{"id":2659,"date":"2019-09-02T10:10:36","date_gmt":"2019-09-02T09:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/?p=2659"},"modified":"2019-09-04T10:31:15","modified_gmt":"2019-09-04T09:31:15","slug":"book-review-doing-spirituality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thomascreedy.co.uk\/book-review-doing-spirituality\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Doing Spirituality"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Doing<\/p>\n

To those within Vineyard and New Wine Christian circles, Alexander Venter will be a familiar name. Venter is a South African pastor and church planter, currently engaged in itinerant teaching ministry, having planted and pastored churches. He is one of the key Vineyard international teachers – with his books like\u00a0Doing Healing<\/em>,\u00a0Doing Church<\/em> and\u00a0Doing Reconciliation<\/i> blending together common sense, biblical intelligence and practical teaching. He kindly sent me a copy of his newest book,\u00a0Doing Spirituality: The Journey of Character Formation toward Christlikeness<\/em>, which I thoroughly enjoyed reading.<\/p>\n

Alexander begins his book with a brief tribute to Dallas Willard, the well known theologian and spiritual teacher, whose fingerprints are all over the book. After a brief preface, we get going on the first of three key sections – the introduction, wherein Venter defines true spirituality thus: “For Christians, it\u2019s about spiritual formation into Christ\u2019s likeness: Jesus, the quintessential human being, who came to reveal the Creator- God. Practically, it means formation of moral character, knowing right from wrong, and routinely and naturally doing what is good and right in love of God and others.<\/em>”\u00a0Doing Spirituality<\/em> is rooted in the story of Jesus and the theology and message of the Kingdom of God – Alexander’s cultural awareness of the power of story and the search for meaning helpfully frames this book, grounding it in reality.<\/p>\n

In terms of locating his teaching and ideas in culture, Venter writes superbly, and I really was provoked in a positive way by this extended quote:<\/p>\n

“Our (Western) minds have been fed rationalism, our bodies lavished with materialism, and our souls starved of spiritual mystery. We are mental-technological giants, but psycho-emotional and spiritual dwarfs. Modernism did not deliver the promised utopia of progress to freedom and prosperity. On the contrary, it gave us two world wars with atomic bombs and the holocaust. Fifty-two million people were killed in World War II, sacrificed to the god of humanist-modernity. We can now not only destroy humanity but the earth itself. We rape the earth of its natural resources, causing industrial pollution and global warming, with disastrous consequences. Thus disillusionment with Modernity has led to the current craving for spirituality.<\/em>“<\/p>\n

The middle part of the book deals with theological issues relevant to spirituality and the ‘doing’ of it, whilst the final section is eminently practical, with a number of chapters offering disciplines and tools for spiritual formation, as well as a call to the integrated spiritual life. For those looking to get on and ‘do’ something, you *could* read just this practical section, but you would be missing out. It would be like eating pulled pork without sitting around enjoying the smell for hours whilst it cooks.<\/p>\n

The theological section of\u00a0Doing Spirituality<\/em> is a treat, as Alexander grounds spirituality within the wider theology and practice of the Kingdom of God,\u00a0and<\/strong> (in his own words) “the glorious horizon of the Trinity \u2013 The Eternal Community \u2013 one God in three Persons: Father, Son and Spirit.<\/em>” It is also an explicitly and deliberately (And, I would argue, beautifully) kingdom shaped perspective. Again, an extended quotation emphasises this, balancing a biblical eschatology with a practical rooting of ‘spirituality’, the ‘doing’ of the books title:<\/p>\n

“Salvation and heaven are not escape into God\u2019s presence beyond the clouds \u2013 a disembodied spiritual bliss! Yes, \u201cborn again\u201d or pneumatikos people go to be with the Lord when they die. But it\u2019s to \u201crest\u201d in anticipation of their bodily resurrection. Salvation is \u201creigning in life\u201d with Messiah \u2013 now in our mortal bodies, and in the age to come in resurrected bodies on a renewed earth (Rom 5:17, 8:19\u201323). God did not create humanity to leave the earth and \u201cgo to heaven\u201d. He created us to be his image on earth, to rule over his creation. So, God\u2019s goal is for heaven to come to earth when we rule and reign with Christ in resurrection bodies over his new creation. This is our vision, our destiny. Anticipating its fulfilment in the way we live now, by the power of God\u2019s Spirit, is what biblical (or kingdom) spirituality is all about.<\/em>“<\/p>\n

Throughout, Alexander is keen to live in the tension of the Kingdom of God:<\/p>\n

“The mystery is that we live between the times, in the overlapping or co-existence of two ages \u2013 a unique ontological and existential reality. Theologians call it the \u201calready\u201d and \u201cnot yet\u201d of God\u2019s kingdom.<\/em><\/p>\n

Understanding this revealed mystery is crucial. It explains much of our daily reality as Christians. In fact, the remainder of this book is an exposition of this basic reality, the \u201ceschatological tension\u201d or warfare we find ourselves in. We try to resolve the tension one way or another. No one likes to live in tension, in war! The bad news is: it will not be resolved till Jesus comes or till we die. The good news is: it is the very means by which God grows and transforms us. It\u2019s the stuff of our spiritual formation, the means of our training for reigning with Christ in this age and the age to come.<\/em>“<\/p>\n

Alexander has walked this road for a long time – and so many of the lessons in this book are hard-won. Throughout Doing Spirituality\u00a0<\/em>there is a wonderful emphasis on this tension of the Kingdom of God, and how this works out in personal reality. I love the echoes of Wimber, Peterson, and many great saints in this phrase:\u00a0“Personal transformation, especially of character, takes much more than ecstatic power-encounter \u2013 it takes a long obedience in the same direction toward Christlikeness.<\/em>” This book is also robustly biblical – not in terms of using the Bible as a series of proof texts, but rather taking seriously what the Bible says and appropriate ways of interpreting it. This is a book that engages the whole self, just as its ideas and vision embrace the whole of Bible. We often forget the big picture of the Bible, and so I love Venter’s summary that “My point is that Christian spirituality, which is Hebrew Messianic faith, must be grounded in biblical theology<\/em>“. Amen!<\/p>\n

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Ultimately, this is a great book to read if you are interested in how to live like Jesus, and a superb introduction to the wider themes of spirituality and how it can and should intersect with the bible and theology in the life of the believer.\u00a0Doing Spirituality<\/em> would work as a book to be read and discussed in a small group – but reads well and is superbly written. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it – and would gladly go through it again in a more ‘practical’ way, using the discussion questions, trying out the exercises, and ‘leaning in’ to the\u00a0Doing<\/em> of spirituality in the way of Jesus.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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If you are interested in finding more about Alexander, his website<\/a> is a great place to start. I also link below to a number of books that may be of interest, relating to some of the themes in\u00a0Doing Spirituality<\/i>:<\/p>\n