Called to Bless: Finding Hope By Reclaiming Our Spiritual Roots - A Path of Spiritual Reconstruction
In 2021, my book Called to Bless was published. It is in essence a theological memoir that offers a path for those who have experienced spiritual deconstruction and wonder what is next. Many leave Christianity, but is it possible to reclaim parts of one's past experiences, such that something new can emerge. My own spiritual journey has taken me to several places from Episcopal to Disciples of Christ, each stop has left a bit of spiritual DNA that helped form the person who exists today. My hope is that what I've discovered can help others along their journey.
I am grateful to Grace Ji-Sun Kim for writing the foreword to the book. She commends the book and its author (me), as it "generously shares his life journey of seeking the divine, encountering the Spirit, and living into the Spirit. Cornwall explores spirituality with honesty and reflective sensitivity, asking us what it means to not only encounter the Spirit but what it means to live being filled with the Spirit."
If you want to hear more about the book, I invite you to check out Brian Kaylor's interview concerning the book for Dangerous Dogma.
With that in mind, my publisher (Wipf and Stock) is offering a 40% discount on the book. To order a copy, go to the book page at: https://wipfandstock.com/9781725268685/called-to-bless/ Please use the coupon code: CALLEDTOBLESSCORNWALL.
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Below is an excerpt from the book, along with endorsements for the book.
I am who I am, spiritually, because of the spiritual DNA I carry. My journey has been a circuitous one. I have traveled from the church of my birth, the Episcopal Church, to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the church of my mature years. Along the way, I’ve been part of several other faith communities, including Pentecostals, Baptists, Presbyterians, and the Evangelical Covenant Church. My theology is eclectic. I’ve suggested this eclecticism is due to my being a historical theologian rather than a systematic one. My theology professor in seminary, Colin Brown, reinforced the idea that there is no one system of theology, which is why we didn’t have a specific textbook. Over the years, I’ve borrowed from Karl Barth, Jürgen Moltmann, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Jon Sobrino, Elizabeth Johnson, Athanasius, the Cappadocians, Augustine, John Calvin, Open Theists, and many more. I know that these can be strange bedfellows (think of Calvin and Augustine alongside Tom Oord), but I’ve come to believe that few of us are theological purists. Another way of describing my journey is to use the word “pilgrim.” Diana Butler Bass writes that “becoming a pilgrim means becoming a local who adopts a new place and new identity by learning a new language and new rhythms and practices. Unlike the tourist, a pilgrim’s goal is not to escape life, but to embrace it more deeply, to be transformed wholly as a person, with new ways of being in community and new hopes for the world.”
It is said by some that we should live in the present. That
is true, but it’s important to remember that the present only exists for a
moment before it becomes the past. As for the future, it is always beckoning us
forward. Jürgen Moltmann reminds us, “Original and true Christianity is a
movement of hope in this world, which is often so arrogant and yet so
despairing. That also makes it a movement of healing for sick souls and bodies.
And not least, it is a movement of liberation for life, in opposition to the
violence which oppresses the people.” Whatever spiritual DNA we draw from these
founding visions, if it’s true to the calling given to Abraham and his
descendants, then it will be a vision of hope, healing, and liberation. Thus,
it will be a call to bless.
What is true of us as individuals is also true for
congregations. Congregations are formed by people who bring their various
spiritual journeys and life experiences into the community. Some participants
grow up in the church and others do not. Some spend their entire lives in one
tradition, while others have been wanderers (much like Abraham, the wandering
Aramean, who is the father of Israel). When we gather together as a community,
or better yet, as siblings in the family of God, we contribute our diverse
spiritual DNA into the church’s existence. This contributes to the diversity
and complexity of the congregation, even one steeped in a particular tradition.
The members/participants in a congregation contribute their spiritual DNA, but
so does the Tradition of which they are part.
So, for example, consider my denomination, the Christian
Church (Disciples of Christ). Contributors to our identity as a movement and
denomination include the Presbyterian heritage of the Disciples founders. It
also includes the time spent by the Campbellites among the Baptists. They drew
from the Reformation, along with the British Enlightenment (John Locke, for
example). Then there is the secular DNA contributed by their American context.
The movement emerged shortly after the birth of the new nation. Thomas Campbell
contributed a founding document to the movement that he titled The Declaration
and Address. The word “Declaration” was used purposely as a signal that this
was a revolutionary document. Sometimes we Disciples see ourselves as part of
the Reformed tradition, but if so, we aren’t an “orthodox” version of that
tradition. The founders purposely threw off the creeds and faith statements
prized by their Presbyterian colleagues and ancestors.
If we take this a step further, individual believers and the
congregations of which they are members contribute their spiritual DNA to the
larger church, making the Christian “religion” a rather complex organism. In
our diversity and complexity, we find our purpose as a community in that call
given to Abraham and Sarah. Their call is our founding vision, one that was
embodied and renewed and passed on to us in Christ Jesus. That calling, which
required them to leave their homes and set out for an unknown land, eventuated
in a fountain of descendants, who are called to be a blessing to the nations.
It is a calling that has been passed on from generation to generation until it
incorporated we the readers of this book, whether Jew or gentile, for all of us
are heirs of this call to be a blessing to humanity and all of creation. While
the future might be open, might we envision that moment when all things come
together, and the blessings promised to Abraham and Sarah reach their
fulfillment?
I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God
Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the
moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its
lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring
their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will
be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.
(Rev 21:22–26, NIV)
Praise for Called To Bless
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