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Twelve Ways to Approach Christian Mystical Spirituality
When I teach an introductory class on Christian mysticism, often the first session will be devoted to exploring the basic question, “What is Christian mysticism?” It’s actually a question that is immediately fraught with challenges. Mysticism is a notoriously squirrelly subject — the word gets used by different authors and in different contexts to describe radically divergent dimensions of spirituality. Indeed, some Christians are hostile to the very notion of mysticism, because they have seen the word used to describe occultism, magic, or some other type of spirituality which they find objectionable.
I cannot nail down a Christian understanding of mysticism in a single session of a class (or in a simple blog post), but hopefully I can offer some lines of thinking that can help readers and students to think about Christian mysticism in a manner that is consistent with how mysticism has been understood by Christian theologians, contemplatives and visionaries. What follows is a handout that I like to share with my classes; hopefully these principles can be helpful for you as you reflect on what Christian mysticism is, and how it can be meaningful for your spiritual life journey.
Twelve Ways to Approach Christian Mystical Spirituality
- Mysticism is a vague word that…
