Buy Article

After seven years of producing Conversations: A Forum for Authentic Transformation, the editors felt it was past time to devote an issue to, well, transformation.

Even after a couple of decades in the limelight, this topic remains relevant and controversial. Just yesterday I was sitting with a friend at a restaurant talking about everything from our families to the Atlanta Falcons. (Perhaps it was the Falcons that made me think about transformation.) When I mentioned how we change in the context of spiritual growth, my friend surprised me by stating flatly, “I don’t think that it [transformation] is possible.”

Now this was not an unplugged friend. He is well trained as a counseling psychologist and a practical theologian. He has pastored several churches, taught in a conservative seminary, and is a gifted teacher in the area of psychotherapy. So I asked him to repeat what he had said.

“I don’t think it is possible for people to transform, to actually become like Jesus. Sorry, but I don’t.”

Hmmm.

As my friend offered evidence for his point, I began to examine my own life. The lyrics to a song from the early days of Christian rock became the background music as he spoke: “If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” After his evidence, my personal examination, and the melody stopped, my left brain began to recount statistics. These statistics detail how Christians and non-Christians look so much alike in categories like divorce rates, domestic violence, charitable contributions, and pornography downloads.

It hit me that this friend and Dallas Willard may be singing a similar song (with slightly different endings). While Dallas strongly believes that real change does happen, they both have been struck by the fact that non-transformation is the elephant in the sanctuary.

To read the rest of this article, you can purchase the entire issue or just this article through our Journal Store.

C. S. Lewis once compared world religions to soups—thick soups and clear soups. The “thick” soups bubbled with mystery, matter, and ritual (e.g., ancient mystery religions) while the “clear ” soups blended philosophy, thought, and ethics (e.g., Confucianism). The truest religion, Lewis believed, would be both thick and clear because neither alone could do justice to the fullness of reality. That’s why Lewis sought a religion of sacraments and dogma, body and soul, poetry and proposition.

Lewis found all this in Christianity. What’s more, Lewis saw Christian transformation in “thick” and “clear” terms too. To “be saved” was something more than just an external pardon by God or an intellectual consent to an idea—what he might call a “clear” approach to this crucial reality. For Lewis, salvation was an inward process involving the transformation of the whole person by the Holy Spirit and leading to nothing less than mystical union with God. In other words, Lewis embraced the ancient Christian doctrine of deification (or theosis) much as it was taught by the likes of St. Basil the Great, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, and St. Maximus the Confessor, and which is still taught today in the Eastern Orthodox Church. This doctrine was neatly expressed by St. Basil in the fourth century when he said that man is nothing less than a creature who has received the order to become god (note the lowercase “g”). Similarly, Lewis asserts in Mere Christianity that the whole purpose of Christianity is to turn people into “new men,” “little Christs,” “sons of God”—even “gods and goddesses.”[1]

To read the rest of this article, you can purchase the entire issue or just this article through our Journal Store.

For a few moments I drove alone in the car, heading south from the Benedictine monastery just outside of Winnipeg, Manitoba, where I was leading a retreat. I was on my way to purchase bread and wine for the next day’s Communion service while the retreatants were back at the monastery observing an afternoon of quiet reflection. Some were engaged in prayer walks while others were drawn to the chapel’s embracing silence, and a few strolled along the banks of the gently flowing river bordering the monastery grounds. In the quiet of the car, I began to reflect on what had brought us to this place four times over the past two years.

In part, we were here because of something I read by Sue Monk Kidd many years ago. “We seem to have focused so much on exuberant beginnings and victorious endings that we’ve forgotten about the slow, sometimes tortuous unraveling of God’s grace that takes place in the ‘middle places.’”[1] Those words were embedded in my memory from the first time I read them, yet it would be years before they would ring in my ears once again.

Several years ago, I began to feel a subtle dissatisfaction with the retreats I was leading. Dissatisfaction identified itself in questions: Had participants been able to integrate their spiritual practices with their daily lives? How had their experience affected their way of being with others? Were they aware of the Spirit’s part in life changing moments? Then Kidd’s words returned and gave new focus to my concern. I realized that a retreat leader must be careful not to play to a participant’s desire for exuberant beginnings and victorious endings. Such desire is insufficient at best and escapist at worst. I concluded that spiritual retreat must evoke a maturing spirituality that enables God’s people to live confidently in those “sometimes tortuous middle places,” but to do so means retreat leaders must be prepared to journey along with persons who have sought out the retreat experience.

To read the rest of this article, you can purchase the entire issue or just this article through our Journal Store.

I’m rediscovering an old conviction. What I’ve believed for a long time is coming alive with fresh passion; it’s stirring a low-burning flame into a healthy fire. Paul told Timothy to “continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of…” (2 Tim. 3: 14; italics added).

I’ve been continuing, at times unsteadily, in what I learned as a child and have believed to be true for five decades. But only recently has a sincerely accepted belief become a meaningfully sustaining conviction.

From my earliest days, I’ve sensed that the book Søren Kierkegaard once referred to as sixty-six love letters from God is in a class by itself. More than once, my father would skip watching his favorite comedian, Red Skelton, on his weekly television show and spend the evening reading Leviticus. That made no sense to me as a ten-year old kid.

It does now. After 40 years of exploring the insides of people (including myself) to understand what’s going on that deforms us into self-centered, self-protective, self-enhancing bearers of God’s image, I’m coming to look at the Bible with passionately renewed interest. Here’s why. Here’s the old conviction that has recently come alive. Here’s what I see more clearly than ever before: God speaks into our deformed souls more deeply, with more transforming power, and with more lasting impact through the Bible than through any other means.

To read the rest of this article, you can purchase the entire issue or just this article through our Journal Store.

Over the years, I’ve discovered something. Maybe you have too. It’s relatively easy (and somewhat enticing) to talk about spiritual formation—the hope of becoming more attuned to God’s work in and around us, the hope of shedding bad habits and self-serving attitudes like so many pounds after the holidays, the hope of experiencing even just a smidge of God’s ever-present, never-failing, nonstop love for us. Yes, it’s easy to talk about it. Just like it’s easy to talk about diets and exercise regimens, New Year’s resolutions, and the like. The hope of becoming something new—something better—is usually the silent driver behind marketing and advertising. Better abs, better hair, better tires, better life, better wife (yes, that’s what my husband asks for). It’s pretty easy to get us imagining our “better selves.” It’s easy to talk about spiritual formation, but it’s so much harder—so much more confusing, requiring so
much more hope—actually to hold myself open to change.

When we’re talking about the possibilities, especially if it relates to what other people should be doing—how they should be transforming—we can talk all day long.

But hope is the most dangerous thing in the world. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but here’s what I mean. I believe most people eventually give up hope. Somewhere along the way they resign themselves to “life as they know it.” Hoping for a better life, a better relationship, a better job, a better retirement, a better church, a better relationship with God has all fallen flat. The striving has stopped; the surviving has begun. Like a drowning victim exhausted from effort, they give up. They stop trying. They stop hoping. It’s just too painful. It never works. If their soul-injuries happened early enough in life, they stopped hoping long before they reached adulthood. They’ve learned better. They may be dutiful soldiers, hard workers, devoted spouses and parents and employees, but inside they do not hope. Their souls ache with the haunting words offered to an incognito Jesus on the road to Emmaus: “But we had hoped…”

Father, it happened again earlier this morning. Driving to my favorite coffee shop, I suddenly began talking out loud about Your love. Tears started rolling down my face, and I sang, “Jesus loves me, this I know,” over and over again. I couldn’t stop crying, and I couldn’t stop singing.
Father, what’s happening to me? What have you been asking Me for these past few weeks?

I’ve wanted to know, to really know that You love me. I believe it, but I long to experience Your love in a way I never have.

Don’t quench My Spirit. Receive Him. He’s offering you fellowship with My Son and Me.

Father, that’s what I want more than anything. But I don’t get it—how can I feel so spiritually in tune one moment, as I did this morning, and so out of tune the next? Yesterday morning I woke up feeling flat, utterly indifferent to the story You’re telling.

To read the rest of this article, you can purchase the entire issue or just this article through our Journal Store.

It was a divine coincidence—one of those experiences in life that make you wonder if God likes to play pranks on his children, not to tease us, but to surprise and encourage us with his mysterious workings behind the scenes of our lives.

I received a phone call from a stranger who lived not far from me, telling me he thought he might have a Bible of mine. He said he was about to throw out some books he had kept for years and found my name in one that was an old King James Bible. I had lived in two different states for many years since growing up in Minnesota. And now as an adult I had returned to the area where I grew up, yet had no idea that I had lost the Bible and didn’t miss it. He brought it to me, saying, “I couldn’t throw out a book like the Bible, and something told me I should try to look up the name in the cover.”

Seeing it for the first time was surreal, like a trip back in time. It was my confirmation Bible. I couldn’t believe it. It had my name and the date, 1968, on the title page. It even had my scribbles on the pages where I had drawn during boring church services.

It was given to me in seventh grade, and at about that time I had made several recommitments of my life to Jesus my Savior with no idea of how to serve him as Lord. Looking at that Bible brought to mind my lifelong struggle to make sense of the passages for which my theology didn’t have room.

If you’d like to get in touch with Keith, you can reach him at www.keithmeyer.org. He’d love to hear from you.

To read the rest of this article, you can purchase the entire issue or just this article through our Journal Store.

The Christian spiritual journey is a response to God’s invitation to allow grace to transform us. Following the way of Christ, we live the Christian mystery and increasingly reflect the image of God. In his book Surrender to Love, David Benner describes the beginning of this journey as “an encounter with the living God. This encounter may be gradual or it may be sudden. But it will always involve a turning and an awakening.” The Bible records many
conversions or awakenings where God is met in a spectacular way. Generally, however, most involve a non-dramatic first encounter and recurring acts of returning.

Turning toward God suggests that God is the one who has made the first move. It is God who always takes the initiative—who first notices us, lays eyes of love on us, calls us by name, and invites us to join in the unitive fellowship of the Trinity. Our response to this invitation will be but a first step on a lifelong transformational journey of awakening and coming to know God experientially. It is journey of becoming our true self-in-Christ—a journey toward union with God.

To read the rest of this article, you can purchase the entire issue or just this article through our Journal Store.

First, a confession: I gulped when the editorial team assigned me this article. They spoke bluntly: “Every church lobby should have a sign that says, ‘Go downstairs for change; stay upstairs to stay the same.’” When I winced, they explained that while real change happens in twelve-step programs, there seems to be a lack of change happening in the sanctuary. Finally one editor said, “We want to focus on the fact that there’s real honesty and acceptance in the basement (where Alcoholics Anonymous, otherwise known as A.A., meets) as well as an understanding that transformation has to be worked out.”

I’ve believed these things for decades, but I never expected a Christian magazine to address this topic. So hold on to your hat while we examine the grace-drenched content, approaches, and methods of the twelve-step movement that facilitate a radical change of life for narcotics users and neurotics, online gamers and embezzlers, and those who manage pain by eating too much, drinking too much, or chasing women. In a twelve-step program’s safe atmosphere, these people and many others come face to face with their inner selves and throw those selves on the mercy of God day after day.

Grace-Drenched Content

A.A.’s philosophy that alcoholism is a disease and that alcoholics need to be restored to sanity has been hotly debated for decades, but it has nonetheless worked for transformation. This approach conveyed a practical sense of grace that was otherwise absent in a 1930s culture in which being an alcoholic was a public disgrace,[1] much like being a sex offender is in today’s culture. A.A. acknowledged that alcoholics, in their heart of hearts, did not want to abuse alcohol. It lifted the blame and shame enough to provide hope that healing could occur. It empowered alcoholics to believe it possible to be freed from alcoholism as their destructive pattern of pain management and their source of comfort, companionship, and celebration. This dynamic of grace (encompassing both pardon and empowerment) also played itself out in twelve step’s approach to God and to community. In that era of denominations competing and condemning each other, A.A. offered God “as we understand him”[2] to all faiths and even those with no faith. It gave people a place to start without insisting on any doctrine.

To read the rest of this article, you can purchase the entire issue or just this article through our Journal Store.

[2] The actual Twelve Steps use the wording, “God as we understood him.” See http://www.aa.org/en_pdfs/smf-121_en.pdf

David Kinnaman (along with Gabe Lyons) is the author of unChristian, a book that reports and analyzes the Barna Group’s research on what 16- to 29-year olds who are on the outside of Christianity really think of Christians. After interviewing thousands of young people and listening to their stories, Kinnaman found that the church has more than a superficial image problem; often outsiders’ perceptions of Christianity reveal “a church infatuated with itself.” For example, one young person made this blunt observation: “Christianity has become bloated with blind followers who would rather repeat slogans than actually feel true compassion and care. Christianity has become marketed and streamlined into a juggernaut of fearmongering that has lost its own heart.” From the research, Kinnaman came up with nine recommendations for new directions Christians need to take. (To learn what they are, read on.) One of his conclusions was this: “It comes down to this: we must become Christ-like again…. In many ways a focus on spiritual formation fits what a new generation is really seeking.” This conclusion made Conversations eager to hear more.

Jan Johnson: In unChristian, you say that in many ways a focus on spiritual formation fits what a new generation is seeking.[1] Why do you say that?

David Kinnaman: A new generation is looking for a Christianity of depth and significance rather than “spirituality lite.” Our research points out that four out of five American teenagers spend at least six months in a Christian church, experiencing and testing what we have to offer. They leave because they find it boring, unintellectual, and out of touch with reality. We give young people just enough of Jesus to be bored, but not enough to be transformed. When so many try it and drop out, we have to ask if this is the best we can do.

To preview articles on how the spiritual formation community can respond, please click here for Jamin Goggin’s article and here for Alan Fadling’s article.

To read the rest of this article, you can purchase the entire issue or just this article through our Journal Store.