Signs in the Wind

Extract

If the Spirit speaks to the listening people of God in the events of history, as well as in Scripture, then the events of this time seem to indicate that a renewed search for the springs of Christian spirituality is probably the most urgent task placed by the Spirit before the churches.

The visible church is the listening people. It is not all the people who listen, but it is an identifiable collection of those people who are supposed to be listening to God and acting on what they hear, and who indeed have pledged themselves to do so—though in some cases rather casually, or with extensive reservations. The people must listen to the breathing of the Spirit, even if the message be only whispered, but at this time it rises even to thunder.

At any time in the history of Christianity it would be taken for granted that the personal pursuit of holiness, or the imitation of Christ, or the experience of the Spirit, are indispensable to the Christian life. The emphasis is different under these three headings, but all definitions of how Christians deepen and increase their be done in the assembly of God’s people, by virtue of incorporation in Christ, with all the others who share that membership, but it also takes for granted that this is a personal matter, in which each one must strive and search, often apparently alone. The task and its rewards may belong to the whole, but they also belong to each member. The need for holiness is not new, but it is being newly demanded, with renewed urgency.

In the past two centuries an emphasis on individual holiness at the expense of a sense of social and political responsibility was an easy refuge for good people who wanted to be Christians without rocking the boat too much.