The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life
Overview
In The Divine Embrace, Robert Webber lays out the foundation for understanding Christian spirituality. He traces the idea of spirituality from the ancient church to the present day, showing how biblical teaching has been developed and informed by changes in culture. Webber explores how we can return contemporary spirituality to its biblical source by living out God’s story in our individual, corporate lives. Webber’s thoughts and insights are sure to encourage and equip you to live out your spirituality with a deeper and more delightful response to God’s divine embrace.
The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life is perfect for scholars, pastors, students, and laypeople. The Logos edition of this volume is fully searchable, and it connects with the rest of your digital library: Scripture passages link directly to your preferred translation, and important theological concepts link to dictionaries, encyclopedias, and a wealth of other resources.
- Introduces foundations for understanding Christian spirituality
- Traces the ideas of spirituality from the Ancient church to the present day
- Explores how spirituality can be turned back to its biblical source
Top Highlights
“‘Delight,’ I told him, ‘in the mystery of God revealed in Christ, who, by the Spirit, is united to our humanity and opens the way to our union with God. Delight in the incarnation of God in Jesus, in his sacrifice for our sins, his victory over the powers of evil, and the good news that everything that needs to be done to unite us with God and establish our spiritual relationship with God is done through grace by faith in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Affirm that Jesus, in union with God, dwells in you and you in him, and see the world through God’s divine embrace. Then live in your freedom to participate in God in the life of the world!’” (Page 220)
“The ancient fathers speak of God restoring our spiritual union with him by his own ‘two hands’5—Jesus and God’s life-giving Spirit. So spirituality is not a self-generated achievement but a gift given to us by God. This gift sets us free to see life in a new way and to live life as God intended, in union with the purposes of the Creator and Redeemer of the world.” (Page 18)
“Me-oriented worship is the result of a culturally driven worship. When worship is situated in the culture and not in the story of God, worship becomes focused on the self. It becomes narcissistic. Christopher Lasch points to narcissism as a ‘metaphor of the human condition.’” (Page 231)
“They did not foresee how the business model of church would be shaped by consumerism. They envisioned big, successful, relevant, effective. This has always been the evangelical way, and while it has resulted in numbers, it struggles to form depth.” (Page 221)
Robert Webber’s new book places him in the good company of Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, and Eugene Peterson as one of our most important thinkers about spiritual formation for authentic Christian living. It provides fresh, wise, and challenging guidance that is rooted in a career of Christian leadership development. It draws from decades of research in church history and spirituality, and flows from the mind of a scholar and the heart of a practitioner. I am a fan of all his work, but I think this is his best and most important book to date.
—Brian McLaren, author, speaker, theologian
Do not read this book alone! Bob Webber is right: authentic Christian spirituality is a shared response of believers to God’s actions on our behalf. Get your small group, Sunday school class, or church to study this challenging message together.
—David Neff, editor-in-chief, Christianity Today
Robert Webber—one of our most trusted voices on worship and discipleship—takes spirituality out of the closet of privacy and individualism and locates it smack in the middle of friendship and community. His is a wonderful, unique vision that cuts across the grain of the ‘spirituality industry.’
—James K. A. Smith, professor of philosophy, Calvin College
- Title: The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life
- Author: Robert E. Webber
- Publisher: Baker
- Publication Date: 2006
- Pages: 288
Robert Webber (1933–2007) was known for his work on worship and the early church. The son of a Baptist minister, Webber was raised in the Belgian Congo where his parents were missionaries. He studied at Bob Jones University, Reformed Episcopal Seminary, Covenant Theological Seminary, and Concordia Seminary.
Webber taught theology at Wheaton College for 32 years and was the Myers Professor of Ministry at Northern Seminary. In 1998, as a part of the Convergence Movement, Webber founded The Robert E. Webber Institute of Worship Studies school which focused exclusively on worship education.
Later in his life, Webber took a special interest in Christian worship practice and wrote and edited more than 40 books on this topic including the Ancient-Future series and The Complete Library of Christian Worship.