Discernment

Summary: An agnostic explores the history and philosophy of Christian mysticism to understand how mystical experience seems to be a part of being human.

This is an odd book. Simon Critchley is an agnostic philosopher writing primarily about Christian mysticism because he wants to explore the ways that mystical experience inform what it means to be human without really grappling with whether God is involved. I am going to start at the end because I think that helps to make sense of the project. Critchley moves to modern art, particularly punk music, as a type of mystical experience that he has felt, that transcends the traditional rational categories of philosophy and experience.

In some ways he is coming at the argument that Dallas Willard makes about the reality of a category of spiritual knowledge in reverse. Willard wants to suggest that divine revelation and experience are trustworthy types of knowledge and experience. I think in both Critchley and Willard’s books, the rough point that the category exists has been made sufficiently to agree. But the next step is harder. Once you agree that there is a category, what do you do with it? Willard is mostly arguing against a type of hyper rationalism that I don’t think carries much weight. And Critchley is arguing that the mystical experience of feeling one with “God” or the world or those around us, while also getting a sense of divine love and belonging that he associates with the mystical experience is part of the human experience and a good that draws us away from hyper individualism and maybe even depression and loneliness.

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Summary: Introduction to Jesuit discenrment. 

I picked up two audio courses by Joseph Tetlow on discenment during a recent audible sale. Tetlow is now 95 years old. He mentions in this audio course, that he was 79 when it was recorded, so this course it about 16 years old. (Audible release date is 2017, so that isn’t accurate.) I read one book on discerment and spiritual direction by Tetlow in my spiritual direction training and it was Tetlow’s edition of Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises that was used in our program.

One of the useful parts of this course is that Tetlow distiguishes between conscious and discernment. He thinks we should work to develop a consious and that a conscious shaped by the Holy Spirit is part of discernment. But he also thinks that without reflection on our actions and our conscious, in conversation with the Holy Spirit, we are not doing discernment. For him, all three parts are required. I think that is helpful corrective to what I have been thinking of as two seperate parts.

In my conception of discernment up until this point, I have thought about the preconscious discernment that is shaped by becoming more Christlike. And then the conscious discerment which is ore shaped by a process of reflection and practices of decision making and prayer. When I starting paying attntion to the preconscious aspects, I was reacting against the movement that thought of discenrment simply as a set of decision making tools. I didn’t want to remove all aspects of decision making and seeking after God’s will from discerment, but I wanted reemphasize the ascpets of character that I think are essential to good discernment. I think post-Tetlow, I am going to be more balanced and I think his three parts is one good method of discussing that balance.

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Summary: A dated, but at times quite helpful book on the movement toward modernism.

I decided to read The Technological Society because of my reading project on Christian Discernment. One of the reasons why there is some resistance to discernment is that some view discernment as a type of spiritual knowledge, not unlike magic, where you seek to negotiate with God or invoke God in your own plans in an inappropriate way. I want to say that yes, I agree that there is a type of discernment that reduces it to magic or an incantation. Ellul, in his exploration of where the idea of technique developed, specifically suggests premodern people’s use of magic was a type of technique. But Ellul, earlier in the book, suggests that the modern idea of technique was developed in parallel to the development of machines. So, while Ellul thought that magic was a type of technique, it was intentionally hidden knowledge so that others would not see the technique in action. With the rise of the machine, the technique was visible and public in a way that magic was not.

The Technological Society was initially published in French 70 years ago this year. It is both eerily prescient and quite dated. When he speaks about early electronic calculators, computer punch cards, or communism, you can see the age of the book. There are many areas where you can see how his comments apply to issues that arose after the book was released. Self Help books and how that technique is applied to the individual is part of his discussion, but I think if he were writing today, it would be an even larger part of the book.

Hannah Anderson has a piece in Christianity Today about self-help and the problems of applying it as an individual. One of the points that she is pointing out is that the problem is not the intention of self-improvement but the method of self-improvement that has moved from opportunity to obligation. Self-improvement as a technique in Ellul’s sense means that we have an obligation to adopt universal ideas and methods, whether they work for us or not, and whether they are a denial of our created limitations or not. Christians are just as susceptible to this denial of limitation when we emphasize how much we can do for God and how extreme we can take our obedience or commitment. Seth Hahne has a thread on twitter about people speeding up audiobooks to consume more instead of enjoying the art of the narration at the intended speed. Which I think is exactly this type of technique for self improvement that is a denial of our humanity and limitation. The discussion that prompted the thread was about pushing listening to the limit of comprehension as a means of consuming to the edge our intelligibility.

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Summary: A historical look at how Christian mystics understood mysticism and how that has changed. 

Anyone reading along with my reviews is probably aware that I am about 18 months into a reading project on the idea of Christian discernment. And while I have not ended that exploration of discernment, I am at the point of a deep dive where I need to explore the connected ideas to discernment so that I can better understand how to proceed.

A number of years ago I was exploring the trinity and I realized that in exploring the trinity I needed to better understand the concept of hermeneutics and I think I ended up reading more books about hermeneutics than I did about the trinity. That exploration of the trinity comes up because one of the most helpful books for me in exploring the trinity was The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Early Church by Franz Dunzl. What made it so helpful was that it traced the early doctrine of the trinity but in doing so, Dunzl showed that part of the development of the language around the trinity was linguistic (there was a shift from Greek to Latin as the lingua franca) and part of the development of the langauge around the trinity was about shifts in philosophy and the language of philosophy.

If you have traced Christian doctrine over time, the way that cultural issues shift the way that we think of theology is common. Part of what mattered in the reformation was that thee was a shift in how we think of the state and how we think of legal realities and this corresponded to the increasing use of legal language in regard to the doctrines of salvation. In a more modern example, the shifts in understanding about gender and gender roles have shifted the language that some are using in regard to trinitarian theology with regard to the rise of supporters of the The Eternal Subordination of the Son or the The Eternal Functional Subordination of the Son and in a different area some of the changes in language and meaning of the economic trinity or social trinitarian theology.

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Summary: A books about discernment. 

Anyone who is a regular reader of my book reviews probably knows that I have been on a long-term reading project about discernment. I listened to an interview with Emily Freeman on the Gravity Commons podcast, and then a couple of days later, Audible had a sale on How to Walk Into a Room, and I picked it up.

One of my convictions about discernment (you can read my most recent summary of what I think about discernment here), is that while discernment includes decision-making, I am more interested in formational discernment, how we are formed toward Christ so that we both intuitively follow Christ’s lead as well as how we consciously make decisions. I think both parts are important, but How to Walk Into a Room is mostly about the consciously deciding aspect of discernment.

Over the past decade there has been a near constant discussion about the rise of the ‘Nones”, those who no longer identify as part of a specific religious community. Those nones are not necessarily leaving Christian faith, but they are leaving a religious community for one reason or another. One of the findings of the research study that was detailed in The Great Dechurching, is that most people stop going to church when they move. It is less an intentional withdrawal from church than a lack of motivation to find a new church. Another large group of people stopped going to church during Covid and never found their way back. But Freeman is talking about a third group of people, those who are intentionally trying to discern whether to continue in a church or leave because of specific reasons. Those reasons can be different, spiritual harm or abuse, differences in theology or practices, personality conflicts, etc., but there is conscious intention to ask God if they should continue or leave. In many cases, these people are not leaving faith, they are leaving a specific community and intend to go to a new faith community.

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Summary: A look at the process of change as we age and mature.

I am in a Tuesday morning book group at my local Jesuit retreat house. The group meets for about 8 to 10 weeks twice a year. There are about 20 people who are involved, usually about 15-16 people a week are present. Because the group meets at 10:15 AM on a Tuesday, it is mostly people who are retirement age. The group is primarily Catholic and female, although not entirely. I very much value the group and I will continue to read whatever the group picks. But I was not looking forward to reading Falling Upward. I have previously read it twice in 2011 and in 2016. I liked it less each time I read it. But there is something helpful about reading a book in a group because you gain the perspective of others as you read it. I tend to like books less if I previously liked them when rereading them in a group. But I also tend to like books more when rereading with a group if I didn’t like them previously. In both cases, it is because different perspectives give me insight into aspects of the book that I did not have when reading alone.

Part of what I found interesting is that about a third of the group was new to the book. But most of the group had read it two or three times previously. Almost everyone who found the book valuable had read it multiple times. I continue to think that Rohr is less clear than he should be. And I continue to think he is trying to read too large of an audience. I both found the book more helpful and more limited with this reading.

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Summary: Theological account of Christianity as a way of living, not simply as an intellectual system.

In an overly simplified sense, the point of the book is to move Christianity from a series of propositional belief statements (thin) to a “thick” belief system where those beliefs matter to not just how we see the world, but what we do in the world.

I appreciate academic books because they often interact well with not just the ideas being discussed but the alternatives to those ideas. A good academic book should grapple with the best arguments which disagree. What I don’t always appreciate about academic books is that in general, academic books tend to have really long chapters because they are making a sustained argument that pays attention to not just their point, but everything around that point as well. Long chapters require a level of sustained attention that I do not always have.

I picked this up initially as an audiobook because it was cheater for me that way. But about halfway through the book I broke down and bought the (very expensive) Kindle edition. There are a number of really good quotes and I know I need to read the book again because there is nuance that I need to pay attention to. To try to keep the whole idea together, I tried to mostly listen to whole chapters while I was on a walk. This meant that I was not taking notes, but it meant that I was listening without much distraction.

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Summary: A look at whole-brained discipleship which uses insights from recent neuroscience to help develop Christian maturity. 

A good friend recommended The Other Half of the Church to me about a year ago, and I have only recently gotten around to reading it. Many insights were not new to me because of work that either my wife or I have done regarding parenting, trauma, and attachment, or child development. I want to start with the fact that overall, I am glad that this book was written, and I commend it, even if I am going to spend most of my time discussing areas where I have concerns. The insights here into character development, group identity and its role in correction, and deep relationships are all important. Because of my training as a spiritual director and a couple of professional associations of spiritual directors which I am a member of, I know that more academic books in similar areas are being written. No book can address all of the nuance and potential areas of misunderstanding, so I am looking forward to reading more books to address different aspects.

This is a book that is co-written by Jim Wilder and Michael Hendricks. Much of the book is written in Hendrick’s voice, and he relates insights about spiritual formation and brain science from Jim Wilder. Part of what I appreciate about the framing of this book is that it is intentionally oriented toward a reader unfamiliar with the science. It is very accessible, and the authors know that stories are necessary to communicate not just the information but the meaning behind it.

Many will come to The Other Half of the Church with some background from gentle parenting (Whole Brained Child, Brain-Body Parenting, etc.) or insights from trauma, attachment, or adult emotional development. In many ways, I think discipleship is a bit late to the game with these insights. I also think that from my experience (which is obviously limited), many of my Gen X cohort or the Baby Boomers are less likely to have exposure to this type of whole-brained approach than the Millennial parents who have been at the forefront of the Gentle Parenting movement. Millennials are much more aware of trauma, abuse, and the science around those realities, which, again, have some overlap with the science discussed here.

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Summary: An exercise in discernment by exploring the legacy of three Christians of the same era and their relationship to slavery. 

I read Ownership by Sean McGever with an eye on how he handles the topic of discernment, even though the word discernment was not the focus. Over the past year, I have read about a dozen books on discernment, trying to grapple with the purpose and limitations of Christian discernment. One of the reasons for starting this project was reading Henri Nouwen’s book Discernment and how he grappled with discernment for himself. I am not going to rehash that post again, but while Nouwen received spiritual guidance and help from a pair of priests, after the death of all three and about ten years after the book was published, it became more widely known that the two priests that Nouwen confided in were serial sexual and spiritual abusers. Nouwen described them as some of the most holy men he had known. Nouwen’s discernment about those men is a good reminder of the limitations of our discernment, but also that historical judgment and tools can be helpful as a means of helping to see our natural limitations of perspective.

McGever makes the simple but important point that our geographic and social location impacts our decision-making (and discernment) because it impacts how we see choices. None of Edwards, Whitfield, or Wesley’s grandparents owned slaves because the slave trade was not yet in wide effect. However, the difference between whether their grandchildren owned slaves was significantly impacted by whether they were in England or the US. Geography and social location always impact choices.

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Summary: Helpful thinking about the ways that enneagram impacts discernment.

In my ongoing reading about discernment, this was a book that I found on Kindle Unlimited. I have a subscription to Kindle Unlimited, but mostly it is used by my parents or kids, who share my Kindle account. But there are cases like this where I find a book in my reading area and it is always nice to borrow it instead of purchasing.

I am mixed on the enneagram. I think that  to the extent that someone thinks that it is helpful and accurate in describing them, then it can be helpful to give language around personality types. On the other hand, I also think there is not a lot underlying enneagram and any system of categories has limitations because no system like this will perfectly describe someone. It is about tendencies and rough categories.

What I like about the enneagram is that it intentionally is focuses on health, moving toward healthy interactions, not simply description. It also recognizes that those aspects of personality that are strengths are also weaknesses when pushed or taken too far. There are healthy expressions of personality and our internal tendencies and unhealthy expressions.

The format of this book is unique and helpful. You can get a general book that has everything for all types. Or you can get a type-specific book that has the main content of the book but also has an end section focusing on just that type. In my case, I got the type 5 book and it has about 160 pages of main content and then a chapter that summarizes and focuses on just type five (or your specific type.) I think type five describes me pretty well, and so I read the whole book, but for those who are just interested in your type, especially if you are borrowing it from Kindle Unlimited, the focused chapter on your type is about 30 pages of summary that I think you can get most of the understanding from in a short time. You will get more detail if you read the whole book and you will see how your type fits into the larger system of the enneagram. If you are aware of spouses, friends or coworkers’ enneagram types, then the larger book can also help  you see how your type and their types interact.

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