Spiritus: An Introduction to the Inaugural Issue

Burton-Christie, Douglas.
Paulsell, Stephanie, 1962-

Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality, Volume 1, Number 1, Spring 2001,

pp. viii-xi (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: 10.1353/scs.2001.0002

For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/scs/summary/v001/1.1burton-christie.html

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 Spiritus: An Introduction to the
Inaugural Issue
Douglas Burton-Christie
Stephanie Paulsell

viii B reathing, breath, wind, spirit. The Latin word spiritus evokes all these. It is
our hope that Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality will evoke for you the
living, breathing conversation about Christian spirituality that is alive among
scholars and writers today. With this first issue, we invite you to enter into that
conversation.
Spiritus is the official journal of the Society for the Study of Christian Spiritu-
ality (SSCS). Since its inception in 1992, the SSCS has been a gathering place for
scholars, writers and practitioners interested in studying Christian spiritual
traditions and reflecting on the emerging scholarly field of Christian spirituality.
During this time the SSCS produced a small journal, the Christian Spirituality
Bulletin, which published important essays on the methodologies of and resources
for this new field of study as well as substantial reviews of the most interesting new
books in the field. Spiritus will continue these traditions while also, we hope,
expanding and deepening the conversation already underway.
What does it mean to say that this is a journal of spirituality? This should be
the easiest question to answer. It isn’t. In spite of the increasing prominence of the
term spirituality within contemporary popular and scholarly discourse, its precise
meaning remains maddeningly elusive. Part of this elusiveness no doubt has to do
with the relative newness of the term. Although its roots are ancient, it has only
recently begun to be used to describe religious experience and the discipline that
reflects upon that experience. In popular usage, spirituality seems to mean some-
thing roughly equivalent to “the inner life,” or the “transcendent dimension” or
“depth dimension” of human experience, which may or may not involve an
explicitly formulated understanding of the divine. To “have” a spirituality in this
sense is to be aware of this dimension, and to give it expression in one’s life.
There is much in the contemporary use of the term to suggest that spirituality
is largely if not exclusively a personal, individual, interior matter. We believe,
however, that studying spirituality from the perspective of a particular religious
tradition reveals how inadequate such an understanding of spirituality is. Certainly
it is impossible to study Christian spiritual traditions and not be struck by how
Christian spirituality has informed and been informed by critical political dis-

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course, scientific discovery, and postmodern thought. It is impossible to study the
full range of Christian spiritual traditions without discovering the countless ways
the spiritualities of individuals and communities have affected the world around
them for good or ill, and how the world around them has shaped their spirituali-
ties. The best scholarship in the field is undergirded by a lively interplay with the
wider arena of concerns to which the study of spirituality is attentive: concerns for
justice, for stewardship of the earth, for human flourishing.
To locate our primary focus in the critical exploration and interpretation of
specifically Christian spiritual traditions is not, we hope, to suggest a narrow or
exclusive focus for the journal. To the contrary: it is our hope that the reflections
on Christian spirituality presented in these pages will be situated within the wider ix
conversation about spirituality unfolding within the great religious traditions of the
world and within human culture generally. Still, we want to provide a place where
the distinctive character of Christian spiritual traditions can be examined, scruti-
nized, and critiqued, where scholars and writers can meet and engage one another
regarding the most pressing questions the study of Christian spirituality can raise.
The ecumenical character of the journal is no less important than its location
within the Christian tradition. The Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality
came into being as a fundamentally ecumenical venture because of a conviction
that ecumenical conversation that both recognizes difference and is willing to listen
to the voice of others is crucial to the larger task of interpreting Christian spiritual-
ity. It is our hope that Spiritus will provide a space where scholars can articulate
the distinctive characteristics of a particular spiritual tradition while also allowing
for the exploration and possible discovery of real commonality among different
traditions.
If there is need for conversation among members of different Christian
traditions, there is an equally pressing need for conversation among and between
disciplines. The discipline of spirituality was at one time conceived of as a small
sub-field within Roman Catholic Theology (sometimes described as “Ascetico-
mystical Theology” or “Spiritual Theology”). This is no longer the case. The
discipline as it exists today is neither narrowly sectarian (i.e. largely Roman
Catholic) or exclusively tied to theological discourse. Rather, it is emerging as a
field of tremendous interdisciplinary creativity in which historians, philosophers,
literary theorists, scientists, poets and theologians all have crucial contributions to
make. We hope that this journal will be a place where such contributions can be
made and explored, tested and discussed.
The interdisciplinary, ecumenical character of the field inspires some of the
most creative work in Christian spirituality–not because Christian spirituality is
not rooted in particular theological traditions but because scholarship on spiritual-
ity can no longer take particular doctrinal perspectives for granted. Scholars can no
longer write in a kind of theological shorthand; we must be able to account for

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 every idea we put forward, every resource we employ. This is good news for the
study of spirituality because it challenges all of us to consider a wide range of
theological and disciplinary perspectives in our scholarship. Essays in Spiritus will
draw on a deep understanding of Christian spiritual traditions, but will speak in a
democratic voice that can be heard and received by scholars in diverse fields and
practitioners from many traditions.
The best work in the field speaks in such a voice and, through careful scholar-
ship in one field, opens vistas onto many others. Bernard McGinn’s pathbreaking
history of Christian mysticism, for example, has helped us to rethink the theology
of mysticism. Caroline Walker Bynum and Barbara Newman’s studies of medieval
x women’s spirituality have led us to revise not only our understanding of history
and theology, but of literature as well. Sandra Schneiders’ studies of biblical
spirituality, which raise important hermeneutical questions regarding how to read
for the spiritual meaning of a text, draw upon and resonate across many disci-
plines. The social and political analysis expressed in the writing of Jon Sobrino and
Gustavo Gutierrez and so many others whose work arises from a commitment to
the poor and marginalized serves as a reminder of the kind of critical, prophetic
spirituality that can emerge when one attends to fundamental social, economic and
political realities. The critical exploration of the spiritual practices of postmodern
thinkers seen in Amy Hollywood’s recent studies helps us to realize that there is yet
more to study under the heading of Christian spirituality than we may have
thought.
Spiritus is committed to a sustained conversation with the classic texts of
Christian spirituality and to the “yet more.” We hope to publish in the pages of
Spiritus the very best of the diverse scholarship emerging in the field of Christian
spirituality. To this end, all essays submitted will be subjected to a careful peer-
review process. We will also publish two features in each issue of Spiritus. One,
called “Perspective,” will focus attention on the contemporary scene, examining
the spiritual dimension of art, literature, music, and politics. A second feature,
called “Rereading Spiritual Classics,” will do just that—critically examine a classic
spiritual text and inquire into its possible meaning and significance for us.
We hope, in short, to address the deepest questions that the study of Christian
spirituality can evoke. These questions may not all be solvable. But, like all the best
questions, they are certainly breathable. It is possible to draw them into oneself
and to exhale them again, in new and different forms, in conversation with a whole
host of interlocutors.
In this first issue of Spiritus, you will find scholars breathing out their questions
with great care. They ask about the relationship of geography and spirituality, of
solitude and theology. They reflect on what it is we think we’re doing when we
teach spirituality, what we understand the formal object of our studies to be, and what
it means to practice the discipline of spirituality, in every sense of the word. They

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have breathed in the work of John Calvin and Pierre Hadot, Emily Dickinson and
Jonathan Edwards, Pattiann Rogers, Krzysztof Kieslowski, and Michel de Certeau.
They have listened for the resonance between ancient texts and contemporary
questions, the concerns of students and teachers, the challenges of methodology
and the way people live. Breathing in and breathing out, they open a range of
questions that we hope future contributors will continue to take up and transform.
We hope that you will find Spiritus an important companion to your own
work in Christian spirituality. We hope you will find in its pages words and ideas
and questions that you might breathe in and then exhale in your own distinctive
way into the conversation we hope to support.
Welcome. xi

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xii

Theatre of Dodona. Photograph by Constantine Zissis.

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