Authentic Spirituality
by Josh Moody
We live in a day of growing interest in 'spirituality', and fascination with the paranormal. Yet it is also a day of confusion about what 'spirituality' is: is all spirituality good, or can there be 'bad spirituality'?
The more basic question is how can we know God? In fact, how can we know anything? This takes us to the heart of the matter as our culture moves on from modernism, with its worship of human reason, to postmodernism, which is more subjective in its approach to knowing.
The author of this book, Dr Josh Moody, is pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in New Haven CT.
This book is divided into four main sections. In the first section, the author explores the kind of world we live in. Today, the one thing you must not say is that your own religion or spirituality is exclusively right. You are allowed to believe what you like about God as long as you are willing to accept that what someone else believes about God is right as well, even if it contradicts what you believe.
Dr. Moody identifies three 'lands' that make up our contemporary world:
- a land where God does not exist
- a land where 'gods' are fashionable
- a land called confusion
The second section is about how we can know God. This is the part that requires most mental effort, as it digs back into the history of philosophy and theology. It begins by looking at different kinds of knowledge (mathematical, scientific, personal), and recognizing that different kinds of knowledge are appropriate in different situations. One of the weaknesses of our Enlightenment legacy is that we think if something cannot be known mathematically or scientifically it cannot be known at all. In this section, Dr Moody sets out a Biblical way of knowing, which is based on the fact that God is not hiding - there is enough evidence to be persuasive, yet knowing God depends on faith. (In fact, all knowing requires faith.)
The third main section draws us back to the core Christian beliefs, and shows how they answer our 'need to know'
- that we can know God because He has spoken (revelation)
- that we need to restore the reality and importance of sin
- that Jesus Himself is both the heart and guarantee of the Christian faith
- that the death of Jesus is what guarantees His uniqueness and supremacy
The final section deals more directly with the practical issues of 'spirituality'. In the light of what has gone before, what is authentic spirituality, and what is false? What is true spiritual experience like? What are Biblical models of spirituality?
This book has an important message that needs to be heard today, by Christian and non-Christian alike.