Mysticism and Social Transformation

Church History, Sept, 2002 by Roy Hammerling

Edited By Janet K. Ruffing, R.S.M. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2001. xvi 220 pp. $49.95 cloth; $24.95 paper.

A wealth of historical, philosophical, and theological scholarship concerning religious mysticism over the past thirty years has recently begun to shape modern theological thought. For example, medieval scholars like Bernard McGinn, Caroline Walker Bynum, Grace Jantzen, and Elizabeth Petroff, along with others like Steven Katz, have encouraged modern theological interest in mystical theology. Some have made available for modern theological reflection a considerable body of mystical texts that would otherwise have remained locked away in ancient languages and manuscripts. Provocative interpretations concerning earlier mystics, mystical traditions, and thought have also been influential on certain theologians, particularly feminists. Some present-day theological writers have incorporated this research into their own work, developing modern mystical theologies, in part because they believe modern religious people can appropriate ancient mystical sensitivities. Connected to these concerns is a popular interest in the area of contemporary spirituality, which at times focuses upon past mystical authors. Today there is a need for scholarly clarity surrounding earlier mystical theology and its modern significance, because a variety of approaches and resolutions has slowly begun to emerge. In this regard, Janet K. Ruffing has edited an important collection of essays. While Ruffing's work neither solves the current debates nor presents a unified theoretical approach to a variety of modern opinions on this topic, it does "bring many of the available perspectives into dialogue with one another" (2). The work itself owes its origins to a 1995 American Academy of Religion session in which many of the contributors to this volume presented papers.

There are a number of unique elements in Ruffing's collection. Perhaps the most notable is the deliberate way in which these authors consciously connect their historical, philosophical, and theological research of the past with modern theological concerns. Such an approach, though not entirely novel, reflects how scholars have more intentionally connected two areas of study that often remain separate. The marriage is a fruitful one in that both partners benefit. These essays demonstrate how scholarship that deals with past mystics has recently incorporated new themes, such as analyzing the relationship of mystics to political structures and the concept of social transformation. Modern theological work is able to stand upon the shoulders of both the mystical thought of the past and the modern interpreters of these mystics. In the end, this volume discusses how previous mystical movements actually brought about social transformation in the worlds in which they found themselves and how modern thinkers can build upon the language, conceptual framework, and enthusiasm of past mystical ideals in the post-enlightenment present.

Ruffing's concise and useful introduction clearly lays out the hermeneutics, typologies, and definitions governing the entire work, which includes three parts. The first section, two essays by Grace M. Jantzen and Dorothee Solle, sets forth the theoretical framework of the study. Jantzen uses the specific example of Marguerite Porete and her historical context to encourage traditional scholarship to look more closely at issues of power, gender, and the city. The reality that women mystics were not simply absorbed in individual rapture, but were in fact stalwart challengers to a "sordid world of power and social policy," (43) must be taken seriously, says Jantzen. Likewise, she encourages feminist authors to see religion not merely as a relic of the past but as a "universal essence" (44), which plays a significant role in the lives of medieval Christian mystics. Solle's excellent essay is a part of her recently published book The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), the most comprehensive work to date that incorporates a variety of past mystical writers from numerous religious traditions into a modern theological system. The essay in Ruffing's volume splices two separate parts of Solle's book, without any specific mention of this, connecting a discussion of Meister Eckhart with one of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Solle, like Jantzen, concludes by saying that mystical stillness, "often understood as the traditional woman's role of a religious inner world, belongs together with the clear loud speech of the `No' of resistance" (51).

The second part is entitled, "Christian Mystics and Social Transformation." Medieval scholars Paul Lachance and Amy Hollywood consider the social transformations effected by medieval Franciscans and Meister Eckhart. Carole Slade and Janet Ruffing analyze the Counter Reformation authors Teresa of Avila and Ignatius of Loyola. Then the book takes an interesting turn by including two essays, one on Quaker and the other on African American women mystical writers. Joy Bostic's fascinating analysis of Sojourner Truth and others convincingly reveals the often-overlooked mystical elements of African-American women and how this plays into their roles as agents of social transformation.