Passionate Christianity?

It’s paradoxical that although we often make much of the season of Passiontide, veiling crucifixes and statues, we exhibit little passion in our faith and its expression. We rightly focus on and celebrate our Lord’s Passion – his rejection and betrayal, his appalling suffering and death; but we fail to connect with all the other resonances of the word.

For indeed it is God’s amazing love which is manifested in the great events of our redemption which we celebrate at this time. There’s a Gospel song which includes the words ‘it wasn’t the nails that held him to the cross, but it was the love of God’. And the New Testament is full of references to the fact that God loved us and loves us, not because of what we have done, but despite it.

Surely that calls for a response; for a passionate response to the God who loved us so much. But we are either afraid, or incapable, of this. Perhaps that part of our Englishness, or our Reformation/ Enlightenment culture, which is suspicious of shows of emotion. So ‘enthusiasm’ – which at root means being ‘filled with God’ – came to be regarded with suspicion: Samuel Johnson defined it as ‘a vain confidence of Divine favour or communication.’ John Wesley’s teaching on holiness and the work of the Holy Spirit met with resistance from many Establishment divines.

It was not always so. The great English mystics of the 13^th-15^th centuries frequently described or called for passionate love from the man or woman of faith. Richard Rolle’s The Fire of Love is typical, with its extravagant language , such as:  ‘Jesus, when I am in you, and on fire with joy, and when the heat of love is surging in, I want to embrace you, the most loving, with my whole being.‘ We could find similar words in Julian of Norwich, Walter Hilton and The Cloud of Unknowing.

So where has our passion gone? Our worship is controlled, our prayer is often formal, or dry. And our public teaching and preaching usually lacks fire – in case anyone is offended. A good example is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent words about the refuge situation. He actually said the right thing - that we should be giving asylum to more refugees – which was not widely reported.  But he had hedged that statement around, presumably out of a wish to appear reasonable. He even suggested that people ‘had a right’ to feel anxious or afraid. That lacks the passion of OT prophets like Amos and Micah, and ignores St John’s words that ‘perfect love casts out fear’? I am reminded of W.B. Yeats poem The Second Coming, written in the aftermath of the Great War, with its words

                 The best lack all conviction, while the worst
                Are full of passionate intensity.

I admit my own failings in this area. By nature, I am frequently very ‘English’, reserved in my practice and expression of faith. But I don’t count that a virtue. Rather I need to keep recalling the passionate nature of God’s attitude to me, which ought to draw out of me a passionate response, a greater longing and desire for him. I pray for more intimacy, more love, more passion. Unless we open ourselves more and more to God’s love, our prayer and worship are in danger of remaining dry and empty; our teaching and proclamation will lack urgency.

I would like to give up all reasonable religion for the rest of Lent; let’s all renounce the ‘Churchianity’ we often experience and practise – what Michael Marshall called ‘decaffeinated Christianity, which does not keep us awake at night’. As we follow our Lord to Calvary, may our hearts be warmed within us, as Cleopas and his companion were to experience on the road to Emmaus.  May we love him more dearly, follow him more nearly, day by day. Then perhaps we will arouse a new passion in our hearts.