by Mary Darling and Tony Campolo

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review by Robert Gonzalez

“Tu autem eras interior intimo meo….” Augustine, not traditionally credited as one of Christianity's mystic theologians, wrote those words to God during a period of deep but frustrated searching. They roughly mean, “But you are more present than my most inward self.” Prior to his vast work as a theologian, Augustine recognized that at the center of human experience with God is the knowledge that God desires to be with humanity. This is true, but before we journey too far down that road, we must temper our thoughts with another truth from a less well-known theologian. Homer Simpson, upon building a chapel, said, “Well I may not know much about God, but I have to say, we built a pretty nice cage for him.” We find ourselves somewhere in the tension between Augustine and the Simpsons. We are closer to one who understands reformation not as a single event or period of history, but as the continuous intervention of God into our lifeless and hardened forms. It is in this same spirit that George Fox understood Christ was not contained in rituals, buildings, divinity degrees, or even in the gilt-edged, leather-bound pages of a Bible. Fox said Christ came and was present to teach his people. It is in that same spirit that Tony Campolo and Mary Albert Darling offer this work.

Real faith should not be confused with giving assent to simple statements of facts about God or with a spirituality unconcerned with the material world. In The God of Intimacy and Action, Campolo and Darling present mystical Christianity as a guard against this. Christianity is not about agreement with dogma, adherence to rules, being an extremely decent person, or being supremely unmoved by the troubles of this world. Campolo and Darling describe mystical Christianity as the key to living intimately with the God who has come to change history. At the core of The God of Intimacy and Action is the authors' desire that we see the presence of God as a miraculous intervention into the fate of humanity. We are bound to death, oppression, injustice, and destruction, but God breaks into our lives and changes the course. For Campolo and Darling, mysticism and spiritual disciplines are central to Christianity—a Christianity that knows the real presence of God apart from ritualized forms, and is moved by that presence to participate in that good news as it transforms the world. At times, however, this connection is not so clear.

It is clear that Campolo is intensely concerned with justice that engages the world. He is deeply committed to being compassionately connected with the least in our society, in the name of Christ. It is also clear that Darling is in no way offering mystical practices or spiritual disciplines that lead one to an egocentric spirituality that floats untroubled above the very real problems of the world. Campolo and Darling are moving toward a definition of mystic Christianity different from what most people assume it to be. Mystic Christianity is generally understood as a very individualized expression of Christianity, but the authors clearly hope to find within the tradition a way to define it as a more profound involvement with those whom Jesus said he had come to serve and save. They are right to do so. They cite some of the best examples in Christianity's history: St. Francis, St. Ignatius, St. Teresa, Thomas Merton, and others. All of whom were deeply and mysteriously penetrated by God and therefore moved to challenge their age's religious assumptions and consequences of sin. Yet even as they draw the connections between mysticism and action, it is not always clear that what they have prescribed is entirely the challenge to the world that necessarily follows a genuine encounter with God.

We are so used to being the masters of everything about us that there is a certain amount of danger in saying we need to turn our minds toward God, that we need to initiate the mystical experience, that we need simply to change our perspectives and we will encounter God. In our current milieu, where we are offered seven steps to perfection, prayers that guarantee an increase of our territory or freedom from pain, and handbooks to lives driven by purpose, we need at every turn to be reminded that we initiate none of this. Acts that hope to conjure up God may be fine for voodoo, but it will not do if we understand God as creator and ourselves as the creatures. We are the worked and waiting vessel, and we must wait. To be clear, that is the underlying message of this book. But as Darling lists the practices that can encourage an inward knowledge of God, it is absolutely worth making it clearer. Otherwise we may think we need to simply crank the handle enough times before God eventually pops out of the box.

Also, as recently published letters of Mother Teresa reveal, we do not serve Christ in others simply because mystical practices move us to do so. God is not bound to our acts of devotion or spiritual discipline. We are bound to God whether we experience a profound spiritual communion or live as she did for decades, sensing only absence and emptiness. Campolo and Darling only briefly address the reality of spiritual “desolations” in The God of Intimacy and Action, and it is all too easy to imagine mystical Christianity as simply a better device for a thoroughly motivated life. Campolo and Darling do not say spiritual disciplines will lure God into our lives or conjure him from the ether and onto our team through some variety of movement and incantation. Very clearly, for them, spiritual disciplines are only those things that help us to be expectant. They help us to see beyond our creations and remind us God is not contained in any of those things. However, as spiritual disciplines are presented as they key to intimacy with God, we might read them as individualized alternatives to correct statements about God. Rather than thinking our propositions about God are correct and therefore oblige God to bless us, we may imagine our correct introspective practices are simply our half of the bargain wherein God must be revealed to us.

As an introduction to Christian mysticism The God of Intimacy and Action is in many ways superior to other works that would present an insular, navel-gazing spirituality as the goal of faith. It also makes clear that to follow Christ means to live in service of others. However, as a corrective to the Modern (prior to postmodern) tendency to formalize everything or imagine faith must somehow fit into a systematic, coherent whole, The God of Intimacy and Action dances dangerously close to making spiritual disciplines yet another device in which we might trap God.

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