Saving Fear in Christian Spirituality

Hailed in Sacred Scripture as the "beginning of wisdom" (Ps 111:10), the "fear of the Lord" is seldom mentioned and little understood today. A gift of the Spirit and a moral virtue or disposition, the "fear of the Lord" also frequently entails emotional experiences of differing kinds: compunction, dread, reverence, wonderment, and awe. Starting with the Bible itself, this collection of seventeen essays explores the place of holy fear in Christian spirituality from the early church to the present and argues that this fear is paradoxically linked in various ways to fear's seeming opposite, love. Indeed, the charged dynamic of love and fear accounts for different experiences and expressions of Christian life in response to changing historical circumstances and events. The writings of the theologians, mystics, philosophers, saints, and artists studied here reveal the relationship between the fear and the love of God to be profoundly challenging and mysterious, its elements paradoxically conjoined in a creative tension with each other, but also tending to oscillate back-and-forth in the history of Christian spirituality as first one, then the other, comes to the fore, sometimes to correct a perceived imbalance, sometimes at the risk of losing its companion altogether. Given this historical pattern, clearly evident in these chronologically arranged essays, the palpable absence of a discourse of holy fear from the mainstream theological landscape should give us pause and invite us to consider if and how-under what aspect, in which contexts-a holy fear, inseparable from love, might be regained or discovered anew within Christian spirituality as a remedy both for a crippling anxiety and for a presumptive recklessness. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Christian spirituality, theology, biblical studies, religious studies, and religion and literature. Contributors: Ann W. Astell, Pieter G. R. de Villiers, Donna R. Hawk-Reinhard, John Sehorn, Catherine Rose Cavadini, Joseph Wawrykow, Robert Boenig, Ralph Keen, Wendy M. Wright, Ephraim Radner, Julia A. Lamm, Cyril O'Regan, Brenna Moore, Maj-Britt Frenze, and Todd Walatka

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments The Saving of Fear: An Introduction by Anne W. Astell Fear at the Foundations: Biblical and Patristic 1. "In Awe of the Mighty Deeds of God": The Fear of God in Early Christianity from the Perspective of Biblical Spirituality by Pieter G. R. de Villiers 2. Cyril of Jerusalem on Learning the Proper Type of Fear of God by Donna R. Hawk-Reinhard 3. Threading the Needle: Fear of the Lord and the Incarnation in St. Augustine by John Sehorn Fear in Medieval Meditation 4. Lips of Fear Kissed by Mercy: Expositions of Timor Dei in Cistercian Commentary on the Song of Songs by Catherine Rose Cavadini 5. Aquinas on Christ's Fear by Joseph Wawrykow 6. Contemplations of the Dread and Love of God and the Nuancing of the Fear of the Lord by Robert Boenig Fear amongst the Reformers 7. The Reformation Recovery of the Wrath of God by Ralph Keen 8. The Doctor of Divine Love and Fear of the Lord by Wendy M. Wright 9. Fear of God in Pascal and His Jansenist Friends by Ephraim Radner Fear in the Modern Debate 10. Casting out Fear: The Logic of "God is Love" in Julian of Norwich and Friedrich Schleiermacher by Julia A. Lamm 11. Fear of God in John Henry Newman and Søren Kierkegaard by Cyril O'Regan Fear on the Eve of the New Millennium 12. "Gold Fillings into Crocodiles' Teeth": Christian Fear, Politics, and Imagination in Léon Bloy by Brenna Moore 13. Faith, Hope, Charity, and the Fears of Fatima by Ann W. Astell 14. Shocked to Awe: The Rapture Hermeneutic and Holy Fear by Maj-Britt Frenze 15. Fear of God in Liberation Theology by Todd Walatka 16. A Concluding Case Study in Spiritual Direction: Father Joseph Kentenich and Emilie Engel by Ann W. Astell List of Contributors Index

About the Author :
Ann W. Astell is professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author, editor, and translator of fifteen books, including Sacrifice, Scripture, and Substitution: Readings in Ancient Judaism and Christianity, co-edited with Sandor Goodhart (University of Notre Dame Press, 2011).

Review :
"For those who pray to have a 'perpetual fear and love' of God's holy name, this volume is a salutary reminder that, in our relationship with the Lord, these two dispositions belong together." —The Living Church "This volume is a necessary contribution to the conversation—indeed, this collection of essays shows that the fear of God has historically been more deeply intertwined with divine love than terror." —International Journal of Systematic Theology "The 'fear of God' is a topic that has been largely neglected both in recent scholarship and in contemporary Christian pastoral practice—at least within the mainstream of Catholic and Protestant churches. And yet, as the essays in this volume show, the same theme has been of great significance in the historical development of Christian theology from the New Testament period onward." —Arthur Holder, Graduate Theological Union