Spiritual
Directors International (SDI)
is an interspiritual "learning community committed to advancing
spiritual direction around the world" with a membership that "consists
of people from many nations and many faiths." According to SDI,
spiritual direction is "the contemplative practice of helping
another person or group to awaken to the mystery called God in
all of life," and they respond "to this call by tending the holy
around the world and across traditions. Ray Yungen discusses SDI
in A Time of Departing:
To
underscore the scope and reach of the contemplative prayer movement
let's look at the numbers put out by an organization called Spiritual
Directors International (SDI). On their website this group gives
ample evidence of what their practices are. In one national conference,
the following was presented: This workshop offers an opportunity
to study and experience the director's role in a person's move
into the beginning and early stages of contemplative prayer, silence,
and openness to new sorts of praying. One of the objectives of
SDI is "Tending the holy around the world and across traditions."
While
it is evident that SDI believes outside of the scope that salvation
can only be found through Jesus Christ according to the Bible, it
is interesting to note the wide variety of Christian denominations
that are represented by SDI:
A
2005 membership list showed 531 Episcopalians, 223 Presbyterians,
201 United Methodists, 154 Lutherans, and a whopping 2,355 Roman
Catholics; counting another forty or so "traditions," the total
was nearly 5000. To show the nature of just what they mean by
"across traditions" the list included Buddhist, Gnostic Christian,
Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Siddha Yoga,and even Pagan/Wiccan (A
Time of Departing, 2nd ed. p.41).
A 2003
Christianity Today article, Got
Your Spiritual Director Yet?, confirms two things, one that
spiritual direction is contemplative, and two that it is becoming
a part of evangelical Christendom. The article explains that popular
Christian author Larry Crabb is changing his views. Once a believer
in psychology he is switching to spiritual direction. The article
credits contemplatives (mystics) such as John Cassian and Ignatius
of Loyola for getting spiritual direction into the church and suggests
that we can learn more about it from Richard Foster, Eugene Peterson,
and Dallas Willard - with this we completely agree. As Rick Warren
stated in his book, Purpose Driven Church, Foster and Willard
are key players in the Spiritual Formation movement, but while Warren
says that this movement is a vital wake up call for the church,
we say it is a terrible seduction for the church.
