Dynamics of Spiritual Life by Richard Lovelace (Review)
Dynamics of Spiritual Life would not have been on my reading list but for Tim Keller’s recommendation. On multiple occasions, Keller has listed this book as one of the most influential in his life, and he wrote a new forward in the 2020 re-release. As I began, it became clear that while I tend to choose academic history over popular history, I prefer a bit more accessible theology rather than academic theology. Dynamics of Spiritual Life is dense, and each page seemed to have something that demanded time and reflection. Lovelace’s book is immensely valuable—even to a mainstream audience—but readers should know what to expect before diving into Lovelace’s insightful book.
I give this warning with a further point that Lovelace begins by exploring previous examples of spiritual revivals throughout history. I previously read a biography of Jonathan Edwards, leader in the revival known as the “First Great Awakening” during colonial America. I also read his book, Religious Affections. Both gave me a good primer for Dynamics of Spiritual Life and served as a foundation for my reading. I think reading this book would have been more challenging without the context. With those caveats in place, I recommend Dynamics of Spiritual Life as an excellent foundation for church history and biblical insight.
There were a number of sections in this book that stayed with me. Because the book is dense, I found myself chewing on ideas for days or weeks after reading them. The following includes the excerpts and positions I spent the most time contemplating:
Lovelace repeatedly observed that a large-group commitment to prayer occurred whenever there has been a revival. Indeed, this was a theme of his book from start to finish. Later in the book, Lovelace referenced Acts 6 when the apostles concluded they needed to appoint deacons to divide the bread. The apostles could not address the responsibility because they needed to devote themselves “to prayer and to the ministry of the word (emphasis added).” Ministry of the word was not the first priority; it was prayer. The critical element of prayer was a theme that Lovelace meaningfully explored from start to finish.
The early sections of Dynamics did a good job of exploring man’s nature as generally good or generally evil. Lovelace cited Kierkegaard, who “complained that the New Testament as usually understood is an inadequate instrument for converting respectable people because it was designed for sinners.” If people don’t see themselves as such, it is harder to recognize a need for Christ. The Old Testament was designed to awaken a hunger for redemption. The law shows the need for reconciliation with God and His holiness. Lovelace stated that it must be a complete picture of God that Christians teach: “God’s mercy, patience, and love must be fully preached in the church. But they are not credible unless they are presented in tension with God‘s infinite power, complete and sovereign control of the universe, holiness, and righteousness.”
Relatedly, Lovelace’s exploration of justification versus sanctification was well done. He explained that being justified—claiming the righteousness of Christ the only ground for acceptance before God—creates a relaxing quality of trust. This trust that we are justified despite our inadequacies produces increasing sanctification—moving toward greater obedience—occurs out of love and gratitude.
Here is a great quote on an area where Christians often lose focus: Too often we work to maintain a personal and church culture and “forget outreach, especially if the process of reaching out involves touching those who may contaminate us.” This leads to maintaining denominational traditions and thus drifting away from the church’s true mission.
These ideas on neglecting prayer and individual churches’ self-maintenance come together in how we pray: “the proportion of horizontal communication that goes on in the church (in planning, arguing and, expanding) is overwhelmingly greater than that which is vertical (in worship, thanksgiving, confession, and intercession).”
Lovelace came back to prayer again when looking at small-group prayers: “Often the concerns which are shared and prayed about are wholly personal, involved with healing, psychological adjustment, and other immediate individual burdens. Larger issues which are closely related to the interests of the kingdom of God are ignored.” Lovelace continues that the Lord’s Prayer is instructive in its focus: worship, desire for God’s will on earth, and then personal concerns.
“The ‘ultimate concern’ of most church members is not the worship and service of Christ and evangelistic mission and social compassion, but rather survival and success in their secular vocation. The church is a spoke on the wheel of life connected to the secular hub. It is a departmental sub-concern, not the organizing center of all other concerns.”
Lovelace observed that this approach leads to external rule-following extending from a dose of willpower. But such a limited understanding of justification or being part of God’s beloved means there is little change toward the internal issues of pride, covetousness, and hostility. Lovelace compared this approach to church as a trained seal performing its routine. Attendees can participate in activities and toss around Christian buzzwords but the changed heart cannot occur with such superficiality.
The following paragraph seems especially relevant with what we saw amid the pandemic. Lovelace notes the insecurity that many people in the church experience: “Consciously, they defend themselves as dedicated Christians who are as good as anybody else, but underneath the conscious level there is deep despair and soft rejection. Above the surface this often manifest itself in a compulsive floating hostility which focuses upon others in critical judgment.” He continues: “Christians who are insecure in their relationship to Christ can be a thorn bush of criticism, rejection, estrangement, and party spirit. Unsure in the depths of their hearts what God thinks of them, church members will fanatically affirm their own gifts and take fierce offense when anyone slights them, or else they will fuss endlessly with a self-centered inventory of their own inferiority in an inverted pride.”
Lovelace explored the foundations of Christian counseling and the difficulty of reconciling biblical principles with modern psychology. He criticized individuals that neglect developing counseling ministries and sees it as “essential to the renewal of the local congregation.” Relatedly, Lovelace cautioned against repudiating all mainstream psychology—the nouthetic approach to counseling. He discusses this in the context of common grace and notes there are elements of truth in any system, including psychotherapy. The key is applying biblical truth to test and verify what is encountered in the field.
Lovelace referenced a thoughtful excerpt from Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards: “Spiritual Pride is very apt to suspect others; whereas a humble saint is most jealous of himself, he is so suspicious of nothing in the world as he is of his own heart…But The eminently humble Christian has so much to do at home…that he is not apt to be very busy with the other hearts.” Lovelace continues: “Pride magnifies the faults of other Christians and diminishes their graces…” Additionally, spiritual pride often makes people concerned about externalities and being mocked or persecuted for those oddities rather than keeping the focus on appearing as fools on account of Christ. The former is an invented strangeness rather than Christ-focused living.
Lovelace observed that we see American traits of “covetousness, gluttony, egocentric libertarianism, and pride, all of which have been selectively bread into our culture,” which reflects what we might expect as distorted virtues in a free-market democracy—the desired traits of “ambition, enterprise, freedom, [and] self-respect” other cultures are certain to have other collective vices, but many Christians from other cultures observe that “American Christians have their lives organized around the kingdom of business success and not the kingdom of God.“
This section resonated deeply with me: “God has provided us with the ability to gather information and to make rational decisions in the light of [our intellect and experiences] in conformity with his revealed will in scripture. Any method of guidance which habitually detours around reason is crippling and dehumanizing. It will lead to indecision, hesitation to act where the imperatives of action are plain to reason informed by Scripture, and inability to plan properly and to maintain or adapt plans when made.” Lovelace continues, however, to note there is something more than reason alone, as Christians are to be “led by the Spirit of God.” Jonathan Edwards put it like this: “And thus the Spirit of God leads and guides the meek in his way…he enables them to understand the commands and counsels of his word, and rightly to apply them.”
Consider this observation by Father John Neuhaus believed that “culture is the root of politics, and religion is the root of culture.” As we look at the current state of politics and discourse, I can’t help but think how much time conservative Christians spend on politics rather than evangelism. The idea fits together with this observation by Lovelace on society: “The ultimate solution to cultural decay is not so much the repression of bad culture as the production of sound and healthy culture, which in a society salted with vital Christianity will readily crowd out the bad. Therefore, we should direct most of our energy not to the censorship of decadent culture, but the production and support of healthy expressions of Christian and non-Christian art.”
Lovelace summarizes Jonathan Edwards’s take on generosity as follows: “[W]e cannot Deny help to the undeserving, since this would clash with God’s gift of grace to us and our consequent obligation to love even our enemies. Nor can we fail to help the man who is indigence is due to his own financial in Providence; this is not necessarily sin but may be due to a warrant of economic sense which is as real a handicap is blindness. Even if it is delivered, it should be forgiven by fellow sinners. Even the man who is personally at fault and continues to be slothful for after receiving help should continue to get it, for the sake of his family! Against the backdrop of these rigorous deductions from the doctrines of grace, contemporary evangelical conservatism sounds like an echo of non-Christian callousness.”
This observation is worth exploring. Lovelace observed an unofficial divide of enculturation that has occurred. “Evangelicals became the Republican Party at prayer, and Liberals, the religious expression of Democratic ideals.” One consequence of this divide is Evangelicalism has become “remarkably inert in the social dimension” Lovelace also noted “In this century, the evangelical sector has specialized in theological and personal repentance, and the ‘liberal’ sector has specialized in social repentance. This division of labor has not worked very well.”
I found it striking how this 40-year-old passage could have easily been written today. Lovelace concludes that it is unacceptable to teach righteousness in an individual without fighting injustice and unrighteousness in corporate structures. He also concludes that it is similarly unacceptable to focus wholly on societal ills.
Lovelace again ties this back to prayer: “Most…who are praying are not praying about social issues, and most of those who are active in social issues are not praying.” The effect is little cultural effect by either liberals or evangelicals. Lovelace also circled back to evangelical inactivity when he wrote, “others may be profoundly uneasy about [these ideas] because it assumes our responsibility to work for better conditions in the world.”
Consider Lovelace’s concluding optimism that we may be in the greatest era of spreading the Gospel: “The world Evangelical community is organizing for mission now with a technological skill which is unprecedented. The number of available missionary fraternal workers is growing daily. The information and transportation explosions and the evolution of two great trade empires, the communist and capitalist worlds, have contracted the planet, if not to a single village, at least to several towns which are in close touch with one another.” Remember, after all, “the central theme of the biblical drama of redemption…through the mercy of God.”
Dynamics of Spiritual Life is an excellent book, but the title seemed ill-fitting when I first started the book. My expectations were more of an individual focus on living, which Lovelace did address. The focus was more on the history of the church—what it is and what it should be. Yet after reading the book, the title seems all the more fitting. Lovelace’s books gives a game plan—particularly for church leaders—on how to live and where the focus in churches should be. Dynamics of Spiritual Life prompted significant contemplation and it is worth wrestling with the text. There is much to consider, and the results are certainly worthwhile.
