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21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Mystical Experience of Belief, July 16, 2005
"The goal of a Christian life, according to Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is not enlightenment but wholeness - 'an acceptance of this complicated and muddled bundle of experiences as a possible theater for God's creative work.'" Frederic & Mary Ann Brussat
Book Overview:
Dr. Williams presents in this thematically rich and diversified volume, a mystical overview of Christian spiritual life from the Apostolic Fathers to St. John of the Cross. Among those included are Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine of Hippo, Martin Luther, and many others. The reader of this book will experience: an ecumenical journey in time and space to discover ancient Christian traditions, through delving into the patristic door. Living the faith, is part of his pilgrimage, reflected in his contribution to 'Anglican quest for holiness,' and continues with his book: 'The Making of Orthodoxy.'
History of Loving Knowledge:
The Passion of my God; starts with faith, spirituality, belief (doctrine) which is represented in the Philippians' Christological hymn. His first patristic example was Ignatius of Antioch, allegedly the kid who offered the five loaves to Lord Jesus. His masterful statement is, p17: "Thus martyrdom comes as a natural culmination of a far more prosaic process of kenosis (self emptying) from "The shadow of the Flesh":
A tour of the Mystics:
Starting with Philo the mystical Jew, Irenaeus, and the Apophatic Alexandrines: Clement, Origen, in a fascinating virtual tour. Origen and Athanasius struggled with the meaning of sharing the divine life. Gregory of Nyssa wrote about imitating the pattern of God's life as revealed in Jesus. Throughout the book, Bp. Williams became absorbed in mystical expressions: End without End (Arian Crisis, and Athanasius), The glamour of the heart (Augustine of Hippo), Acrobats and jugglers.
Mystical Circus:
The City? The desert (Antony, Macarius, and the desert fathers). He refers here to D. Chitty's book: The desert, a city. The Monastery is the third development in his account, John Cassian now carries to the West this monastic ideal of Pachomian system of 'Organized Spirituality,' where Benedict relaxes the rule, then Bernard of Clairvaux (12th century), returns back to the serious desert tradition of self mortification, kenosis, or mortifying our negative passions, which leaves the disciple in complete darkness: Ps. 73:22
Ecstasy & understanding:
Here R. Williams contrasts the Apophaic tradition of the great Syrian mystic of pseudonym; Dennis the Areopagite with the Cataphatic Aristotelian theology of Thomas Aquinas, a back shift from Neo-Platonism of the East. Johannes Elkhart, another Dominican was dubbed heretical by those who could not perceive his mystical expressions.
End Of Christendom:
The Sign of the Son of Man: Luther and Ockham, reformation and its dogmas: Faith, and Sola Scriptura. In the secret stair: Williams recounts in the "Way of Denial," from a similar spiritual experience of john of the Cross and Luther, both being in hell, but broke off differently through an apophatic versus Luther's cataphatic solution. Now John+ and associate Teresa of Avila, both embodied their vocation, through Carmelites failure.
"Oh who my grief can mend! Come, make the last surrender that I yearn for,"
Theological History; NT to John+:
A long subtitle, for a fast virtual tour. In less than 180 pages you join the party of the Mystics and say with Abbot Chapman: "The unperceived, infused contemplation occupies the mind, and it can't think of something else;..."
Alas, the party is over but never my longing for the company of the holy mystics.
The ground of belief:
"It is the intractable strangeness of the ground of belief that must constantly be allowed to challenge the fixed assumptions of religiosity; it is a given, whose question to each succeeding age is fundamentally one and the same. And the greatness of the great Christian saints lies in their readiness to be questioned, judged, stripped naked, and left speechless by that which lies at the center of their faith." Cowleypublications
Author: Archbishop Williams:
The Archbishop of Canterbury is unique in being the only theologian to have been Professor of Divinity at both Oxford and Cambridge universities. His depth of knowledge and evident spirituality have made him a sought after Church figure and became a spokesperson for Christianity since he was elected Archbishop of Canterbury. He never gave up on his belief in ecumenical values that bind all Christians.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mysticism, the Wound of Knowledge, March 1, 2009
Williams, who is Archbishop of Caterbury, exercises his understandable and articulate scholarship in presenting the major personalities and themes in Christian Spirituality throughout history to the Middle ages. He deals not just with the "mystics," but all the major writers and their concept of prayer and discipleship.
This entails laying the backgrounds for each writer-teacher's lifetimes. Williams thus provides a dynamic view of the times and thought in the roiling Roman empire and the troubled west that continued after the Roman Empire continued only in the East after the disastrous invasions that destroyed the western political infrastructure.
Gnostics and Mystics
He draws an especially helpful picture of the Gnostic movement and some of its varieties, analyzing how early Christian writers answered this challenge. We learn that some writers used concepts, terminology and theological ideas similar to the gnostics. Some were careful to avoid these.
These writers all reject the Gnostic claim that the Creator God was an evil secondary God, and that material creation and our bodies and natural lives are inherently evil. They affirm the creation by the One True God, who redeems as he creates. One commonality among those writing in the Gnostic era is to carefully affirm that the Christian faith follows the Jewish in affirming that there is only one God. It is interesting to review the different concepts among these writers of creation and life in regard to moral life and redemption.
Active and Interesting
Williams is astutely able to keep all this material active and interesting. This is not a boring academic fact-guide, but a portrayal of living men and women in the midst of their life-struggles. A bit of our historical heritage and comes alive to us in this well-written and thoughtful book. Williams thinks deeply and the reader feels with him his sympathies and uncertainties as he identifies the personalities and inner struggles as well as the outer struggles in which they were involved.
Real-Life Drama
He never leaves the details flat as simple facts, but attempts to summarize what this may provide applicable to us in our time. The final overall portrait is a life-like drama of real people of various philosophical styles and levels, all of whom took their faith and prayer-life seriously and left for us who follow resources as a legacy to build on, in our attempts to know God better and understand how we might follow him more fully in our own devotions and daily life-service.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I recommend getting this one (the revised 1990 edition one) not the 1979 one, October 20, 2007
When I was deciding whether to buy this book, I wasn't sure if it had actually been revised since Williams first wrote it in 1979. I had found the 1979 version at the library. Indeed the book was revised in 1990. Thus, if you are going take the trouble to read this book, I would read the updated version.
The inside cover reads "Second, revised edition 1990 by Darton, Longman & Todd, London." For example he writes in the notes on page 194, "On the complex question of Jesus' relation to Israel and the Law, my earlier and very much over-simplified account has been revised in light of more recent work, notably Jesus and Judaism, E.P. Sanders (London 1985)."
It also says in the front cover of the book, "U.S. release of the second, revised edition in 1991 by Cowley Publications. First published in the United States under the title Christian Spirituality." So, if you have the book Christian Spirituality by Rowan Williams, I think (but am not 100% sure) that is the revised 1990 version.
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