Meditation in the Reformed Tradition
Meditation is not a new age concept foreign to Reformed Spirituality. In fact, as Robert Ramey, Jr. and Ben Campbell Johnson point out in Living the Christian Life: a Guide to Reformed Spirituality, meditation is an essential part of the Christian life. But what makes our meditation Reformed is the subject. Our personal worship or "secret worship" as it is called in the Westminster Confession of Faith: Book of Confessions, is that it "centers uponScripture as one reads and listens for God's s Spirit to speak. (Presbyterian Book of Worship)
According to Ramey and Johnson, augmenting our Scripture reading with meditation "helps us hear God speak through Scripture." They say this may be done in a variety of ways, from meditating on a single word in Scripture to the "intellectual, reasoned system of Calvin." (p. 63)
Indeed, the Book of Worship suggests a number of ways of meditating on scripture including imaginatively entering into Scripture (see my earlier post on Ignatius' use imagination as a way to hear God in scripture) as well as journaling on insights gained in reading and meditating on scripture. But Ramey and Johnson caution that we need to avoid practicing meditation as an empty repetitive mantra to chant or to meditate merely by clearing the mind of all thoughts. However, based on the section in their book on prayer, we must not misinterpret their caution as a prohibition of prayers such as the Jesus prayer or other prayers earnestly prayed to Christ and not meant as empty repititions. Similarly, the caution to not allow meditation to be just a clearing of one's thoughts should not be seen as speaking against the concept of "centering prayer" in which the aim is to put aside earthly concerns in a prayerful desire to concentrate only on Christ and being in his presence.
So, as radical as it may sound on its face, meditation and Reformed faith are not strange bedfellows. In fact, the lack of meditation on scripture and devotion to truly hearing God speak through the Spirit's revelation in scripture probably has a great deal to due with a problem large numbers of presbyterians have complained about in recent surveys--a lack of passionate spirituality.
According to Ramey and Johnson, augmenting our Scripture reading with meditation "helps us hear God speak through Scripture." They say this may be done in a variety of ways, from meditating on a single word in Scripture to the "intellectual, reasoned system of Calvin." (p. 63)
Indeed, the Book of Worship suggests a number of ways of meditating on scripture including imaginatively entering into Scripture (see my earlier post on Ignatius' use imagination as a way to hear God in scripture) as well as journaling on insights gained in reading and meditating on scripture. But Ramey and Johnson caution that we need to avoid practicing meditation as an empty repetitive mantra to chant or to meditate merely by clearing the mind of all thoughts. However, based on the section in their book on prayer, we must not misinterpret their caution as a prohibition of prayers such as the Jesus prayer or other prayers earnestly prayed to Christ and not meant as empty repititions. Similarly, the caution to not allow meditation to be just a clearing of one's thoughts should not be seen as speaking against the concept of "centering prayer" in which the aim is to put aside earthly concerns in a prayerful desire to concentrate only on Christ and being in his presence.
So, as radical as it may sound on its face, meditation and Reformed faith are not strange bedfellows. In fact, the lack of meditation on scripture and devotion to truly hearing God speak through the Spirit's revelation in scripture probably has a great deal to due with a problem large numbers of presbyterians have complained about in recent surveys--a lack of passionate spirituality.
posted by Frank at 6:27 PM
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