Bookclub Members! Let's Talk About The Imitation of Christ

So the moment for our next little book club has arrived!

I'll be eager to hear the reflections of those of you who've read Thomas a' Kempis' The Imitation of Christ over this last month.  I get a pretty regular stream of requests for reading lists along the lines of the approach to faith we talk about here and my feeling is that our models, for the most part, come from several hundred years back.  Modernity messed up a mystical approach to faith, which became seen as "anti-modern" both by opponents of faith and by conservative proponents of faith.  And so our current literature still strikes me as a little impoverished along these lines.

But not so if we punt back a few hundred years, which brings us to The Imitation of Christ.  Friends of mine who've read the book have varying responses to it, as perhaps do you.  I first read it on a retreat at a Jesus-Movement-hippie-commune center in Northern California (and how many of you can say you've had exactly that experience?).  The folks who ran the center asked me how I'd spent my retreat and I told them what I'd been reading.  They nodded and said they'd read it some years back, but said no more.  I asked if they'd felt helped by it or if it had just made them feel like a wretched little worm.  "More the last one," said one of them, in economical understatement.

That's a central value of The Imitation, it seems to me.  It's written from such a bracingly different perspective than anything we'd read today that it takes us aback.  We're--for instance--supposed to take it as an awesome and spiritually-helpful thing when we're misunderstood?  (And a' Kempis would be pleased with my discovery that, say, bloggers often feel a bit misunderstood.)  Hmm.  We're supposed to get over ourselves when we're mistreated and when life doesn't go our way, knowing that Jesus went through far worse?  Double-hmm.  Were books written on those subjects today, they'd try, say, to help us when we encounter such circumstances, rather than helping us by, as it were, saying, "Awesome!  I'm so pleased you're going through such a hard time!" 

And yet, unlike my gracious hosts, I knew that--for my soul--I'd just been given a great gift with this book.  I've mentioned that I can be prone to undue rumination and a' Kempis gave me permission to abandon whatever fruitless obsession I was in to figure things out and, instead, take my challenging life circumstances to God as gifts in and of themselves, to ask how he was teaching me through them rather than how to get out of them.

The Imitation gave me permission to regard my whole life as under the eye and guidance of God.  Someone was causing me problems?  Maybe I needed to get over myself and my relentless sense of superiority (as previously discussed here) and look to God to offer me fresh growth in these circumstances, even as I prayed for their blessing.

To my mind, the bracing counsel of The Imitation is an invitation to the mysticism we shoot for here in its stern imperatives to face our lives without sentimentality--to live in light of a Jesus who is so determined to see our souls transformed that he doesn't treat us with undue gentleness. A' Kempis, maybe uniquely, treats me like an adult.

If you've participated in our book club this past month, I'd love to hear your reflections!

If you haven't--even if you've read a' Kempis previously--I'd love you to hold off commenting just yet.  I'm hopeful that this will generate broader posts to come.

Comments

[Evan]

Wow, tabula rasa!

I've been reading along in ye olde english version, devotionally here and there. Perhaps this only adds to the "bracingly different perspective". Perhaps my upbringing in a Pentecostal-Holiness tradition makes it feel a skitch more comfortable. The idea of embracing a worldview that is impervious to fad and trend is a double-edged sword, but hey, that means one edge cuts in a helpful way.

I'll include a quote that carries the directness of, say, George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards in the 18th century revivals:

Chapter XII - Of the Royal Way of the Holy Cross

Unto many this seemeth hard speech, "Deny thyself, take up thy cross, and follow Jesus." But much harder will it be to hear that last word, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire."

For they who now willingly hear and follow the word of the cross, shall not then fear to hear the sentence of everlasting damnation.

By the way, I'm only reading the old English version because it was at hand and free.

But I think the "otherness" of The Imitation partly comes from this monastic commitment to look starkly at biblical text and hang the consequences. I suppose there could be a pride that comes with that sort of separation too. But playing hardball with ourselves instead of always coddling and understanding is OK too. There's balance involved.

So, in this quip, we get a window into the motivation of a'Kempis: judgement and eternal consequences later for choices and actions here and now.

There's a church at a major intersection in our town that until recently had huge lettering on the front of the building reading "Prepare to Meet Thy God." I hated that. Stern. Harsh. Uninviting. But in the quietness of our own hearts, we each have some soul searching to do on the preparation front.

[Vinceation]

The Imitation of Christ's focus on humility as the best lifestyle option and personal peace as the result of that lifestyle has been literally life-changing for me over the past couple months. All of the passages seem "experiential" (as we're fond of saying). I can read some of his counsel and be challenged, but it's impossible to stop there because the challenges are not of mind-sets I hold, they are of lifestyle choices I make. Every passage seems to say to me: make a serious attempt to transform your lifestyle this way and see what happens, like Malachi 3: "bring the whole tithe into the storeroom... see if I don't open the floodgates of heaven for you."
I also loved how the nuances of a relationship with God are revealed with such humanity in the conversation between a'Kempis and God in the last section.
Like Dave explained, I think the passages were so helpful to me because they aren't modernist, and I'm so used to reading passages from more contemporary writers on the same struggles of being human that are all modernist.

[Ryan NYC]

I’ve really enjoyed reading ‘Imitation’ but I can’t seem to shake the temptation to take some of a’Kempis’ words (especially in the beginning 1/4 of the book) as dangerously self-deprecating. I definitely related to the “wretched little worm” take, initially, mostly b/c I kept thinking of a certain friend of mine who grew-up with his self image being severely damaged by teachings that he was a wretched little worm and that life with God is about suppressing all things ‘you’ and embracing misery until you get to the gold bricked road in the sky. Needless to say, this has affected him quite a bit. So much so, that espousing the idea that God actually loves him is nearly impossible (from my estimation). He believes in Jesus, but our conversations about God nearly always revert back to how he can’t be himself if he wants to please God. So, in my early reading of the book, I even began wondering if self-esteem was ungodly.

Sorry I don’t have specific citations of what I’m talking about – I don’t have the book in front of me. But, thought I’d give a bit of my negative reaction for the sake of argument.

[Paul]

I've only finished the first two sections (if we continue discussion hope to add more), but here's my take so far. I'm challenged...argh!

I sense a' Kempis is not stage 2, but I find myself tempted to write him off as such, until I read further...and then sense authenticity. His (what I consider) 'over statement' and his encouragement to 'own' so much of our 'crap' ...theologically speaking ;) is so distracting. Maybe I'm just struggling with the language...or my own pride.

For example, in the section title 'Controlling Excess Desire' he says "Only by resisting [your passions] can you truly be at peace." I've come to believe my desires are good and God given...even if I'm tempted to wrap them in my own false desires (in context of 'true self / false self'). Doesn't seem a' Kempis leaves space for that thinking, but then later says "God has his own ideas regarding what is good and he does not always agree with us."

In the Chapter titled 'Only a Few Love the Cross' he says, "few desire adversity" and "All they care about is their own advantage and profit." Shaming us all ... and then he further shares Lk 17:10 (unworthy servant), but only later does he share "And if you share his punishment, you will also share his glory."...and yet never does he share that we each likely walk a path from selfishness to glory within a lifetime spiritual journey, which I suspect is lead by God Himself.

So I struggle with what seems to me inauthentic overstatement, like 'you should love punishment [for no reason]' but am equally struck by deep spiritual how-to's seemingly authentically lived and shared like, 'Decide, then...to bear...the Cross. If you trust the Lord, you will receive divine strength. As for comfort leave that to God, let him do what he will."

So Argh!! ...and praise the living God for a' Kempis' honest thoughts.

[steven hamilton]

i was talking about the foundation of humility to a friend of mine, and he wondered if the co-founder of AA Bill W., had been immersed in a Kempis because of the deep humility those early leaders of AA displayed throughout their lives...

one little thing that i really enjoyed - and this is probably me outing myself as a word-nerd again - but the updated English translation was really great.

[Theresa Musante]

The most troubling part of the book for me is his prizing of inwardness. He doesn't seem to value any sort of community, outside of his communion with God. Especially in the first 1/3 or so, this almost turned me off to the book. It seems his ideal life would be as a hermit, never talking to anyone but God. How can that be following God? I keep expecting God to tell him to get up and make friends with someone :-).

But I love the focus on humility. At first that turned me off too, because sometimes he just seems to hate himself. But as I've kept reading I've come to see it more as a recognition that we are small and God is big. And takes pressure off of me. I don't have to be perfect or reach all my goals tonight. I just need to keep living and try my best to find God and listen to him. That's very good news.

[Vinceation]

Thinking some more about your comment that a'Kempis might just make some feel like a wretched little worm...
I tend to have a knee-jerk reaction to things (especially Christian things) that make me feel like a wretched little worm, but strangely I haven't had that with Imitation. A lot of contemporary Christian music makes me feel like a wretched little worm much much more.

[Theresa Musante]

Yeah .... somehow I think that a'Kempis feels valued by God. He just knows that he is small in comparison to God.