This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

Askesis: The Biggest Failure of My Heritage Churches

I've written in several posts about my faith heritage in the Restoration (or Stone-Campbell) Movement churches. Some people, when as adults they choose a new religious heritage or identity, one different from that in which they were raised, tend to first relate to their heritage faith antagonistically, emphasizing the failures and blindspots, and how their new found heritage or identity so much better addresses the various realities with which they are confronted. A converted atheist of all people is the most certain of the claim that religion is nothing more than infantile superstition having nothing to do with reason.

In my case, however, I cannot consciously recall ever having any reaction of that sort. I certainly have spoken of what I take to be the failures and weaknesses of my heritage faith, but the fact of the matter is, I know my heritage churches to have many strengths, and have never really considered myself alien to those churches, even in pursuing membership in the Episcopal churches and (now) in the Orthodox Church. If I were ever very critical of my heritage faith, it was while still a student at one of the Restoration Movement Bible colleges--which is what one normally expects of ministry students. From my Restoration heritage I learned to love Jesus, his Church and his written Word. I learned the importance of growing in my understanding and living of that written Word, and of loving my brother or sister in Christ. Equally as important, I learned the importance of speaking the Gospel of my Lord to those with whom I came in contact.

These disclaimers being stated, however, I do want to speak about one glaring weakness of my heritage churches: the failure to develop an asketic of growth in faith and holiness, and concomitantly, the distortion of the biblical asketic.

Askesis is originally a Greek term that is literally equivalent to the English noun “athletics.” An asketic is either an athlete or an athletic regimen. The early Christian martyrs, for example, were often called “athletes of God” for their struggle against the enemies of God, a struggle even to death. And the term “askesis” became a metaphor for the whole of our spiritual struggle in Christ as we grow and mature in our faith. This askesis is a holistic struggle involving the intellect, as we strive to believe the right things about the faith; the body, as we strive to conquer the passions which tempt us to sin and self-indulgence; the emotions, as we strive to be angry and sin not; the will, as we strive each day to take up our cross and follow our Lord; and, encompassing all, the heart as we attempt to keep pure the throne of the Holy Trinity.

My heritage churches did, indeed, attempt to emphasize this sort of holistic sanctification. We were exhorted to complete moral and doctrinal purity, co-striving with God's Spirit in us as Philippians 2:12-13 tells us: “Therefore, my beloved, even as ye always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much rather in mine absence, be working out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is the One Who energizeth in you both to will and to energize for the sake of His good pleasure” (The Orthodox New Testament*). Unfortunately, though given the “what,” we were not given the “how.” Or, rather, the “how” we were given was itself a very narrow and limited part of our human living.

The sort of transformative askesis we were given focused almost exclusively on the intellect. We were to focus on the study of God's written Word. What we learned there, of course, we were to put into practice. But first came the renewing of the mind. Indeed, for the Restoration churches, faith was primarily a rational, intellectual thing. Thus it is inevitable that the primary way one progresses in Christian maturity, according to Restoration Movement practice, is by transforming one's mind.

This emphasis, is, it must be affirmed, a Scriptural one. Paul says, “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, overthrowing reasonings and every high thing which lifteth itself up against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of the Christ,” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). Romans 12:2 was a regular staple of exhortation: “And cease being fashioned according to this age, but be transfigured by the renewing of your mind, in order for you to put to the test what is the good and well-pleasing and perfect will of God.” Indeed, Christ himself called us to the first and greatest commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matthew 22:37, emphasis added; cf. also Mark 12:30 and Luke 10:27 which add “with all thy strength”). It is true that if we think rightly about a certain matter, especially matters of Truth, we are better enabled to act rightly. So the emphasis on right doctrine and the conversion of our thoughts was an important aspect of my Christian training both at home and later at Bible college.

I found, however, that this is an inadequate regimen with which to grow in faith and holiness. Precisely because it misses a single most important ingredient: the body.

My Restoration heritage quoted Romans 12:2, but often failed to note the first verse. Taken together, Romans 12:1-2 reads: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God, your rational worship. And cease being fashioned according to this age, but be transfigured by the renewing of your mind, in order for you to put to the test what is the good and well-pleasing and perfect will of God.” What are we called to offer? Our bodies as living sacrifices. It is the offering of our bodies that makes for rational worship.

Paul's passage in 1 Corinthians is well-noted here: “Ye know, do ye not, that they who run in a stadium all indeed run, but one receiveth the prize? Thus keep on running that ye might obtain. And everyone who contendeth exerciseth self-control in all things; indeed then, those do it that they might receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. I run therefore thus, not as uncertain; thus I box, not as beating the air. But I buffet my body and bring it into bondage, lest, having preached to others, I myself should become unapproved” (9:24-27). In other words, my Restoration Movement heritage emphasis on intellectual or mental transformation left virtually untouched the battle that Christians must wage in their as-yet-mortal and not-yet-resurrected bodies.

Don't misunderstand. I knew well the moral and Christian prohibitions against bodily sins, largely sexual. I also knew well that sin meant not just merely spiritual consequences, but had bodily consequences as well, not the least of which was death (on which more in a moment). But when it came to actually fighting against sin and death in my body, I knew only one thing: negative will-power. I must exercise my will in resisting bodily sins. Of course, I drew on Philippians 2:12-13 above, knowing that my will power alone was not sufficient for fighting the battle, that I must always also draw on the strength of God and implore him for victory over temptation. But this, though much, was as far as it went.

What I did not understand was the place of the passions, and how these passions had “infected” if you will my mortal body, a contagion I had voluntarily brought into myself through my own sins, as well as being born with a mortal nature susceptible to such “infection.” As Paul say, “For when we were in the flesh, the passions of the sins, which were through the law, were energizing our members to bear fruit to death” (Romans 7:5, emphasis added). This is the warfare within himself to which he makes reference at the end of Romans 7, how he does that which he does not wish to do, and the good which he knows he is to do that he does not do. It is the battle between his mortal and sinful nature, revealed through the holy and pure Torah of God, and the new man which he put on in baptism. Indeed, since we have been buried with Christ in Christian immersion, “Therefore let not sin be reigning in your mortal body, so that ye obey it in its desires” (Romans 6:12). From the fact that “they who are of the Christ crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts” (Galatians 5:24), we can then bear the multi-faceted fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. As Christians, we are under obligation: “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5).

How we do this, how we mortify the passions, fighting the contagion is through prayer and the word of Christ, repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation (cf. Colossians 3). But there are preeminently the Mysteries of God, the Sacraments. As we've already seen, in Holy Baptism we encounter forgiveness of sins, the reception of the Holy Spirit, the new, spiritual man, the energizing grace of God. And most importantly, there is the Lord's Supper, or Holy Eucharist. “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not communion of the blood of the Christ? The bread which we break, is it not communion of the body of the Christ? For we who are many, are one bread, one body; for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Corinthians 10:16-17). The communion of the body and blood of the Lord has bodily effects. Just as our body partakes of the sanctified elements, our bodies take on the sanctified aspects of the elements. For as Paul states in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “Or know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit Who is in you, Whom ye have from God, and ye are not your own? For we were bought with a price; glorify then God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.” (One should note that it is precisely this fact, that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, that Christians are not to cremate their dead.) Paul notes that “whosoever may eat this bread or drink this cup of the Lord unworthily [i. e., without examining himself] shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. . . . For the one who eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. For this reason, many are weak and sick among you, and a considerable number are falling asleep” (1 Corinthians 11:27, 29-30).

But this is not a treatise on fighting the passions, nor on sacramental theology. It is only to point out that my heritage faith missed out on some essential Apostolic teaching on how to grow in faith and holiness. My heritage churches, coming as they did out of the Enlightenment (Alexander Campbell was said to have carried copies of John Locke's writings in his pocket) quite naturally emphasized the intellectual aspects of Christianity. Some Restoration Movement historians understand Campbell to have said that the Holy Spirit works only through helping us understand the written Word, the Scriptures.

But growth in faith and holiness is clearly much more than merely about the intellect. It is about the body, the will, the emotions, and the heart which is the center of our selves. By fighting the passions in our body and soul through disciplining our body; by prayer and worship; by participation in the Sacraments—this offering of our bodies as living sacrifices—we grow in faith and holiness, and in the image of the Christ.

The Orthodox Church offers me this by offering worship, sacraments, and disciplines which are both bodily and spiritual. I get to keep my faith heritage's emphasis on the renewing of the mind, and also get to find its fulfillment in the holistic faith and worship that has been part of the ancient and Apostolic Church from the beginning.

*All New Testament citations are from The Orthodox New Testament, © 2004 Holy Apostles Convent. I have chosen this translation for the primary reason that it is the best rendering of the Greek New Testament in English which reflects the ancient Christian Faith. Admittedly, however, as in the Philippians 2:12-13 passage above, the rendering is less than elegant.

Posted by Clifton at January 12, 2005 12:00 PM | TrackBack