Spiritual Exercises for the Postmodern Christian

By Matthew C. Kruger

This book offers a challenging spirituality for a world filled with uncertainty and emotional struggle. Drawing from the work of ancient and contemporary thinkers, the author constructs a path to understanding oneself and understanding God in new and profound ways. This end is pursued by the use of spiritual exercises, mental practices which make changing one's way of life a real possibility. Further, by engaging directly with nothingness, meaninglessness, and the sheer lack of certain knowledge possessed by humans, an alternative form of spirituality is offered, one that prepares the contemporary Christian for all that life will bring.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Apr 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781498245722

Matthew C. Kruger

Matthew Kruger is Assistant Professor of the Practice of Theology at Boston College, and an Episcopal priest in the diocese of Massachusetts.

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Spiritual Exercises for the Postmodern Christian

Matthew C. Kruger

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Spiritual Exercises for the Postmodern Christian

Copyright © 2018 Matthew C. Kruger. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Cascade Books

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-1946-5

hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-4573-9

ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-4572-2

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Kruger, Matthew C.

Title: Spiritual exercises for the postmodern Christian / Matthew C. Kruger.

Description: Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2018 | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: isbn 978-1-5326-1946-5 (paperback) | isbn 978-1-4982-4573-9 (hardcover) | isbn 978-1-4982-4572-2 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Spiritual life—Christianity. | Spiritual exercises—History. | Philosophy and theology.

Classification: bv4501.3 k57 2018 (print) | bv4501.3 (ebook)

Manufactured in the U.S.A. 02/27/18

Table of Contents

Title Page

Introduction

I. God

II. Death of the Self

III. Meaning

IV. Undoing and Redoing Christianity

V. Self

VI. Self-examination

VII. Death

VIII. Sex

IX. Others

X. Christian Practices

Conclusion

Appendix

Bibliography

Introduction

What does this text do?

This text offers a set of practices for initiating change in oneself. The words that follow are exercises, activities for training oneself to think and act differently. For this reason, these words are to be practiced. This book is meant to challenge you to think differently about yourself and your religion. It is intended to provoke and encourage a reevaluation of the way we live. Nothing binds you to take on any or all of these exercises, but taking them seriously will offer some clear benefits. At the very least, through the clear restatement of your beliefs after the process of doubt, you will have affirmed your understandings. Ideally, however, if you take on these practices and they work as intended, you will have abandoned much of what you previously held about yourself and about God, realizing that these things were simply unhelpful accretions.

The most important part of these exercises is not the exercises themselves, but the idea of exercise. It is often a feature lacking from our contemporary philosophical and theological activity, and it is to the severe detriment of our human activity. We are focused only on debating matters that, although they have some significance, only possess their significance because of their impact on the way we ought to live, a significance that is frequently ignored. Philosophy and theology as currently practiced, especially in academic settings, are almost entirely engaged with the theoretical, even if these practitioners are experts in ethics. The insight of the ancient authors who have inspired me is that to become ethical, we must do ethics, and this involves the practicing of exercises. The only possible way to implement the conclusions of theoretical ethics is to become the type of person who follows such conclusions.

Alternatively, there are those who think that the call for moral change offered in texts like this one is a condemnable pursuit of moral perfectionism, as if perfection were a bad thing. It is unclear to me why striving for a certain way of life is considered inappropriate, and I cannot understand justifying a lack of effort directed towards moral improvement. There are numerous persons, inside and outside of the academy, who think that ethics is a meaningless thing, and the world reflects their conviction.

Finally, there are those who think that to practice ethics means only that one takes on a project of self-sacrifice in the name of moral change, giving away all of one’s money, or doing service work to the point of exemplary exhaustion. Both of these theories of practical ethics ignore, or place as secondary, the question of what sort of person we ought to become, and tend to deny a valid role to knowledge or theoretical activities. They interpret sacrifice in a narrow sense, only referring it to our possessions and our actions, and not to ourselves and our way of thinking and interpreting the world.

In offering these critiques, I hope to identify the space that this book is directed toward, which is the complete altering of a person’s way of being. Not to change one into something specific, but to make real change possible. I have attempted to be comprehensive, and as such, for the exercises outlined here to be effective it would take several years of continuous practice. But the most important part, a general awareness of self, actions, and motivations, is more easily learned, and more easily maintained. If nothing else, you should be able to find that much, and benefit from that much.

Postmodern Exercises

I should explain the title, I suppose. This is a work by a Christian author representing a Christian point of view. Specifically, the perspective of an Episcopal priest with an education focusing on medieval Christianity and the spiritual exercises practiced at that time. That should get us as far as spiritual exercises for the Christian. What makes this text postmodern is the engagement with doubt, the limits of language, and the general willingness to question or deny all previous systems of morality. In this way, the postmodern title is perhaps unnecessary, as the use of doubt and the destruction of metanarrative in spiritual exercises for the formation of the self is hardly something limited to the postmodern. At the same time, it will likely strike the reader that many of these exercises are far from what was practiced by the medieval friar, and they would be correct. I would argue that their justification (in broad strokes) could be found in the work of Meister Eckhart, or perhaps in Kierkegaard, though I hardly think either would have justified these specifically. We do not have the specific goal of good Christian to call to mind, as I do not know what a good Christian is, and I do not believe that anyone does. Finally, to identify anyone as a postmodern Christian is a rather nonsensical activity, especially since we are past the era of postmodernity; nonetheless, there is much overlap in terms of perspective (disregarding the theism of this text), and in this way, the notion can be said to work.

To exist in a postmodern world is to have all of our philosophical structuring of the world called into question. To take this seriously is called for—though many dismiss the critiques of postmodernity with a flick of the hand, doing so has hardly won more followers. We speak very easily of the destabilization of ethical foundations, but we do not acknowledge what this would mean practically, what this would mean for us spiritually. This book takes that challenge seriously, and seeks to engage with a destructed/de-structured world by incorporating that perspective into one’s way of life.

How to use this text

I must repeat the introductory caveat; this book is a work of practice. For those who engage in an intellectual and argumentative mode, it will be frustratingly short of theory. This is intentional; there is a theory-based support for all of the exercises in this text, but I do not provide the theoretical justification for each exercise. Instead, I am focused on practice as a necessary antidote to all of our endless theorizing. This book, therefore, actually provides a method for putting into action what is thought, and this in a wide-ranging manner. To find the theoretical justification for these exercises, I would suggest reading through the bibliography.

There are two main stages in this book: first, the reduction to nothing; second, the restructuring of belief. The first four chapters are intended to destroy your worldview, your sense of self, and most aspects of your belief system. This is not, as it may sound, something sinister or malicious, but a necessary part of becoming a practicing philosopher or theologian. We possess, from an early age, various belief systems and structures of meaning, but very rarely do we intentionally adopt them. Instead, we simply inherit them or appropriate them from the world around us, and they result in our thinking and acting in certain ways according to certain norms, and these are not necessarily the ones we should be acting in accordance with. These worldviews are not always beneficial for us, and bringing to light the things that we hold without an awareness of the fact that we are holding them is necessary for the possibility of changing our minds. Thus we bring these unexamined views to the surface and reduce them to naught, creating a space to actively and intentionally construct an approach to our existence that is superior to our previously unconsidered existence. Further, we need to allow this new structure to permeate our mind and activity, that is, allow it to completely reconfigure the way we live our lives and the structures that we find meaningful. This is the only way to actually come to live in a new way when we change our beliefs. Most of us avoid this sort of thing, whether participating only in disputation and ignoring the implications of our work, or simply claiming that the purview of philosophy lies outside of the mundanities of everyday life.

So, for this reason, we must die to our beliefs, and to our conceptions of ourselves, all of which creates a space for something new to come into place. This is the second stage, where we can start to restructure belief according to those values we have selected as primary in our lives, with the understanding that nothingness still lies within us and is still a part of our understanding. In the second half, therefore, there is less skepticism, and more concrete, specific, daily practices that evince a clear moral motivation.

Again, this is a text to be practiced. It describes any number of things to be visualized, thought, or otherwise considered. It contains sections of simulated internal debate, which you should model in your own mind, debating against your own hesitations to adopt its conclusions. If you want to be changed in the way this book describes, you will need to work consistently for an extended period of time, engaging your mind to overcome its disagreements with these new angles, and engaging the reflexive habits you have come to embody as a person. On this last point, many of our beliefs tend to dwell in a space below our conscious mind, in understandings that are essentially reflexes and entirely habitual.¹ These will need to be drawn out into the open, challenged, and altered. Finally, for any of the changes to actually occur, you will need to truly accept and understand them, and secondarily desire that they be true and accepted. It is very easy to take on difficult arguments and accept them as points of disputation in a philosophical argument; it is another to fully integrate them into one’s conception of the world and their practical life.

If you do practice it . . .

Don’t take yourself too seriously. This is, I hope, the key message I can impart about this specific approach. You should not come away with a bigger ego from these exercises, nor think that you have achieved anything momentous, nor made yourself better than other persons. You also should not be depressed by these exercises. The emptiness you find does not mean that you lack God, or that you lack a good purpose in your life. You should find the humor in all things in a different way, and especially have the ability to laugh at yourself.

This approach requires that you distance yourself from yourself—that is, you are capable of seeing all the feelings you have, all the things that you value and enjoy, from a distance, and not acting based solely out of your consideration of these things, but instead choosing what is actually the correct course in that moment. So if you think, Well, this is what I feel, I’m going to do that, then you will not make much progress. Instead, you will come to be able to think, This is what I feel, and that’s really stupid, so I’m not going to listen to those stupid feelings, I’m going to do something else. You should not feel bad about yourself, or of less worth as a person because you had a stupid feeling; you should simply acknowledge it and move forward.

By not taking ourselves too seriously, by being able to laugh at ourselves and our imagined progress, we more closely approximate the world that we live in. In this world, there are so many things that occur where the only valid option is to laugh. It is an absurd place, and we do not have control over events that happen here, or even control over every aspect of ourselves. In this situation, you must be able to laugh, or you have not understood.

The basic practices of this text

The inner monologue

The greatest problem for becoming an ethical human is found in our inner monologue. We need to figure out the way to control, redirect, and properly interpret this inner speech, so far as this is possible, and to be able to ignore it when it is wrong, and to alter it when it is distracting or misleading. Much of our commentary to ourselves is seemingly involuntary. But with years of practice, with constant attention to this commentary, and the recognition that the words we say to ourselves internally are neither binding nor indicative of some sort of true self, it is possible to change the way that we are.

If you read any self-help guide or step-by-step plan to overcome depression, you will likely encounter some mention of the inner monologue. This connection between a discussion of an inner monologue in a self-help guide for weight loss and this book with its theological and philosophical claims may make you suspicious that I am peddling something insincerely. This is not the case, and you should recognize that if you are refusing to take on these seemingly stupid exercises to alter one’s inner monologue, you are refusing to take on activities to make yourself a more morally capable person. We do have a choice between practicing and not practicing; if you claim to be a philosopher or theologian, however, you have no excuse for avoiding practices.

The inner monologue is the thing that says, You’re not good enough, you’re so stupid, or simply remembers embarrassing moments from your past at inopportune times. This is a piece of what the exercises outlined in this text hopes to change. The most important aspect of this practice is becoming aware, at most all times, what it is that you are thinking about. The second aspect is to be willing to not identify with the inner monologue, and to deny it is as constitutive or indicative of one’s self. Recognizing that we do not have to listen to the inner monologue is freeing, as it will allow for the possibility of changing this speech over time.

Doubt

There is no spiritual life without doubt, and no progress to be made in coming closer to God without some suspicion. So you will be asked to doubt quite a bit in this book. Perhaps not absolutely everything: just most everything. Be prepared, therefore, if you take to this practice, to actually question all the beliefs you hold, especially those you did not know that you held.

Doubt is necessary for change, mainly because of the way humans structure their world. We put mental constructs into place, and hold them without evaluating them, using a kind of reflexive shorthand for responding to actions and events. When we evaluate things in a way we would call instinctive, we are simply allowing an unchallenged viewpoint to determine our response. For this reason, if we are going to change the way we view the world, we must doubt as thoroughly as possible our current viewpoint, bringing to light all the things that we take for granted. In this way, it is possible to structure something new in an intentional manner.

Stilling the mind, body, emotions, brain, everything

This practice is the most basic and essential practice of this text, and it underlies all other practices. It is important to acknowledge that our emotional state at the time we experience various things colors our interpretation of whatever we experience. The same is true when we re-experience that event through our emotions. Because this text is helping a person develop a limited form of equanimity, the basic practice of being calm, mind stilled, tension released, and stress absent is essential.

To accomplish this practice, meditation of various forms is crucial. This need not be a complicated practice, but a few minutes at various points in the day. Take deep breaths, count your breathing, prevent your inner monologue from continuing, empty your mind, and feel the breath on the upper portion of your nose. Focus on the breath and nothing else, relaxing your body such that you can feel the tension being removed from yourself.

Again, this practice doesn’t work if you are not fully committed to it, and you must practice this for an extended period of time, preferably a few years.

Visualizations

A crucial aspect of this text is the ability to visualize or imagine certain events happening to you. In order to do this effectively, one should imagine in such a way as to convince oneself that these things are happening. So in the case of imagining your death, you should, as much as is possible when one is thinking of things, attempt to experience the event as if it were reality. As such, your visualization should initiate bodily responses—increased heart rate, nausea, foot tapping and fidgeting, and so on.

Visualizing requires that a person see, as far as is possible, whatever it is they want to see, and allows the illusion of reality to be present. Think in terms of smells, of sights, of sounds, of all the varied nuances that would be present in one’s actual life. Think of all the varied ways in which this event you imagine would occur, and all of the results that could take place. You will eventually want to still your emotional response to these imaginings, but when first starting visualizations, it is best to let the event take place in its fullest form.

Where does this book come from?

This book is my own set of spiritual exercises² that I have used for about a decade now. The sources of these practices and perspectives are incredibly varied and distinctive, and if you are interested in them, I would recommend reading through the source material that inspired me to take these on (found in the bibliography). Over the years, I have read a wide range of philosophical and theological texts on formation, and while I was reading, I found practices that I thought intriguing, and began, as the texts instructed, to practice them. Philosophy/theology has always been a practical pursuit for me, and I did not study religion and philosophy primarily to learn, but rather because I wanted to become something different. So as I read these practices, I began to integrate them into my thought and my inner monologue, and they became a part of the way I approach the world.

From what I can imperfectly remember, this process started for me in high school, when I read something written about Plato, and possibly a little Plato himself, which indicated his commitment to the formation of the human in virtue. What I took away from this discussion was that it was possible to mold the human into something different—that we could change ourselves through philosophy. This became one of the primary interests in my life, and when I arrived in college I pursued this study further by majoring in religion. While there I came across texts from Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam, and these texts introduced me to practices of changing the self from new perspectives. I single out the Dīgha Níkāya (The Long Discourses of the Buddha) as particularly influential in this regard. After discovering these sorts of practical texts in other religions, I turned to my own tradition, and began to search for its advice. I was aided in this quest by my grandfather, who happened to be cleaning out his library and sent me a copy of the Theologia Germanica, a medieval text that started my interest in medieval Christianity.

I also came to college with an intense devotion to Truth, as I understood it, and in particular, finding the Truth and living in accordance with it. I was under the assumption that one could find this Truth, whether through contemplative ascent into God, or by rational determination of certain principles that demonstrated such Truth. After being exposed to any number of different religions each with their own claims to such Truth, and second, any number of skeptical approaches to Truth, from Kierkegaard to Zen Buddhism to French postmodernism, I realized that I was no longer convinced that there might be a standpoint I could reach from which I could perceive Truth.

This was a rather unpleasant and disappointing experience, being as motivated by ideals as I was. The realization that there was no way of verifying Truth, that there was no perspective from which we could stand and locate such a thing, and that the human doesn’t have access to the Truth, at least not during this lifetime, led to some major changes in self-understanding and my approach. It didn’t change the significance of participating in general practices for me, but it certainly changed the way I thought of the world.

Another major encounter was that introduction to postmodern thought, especially through Michel Foucault. Most significant are his later writings on the techniques of the self, discussions found particularly in his later lectures that never made it into his texts. In these lectures, he discusses the practices of the ancient and early Christian world, looking at the way persons took on practices for the sake of changing their worldview. That Foucault found these interesting is itself interesting, as his general philosophical outlook is somewhat deterministic, and is certainly not devoted to an enlightenment understanding of the human. But still, he wrote thoroughly about the various exercises and processes whereby a person can change themselves, and how this can be brought about.

Around this time I also came across the work of Pierre Hadot, a figure cited by Foucault as an inspiration for his later writings. Hadot described the spiritual exercises of the ancient world and early Christianity, as well, though he did so in a slightly different manner than Foucault. Nonetheless, these two figures, and their description of the way philosophy was practiced, and by potential implication, ought to be practiced, have held great influence on this text.

What we are becoming

These practices are drawn from sources that take an extreme view of what an ideal human person would be. To the person unfamiliar with these sources, this will look like I am teaching some form of insanity or madness, and there is an enduring trope in philosophical literature which acknowledges this. The goal of these exercises is to become radically different than you currently are—to live, think, feel, and experience the world in a way different than what you do now, and different than the majority of others do. Taking on this goal is not a minor project, but it also will not be accomplished if one does not actually wish to be changed, or if one fails to acknowledge the scope of the change being pursued. Everything is up for grabs in this process. Everything you are and think and do is eligible for change.

At the same time as I speak of a dramatic change, I do not think we should be formed in such a way as to make us incapable of participating in society. There are many varieties of philosophy that are reclusive, and you can read about them instead, if you prefer. Instead, the goal of this text is to make you better able to navigate a life in a highly social, likely urban setting.

A note on moral perfectionism

It is a favorite pastime of philosophers and theologians