Christian Spirituality

The SCM Studyguide to Christian Spirituality is designed as an introduction to spirituality for students of all religious backgrounds coming to the subject for the first time. Part One begins with the question, what is Christian spirituality? The definition comes through a series of investigations looking at spirituality and Christianity, spirituality and materiality, spirituality and the Arts, spirituality and ethics, spirituality and world faiths and finally spirituality and the psyche. Part Two looks at the Christian spiritual tradition through the study of a variety of spiritual writers. Writings are treated chronologically; biblical, the patristic period, the middle ages, the reformation, the modern period and contemporary or post modern period. Writers are considered under three headings; spirituality drawn from light and affirmation, spirituality encountered through darkness and desert and spirituality encountered through love and union. Each of these themes contains examples from scripture, the patristic period, medieval writings, the reformation, the modern period and contemporary times.