding on the body and blood of Christ to eternal
life—that is the basis of assurance of salvation and not some subjective evi-
dence of salvation that one tries to discover through introspection. The vis-
ible church too is the true body of Christ and not just a façade for some in-
visible, spiritual reality. In this way, federal vision attempts to overcome an
abstract decretal theology which not only results in an individualized, sub-
jective understanding of salvation—am I one of the elect?—but also reduces
the “real” church into an invisible entity. By pointing to the objective real-
ity of what Christ has accomplished and the objective participation in it
through union with Christ through baptism and the Lord’s Supper, federal
vision reframes the whole issue of assurance: Assurance is not dependent on
an affirmative answer to the question: Do you really believe that at baptism
you are in Christ? Rather, the proper approach should be, if you are bap-
tized then you are in Christ. This does not mean that one is presumed to be
saved just because one has been baptized. But a baptized person in good
standing with the church is presumed saved unless there are obvious signs
to the contrary.43

C onvergence C hurches

The convergence movement is represented by evangelicals and charis-

matics who have become dissatisfied with the incompleteness of their previ-
ous spiritual experiences.44 A common feature of the convergence churches
is that they are seeking to be a church “whose worship is fully charismatic,
fully evangelical, and fully sacramental and liturgical.”45 Like the two pre-
ceding movements the Christian life is essentially ecclesial, and the primary
expression of that life is to be found in sacramental and liturgical worship.

42 “A Joint Federal Vision Statement,” see under “The Visible and Invisible
Church,” http://www.federal-vision.com/pdf/fvstatement.pdf (accessed 24 Feb 2009).
43 Steve Wilkins, “Covenant, Baptism and Salvation,” Federal Vision, 58.
44 There are currently three such communions: the International Communion of
the Charismatic Episcopal Church (founded in 1992), the Communion of Evangelical
Episcopal Churches (1993), and its sister communion, the Communion of Conver-
gence Churches (2005).
45 From the website of the International Communion of the Charismatic Episco-
pal Church, http://www.iccec.org/ (accessed 27 February 2009).
Chan: N ew Directions in Evangelical Spirituality 229

But what distinguishes them from the other movements that we have con-
sidered so far is that they see themselves as a “communion” rather than a
denomination.

In contrast to a denomination, a communion expresses the organic

unity Jesus Christ originally established in His Body, the Church.
Rather than emerging from divisions created by historic differences
over doctrine and practice, a communion represents return to unity
based on the recovery of the essential oneness of the ancient, medieval,
and contemporary church.46

Short of full communion, convergence churches seek as far as possible to

establish links with the historic apostolic churches, especially the Catholic,
Orthodox and Anglican Churches. What distinguishes these churches from
Protestantism is the place of the historic episcopate. For example, the Inter-
national Communion of Charismatic Episcopal Church (ICCEC), the Com-
munion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches (CEEC), and to a lesser extent
the Communion of Convergence Churches use the 1979 Book of Common
Prayer of the Episcopal Church USA. They establish their “communions”
according to the principles defined in the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral
of 1886: the Holy Scriptures, the Apostles’ and Nicene Creed, the two
sacraments, and the historic episcopate.47 The last principle is especially
significant and is what distinguishes convergence churches from the other
movements. Unlike Baptist sacramentalists and federal visionists who seek
to catholicize their distinctive identities, convergence churches seek for
some form of organic unity with the one church through the “historic epis-
copate.” In other words, they believe that some form of apostolic succès-
sion is needed to legitimize their status as a communion. Thus the consecra-
tion of the first bishops of the CEEC was carried out “in apostolic
succession” in the presence of an Eastern Orthodox and Catholic bishop.48

A n A s s e s s m e n t : So m e E c c l e sio l o g ic a l Th e m e s

In this brief survey I have tried to bring out some similarities and dif-
ferences between the four movements.49 All the movements are marked by
the shift from an individual to a communal conception of the Christian

46 From the website of the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches,

http://www.theceec.org/whoweare.html (accessed 27 Feb 2009).
47 “The Communion of the Evangelical Episcopal Churches: Who We Are,”
http://www.theceec.org/whoweare.html (accessed 27 February 2009).
48 “Initial History and Growth of the CEEC,” http://www.theceec.org/html/
history_of_the_ceec.html (accessed 27 February 2009).
49 Their differences will be briefly noted in the conclusion.
230 Journal of Spiritual Formation Sc Soul Care

life. Except for the emerging churches, worship, more precisely liturgical
and sacramental worship, is considered definitive for ecclesial identity.
This is a major paradigm shift from traditional evangelical spirituality.
Not surprisingly, many traditional evangelicals have deep reservations
about these new developments, but not for the same reasons. Dave Hunt,
for example, sees practices like visualization (a practice recommended by
Foster) as bordering on shamanism.50 Others have questioned the appro-
priateness of commending new practices as essential for spiritual forma-
tion. For them only those disciplines that are explicitly sanctioned by
Scripture are absolutely necessary.51 For Robert Plummer, only such disci-
plines qualify as spiritual disciplines; others such as silence and solitude
are “conditions that aid” spiritual discipline.52 For Donald Whitney gen-
uine evangelical spirituality should be developed within the boundaries set
by the principles of sola scriptura and sola fide.52, David Parker, however,
thinks that the addition of new spiritual exercises or disciplines does not
substantially alter the shape of evangelical spirituality so long as they serve
to enhance one’s personal relationship with God.54 Nonetheless, Parker is
concerned that exercises that imply the “essentially sacramental character”
of the Christian faith would undermine the evangelical faith.55 Although
more open to the “new spirituality,” Parker seems to imply that at this
point evangelicals should establish their status confessionis since the “fo-
cus on the corporate, sacramental nature of the church in Catholic and
Liturgical sources” is incompatible “with the evangelical understanding of
fellowship and grace.”56
The shift from individual to ecclesial formation does indeed represent a
radical reorientation of the way the Christian life is understood and lived.
This will become more apparent as we reflect on three ecclesiological
themes which are implied in or arise from the new evangelical sacramental
spirituality.

50 Dave Hunt, The Seduction o f Christianity: Spiritual Discernment in the Last

Days (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1985).
51 Bob DeWaay, “The Dangers of Spiritual Formation and Spiritual Disci-
plines,” Critical Issues Commentary 91 (Nov/Dec 2005): 6. http://cicministry.org/
commentary/issue91.pdf (accessed 23 Jan 2008). DeWaay’s criticisms are directed
specifically at Dallas Willard’s Spirit o f the Disciplines.
52 Robert L. Plummer, “Are the Spiritual Disciplines of ‘Silence and Solitude’
Really Biblical?,” Journal o f Spiritual Formation and Soul Care, 2:1 (2009): 101-
1 12 .
53 Donald S. Whitney, “Defining the Boundaries of Evangelical Spirituality”
http://bibicalspirituality.org/pdef.html (accessed January 2008).
54 “Evangelical Spirituality Reviewed,” 140-41.
55 Ibid., 143.
56 “Evangelical Spirituality Reviewed,” 143.
Chan: N ew Directions in Evangelical Spirituality 231

The Church as Interpretive Community

Underlying the differences between the traditional and the new evan-
gelical spirituality are different hermeneutical presuppositions. When Bob
DeWaay objects to Willard’s enjoining certain spiritual disciplines like soli-
tude, the underlying point at issue is the way in which the authority of the
Bible is constituted. For DeWaay, only what is explicitly taught in the Scrip-
ture or intended by the biblical writer can be enjoined; if not, it should be
optional: “If we need solitude, God . . . might make it so the only job we
can find is being a midnight shift watchm an.”57 This way of understanding
the authority of Scripture is based on the grammatical-historical method of
interpretation which seeks out the authorial intention and the “objective
meaning” of the text. But for Willard, the biblical basis for observing cer-
tain spiritual disciplines is not based solely on specific texts enjoining them
(there are, in fact, few such texts), but on their connection to larger Chris-
tological themes, such as the imitation of Christ, Jesus’ identification with
humanity through the incarnation, and the doctrine of salvation that in-
eludes the transformation of the body.58 Without being explicit about it,
Willard was actually reading the Bible canonically.
The reading of the Bible as canon grows out of a deep conviction that
the Bible is one book whose ultimate author is God and whose chief content
is Christ. The Bible is also the church’s book in the sense that it is through
the church’s communal reading of the texts that the church comes to recog-
nize these texts as authoritative. The authoritative teaching of Scripture is
derived from a symbiotic relationship between the church as interpretive
community and her Scriptures. In contrast, the so-called scientific approach
to interpretation presupposes that the true meaning of the text is open to
anyone with the requisite skills. The church relies on the expertise of the in-
dividual interpreter or the collective skills of the scholarly guild for her un-
derstanding of the Bible. There is no awareness that the scholars need the
church to interpret the church’s book correctly. The church as church plays
no significant role in the interpretive process.
A canonical reading of Scripture does not mean that the grammatical-
historical method is jettisoned, but it would not be restricted to deriving
teachings only on the intention of the biblical writers, but would draw
teachings from examples, types, history, stories, etc. For example, a typo-
logical interpretation, or “spiritual exegesis” is predicated on the church’s
understanding of the Bible as having a Christological center.59 This was the

57 Bob DeWaay, “The Dangers of Spiritual Formation and Spiritual Disci-

plines,” Critical Issues Commentary 91 (Nov/Dec 2005): 6. http://cicministry.org/
commentary/issue91.pdf (accessed 23 Jan 2008).
58 See Willard, Spirit o f the Disciplines, 5-10, 29-36, 100-112 passim.
59 Richard Hays would go even further to claim that Paul’s hermeneutics is not
christocentric but ecclesiocentric. Richard B. Hays, Echoes o f Scripture in the Letters
o f Paul (New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1989), 84-87.
232 Journal of Spiritual Formation & Soul Care

method of the early church fathers and, contrary to what is commonly be-
lieved among many evangelicals, it was also the method of the Reformers.60
This method is also fully recognized by federal vision advocates. For exam-
pie, the imputation of Chrises righteousness is based on the believers’ union
with Christ as the fulfillment of the Old Testament: the “new Adam,” “new
Israel,” and “the greater Joshua.”61 Similarly, because the Old Testament is
not abrogated but fulfilled in Christ, federal visionists see the basic order or
shape of the sacrificial system of the Old Testament as providing the shape
of worship for the church—which is precisely what we find in the tradi-
tional liturgy.62

The Givenness o f the Liturgy

When Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians speak of the liturgy

they are referring to something “given.” This means that the liturgy cannot
be reinvented any more than the church can be reinvented.63 It is this given-
ness of the church and its liturgy that should shape our practice and not the
other way around. This is the way the movements we have surveyed seem to
understand the liturgy as well, except perhaps among the emerging church
leaders whose appropriation of tradition tends to be eclectic and conse-
quently their worship is reinvented with bits and pieces pillaged from the
Christian tradition.64 But as Alan Jacobs has pointed out, a “do-it-yourself”
tradition detached from its ancient roots is no tradition at all.65 In this re-
spect, emerging church leaders, for all their claim to be “post-evangelical”

60 See e.g. Kathryn Greene-McCreight, ‘“ We are Companions of the Patriarchs’

or Scripture Absorbs Calvin’s W orld,” Modern Theology 14.2 (April 1998): 2 1 3 -
224; A d Litteram: H ow Augustine, Calvin and Barth Read the Plain Sense o f Genesis
1-3 (New York, N.Y.: Peter Lang, 1999).
61 “A Joint Federal Vision Statement,” see under “Union with Christ and Impu-
tation,” http://www.federal-vision.com/pdf/fvstatement.pdf (accessed 24 February
2009).
62 Meyers, The Lord’s Service, 51-52 cf. 55-71. See also Peter J. Leithart, “Sac-
rifice and Worship,” http://www.leithart.com/archives/print/000960.php (accessed
21 January 2009).
63 See my Liturgical Theology: The Church as Worshipping Community (Down-
ers Grove, IL: IVP, 2006), chap. 1.
64 This is noted by many critics of the emerging church. E.g., D. A. Carson, Be-
coming Conversant with the Emerging Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005),
139-141; Kristen Scharold, “The Emerging Church and Its Critics,” First Things,
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=1068, (accessed 8 March 2009); Peter
Schuurman, “Vintage Faith in Post-Modern Wineskins: Notes on the Emerging
Church Conversation,” http://www.logoscrc.ca/emerging%20church.htm (accessed
8 March 2009).
65 Alan Jacobs, “Do-It-Yourself Tradition,” 31.
Chan: N ew Directions in Evangelical Spirituality 233

have not moved significantly beyond the old evangelical ecclesiology of try-
ing to reinvent the church.66
If the liturgy is a given, then it cannot be arbitrarily constructed (or de-
constructed). This is why in liturgical worship, worship is understood as
primarily an enactment and an indwelling: the enactment of the revelation
of the triune God, and the church’s indwelling of the paschal mystery.67 As
there can only be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, there can
only be one liturgy of word and sacrament that manifests the one church.68
Meyers, a federal visionist, believes that this ancient liturgical order of
word and sacrament reflects “a gut-level familiarity with the biblical way of
approaching G od” and proceeds to show from a careful study of the Old
Testament sacrificial system that this was in fact the case.69 Similarly, Bap-
tist sacramentalist, M ark Medley, drawing from various traditional
sources, sees worship as essentially eucharistic and as the key to forming
the ecclesial self.70 It is here that the difference between liturgical and non-
liturgical worship becomes most apparent. It should be made clear that the
distinction being considered between liturgical and non-liturgical is strictly
a theological one rather than sociological or phenomenological. From the
perspective of ritual studies any structure of worship whether written or
unwritten, using set prayers or free prayers, could be called a liturgy. But
theologically there are different rationales underlying the respective forms
of worship. Basically liturgical worship seeks to enact and indwell the cen-
tral revelation of the triune God, i.e., the mystery of God in Christ or the
paschal mystery.71 If we may use an analogy from the world of acting, in
liturgical worship, the worshippers are “acting” out the given liturgical
script. Like good actors, worshippers indwell the text, make it their own,
and in the process are transformed by the text. Non-liturgical worship, on
the other hand, is governed primarily by the needs of the worshippers. This

66 William Dyrness refers to modern evangelical churches as “reinventing itself

week after week.” See “ Spaces for an Evangelical Ecclesiology,” in The Community
o f the Word: Toward and Evangelical Ecclesiology, eds. M ark Husbands and Daniel
J. Treier (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2005), 261.
67 This is the way the traditional liturgy is understood. See, for example, Irm-
gard Pahl, “The Paschal Mystery in its Central Meaning for the Shape of Christian
Liturgy,” Studia Litúrgica 26 (1996):16-38. Cf. Medley, “ ‘Do This’: The Eucharist
and Ecclesial Selfhood,” 388; Meyers, The L o rd’s Service, 70.
68 Paul McPartlan, The Eucharist Makes the Church: Henri de Lubac and John
Zizioulas in Dialogue (Edinburgh: T and T. Clark, 1993).
69 Meyers, The L o rd ’s Service, 78, 73-92.
70 Mark S. Medley, ‘“ Do This’: The Eucharist and Ecclesial Selfhood,” Review
and Expositor, 100 (Summer 2003): 383-401.
71 This is pretty much the standard definition from the perspective of the liturgi-
cal tradition. E.g., Irmgard Pahl, “The Paschal Mystery in its Central Meaning for
the Shape of Christian Liturgy,” Studia Litúrgica 26 (1996):16-38. See my Liturgical
Theology: The Church as Worshipping Community (Downers Grove: IVP, 2006),
chap. 3.
234 Journal of Spiritual Formation & Soul Care

is most apparent in so-called contemporary worship. Jack Hayford, a Pen-

tecostal, in his book Worship His Majesty states as his central thesis: “wor-
ship is for people.”72
Non-liturgical worship does not presuppose any normative “given”
which needed to be enacted. There is therefore no normative structure ei-
ther. It is the needs of the church that determine how the worship is to be
constructed or deconstructed. Worship is understood as a practical arrange-
ment to further certain spiritual ends, depending on what the ends are un-
derstood to be. If the main aim of the gathering is for instruction in the
word, then preaching tends to occupy a greater part of the service and
everything prior to it is just a “preliminary.” If the aim of the gathering is a
spiritual encounter with God, then the worship is so structured as to induce
a spiritual encounter (such as using lively singing and spontaneous prayer).
If the aim is evangelism, then everything done at worship is geared towards
reaching out to non-Christians with the message of salvation.
In liturgical worship, the end of worship is inherent in the act of wor-
ship. The very act of worship is an act of indwelling and communicating the
gospel events. In non-liturgical worship, worship may be constructed to
serve any number of practical ends which may or may not be intrinsic to the
act of worship itself. To borrow from Alasdair McIntyre’s understanding of
communal practice, liturgical worship seeks to realize certain intrinsic
goods in worship, whereas non-liturgical worship seeks to realize certain
extrinsic goods.73 The givenness in liturgical worship (the word-sacrament
structure) cannot be changed or set aside without radically altering the very
nature of the worship and the very nature of the church itself, whereas in
non-liturgical worship, the nature and content of worship depends on
whatever prior goals the church has set for itself. These goals may change
from time to time depending on the perceived needs of the worshippers.
The nature of liturgical worship as the enactment of the Christian story
would explain why set texts and prayers are important: they are not of our
own making but given to us. Further, the objective and corporate nature of
the liturgy is presupposed even in the use of variables like songs, which are
mostly corporate and objective (such as the Gloria in Excelsis), whereas in
most non-liturgical worship, the singing tends to focus on the individual,
subjective appropriation of the truth or personal relationship with God.
This is especially so in “contemporary” worship.74 The difference is

72 Jack Hayford, Worship His Majesty (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2000), 62. But even
a traditional evangelical like Donald Bloesch seems to imply the same rationale. In
his recommendation of “An Evangelical Order of Worship” we detect a certain arbi-
trariness in the choice of readings and frequency of communion. See The Church:
Sacraments, Worship, Minsitry, Mission (Downers Grove: IVP, 2002), 141-142.
73 Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 2nd ed. (Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1984), 187.
74 See the critique of the Vineyard songs by Martyn Percy, Wonders and Power
(London: SPCK, 1996).
Chan: N ew Directions in Evangelical Spirituality 235

broadly similar to the distinction Paul Bradshaw makes between “cathe-

dral” prayer and “monastic” prayer respectively.75 In liturgical or “cathe-
dral” worship, worshippers apply themselves to the corporate prayers of
the church; they pray the church’s prayer and thus become the church. In
non-liturgical, “monastic” worship, worshippers seek individually to apply
the elements of worship to themselves for personal edification.

The Church as An Ordered Community

The enactment of the revelation-response of the liturgy implies an or-

der in which there are those who lead and others who respond. The leader
as representative of Christ communicates GodJs revelation to which the
people of God (the laos) respond. The order of the liturgical assembly gives
rise to church order. Church order, Orthodox theologians are careful to
point out, does not imply domination, but mutual dependence between
leader and people. Thus the saying “no church without bishop” should be
complemented by another: “no bishop without church.”76 A differentiated
existence is needed to sustain the liturgical assembly. It was from this fact
that the historic episcopate evolved. This point is perhaps not fully appreci-
ated in the new evangelical spirituality. Both Baptist sacramentalists and
federal visionists seek to appropriate a liturgical and sacramental spiritual-
ity in order to retrieve their catholic identity. It is liturgical in the sense that
it presupposes the givenness of the liturgy, and sacramental in the sense that
the whole liturgy culminates in the Eucharist. As Joseph Minich, speaking
for the federal visionists, puts it, “By virtue of our common sacrament . . .
we are liturgically part of the same body as Rome.”77 But only the conver-
gence movement takes the new spirituality to its logical end by identifying
the “historic episcopate” as one of the marks of the church catholic. It is
aware that to be truly catholic requires some form of historical link with
the ancient church. This is what it means to be part of the Great Tradition.
It is one thing to create a community by borrowing from the ancient
church, quite another to connect with the ancient church through a living
tradition. While it cannot be said that convergence churches have realized
full communion with the ancient church catholic, they are probably one
step closer to it.

75 Paul Bradshaw, Two Ways o f Praying: Introducing Liturgical Spirituality

(London: SPCK, 1995).
76 Nicholas Afanasiev, The Church o f the Holy Spirit, trans. Vitaly Permiakov,
ed. Michael Plekon (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 37. Cf.
Alexander Schmemann: “There is really no service, no liturgy without the ‘Amen’ of
those who have been ordained to serve God as community, as Church.” “ Clergy and
Laity in the O rthodox Church,” <http://www.schmemann.org/byhim/clergyandlaity
inthechurch.html> (8 November 2006). Emphasis author’s.
77 Joseph Minich, “Within the Bounds of O rthodoxy?” 13.
236 Journal of Spiritual Formation &c Soul Care

The church catholic that all Christians confess in the Creed is not yet
one. But if they truly believe that it should be one, then they need to do the-
ology and carry on their ecclesial practice as if it were one.78 That is the
next challenge for evangelicals. They cannot exist on a do-it-yourself tradi-
tion even if it bears the closest resemblance to the church catholic. They
need to explore the question of historical continuity. This is not to say that
evangelicals should become Roman Catholic or Orthodox; rather, in ad-
dressing the question of the historical church catholic with the Roman and
Orthodox churches, evangelical may yet make a distinctive contribution to
genuine ecumenism, such that continuing reformation will occur in all the
Christian traditions and a truly catholic convergence, or at least a faint vi-
sion of it, will begin to emerge.

C o n c l u sio n

The new developments in evangelical spirituality reflect the broad cul-

tural shifts in the West from modernity to postmodernity and the four
movements we have briefly looked at represent different responses to post-
modernity. The critical question is, how do we determine if a response rep-
resents a faithful contextualization of the gospel in a new culture (and
therefore a genuine development of the apostolic faith) or a capitulation to
the spirit of the age? The answer to this question is dependent on another
question: To what extent has each of these movements succeeded in retriev-
ing the Great Tradition and expressing it through the new medium? (This
assumes that the evangelical tradition is part of the Great Tradition.) Of the
four movements, the emerging church appears to have the weakest link to
the Christian tradition. Its highly selective appropriation of the Christian
past shows that its primary concern is relevance to culture. It is more con-
cerned to move beyond a narrowly defined evangelicalism without seriously
considering that there is a catholic dimension of evangelicalism.79 Its
agenda appears to be determined largely by postmodern culture than by the
common heritage that “catholic” Christians share. In this regard, its ap-

78 Carl Braaten, “The Role of Dogma in Church and Theology,” The Task o f
Theology Today, eds. Victor Pfitzner and Hilary Regan (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1998), 53.
79 Examples of catholic evangelicalism can be seen in “Evangelicals and
Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium” in First Things
43 (May 1994): 15-22. The statement is the result of consultations between evangel-
icals and Roman Catholics beginning in 1992. See also Charles Colson, Your Word is
Truth: A Project o f Evangelicals and Catholics Together (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2002); Dwight Longnecker and David Gustafson, Mary: A Catholic-Evangelical De-
bate (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2004); Tim Perry, Mary for Evangelicals (Downers
Grove: IVP, 2006).
Chan: N ew Directions in Evangelical Spirituality 237

proach is not very different from Schleiermacher’s attempt to commend

Christianity to its cultured despisers.
The other three movements seem to take the Christian tradition more
seriously. They recognize the need for their current identities to be reshaped
by the Great Tradition. They are also agreed that the sacramental and litur-
gical are necessary to strengthening their catholic identity. But Baptist
sacramentalists and federal visionists also desire to be formed in a manner
that would not compromise their respective historical uniqueness. Each
asks a similar question: what does it mean to be catholic and Baptist or
catholic and Reformed? The convergence churches ask a different question:
How are we to become the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church which
is charismatic, evangelical, sacramental and liturgical? The last question
seems to point the new evangelical spirituality in the direction it should be
heading if its goal is to be part of the one church that all Christians profess
belief in when they recite the Nicene Creed.

Author: Simon Chan. Title: Earnest Lau Professor o f Systematic Theology. Af-
filiation: Trinity Theological College, Singapore. Highest Degree: Ph.D., University
o f Cambridge. Areas o f interest/specialization: the interface between theology, spiri-
tuality and worship.
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