Leech, Kenneth

An introduction to the requirements of a life of prayer and the resources of the Christian spiritual tradition. The author draws generously on the great Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox mystics and theologians and on modern poets, writers, and teachers to speak to the heart of Christian life.

This comprehensive spiritual theology is enriched by a unique pastoral dimension. Can provide students with an excellent introduction to theology as well as serve scholars as a rich resource.

Calling for "a reintegration of soul and society, prayer and politics," Kenneth Leech argues brilliantly and passionately for the essential unity of Christian spirituality and social and political commitment. Leech warns that spirituality without community "can be a dangerous diversion from the living God." "If we are to rescue Christian spirituality from its captivity to individualism and the culture of false inwardness, we will need to recover the sense of its social character, indeed, the sense of the social order of the Gospel itself." Here is a biblically rooted spirituality of matter and of sexuality. "The disgust at sexuality," writes Leech, "or at least the uncertainty about whether Christianity really approves of it, is linked with the retreat from political involvement.... Both the flesh and the polis are seen as equally threatening, equally contaminating, to the purity of the soul" that seeks to know and follow God in pursuit of justice for all people. To be truly Christian, the author argues, is to embrace the struggle against racism and all other forms of oppression, the movement for world peace and nuclear disarmament, and the campaign against poverty, inequality, and drug addiction. "At its very heart the Christian life and identity is a process of incorporation into a new social organism, a new community," writes Leech. "Spirituality cannot exist apart from this social context.".