Handbook on Faith, Hope and Love by Saint Augustine
The Imitation of Christ by Thomas A. Kempis
A Plain Account of Christian Perfection by John Wesley
All in the Foundations of Faith series, Relevant Books
“In centuries past, influential Christian thinkers … have penned literature that continues to influence Christians today. The Foundations of Faith series unearths these works for a new audience of twentysomethings hungry for revolutionary material that speaks to their lives…” So reads the back cover of each book in this new series. The goal, clearly, is to get theological/spiritual classics read by a younger generation.
Does the series succeed in doing this? In my opinion: no. Why? The problem is in trying to understand something written centuries ago. We may understand the words, maybe even the sentences, but do we understand the world from within which and to which it was written? If we do not, we not only misunderstand the writers and whatever wisdom they have to offer us, we misuse their ideas in ways that can be detrimental. If you are going to try to make a classic work come alive for a contemporary audience, especially a younger one, you need to translate the ideas into a contemporary worldview.
The three classics in question, for instance, share a view of divine providence that has been upheld within Christianity for the past 1,900 years. This view is that God is in control of all that happens in the world, more or less. God actively guides history, and seemingly bad things are permitted because God uses them for some greater, hidden good. People of faith trust God's good purposes even if bad things have to happen. In the past 100 years or so, however, this whole vision of God as “Power” has been questioned seriously and replaced by God's “Love” as the central category to understand God's working in the world. This also means that we choose to see mystery in the randomness of life in the world, rather than having to think God is in control of it all. God's providence is in the kind of love that is able to raise up newness and depth in life in the face of the inexplicable and despicable.
So what does this mean for the classics? It means that unless you are able to translate some ancient categories into more contemporary ones, you are going to be turned off or misled by them. Do we tell someone who has lost a child, for instance, that in God's providential design, this is meant for good, because this is what Augustine believes? Or do we tell a young twentysomething that passionate, erotic energy ought to be denied in order to develop his spirituality, because this is what Thomas a Kempis believes? Or do we tell a person who is struggling with his or her faith that a true Christian is one who not only believes she is forgiven and accepted by God, but is expected to overcome all doubt and struggle if she possesses the Holy Spirit because this is what John Wesley believes?
Obviously if we are left to this, the classics will repulse us, cause us to despair of being good Christians or misdirect us. But this is not fair to classic sages of the Spirit because what they had to say in their own worlds made much more sense. Unfortunately, this series does not give us sufficient tools to help us translate the wisdom of the past into the present.
And I lament this because I believe that St. Augustine's teaching on the goodness of all that is and the nature of evil as a corruption or parasite feeding off of the good, is still the best theory for understanding the dynamics of evil and sin. I also believe that a Kempis' little classic on the way to being authentically human combines wonderful insight on how to integrate thought and life in a world where too much action is thought poor and too much thinking is disintegrated from lived experience. I also believe the issues Wesley addresses over rival Calvinist and Lutheran conceptions of being human point to fundamental alternatives on how we can understand human nature and the process of becoming Spirit-filled humans in the face of life's struggles.
And so, should we read the classics today? Absolutely! But let us find some good secondary sources to accompany our primary reading. There is infinite wisdom for our absorbing if we are willing to invest in the discipline.
