Sometimes I get it right and, admittedly, sometimes I get it wrong. I get access to most books long before they reach store shelves and I try to anticipate the ones that will be most important, most worthy of my time and yours. These are the ones I then read and review. But sometimes I miss.
That was certainly the case with Matthew Bingham’s A Heart Aflame for God. Though it has been more than a year since I received the book, and though I heard many good things about it in the meantime, it was only a couple of weeks ago that I finally began to read it. I was immediately drawn in and immediately disappointed that I had not read it a year prior.
A Heart Aflame for God is a book about spiritual formation, which is to say, a book about the Christian life. “A basic biblical assumption about the Christian life is that it ought to be a growing life. When the Bible describes walking with God, the expectation is that it will never be a static, settled affair but rather a journey characterized by continual development, increase, and forward movement.” Of course, there are many books on this subject, so what makes this one different? “What distinguishes our interest in spiritual formation from other books discussing the same is that here we are working to understand what spiritual formation sounds like when set in a distinctly Reformed-evangelical key.”
Those who are familiar with the lay of the land when it comes to spiritual formation will probably recognize names like Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, Eugene Peterson, and Ruth Hailey Barton. While all of these people are Protestant, none could be said to be Reformed-evangelical. In fact, many of them draw from practices that owe more to Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. Could this perhaps be proof that the Reformed faith has little to say on the subject? No, not at all. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. “The Reformation heritage that gave birth to evangelicalism already has a rich and biblically faithful tradition of spiritual formation, such that we do not need to create a pastiche of spiritual practices drawn from medieval mystical, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox authors.” We do not need to look beyond our tradition to learn about spiritual formation, but can instead look within it. As we do so, we will uncover many treasures.
Bingham begins by setting Reformed piety within the context of the five solas—the doctrines that define Protestantism and distinguish it from Catholicism and Orthodoxy. He shows that any Reformed approach to spiritual formation must be Word-centered, such that it depends deeply upon the means God prescribes in Scripture. He then introduces what he calls “The Reformation Triangle.” These are the three activities or practices that form the basis of our spiritual formation: Scripture, prayer, and meditation. Through these interrelated practices, we hear from God, speak to God, and reflect on God. These are the core disciplines through which God forms us into the image of Christ.
Having focused on these three, he widens the scope to other practices that Reformed writers have upheld as especially formative. These include self-examination (which involves both examining ourselves for the presence of sin and examining ourselves to see evidence of God’s providential dealings with us), friendships and other godly relationships, and, perhaps most surprisingly, the natural world. “It might come as a surprise,” he says, “to learn that Christians themselves have also long maintained a strong … sense of connection between spirituality and the natural world.” Our forebears often spoke of the need for Christians to diligently look within the natural world to learn how it reflects God’s glory, teaches God’s truth, and aids in spiritual formation. In a final pair of chapters, he considers the role of the body in spiritual formation and then offers help for difficult times, such as when we have fallen into sin, come into a time of suffering, or found that God has become distant.
In every section, he draws deeply upon historic Reformed writers, mostly the Puritans, to show that none of these practices is novel and that the Reformed faith does have a deep and established tradition of spiritual formation. Of special note, he engages with modern-day writers who downplay the Reformed practices or who teach alternatives. For example, he explains what James K.A. Smith believes about the human body supplanting the mind in spiritual formation and gently corrects it. He shows how authors like Richard Foster borrow from traditions that are incompatible with Protestantism and how leaders like Tony Jones advocate a personalized approach to spiritual formation that focuses as much on the desires of the individual as on the commands of God. With winsome tenacity, he shows how the Reformed tradition offers better answers and, crucially, answers that are more consistent with Scripture.
A Heart Aflame for God is as good a book as any I have read this year and one I wish I had read last year. It refreshed my understanding of spiritual formation and deepened my confidence that the Reformed tradition has deeply satisfying means for developing, increasing, and moving forward as a Christian.
