Spiritual Traditions for the Contemporary Church

The book Spiritual Traditions for the Contemporary Church by Robin Maas and Gabriel O'Donnell, OP, is one of my favourite academic texts for use in the study of Christianity. It was one of the very first books I encountered when starting seminary several years ago, and it continues to be used for the SPAM class (SPAM being the student-devised short-hand for Spirituality, Autobiography & Ministry class that most incoming seminarians take). The course is a survey of both the history of and current embodiment of Christian practices across denominations and communities. Many people come to seminary with little experience of Christianity beyond their own particular denominations; some come with little experience outside their own parishes or particular congregations. Those who know more often know it in an academic sense; they have rarely been to other services or engaged in other practices. Some are not even well-versed in their own histories. One point of the course is to help people understand and recognise practices in their own lives. This goal is well-served in part by this book by Maas and O'Donnell. The book is a combination of practicum and academic exposition. Each chapter includes a practical exercise the reader/student can engage and use to gain greater understanding from the vantage point of the `doer', as well as a section on history and explanation of denominational particularities. Robin Maas and Garbriel O'Donnell are both editors and contributors to the text, but there is a long list of contributors who include theologians, pastors, priests, lay persons, Christian educators, and other `spirituality experts' who are familiar with practices and histories. The goal of this book is perhaps best derived in response to a question from the first page. `Can one spend an adult lifetime reading, teaching, thinking and writing about God and have no vital experience of God, no sense of God's presence? Indeed it is, as anyone who has spent much time in a seminary can attest.' Many students come into seminary as seekers, and sometimes what they are seeking cannot be found in the academics of seminary teaching; sometimes what they seek is in practice, communal and private, that too often graduate school and seminary training has overlooked. The purpose of this book is to introduce to Christians of all stripes and creeds the greater history and practice of the Church, large `C', that greater community toward whom we all imperfectly strive. Protestants, Catholics and Orthodoxers (as the three primary strands, but not, of course, the only ones) often look with wonder and suspicion upon the teachings and traditions of their fellow-travelers in the Christian community. All denominations share a common history up to a certain point; even those groups who strive to get back to a `pure Church' - problematic in formulation is ways too numerous to consider here - or a primitive, pre-divided Church, do so today only through the lens of 2000 years of history