2 In this essay, however, the focus is on the spiritual person as discussed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 2. The title of the paper was, 'What is Christian Spirituality?'. This essay is the result of a paper which I presented in 2016 at a Faith seeking conversation Symposium at Tabor College of Higher Education in Adelaide, Australia. Spirituality has now become a buzz word that defines our era. It did exist in all churches, but was limited in its acknowledgment as a topic of research and discussion by especially certain Christian churches and denominations such as the Roman Catholic Church, Orthodox Churches, and at a later stage in history the Pentecostals. This massive interest in Christian spirituality does not mean that Christian spirituality did not exist prior to this contemporary dynamic interest at all. It is about experience over reason, subjectivity over objectivity, spirituality over religion, images over words, outward over inward'. 1 In addition to this, Houdmann (2013:1) says that 'Post-modern Christianity falls into line with basic post-modernist thinking. One of the good things that emerged from postmodernity is that it prepared the way for this interest, particularly in Christian spirituality. This brought a vast interest in spirituality with significant implications for religion (cf. The emergence of Postmodernism, with its consciousness of 'relativism, subjectivism, seeing language as imprecise and ambiguous' (Kysar 2007:158), constituted a religious paradigm shift in Western culture.
The focus will be on 'the experience of the divine' when living a life that resonates with the Christian life. In the last section, the constituents of Christian spirituality are pointed out and are reviewed from a conversational perspective. In the second section, various aspects that constitute spiritualities are distinguished and discussed. In the first section, a working definition of Christian spirituality is formulated. This research consists of three sections. Christian spirituality is interpreted from the perspective of the divine-human conversation. This research intends to partake in the continuing academic dialogue to define Christian spirituality. Spirituality is also no longer connected only to religion, although in this research the focus will fall on Christian spirituality. Many definitions have been proposed to define (Christian) spirituality. Irrespective of the short academic history of Christian spirituality, a vast number of academic and popular publications ensued and is still dynamically growing. The characterisation of the Spiritual Christian: In conversation with God according to 1 Corinthians 2ĭepartment of New Testament Studies, North-West University, South Africa
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