(the following occurred to me just as I finished the preceding post about COS’s seeking to live as an alternative society;  as a “recovery group” for resisting he addictions of and to our culture):

The end of a chapter in Campolo’s new book collaboration is a bit puzzling to me,  as it stops short just as he is talking about “the body”,  and does not lead that in to talking about the church as the container for mystical union with God;  it leaves me with quite an individualistic underpinning for what God wants from us in a relationship. 

(update, Sat. Dec. 29: It is easily read as “the body of Christ” as referring to us as individuals,  as there is no mention that this is referring to the church rather than as individuals (pp. 20-21, The God of Intimacy and Action). Campolo does,  in the previous section,  talk about the doing the outward work :

We and others,  as the body of Christ, can only accomplish this mission by being incorporated into vital churches wherein people with differing gifts and callings can complement one another…….to do this,  we believe these Christian communities need the kind of mystical spirituality that early Christians practiced and that gives impetus both to evangelism and to justice efforts.

OK,  now I see a distinction upon closer inspection.  But the part that bothered me was when he writes:

Being converted is allowing ourselves to become the body of Christ

p. 21

He later seems to clarify this “body” as our individual bodies when he writes  “The Apostle Paul in Romans 8:11 makes it clear that the same spirit that was in Jesus will be alive in our ‘mortal bodies’ “,  which sounds like its swinging back to an association of “the body” with individual physical bodies. 

and

all of us are called to be so mystically possessed by Christ that we become Christ’s “now” body through which the gospel is preached to the lost and through which the poor and oppressed are blessed with hope and justice.

p.21

which has the effect on me as reversing or “re-muddying” the waters. As I express later in this post,  it is a slippery slope to describe this and maintain the balance.  From what I know of Campolo,  this is bound to be a matter of writing communication rather than a blindness on his part (since he is one of the earliest writers/speakers in my life to open up the issues and problems associated with evangelicalism in America becoming so “other-worldly”  and “culturally accommodating” that it loses its balance in this matter.

I would now moderate/annotate  my initial impression, expressed here:

I know that Campolo holds the church as central,  but the fact that he referred to the body of Christ in the context of talking about inner life, but then did not mention any hint that this “inner life” is also a part of this culture being woven inside the body of Christ;  that part of the role of the church is to be for all of us a self-contained unit of sorts that allows us and enables us to nurture an inner life in the first place.  It’s not left “up to us” as the abrupt ending of this chapter I mention leads me to conclude if I follow the message (or lack of it) of that chapter.  I am left to conclude that the development of intimacy with God is something “private” and apart from our status as members of the Body of Christ.

I would think that this is not a matter left up to our “self nurture” ,  although there is much involved in this mystical union with God that can enable us to survive dry periods when the intimacy within the body of Christ seems lacking,  or is perceived as not being there for us.

with this:

Well,  he did in fact “hint” at it,  in the preceding section,  in the first quotation in this post that I have added above, but then ,  as I said,  ended up muddying the waters again with the bit about “mortal bodies” following immediately after a discussion about “the body of Christ” with no clear identification of the switch….in fact,  the explanation seems to  re-shift all the emphasis back onto the individual.   It’s certainly a difficult concept to get our articulations around.

Now, back to my original post yesterday, the 28th:

I may have jumped the gun here,  since I haven’t finished the book,  but I was alert to that disturbing hint of an overly individualistic notion of the inner life,   and was really sensitive to the impression that was left by failing to mention (Dec.29 note: or,  failing to clearly distinguish )  what I consider to be the communal aspects of our nurture of the inner life.  Once again,  the Church of the Saviour is a model in my life for this kind of “inward journey” understanding,  and is a core piece of their members’ expectations toward one another.  Their expectations of accountability toward one another is in communal sharing of their “inward journeys”,  which helps to constantly reshape and discipline the development of our inner life. 

I have much more on this,  and this explanation I am giving doesn’t quite satisfy me;  it’s way too skeletal,   but the main point I wish to convey is that there is much more of a communal aspect to our “inner life”,  and is far too often associated with “private spirituality” and “devotional” is far too equated with “alone with God”,  even though we can and do and should spend “time alone with God”.