mls@sfsup.att.com (Mike Siemon) (09/14/90)
In article <Sep.9.01.24.38.1990.9698@athos.rutgers.edu>, cathy@gargoyle.uchicago.edu (Cathy Johnston) writes: > [Charles Hedrick commented > >As the Catholic tradition is one that Charles Williams would call > >"the way of affirmation of images", the Protestant tradition is > >"the way of rejection of images," a feeling that no image of God > >or his love can be adequate, and a commitment to go directly to the source. > [that] seems to fit well with what I hear those inside the tradition > speak to as important. But I'm always left wondering about one small > question: where are all the Protestant mystics? A "purely" Protestant sensibility might be inclined to raise difficult questions about whether mystics do indeed "go directly to the source." If one assumes without reservation, as mystics tend to do :-), that God is "directly" approached in mystical experience, then one is left with an apparent set of people (including Sufis, Buddhists and Christians) who "go directly to" God (without passing Jail and collecting the Death of Christ) while apparently the vast majority of those who put their whole faith and trust in God are in some second class estate. I am, myself, sufficiently *un*Protestant that this question troubles me from whatever side it is put, pro-mystic or anti-mystic. But I think Cathy is somewhat misreading the implications Mr. Hedrick has in mind (though her "test case" has to be dealt with sometime, I don't think it is the main issue in defining Protestant spirituality.) It is important for seeing the distinction Mr. Hedrick makes, to understand his explicit contrast: the way of affirmation of images VERSUS the way of rejection of images. The Protestant claim is that ALL images are false, in some manner or another -- nothing matches God. Catholic sensibility recognizes the non-identity, but affirms value in the images nonetheless. What kind of spirituality, then, develops out of rejecting images? Well, there is a common outgrowth of Protestant spirituality -- and it is exceptionally easy to parody (or from the inside to abuse in a totally nonspiritual manner). Namely, the worry about "superstition" in Catholic practice is not merely a phobia or a straw man. Protestant sensibilities insist that God is BEHIND things, not IN them. Mystical practices, as well as liturgical practices or other "uses" can appear to a Protestant as attempts at manipulating God -- or less culpably are merely irrelevant. It is hard to distinguish seeing God everywhere from seeing everything as (a) god. Granted that is not the Catholic intent nor the result in the practice of the great saints. And most Protestant polemic *against* Catholic practice is vitiated by contempt, prejudice, malice and any number of other faults. Protestant spirituality has two characteristics, both of which I think can be seen easily in the psalms, which are overwhelmingly the most important OT texts for most Protestants[*]. Domine, non sum dignus. God is "known" in His self-Revelation, but otherwise unknown, and we take refuge in pure trust. The transcendence and awesomeness of God then becomes incarnate in *utterly non-numinous* ordinary experience. Mysticism is seen as false, or at best superficial; as a self-stoking psychologism that can lead as easily to a self-manufactured god as to JHWH -- with a sneaking suspicion thrown in that it NEVER in fact really leads to JHWH, that it is a "snare and a delusion." There is then joined to this a paradoxical (because without rational foundation) belief that God's Word speaks in a direct and simple way to ordinary people with no need of interpretation. Again, I think that if you read through the psalms with a mind to the ways Protestants talk about God, you will see that much of their spirituality translates easily into Protestant terms. Those that have a clear reference to the Israelite liturgy (e.g., journeying to Jerusalem for sacrifices in the Temple) get a clear "translation" into important Protestant symbols like the pilgrimage (not as a special matter of a vow or a penance, but as the very structure of each Christian life.) I open my Prayer Book at random, and what I see is psalms 85 and 86, perfect expressions of Protestant spirituality; I turn back to 84 and my eyes overflow with tears at remembrance of a tune for this from the Scottish psalter. The first scriptural texts I ever learned by heart, as a very small child, were John 3:16 (typical fodder for the evangelicals) and psalm 23. THAT is Protestant spirituality; that is the foundation of my relation to God. Protestant spirituality is itself symbolic of its object -- God is the wholly OTHER Father whose Incarnation redeems ordinary reality, but not by making ordinary things "sacred" -- only the inaccessible One is sacred. Catholics tend to "sacralize" everything, Protestants desacralize. It will appear to a Catholic that this "makes God more distant" but to a Protestant it instead makes everything transparent, so that the Light of God shines through, and we can then see it in our own darkness and fearful night. Protestants "use" images of course (as I just did borrowing the image from the proemium of John, or as psalm 23 does) -- but the images themselves are invested with no "communication of attributes" onto our side of the metaphor; all the "value" involved remains in the "source" -- which is, I think, one crucial aspect of the distinction Mr. Hedrick draws. At the risk of *really* beating this into the ground, that implies that Protestants will not grant their *own* spirituality any value, as such -- because that too is no more than a symbolic expression, and the reality is God; God's grace is not necessarily best expressed in "spiritual" people. ------ [*] The characteristic feature of early Protestant services (besides long sermons :-)) was the singing of psalms. The vast majority of Protestant hymns, before the pietistic stuff of Baroque Germany, are psalm settings or paraphrases. This remains true, I think, in most Protestant church practice. One can practically define the development of different *styles* of Protestant spirituality by the different settings/paraphrases of psalm 23. Extreme "reform" kinds of congregations accepted *nothing* in church but scripture reading and exposition and the singing of psalms. Hymnody is the locus of all nonverbal Protestant spirituality, while the sermon is the locus of its verbal component. And the sermon is a CHALLENGE to go and *live* the gospel. Any acts that do not directly support that life are suspect. -- Michael L. Siemon I was ready to be sought by those m.siemon@ATT.COM who did not ask for me; ...!att!sfsup!mls I was ready to be found by those standard disclaimer who did not seek me. -- Isaiah 65:1 [I agree with Michael completely on the central role of the psalms. I decided to take my own advice, and attempt a revitalization of my own spiritual life. Interestingly, where I chose to start was with a slow and prayerful walk through the psalms. I also note that the new Presbyterian hymnbook returns to Reformed tradition by having a section containing settings of almost all the psalms. --clh]