Monday, November 08, 2004

unspiritual Christianity

it is almost a cliche today to talk about the re-spiritualising of our culture. we are continually told how people today are more open to the spiritual side of life than they have been for a long time. one of the most interesting things for me - a deeply sad observation - is that the church is seen as being unspiritual. if someone is spiritually curious the last place they will think to look to explore the spiritual side of life is church. it's not a very spiritual place.
Carol Midgley of the Times illustrates this point in a recent article (which you can read here).
I found it really interesting that she contrasts 'religion' with what she calls 'holistic activity'. to me it highlights how badly wrong the church has got it for such a long time. isn't christian faith supposed to be a 'holistic activity'!!
we need to recover a holistic Christian faith that impacts our bodies, minds, souls, spirits etc. etc.
that's why I'm glad that at our home-central worship service this coming Thursday night one of the prayer-stations will be exploring 'body-prayer' i.e. using our bodies to pray. this will be uncharted territory for some of us but we must be willing to re-spiritualise church if we are going to connect with the world around us.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good to read your blog, I blogged with some sadness about the Times article too and that Spirituality was assumed to stand opposite to Christianity. I'd love to buy you a coffee sometime in Oxford and here a bit more about the stuff your doing.
Youthblog (aka the Diocesan Youth Bod) www.youthblog.org

Matt said...

i'm always happy to have a coffee bought for me!