{"id":2957,"date":"2007-12-07T00:20:27","date_gmt":"2007-12-07T00:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2007\/12\/divine-embrace-6.html"},"modified":"2007-12-07T00:20:27","modified_gmt":"2007-12-07T00:20:27","slug":"divine-embrace-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2007\/12\/divine-embrace-6.html","title":{"rendered":"Divine Embrace 6"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Not only is legalism a problem for evangelicals, but so is what Robert Webber calls &#8220;intellectual spirituality&#8221; (84-87 in <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&amp;location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FDivine-Embrace-Recovering-Passionate-Ancient-Future%2Fdp%2F0801065550%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1195748796%26sr%3D1-1&amp;tag=jescre-20&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325\">The Divine Embrace<\/a><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important;margin:0px !important\" \/><\/em>). How does this manifest itself?<!--more|inline--><br \/>\nBob tells his own storied adventure into intellectual spirituality as a seminary student who became enthralled with Calvin. &#8220;I wanted,&#8221; he says, &#8220;to know God.&#8221; He mastered Calvin and invited those who disagreed with him to debate him. He defended Calvin&#8217;s burning of Servetus. &#8220;I thought my advanced knowledge made me more spiritual than those who did not &#8216;know&#8217; the full system of truth&#8221; (84).<br \/>\nOrigins: spirituality as knowledge is rooted for most today in the Enlightenment. Evangelicals at times reveal a variant on Descartes: &#8220;I think about the knowledge of God, therefore I know God.&#8221; Study of the Bible leading to mastery of the Bible became spirituality.<br \/>\nThe challenge of liberalism encountered this intellectual spirituality. Its intellectual pursuits led to an incredulity in the texts and to a gospel reduced to love; evangelicalism&#8217;s led to a &#8220;I can prove it all&#8221; spirituality. Webber talks about how derisive he was toward liberals and Catholics and the Orthodox.<br \/>\nThe point: knowledge is not spirituality. Knowledge is important.<br \/>\nIntellectual spirituality is rooted in my story not God&#8217;s story. There is a difference between knowing about God and knowing God. The former is not the latter; the latter always involves the former. Knowing God involves contemplating the mysteries of God&#8217;s grace.<br \/>\nNext Monday, pp. 87ff on experiential spirituality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not only is legalism a problem for evangelicals, but so is what Robert Webber calls &#8220;intellectual spirituality&#8221; (84-87 in The Divine Embrace). How does this manifest itself?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicalism"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Divine Embrace 6 - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2007\/12\/divine-embrace-6.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Divine Embrace 6 - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Not only is legalism a problem for evangelicals, but so is what Robert Webber calls &#8220;intellectual spirituality&#8221; (84-87 in The Divine Embrace). How does this manifest itself?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2007\/12\/divine-embrace-6.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-12-07T00:20:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&amp;l=ur2&amp;o=1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"xscot mcknight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Divine Embrace 6 - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2007\/12\/divine-embrace-6.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Divine Embrace 6 - Jesus Creed","og_description":"Not only is legalism a problem for evangelicals, but so is what Robert Webber calls &#8220;intellectual spirituality&#8221; (84-87 in The Divine Embrace). 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