Mysticism as Medicine for the Culture Wars
Weekend Whimsy with the boys: James K.A. Smith, Scott Cairns, & Thomas Merton
James K.A. Smith has put forth an argument that caught my eye. He claims that mysticism may be an unexpected ingredient necessary to ease the intense cultural divisions we see in America today. This suggestion is quite compelling to me, and I wonder if it will be the same to you.
It seems that content on mysticism tends to begin with a qualifier about how it might make us squeamish as modern people or uncomfortable for those who are evangelicals (often heralding our ‘sound doctrine’ and a ‘plain teaching of the text’).
Yet thinkers like John Mark Comer have said, ‘the future of Christianity is mysticism’.
A Brief Overview
While its dangers are self-evident, like hanging one’s faith on individualised divine experiences or placing too high a premium on the esoteric, it’s important to ask why mysticism, a seemingly obscure spiritual practice, has been repeatedly mentioned as a timely remedy.
Almost all religions have a mystical tradition, often flourishing on the peripheral like Sufism in Islam or the Kabbalah in Judaism. Odd and eccentric spiritual characters most certainly pepper Christianity’s own history. While some mystics were fringe figures who were distrusted in their day but whose writings and teachings were later embraced by the church (Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich), others were renowned and sometimes even powerful leaders of the church (St. Francis of Assisi, St. Hildegard of Bingen, St. Bernard of Clairvaux).
Mysticism involves pursuing an encounter with God’s presence or a kind of union with Him. It tends to utilise practices like contemplation, prayer, or fasting which are meant to help facilitate the emptying of self in preparation. This is why many mystics do quite weird things, like live in the desert or among animals, or chose to lock themselves in cells. While its implementation may look different today, the impetus remains the same: a longing to behold, or say with the Psalmist,
One thing I have asked of the Lord,
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life;
to behold the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in His temple.
So why are these devotions and these historical characters relevant? Hopefully the following resource recommendations can shed some light.
1. On Culture Wars in Christianity with James KA Smith
Despite the odd radio-program style of this podcast, it is one of my favourite resources I’ve listened to this year. James K.A. Smith has been at the forefront of healthily questioning Evangelical’s preoccupation with knowing correct information or dogmas about the gospel, coining the phrase that we aren’t merely ‘brains on a stick’. His work bears the scent of Augustine all over it. Smith contends that we are actually creatures of longing, more powerfully swayed by and operating from our gut-level level loves, habits, and the stories about the world we are immersed in.
Smith warns that,
‘In a strange way, when Christianity is reduced to knowing the truth, the God that is known is actually more susceptible to becoming enlisted for our own interests, aims, and projects. Or, as Bob Dylan says, ‘You never ask questions when God is on your side’.
He expands his point further by saying,
‘If religion and spirituality just get flattened to beliefs and ideas and doctrines, then I think it's actually something that is more susceptible to being co-opted by political stances or ideological flags that we stick in the ground and have to identify with. If we recover the thickness or almost the kinesthetic aspects of being a believer— ironically, we wouldn’t think about it as just believing, it would be about loving, longing, and desiring, and this is what the spiritual adventure is about’.
This is where a kind of 'mysticism becomes important for two reasons: cultivating humility and moving from fear to love.
Firstly, as Smith says, if the Christian faith is a collection of neatly outlined theological concepts, we can easily wield, control, and manipulate their applications. In America, the terms ‘Christianity’ or ‘Evangelicals’ are increasingly perceived as a sociological category which defines the ever-certain partisan policy preferences of certain demographics. But is this not a watered-down version of religion that fails to reckon with the mystery of the living God who cannot be fully known, intellectually grasped, or used for our own agendas?
Smith believes this looks like certain Christian factions holding less blazing certainty that God is on their political side and instead melting them into a posture of humility— one which seeks to enter into awe and behold Him in worship, ready to be suprised by what they may find.
Secondly, Smith posits that mysticism is key to moving us from a posture of fear to love, which he diagnoses as a core wedge in the culture wars. We are all afraid. Fearful of the unknown and the unstable, of the other or the stranger, or that our children won’t grow up in safe or moral environments. But one historically consistent hallmark of mysticism is that when one encounters Love Himself, one passes from fear and into a deep love for thy neighbor and for God.
Listen to this podcast and see what you think about his full thesis.
2. Losing Our Religion on the Mere Sanity Podcast
This resource uses slightly different language to dialogue on this topic—that of participation. Yet there’s much content synergy and I highly recommend giving this podcast by Pastor Ross Byrd a listen.
His main suggestion is the need to go beyond the binary of emotional experience-driven faith versus a more rational explanatory one, seeing participation as a crucial middle ground to walk. Intimate encounters with the loving person of Christ grow ever more pressing.
At the end of the podcast, he points to Til We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis to exhibit the profound impact of participation. In the specific passage mentioned, Orual holds all her written accusations against the gods when suddenly she enters a mystical vision of the ‘God of the Mountain’. All her seemingly reasonable indictments simply melt away in the presence of such Love and Beauty.
‘I ended my first book with the words 'no answer.' I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?
3. Endless Life: Poems of the Mystics by Scott Cairns
This book is an amazing chronological collections of poems and prayers down the ages. I’ll share two excerpts here to whet your appetite, both by St. Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897) pictured below.
Attend
Partake of His Mysteries often,
often as you can, for in Them you find
your sole, entire remedy, assuming—
of course- you would be cured. Jesus has not
impressed this hunger in your heart for nothing.
This gentle Guest of our souls
knows our every ache and misery
He enters, desiring to find a tent, a bower
prepared for His arrival within us,
and that is all, all He asks of us.
The Holy Face
In this way Your Face becomes my home,
the radiance of my days, my realm
and sunlit land, where—all my life—
I raise a murmur, uttering Your praise.
As lilies
carpeting the valley floor, You fill
the air with mystic scent, which I breathe in
whenever I grow faint; it gives sufficient
foretaste of the peace that is to come.
Your Visage bearing this immortal grace
is like most holy myrrh to me. It is my
music and instrument, my rest
and resting place, my all and everything—
Your Face.
*(If you want to read the poem that one of my best friends, Louisa, wrote about this- check it out below)
4. A Course in Christian Mysticism with Thomas Merton
This book walks through the most influential mystics throughout church history, including but not limited to characters like Augustine, the Cappadocian fathers and mothers (which I have written about here), and the Teresa of Avila.
Merton says that mysticism and theology ‘belong together’, claiming that ‘there is no theology without mysticism (for it would have no relation to the real life of God in us) and there is no mysticism without theology (because it would be at the mercy of the individual and subjective fantasy)’.
Bonus: An essay published by Ekstasis Magazine by Carolyn Etzel Branch
The mystics mentioned here have been a refreshing and enriching new cast of characters to me. I hope you enjoy sipping from their deep wells of wisdom as much as I have.
Drinking in all the beauties and oddities around me.
Warmly,
Carolyn
Great stuff, Carolyn. Honored to have my work mentioned and considered here, especially among such illustrious company.
Saving this to come back and read later! I’ve been trying to find books on Christian mysticism/practical mysticism or spiritual practices (currently reading about the Jesuit tradition) and I’m so excited to read your thoughts and glean some new resources/insights. Haven’t read Merton but I love Henri Nouwen, who mentions him a lot, and so I keep meaning to start Seven Storey Mountain. Anyways—I’ll probably loop back around to this after I have time for a proper read, but this piece (and your whole Substack honestly) looks wonderful.