Living Wittily

The infection of holiness

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Underhill_sidebar One of the sanest and at the same time sternest guides in the spiritual life was Evelyn Underhill, an Anglican lay woman, middle class, polite, leisured and literary, her photo portraying a not easily pleased headmistress – but a woman of deep perception, passionate honesty and gentle determination. Speaking with a friend yesterday we reminded each other how much Underhill’s spirituality remains important as a corrective to our hard-nosed consumerist approaches to God that can at times seem like a series of shop till we drop expeditions of spiritual retail therapy. Here’s a couple of her still needing to be pondered thoughts:

We talk and write easily about spiritual values and the spiritual life, but we remain fundamentally utilitarian, even pragamatic at heart. We want spiritual things to work, and the standard we apply is our miserable little notion of how they ought to work. We always want to know whether they are helpful. Our philosophy and religion are orientated, not towards the awful vision of that principle before which Isaiah saw the seraphim veil their eyes; but merely towards the visible life of humanity and its needs. We may speak respectfully of Mary and even study her psychology; but we feel that the really important thing is to encourage Martha to go on getting the lunch.

In the story of the rich young man, Underhill comments:

Jesus replies in effect.’Put aside all lesser interests, strip off unrealities, and come, give yourself the chance of catching the infection of holiness from Me’.

I’m going to say more about Evelyn Underhill on this blog – at times her terminology is dated, but her understanding of the spiritual life, her guidance in the search for God and holiness, represent endangered species of pastoral, ecclesial and theological skills.

Comments

6 responses to “The infection of holiness”

  1. Jason Goroncy avatar
    Jason Goroncy

    Jim. My immediate response to this post was Jim, how unbaptist of you to post such unpragmatic thoughts! Good on you. It reminds me of two things Forsyth picked up on.
    Two thoughts. The first, from ‘The Soul of Prayer’, is that at the end of the day that which is truly the most practical is that which contributes to the end for which creation and humanity were made. (p. 33)
    The second thought, from ‘The Principle of Authority’ (nb. it’s not the ‘Principal’ of Authority ) is where Forsyth speaks of ‘the appetite for success, for numbers, for effect, grows as it feeds upon the democratic philosophy of Pragmatism, with its note of American business and efficient bustle. A harder time than ever would seem to be awaiting the conscientious preacher in a popular body as the Pragmatist definition of truth comes to prevail, that it is what “works.” Our truth does work, no doubt, but in very large orbits; and not always in time, within one life, to let us make up our minds about its results with that certainty which alone enables it to “work.” The vice of Pragmatism, so understood, is that, where absolute truth, or any faith, is concerned, we must begin with a belief in the absoluteness of it before we can set it to work with its native might. We must begin working with that conviction of its absoluteness which its working is supposed to provide. We must begin producing with the product in our hands. We cannot make an absolute truth work in which we do not yet believe. The world can only be converted by a Church which believes that in Christ the world has already been won’. (341-2)
    Great post. Thanks.

    Reply
  2. Jason Goroncy avatar
    Jason Goroncy

    Jim. My immediate response to this post was Jim, how unbaptist of you to post such unpragmatic thoughts! Good on you. It reminds me of two things Forsyth picked up on.
    Two thoughts. The first, from ‘The Soul of Prayer’, is that at the end of the day that which is truly the most practical is that which contributes to the end for which creation and humanity were made. (p. 33)
    The second thought, from ‘The Principle of Authority’ (nb. it’s not the ‘Principal’ of Authority ) is where Forsyth speaks of ‘the appetite for success, for numbers, for effect, grows as it feeds upon the democratic philosophy of Pragmatism, with its note of American business and efficient bustle. A harder time than ever would seem to be awaiting the conscientious preacher in a popular body as the Pragmatist definition of truth comes to prevail, that it is what “works.” Our truth does work, no doubt, but in very large orbits; and not always in time, within one life, to let us make up our minds about its results with that certainty which alone enables it to “work.” The vice of Pragmatism, so understood, is that, where absolute truth, or any faith, is concerned, we must begin with a belief in the absoluteness of it before we can set it to work with its native might. We must begin working with that conviction of its absoluteness which its working is supposed to provide. We must begin producing with the product in our hands. We cannot make an absolute truth work in which we do not yet believe. The world can only be converted by a Church which believes that in Christ the world has already been won’. (341-2)
    Great post. Thanks.

    Reply
  3. jim gordon avatar
    jim gordon

    Jason, the man you quote was once called in the sub-title of a book about him – Prophet for Our Time. And so he is – Just like Forsyth to nail Pragmatism for the poor substitute it is for a faith crucicentric rather than anthropocentric, a faith mystified by grace rather than satisfied with what works!

    Reply
  4. jim gordon avatar
    jim gordon

    Jason, the man you quote was once called in the sub-title of a book about him – Prophet for Our Time. And so he is – Just like Forsyth to nail Pragmatism for the poor substitute it is for a faith crucicentric rather than anthropocentric, a faith mystified by grace rather than satisfied with what works!

    Reply
  5. Graham avatar
    Graham

    Good stuff! What a BIG God these folk had. Can handle plenty more of this! The junk food of much modern ‘Churchianity’ leaves you feeling quite ill after a while!

    Reply
  6. Graham avatar
    Graham

    Good stuff! What a BIG God these folk had. Can handle plenty more of this! The junk food of much modern ‘Churchianity’ leaves you feeling quite ill after a while!

    Reply

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