|
 |
|
From Volume 10, Number 4, Spring 2004 Matter Matters: Second in a four part series on the Incarnational Tradition Richard Foster’s book, Streams of Living Water, addresses six traditions of Christian spirituality that together comprise the Christ-like life in its fullness. The first five traditions in the book: Contemplative, Holiness, Charismatic, Social Justice, and Evangelical were fairly simple to identify. However, from some tapes recorded at an early Renovaré conference we learn that the Incarnational tradition took a bit longer to identify and name. This tradition is somewhat all encompassing. On its own it speaks of a number of things: the recognition of God’s self-revelation in creation, the inclusion of our senses and the use of the physical in worship, the practice of incarnating the character and commands of Jesus in our vocation. In the context of the first five traditions it speaks of how we take the ideas and values of those traditions and make them real in our lives. It was with this idea that the first installment on the Incarnational tradition ended: “The Incarnational stream, in terms of the Aidan Way, is expressed in living the personal way we have created.” One of the elements in our personal way is the 6th element of the Aidan Way: “Care for and Affirmation of Creation.” Before the coming of the Gospel to the Celtic lands, Celtic spirituality had a view of creation permeated with spiritual life. There were a number of gods and goddesses associated with creation, and many of these were local – spirits of trees and wells, of mountains and rocks. Like most human religion without the self-revelation of God in the Scriptures, they almost got it right. It was not that there were indeed intelligent spirits residing in these elements of creation, but that each element, coming from the creative act of God, reflected something of God’s glory. In this sense, Creation can be seen as something sacramental, an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. A sacramental Creation has profound implications for Christians in our relationship with creation. Because of the interweaving of faith and culture, Christianity has often unthinkingly adopted a non-biblical, even an anti-biblical view of creation as a spiritually dead thing which may be exploited and manipulated to our profit without spiritual concern. For this reason much of the contemporary “Green” movement has come to view Christianity as being hostile to the environment. Yet any “Christian” theology which takes this view of the natural world is fundamentally heretical. With the rise of environmental awareness in the west, the churches, belatedly as usual, began to articulate a theology of stewardship in regard to creation. While it was better than our past silence, it is still utilitarian at heart. We care for the earth because we are part of it – to wound the natural world is to wound ourselves; we care for and preserve the beauty of creation so that our children might know its blessings. But both these approaches fail to acknowledge that the rest of creation beyond humankind, has its own unique relationship to God who called it into being, holds it in being and cherishes it as good. A better attitude towards the natural world, better in the sense of more in line with the Scriptures might be characterized as kinship rather than stewardship. In the human race spirit and matter are inextricably joined, making us the intended focal point of God’s ongoing relationship with the earth. Because of Adam’s sin, we have denied our kinship and the responsibilities of kinship. In his epistle to the Romans, St. Paul declares that all creation awaits with eager longing for our manifestation as children of God, for in our liberation from bondage to sin, creation will find its liberation from bondage to futility. (Romans 8:19-21) This brings up an interesting question: Just how was material creation involved in the Fall? Did creation sin? Is it capable of sin? When God created humankind in His image he determines that they will have dominion over all that God created beforehand. He instructs Adam and Eve to subdue the earth and the Hebrew root of that word means to tread something underfoot. This has given rise to a “dominion theology,” a pernicious teaching that justifies the destruction of the natural world for the convenience of our species. But the contextual meaning of this command refers to putting something in order. Imagine a man given a great estate. On one part of the land he builds a house. Another part he uses to produce crops and feed his livestock. Another is devoted to a garden of ordered beauty and yet another is left as a wilderness. Each use has its own value and may be implemented with care and appreciation. This hypothetical man has subdued the earth in his authority, but he has not wounded it, nor defiled it. This was God’s intent. Yet when the first humans rebelled and removed themselves from God’s direction, they used the land, abused it, treated it as an enemy and even feared it. In so doing, we lost our ability to see the sacramentality of the created order. And, as Paul writes to the Romans, the new humanity in Christ Jesus is to recapture the original vision. That we have not done so is a sad testimony to the shallowness of our conversion. The Celtic Christians also failed in this, but even in so doing, they came much, much closer to our destiny in Christ. We look to them for inspiration, if not for a model. And in recovering the Incarnational Tradition alongside those of holiness, evangelicalism, contemplation, charismata and social justice we may take our first hesitant steps into the fullness of our new birth in Christ.
In the next issue of The Wild Goose I’ll continue with the Incarnational tradition as it manifests in worship. |