Vision Inflation

Came across this phrase–it’s an appealing way of describing what could be seen as hype–in a catalogue blurb for a book by Rob Warner.  Not due out until December and an interesting subject even though I guess its a reworking of his PhD.

This idea of vision inflation, which I would find easier to plead guilty to than hype, looks as though it has some mileage in it as an input to the the post-charismatic agenda.  Robbymac has responded to some issues I raised recently arising from his post on prayer ministry and has started to tease apart the issue of what happens in prayer ministry in response to my suggestion that–at its worst–prayer ministry can function as palliative care. 

Leaving that to one side, the issue of hype v encouragement/faith/expectancy in prayer ministry seems pretty important for those of us who are ‘realized post-charismatics‘ and I wonder broadening vision inflation to expectation inflation may be useful–even as I write I can think of situations where I could be on the edge of doing just that with upcoming events!  As a grass roots pastor of an average sized church I pray with a a fair number of people and I do believe like the esteemed robbymac that there’s potentially a lot more to prayer ministry than identifying a decision point.  One of the issues for the team I work with is what should we expect and encourage when we pray with others.  We don’t want to inflate expectations–like we may have done with vision in the past–but there is the issue of faith, too. I don’t know about anybody else but sometimes I feel as though there is some sort of spiritual transaction going on and sometimes I don’t.  That’s not to suggest that my feeling is totally accurate.  I can think of some times when I have thought my prayer or insight has bombed only to find out differently in a later feedback session.  On balance, I would keep my feelings to myself and leave it to the person at the other end of my arm to decide what they feel is happening.  However, if the stories in Acts are intended to be taken as case studies, I am left wondering what would have happened if Peter and John had not communicated their excitement to the guy in Acts 3.  Anybody struggling with the same issues?

A charismatic/pentecostal worldview

(If you want more sources on the postmodern/charismatic fit, try Margaret Paloma and Carl Raschke.  Poloma is very useful on worldview issues, too.)

Jamie Smith identifies five characteristics, the first being central.

1.  Position of radical openness to God doing something differently or new

2.  Resultant emphasis on continued presence, activity and ministry of the Holy Spirit including continuing revelation, prophecy and the centrality of chairmatic giftings.

3.  Emphasis in physical healing and hence valuing physicality (e.g. in worship, the arts.)

4.  Heart-based notion of knowing.  Affective epistemology.  Warning:  not the same as emotionalism.

5.  Not other worldly, ethical dimension.

Iwonder whether Smith is short of evidence on this last one.  Huge amount of evidence that the ethical/social dimension of charismatic theology has been lacking.  However, lets hope that there is a real development here.

 Smith didn’t present this stuff in a superior way.  Particularly helpful on this issue of God doing things differently is the story of Peter in Acts 2 and 10.  I like it and need to think about it some more

Four Colours of Prayer

Drafted this post back in February and forgot to post it then.  Still seems interesting though I haven’t had chance to follow it up. 

Just finished some sessions with Dr Brenda Mosedale all about spirituality and personality.  She referred to a book by Bruce Duncan who has looked at styles of prayer and related them to Myers Briggs patterns.

Pity the book isn’t in print at the moment.

There are some notes at booklogging which should help on how to work the ideas out.

Is there a future for the New Age?

While it has become almost the conventional wisdom that New-Age spiritualities are taking the place of  the Christian religion, it is worthwhile noting that there are other voices which see the trend fitting with the secularization thesis, or that the taste for spirituality is at best short term. 

Heelas and Seel (An Ageing New Age in Predicting Religion ed Davie, Ashgate 2003) are, in the end, optimistic that younger generations will have been primed by the wellbeing culture and emerge to take the place of the 40-60 year olds.  Mayo and co. in The Spirituality of Generation Y  see no such reason for optimism.  Nor does Steve Bruce, whose views are described (and substantially rejected) by Partridge. 

Bruce believes that New Age participation is shallow. Involvement is not time-consuming.  It does not alter people’s lives.  They do not represent a revitalisation of spiritual life but an easy halfway stage to secularisation.  Bruce sees that the New Age holds to key values of the contemporary West. 

• Divinization of self. 

• Epistemological individualism. (Personal experience is arbiter of truth). 

• Eclecticism. 

• Holism, rejecting scientific reductionism. 

• Relativism. 

• Goal is health and happiness. 

As a result

• Lack of commitment makes it difficult for any belief system to survive. 

• Cohesion is impossible to maintain. 

• Little social impact. 

• Little life transformation. 

• Low incentive to evangelise. 

• Fashion driven. 

• Vulnerable to trivialisation

Bruce sees the New Age as ‘a style and form of religion well-suited to the secular world.

Whether or not Bruce is correct in his analysis, it is worth recognising that Christian spirituality with its commitment, devotion and beliefs will be very different to that of most New-Agers

More on the Spiritual Turn

Obviously there are deep incompatibilities between the two modes, given that

Life-as…  is connected with conformity to external authority; subjective-life a connection with inner depths.

Life as… is threatened by subjective mode—emotions, personal feelings.

Subjective mode is threatened by, say, demands of traditional marriage.

H&W point out that subjective life has always existed. “to thine own self be true”.  However, they agree with others that ‘the subjective turn has become the defining cultural development of modern western culture.’ p5

‘those institutions that cater for the unique subjective lives of the centred are on the increase, whilst those that continue to operate in the life-as mode find themselves out of step with the times.’ p5

Religion is associated with the life as mode and spirituality with subjective-life.p5

So what’s the relevance.

If we are aiming to connect with most people, we can’t do so by making an appeal to any kind of external authority-which presumably suggests a declining market for courses like Alpha.

Anything directed to people into alternative spirituality is going to be more about listening, encounter and exploring than explaining.