Soul Care - Session 9
1) Contrast and compare the role of a spiritual director in the Social Justice Tradition and the Pentecostal/Charismatic Tradition. Consider their goals, procedure, and resources.
I have read Moon and Benner's book on these two traditions, but I have also read for another class Richard Foster's book Streams of Living Water in which he outlines and stengths and weaknesses of these two traditions. My comments will probably be from both books as the thoughts are still fresh in my mind. The goals of teh Social Justice Traditon is "Experience of teh divine presence leading to justice and well-being in all human relationships and social structures" (pg 145), The procedure for transformation is both individual and group counseling and prayer. I really enjoyed reading on page 142, that "God offers courage in this struggle, a divine empowerment to live out the commmand of Jesus to serve humanity. In this serviec, God grants spiritual peace...God will be there...God of creation is the God at humnity's final destination. "the expeince of divine forgivness, empoweremnet in the struggle for justice, peace an abiding sence of the divine presence and in the end eternal life. "
Resources: prayer, confession, spiritual diesciplines, worship and faith. .."Service becomes a tow =way meditation of grace, an incarnation event, (148) Foster states the major stengths of the Social Justice tradition is calling us to a right order of scity, our ecclesiology- make our faith real, Christian love, ecological concerns, impossible ideal and promotes between personal ethics and social ethics, (foster pg 176-78). The weakness is the danger for Social Justice Tradition to become an end in itself, work on social justice issues without the matters of the heart, political agenda and become rigit orjudgmental. The ending words remind me as to why I became a Mennonite, Jocial Justice tradition tends to help us see that through it God deveops in us the compassion to love our neighbor freely and develop in our world a place where justice and rightousness prevails" ( Foster 182)
The Goal of the Pentecostals/Charismatic Tradition's goal is to seek renewal to return to initial spiritual experinces of believing and Spiritual baptism. Procedure is prayer, instruction, worhsip in teh Spirit, including silence, glossalalie, singing, and celebrating. Resources are scripture stories and testimonies of dndividuals who were spiritual and a spiritual community. (164)Foster also lists major strengths as - this Spirit empowered life- 1) an ongoing correction to our impulse to domesticate God. (foster 129). I really enjoyed reading this section, as a control person, I am so guilty of trying to put God in a box. This was such a fresh reminder that we cannot manage or control the work of the Holy Spirit. 2) It reminds us that the Kindom of God depends not on talk but on power" (1Cor.4:20). 3)It offers continuing challenge towards spiritual growth and development.
4) it offers a life of gifting and empowering for witness and service. Foster than lists perils
1) trivialization. -we focus on the gift tather than the Giver. 2) rejecting the rational and the intellectual.
3) divorcing the gift of the Spirit from the 'fruit of the Spirit and 4) linking our walk in the Spirit to higly speculative end time scenarious that lack thrological foundation. (Foster 130-131). The Charistmatic Tradtiton is a life of immersed in, empowered by, and under the direction of the Spirit of God. I found these summaries to be helpful
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Lydia your integration between the two courses will provide some helpful points of reflection. Foster provides a broad perspective on each stream, Benner & Moon are focusing upon spiritual direction in tension/contrast with pastoral counseling and psychotherapy. The connections and impact of the Stream's theology can be observed in the Tradition's perspective in spiritual direction. For example, see page 158, bottom paragraph, spiritual formation that is open and unstructired is generally more appealing and comfortable for folks in the charismatic/pentecostal stream. This is a strength of experientialism while it also has limitations and points of concern as is true of all the streams/traditions.
Post a Comment