What is "Affective Spirituality" anyway?

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In the DMIN program that I previously directed, our various cohorts generally present an affective or heart-based approach to Christian Formation and Discipleship. Many people have had questions about this thing called "affective spirituality." 

No, we didn't spell it wrong. And despite Grammarly constantly flagging the word and suggesting "effective," we use this word intentionally. Let me explain why this is.

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Western Christianity, taking seriously the mission of God, often focuses on effectiveness, measuring what we have accomplished quantitatively, asking questions such as — How many? How much? How long? Who best?

Yet the heart of God (manifested in Christ, revealed through the Word by the Spirit), from which his mission flows outward, is not centered on mere outward effectiveness or numerical expediency. Quite often, his plan is advanced counterintuitively. And refreshingly, in the Kingdom of Heaven, the end doesn’t justify the means.

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Contrary to conventional wisdom, God extends his redemptive mission using the most unlikely methods and unworthy messengers. He consistently chooses the youngest, the poorest, the exiled, and the culturally powerless. God delights to make his case through the humbled and transformed hearts of those whom the world might have labeled, marginalized, and dismissed as adulteresses (Tamar, Rahab, the Samaritan woman at the well), scandalized (Ruth, David, Mary Magdalene), "just women" (the first witnesses of Jesus' resurrection), as ignorant fishermen (several disciples), scoundrels (Jacob), even cheats and economic oppressors (Matthew/Levi). The Lord also transformed some of his most hostile enemies into great defenders of the faith (Naaman the Syrian, Nebuchadnezzar, and Saul of Tarsus), and he still does the same thing today. 

Our Triune God is more concerned about transforming our hearts by pouring his love into us by the Spirit (Rom. 5:5) than about how eloquent our sermon is, how much money we raise, or how many friends and followers we might have. Without what are our efforts ultimately judged to be ineffective, and our very person found to be empty?

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. (1 Cor. 13:1-3)

The critique of our form of Christianity is not that we should do less, but that we should respond to his love more relationally than ever before. This critique is also found in the Book of Revelation, as Jesus wrote (via John) to the Ephesian church — a church committed to missional effectiveness and Stoic endurance in the face of opposition. Yet they failed to notice that they had missed something along the way.

“‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. (Rev. 2:2-7 ESV, emphasis mine)

In the process of attempting to fulfill the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20), we can put it before the Great Commandment (Matt. 22:36-40). Our efforts at discipleship can become externally focused through sin-management initiatives in hopes that it will eventually be smuggled inside our hearts, instead of internal transformation in response to God's love that naturally works its way outward in our lives, changing everything in its path. For Jesus said, 
     “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: 
             just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 
  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, 
                                                  if you have        love for one another.” (John 13:34-35) 

Our love testifies clearly to whom or what we serve.

What do you mean by Affective Theology?

In the remainder of this article, Dr. Ron Frost offers an answer to the questions about affective theology, or as he prefers to call it, “affective spirituality,” which was originally posted on Dr. Frost's Spreading Goodness blog.

He writes…

“What do you mean by ‘affective theology?’ I’d never heard of it before I met you.”

It’s a fair question. I first found the label in Heiko Oberman’s The Dawn of the Reformation, where he wrote of fourteenth-century Christians whose “suspicion of speculation” led them away from prior theological streams. They preferred “an affective theology in its place’’ that, while not being anti-intellectual, was more heart-based. It reflected Franciscan reforms and “a new longing for a comprehensive system of thought” (pp. 7-8). Older traditions were broken: reform was needed. Oberman viewed this impulse as a continuing element in later reforms.

In taking up this reform, I also prefer the term “spirituality” rather than the more generic “theology” because the former underscores the Spirit’s role in the Spirit-to-spirit bond of regeneration. And the church today still needs a more comprehensive system of thought that receives the Bible as the guiding Christian resource for sound faith and practice.

Affective Spirituality has three prominent features. A simple Biblicism for one. In John chapter eight, Jesus called on those who are “truly my disciples” to “abide in my word” by embracing the truth he offers to a capsized world. Second is the recognition that hearts, rather than the human will or volition, explain every action. This dismisses the Greek-Stoic anthropology that makes autonomous choice—the “free will”—a basis for human identity. Third, the reality of God’s Triune relational existence is central: we have been born of the Father, Son, and Spirit, who pours out his inherent love “in our hearts” by the Spirit. So that a transforming love for God and neighbor is active in all who know him.

Let me touch on each of these very briefly.

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First, the Bible comes to us as God’s gift of self-disclosure. And our hearts must respond to him for faith to exist. I’ll offer my own story to illustrate this. I grew up in a Christian home with sound church training. But it was simply moral and creedal content, and that didn’t move me. By the time I reached my middle teen years, I was ready to leave it all behind. Yet at the same time, I wanted to hear from God! So I finally tried reading the Bible despite my skepticism. Then, in reading the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), the text came alive! I met Jesus there as a living voice speaking through the written words.

While conversion through immediate Bible reading isn’t normative, it is suggestive. Faith comes by hearing words about Christ, yet the same words can be barren for one reader and lively for another. And if we presume God—whose Spirit awakens the soul to “hear” the Scriptures in a life-giving way—isn’t being arbitrary, we’re left to locate the problem in “hard” and skeptical human hearts. And addressing that is another conversation!

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Second, we need to recognize the heart as God’s locale for communing with us, where His Spirit lives after our conversion. But despite the huge weight of heart-focused references in the Bible, the default view of the soul in most churches is that love is an act of our will rather than a response of the heart.

Listen, for instance, to the unknown author of The Cloud of Unknowing—an influential fourteenth-century guide to spirituality: “Will is the faculty by which we choose good after it has been approved by reason, and by which we love God … and ultimately dwell in God” (Penguin, 138). It sounds lovely, but it’s not what the Bible actually teaches. The truth is that none of us seeks after God like that.

The Bible says the opposite: we only love God because he first loved us. So here’s a bold challenge: read the entire Bible through in just a few weeks and mark each reference to the heart and to the will. See where the real weight lands.

Third, we have the Trinity: God’s singular being with his three eternal distinctions. And his eternal loving communion is the basis for both creation and redemption. Yet we won’t have a sound grasp of these two actions if we haven’t explored the Bible’s Trinitarian roots.

In my own experience, it was the seventeenth-century Puritan Richard Sibbes who turned on the lights for me—his fascination with the Trinity as explained by the early Church Fathers and as applied in the relational insights of Reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin was invaluable. Michael Reeve’s lively summary, Delighting in the Trinity—or, in the UK, The Good God—is a good starter for filling in this blind spot.

If we summarize the whole we have this: affective spirituality is a faith that arises in those who are assured by the Spirit’s personal witness to our hearts of God’s Scriptural promises: he loves us personally and he’s invested in transforming us into the likeness of the Son in order to share God’s love with us through all the ages to come. And as Jesus prayed in John 17, love among believers will show a skeptical world that God is alive and well.

Finally, if you aren’t there already, I encourage you to open your heart to Christ’s affective ambitions. He looks for those who have a heart like his own.

Iron Sharpens Iron—Better Together! (Prov. 27:17)

 “Iron sharpens iron,
      and one man sharpens another.”

This is a message we often hear in the church, especially in the context of ministries aimed at men, though it is equally true for women. It is a powerful metaphor of the relational element of whole-life character (and perhaps even personality) development. It has often been said that such engagement might produce sparks, but it also brings strength and respect.

Pondering the concept of “iron sharpening iron” causes me to ask practical questions such as, “How can we sharpen each other for greater effectiveness and faithfulness in the long work of the harvest? What needs to take place for us to overcome the dulling effects of living and ministering in a fallen world? I have a 45-year-old boy scout hatchet (see below left) that is a bit the worse for wear. It could stand to be sharpened if it is going to be useful for chopping this summer.

Forged in Fire is currently a very popular television show, where four contestants are challenged to construct their signature blades in such a way that they will stand up to a series of sometimes gruesome tests for strength, sharpness, and lethality. The final two contestants are then tasked by the judges with building a specific weapon from history in their own home forge that will be brought back to be tested, and a winner will be chosen. While within our learning cohorts, we are not in competition with each other, there is a spirited discussion on matters of importance so that we can hear, learn, and grow in understanding—all while taking seriously the call to build (not puff) each other up.

Photo Credit Greg Dueker

A Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) program is for those with considerable ministry experience—having run, walked, or crawled through some victories, some defeats, some wise decisions, and some foolish decisions. Yet just because we have experience doesn’t mean that we know everything or can even rightly perceive what we know. In cohort-based learning, we subject our pet ideas and approaches to the scrutiny of the community of learners. Untested ideas get tempered and nicked up a bit while the gouges and notches left by past and present conflicts are hammered out, heat-treated, and honed through lasting relationships and reexamination of the Scriptures, learning about the lives of fellow saints and spiritual soldiers, and humbly seeking godly wisdom in our ministry contexts.

Earlier in the same “sharpening” chapter, the author of Proverbs wrote,

“Better is open rebuke

    than hidden love.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend;

    profuse are the kisses of an enemy.” (Prov. 27:5-6)

This is also hard to hear…especially if we don’t like having our ideas and methods questioned. Yet, for the sake of the gospel, we should be willing and ready to face sharpening if we are going to be effective over the long term. Have you ever taken the time to consider how open rebuke is better than hidden love? I’m not sure that I have except to intuitively know it is better. The Book of Proverbs is consistent in talking about how the wise man responds to rebuke differently than the fool (See Prov. 13:1; 17:10; 28:23; 9:7-8; 12:1,15; 1:7-9, 23-27). The wise man finds value in being rebuked, for he can “learn” or “gain understanding” from the process. Even if the rebuke is undeserved, it may still help produce humility in the wise man and increase his dependence upon the Lord. However, hidden love doesn’t help anyone. This verse (5) reminds me of a technique you may have seen on the popular TV show, The Voice, where, in the early stages of the competition, the coaches often try to sell contestants on why they should pick them as their coach. One coach, Adam Levine, is often complimentary, but then points out some minor issues that need to be corrected and how he could help the singer improve. When he uses this approach, it works almost every time over the “compliments alone” approach other coaches might employ, because serious performers want to get better.

As pastors, chaplains, missionaries, and Christian leaders, we would do well to seek wise counsel before going into the spiritual “battle” that swirls around us. As it is written,

“Where there is no guidance, a people falls,
    but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” (Proverbs 11:14; See also 24:6)

The Bible—the whole counsel of the Word of God—when we delight in it, provides just such an abundance of counselors (Psalm 119:24). It is a wonderful thing that we don’t have to face the enemy, or prepare ourselves for the task before us, alone. In fact, we shouldn’t even attempt it. The Apostle Paul wrote to a younger pastor,

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16-17)

This means that the Bible, read and studied together in community, is God speaking into our lives and ministries. It will be very useful since it …

• reveals what is right and true (teaching or doctrine)
• reveals what is not right (reproof)
• reveals how to get right (correction)
• reveals how to stay right (training in righteousness)

The bottom line is that we all need a teachable heart, a mind that is applied to seeking understanding, a life overflowing with the love of God, the faith to leave our comfort zone to join in the mission of God and to encourage others to keep up, that and the physical strength to do the work.

I am thankful to those men and women of my D.Min. cohort who walked with me in full, or in part, through the sharpening process—Mark Nicklas, Cliff Chappell, Joe Luce, Eric Knox, Chris Haughee, Jody Bormuth, Noel Schaak, Jim Polenski, Joe-Silem Enlet, Wilfred Kaweesa, John McKenricks, Serena Briening, Bill Myers, Will Berkley, Paul Louis Metzger and many others who supported us along the journey!

"In Process"
Photo Credit: Greg Dueker

I hope that you have faithful men and women to encourage and challenge you as you serve the Lord Jesus Christ. If you don’t have a committed learning community, check out cohort-based programs at well-respected seminaries. 

If there is one thing I know about axes, it is that a dull ax doesn’t split much wood, and just might be more likely to cut your leg than a log! Don’t be that person!