I was looking forward to reading this book as I've done a couple of Ian Mosby's courses online and because I feel like I'm circling around a contemplative approach to my pioneering as well and so I was interested to be in dialogue with people who are thinking like this.
Ian Mosby's contemplative approach makes a lot of sense to me. If evangelism is just about getting people to "come to church" or "give their lives to Jesus" then it's always struck me as rather superficial. So many books I read come with these sorts of assumptions that come only from the Evangelical way of looking at the world. Ian Mosby, from a more contemplative Christian approach rather sees the invitation as entering into deeper relationship with God through contemplative practices.
The book is based on PhD research that involved interviewing a lot of "Spiritual but not Religious" people in London. There is a great deal of reflection on what this category of people is all about, and how to respond to them.
He then develops a theology called "God's Kenosis, Our Theosis" to talk about what it might mean to meet a God who goes out to us ("kenosis") and invites us to live into our divine natures ("theosis").
Where I most agree with Mosby is in his insistence that "prayer and mystical encounter [are] a critical medium for mission rather than the preserve of those who are already Christian." (129) He believes, as do I, that practices of contemplative prayer are not just for those who are already Christian, but can in fact be the first thing that people are invited to experience. Though there are very few writers who seem to talk in this way (152). That's why I was excited to read this book, because it shares this insight that seems kind of obvious to me but it not often said.
The criticism I would make of this book is that there is very little reflection on whiteness. One question I'd be interested in is whether the category of "Spiritual but not Religious" is a white category. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but it seems a question worth asking. We don't hear much about the demographics of the "Spiritual but not Religious" people he interviews. How old are they and what's their racial and class identities? And what do we need to reflect on about this?
For me, and maybe this is just where I am, there is a lack of a liberationist perspective that already feels dated. It seems like interviews were done in 2018-2020, and I wonder how much has changed since then. The increasing awareness of the danger of the climate crisis, and the experience of living through "perma-crisis" where one crisis is followed after another could put a different emphasis on this work. I think it does. I think so much of British society has shifted from needing "something to help me find meaning" to "something to help me survive" - and the search for a "survival spirituality" aligns the white world much more with what has always been the case for the global majority world. There is a critique of free market capitalism in this book, but it is kind of soft, whereas I would see the very meaning of our lives as being resistance against the monster of free market capitalism, and spirituality as being about the shape of that resistance.
The book is also a little bit more theoretical than I would have liked. I was hungry more for narratives of what Mosby has actually done in his ministries, and how he might reflect theologically on that. Instead it was a bit too much theory-driven for me, though more practical reflection did come towards the end.
Finally I want to reflect a bit here on Trinitarian vs Unitarian approaches to mission. This book is very explicitly Trinitarian. The Trinity is a very central category for Mosby to construct his theology, and I think this has both theoretical and practical consequences. For him the invitation of transformation is to be "in Christ" - where God is most fully encountered. He recognises that the experience of Spiritual but not Religious people are genuine spiritual experiences, they are encounters with God, but his commitment to Trinitarian theology means he must consider this "weak participation" as opposed to the "strong participation" of being "in Christ" - the spiritual experience of encounter within Christianity (92-93). It seems he feels compelled to make this point, because to recognise the validity of spiritual experience outside of Christianity would "diminish the need for any Christology and diminish the faith" (93).
The problem with this, for me, is the reality of what we can see with our eyes. The transformation of being "in Christ" is without doubt a real thing, but the problem is many (most?) Christians aren't actually participating in this spiritual transformation and many non-Christians are. The spiritual transformation Mosby speaks about isn't necessarily the reality in your average church. Going to church, being confirmed, believing in the Nicene Creed, are not guarantees of this transformation, or even necessarily useful tools for it. The problem with advising people exploring Christianity to take up doing Centering Prayer every day, is that almost no Christians are doing this, or even aware that that might be a thing that could be central to a Christian spiritual path. So Mosby's theology of mission requires a rather different theology of the church. It requires the church to be much more contemplative than it currently is. While Christians don't see it as central to do daily contemplative prayer it's difficult to argue that this is the invitation to curious non-Christians. Bryan Stone's point in his book "Evangelism after Christendom" is relevant here - that the Christians who evangelise are more important than the techniques or theologies that they use. You can't have a contemplative mission unless you have a contemplative church.
But equally it seems to be plainly true that many non-Christians are participating in spiritual transformation, and are showing fruits of compassion, non-anxiety, and resistance to injustice. I can't call this "weak participation" when with my own eyes it looks like "strong participation" and sometimes stronger than how it looks in Christians. I am forced to conclude that sometimes Spiritual but not Religious and other religious people are having genuine transformative encounter with the Divine.
Mosby worries that this will "diminish the need for any Christology and diminish the faith." I would argue that presents a challenge to Trinitarian Christology and Trinitarian faith, but not Unitarian Christology and Unitarian faith. A Unitarian Christology (who we think Jesus is) can claim Jesus as a human who points and guides to experiences of God (like treasure hidden in a field, or lilies in a field, or experiences in families) and invites us to discover these things for ourselves. "The realm of God is spread over the earth, but people don't see it" - and so Jesus becomes one who gently helps us to see it, rather than provide the only window through which it shines. This means that a Unitarian theology can understand the experiences of Spiritual but not Religious people as valid and not necessarily "weak." Of course religious practices and communities are still very useful things in providing ways in which to make sense and deepen into these experiences but they are only tools for working with what is already within.
So although this is a very Trinitarian book it actually provides a very hopeful outlook for Unitarian Christianity and it's potentially to connect with the Spiritual but not Religious. Mosby reports that many of the Spiritual but not Religious people he interviewed were extremely comfortable talking about God but might find the Trinitarian God "unsettling" (62). They talked about God but "language about Jesus was lacking" (65). For Mosby, this is a problem that requires solving. But for a God-centred Unitarian Christianity this is no problem at all. We are also most interested in God Godself. Jesus is an important teacher and pointer to God, but ultimately it is God, and not Jesus, who is at the centre.
So Unitarian Christianity is naturally closer to the Spiritual but not Religious than Trinitarian Christianity, so if are able to grow contemplative Unitarian Christian communities there is great potential there.
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