Christian Spirituality Studies Blog

This is the fifth of five syllabi Andrew Dyck has made available to SSCS members. You can find blog posts about the other four (or any other syllabi) by going to the SSCS website and typing syllabus in the box below Christian Spirituality Blog. To get a copy of this syllabus, please email the blog moderator. Here is the course overview:

This experience-centred course introduces students to practices and perspectives for growing in attentiveness to God’s presence in order to be continually formed into Christlikeness by the Holy Spirit. The course helps cultivate spiritual habits that can...

Andrew Dyck has been most generous in sharing his syllabi. This, the fourth, is also for a graduate course. Here is the course description:

This course introduces students to the study of Christian spirituality by examining diverse traditions of Christian spirituality historically and presently, by considering the scriptural and theological moorings of these traditions, and by engaging in research that studies spiritual life. Through these explorations, students will be invited to consider their own spiritual heritage and ongoing spiritual development. 

This course has been designed...

Andrew Dyck created this syllabus for a graduate course at Canadian Mennonite University. Here is the course description:

This course will help students develop their convictions and practices of prayer—both individual and communal—by examining Christian prayer in church history, theology, and scripture (incl. Psalms, the Lord’s Prayer, and other New Testament prayers). Students will be given opportunities to experience and respond to various prayer practices individually and in small groups. An underlying theme for the course is ‘No one prays alone.

SSCS members can request a copy...

Co-edited by SSCS members Bernadette Flanagan and Noelia Molina, this special issue of the monthly journal Religions is available for download because it is an open access journal. Here is an excerpt from the editors' introduction:

In this collection of essays, we turn the spirituality spotlight onto the inner drives in life which can shape our existence, consciously or unconsciously. The diversity of addictions discussed, and perspectives presented, aims to raise deeper questions regarding the nature of addiction. Rather than presenting addictions as diverse clinical challenges, the...

Andrew Dyck created this syllabus for a course given in Fall 2021. Here is the course description:

This course is an introductory survey of various traditions and disciplines of Christian spirituality in the context of their historical development and contemporary expression. Students will be challenged to expand the scope of their understanding and practice of Christian spirituality as they engage and process the course material from within the context of their own religious traditions.

This course offers students a journey of discovery to deepen their awareness of their own...

Many of us can name novels and poetry which affected us deeply and nourished our inner being. In his new book Matthew Wickman describes how his reading of literary works led to spiritual experiences. Here is the book's overview:

Spiritual experiences are famously transformative. They sometimes inspire dramatic effects of conversion and healing, of vision and new life direction. But even in their more quotidian forms they expand our cognitive and emotional capacities, help cultivate virtues, and intensify our feelings of closeness to God, others, and things we deem ultimate. For Wickman...

Andrew Dyck's syllabus is for a course introducing students to the early formation and continuing presence of Anabaptist spirituality. Here is the course description:

The spirituality of sixteenth-century Anabaptists has not only shaped differing Mennonite denominations, but also inspired other Christian groups in the twenty-first century. This course will trace key expressions of this 'radical Reformation' spirituality, and consider how those are expressed in contemporary Christian contexts. As well as reading about Anabaptist spirituality, students will read writings of the first...

SSCS member Doug Christie's new book is an exploration of the teachings and practice of apophatic spirituality and its profound capacity to help those suffering from loss and absence. Here is the book's description:

The primary aim of this book is to reconsider the meaning of darkness within mystical and contemplative thought and practice--especially as the ground and source of love. The book examines how a sustained, critical attention to apophatic spiritual traditions can help us respond to the gaps, silences, and empty places that have become such a prominent feature of contemporary...

SSCS member David Perrin's article appears in a volume of the open access journal Acta Theologica titled "In the Divine presence. Essays in honour of Kees Waaijman on his 80th birthday," Here is the article's abstract:

John of the Cross (1542-1591), a Christian theologian and Catholic priest born in Spain, lived through the worst of the Spanish Inquisition. Emmanuel Lévinas (1906-1995), a Jewish philosopher and layman born in Lithuania, lived through the 1917 Russian Revolution and the collapse of the old regime. What, then, brings these two eminent thinkers together: one from the...

SSCS member Andrew E. Dyck's dissertation (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 2017) is available for download. Here is the dissertation's abstract:

In this dissertation, I address the question of how one group of Protestant evangelicals— Mennonite Brethren in Canada—can draw organically on spiritual practices coming from other Christian traditions. This question is significant in light of the discussions among North American evangelicals about the appropriateness of adopting spiritual disciplines from Christians—such as Catholics—whom Protestants have at times viewed with criticism and...