An Introduction to Christian Mysticism
- World Religions
- History & Biography
- Publisher: Baker Academic (Baker Publishing Group)
- Published: 2021
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Publisher's Description
This brief, accessibly written volume introduces key figures, texts, and themes of the mystical tradition and shows how and why the mystics can speak to the church today. Jason Baxter, an expert educator and storyteller, explains that the mystical tradition offers a more robust understanding of God than our current shallow conceptions. Featuring engagement with primary sources and suitable for use in a variety of courses, this book argues that the mystics have much to say to contemporary Christians searching for authentic modes of spirituality.
Endorsements (3)
“In reassuring prose, Jason Baxter gives us Christian mysticism undomesticated—bold, inflamed, insistent, pushing to the very boundaries of speech, and communing with God beyond every merely human mode of communication. Baxter is one to watch—will he too be among the mystics? May it be so!”
“Jason Baxter begins his story in the wasteland that is our culture. An Introduction to Christian Mysticism shows how the dark night of the soul has extended across society. For Christians who desire the light, Baxter argues, we must become mystics or die. Yet the light that draws us out of darkness will be blinding, painful, and shocking. Tracing the mystic experiences of God from the pagans to Julian of Norwich and Nicholas of Cusa, Baxter reorients us to the tradition that we lost after the Reformation and the Enlightenment. To ignore this book is to succumb to a weak, domesticated version of our faith. To read this book is to be lit up again by our bright, burning, wild, and unfathomable God.”
“The word ‘mysticism’ is often loaded with misunderstandings and underlying assumptions that are not clearly understood, so much so that one wonders if the word has lost its currency, specifically in the discipline of Christian theology. It may still have a home in anthropology or comparative religions, but not theology. Jason Baxter, however, competently and convincingly shows in An Introduction to Christian Mysticism that such is not the case. In fact, he shows that mysticism is not only a viable and venerable Christian concept but one that needs to be recovered in the contemporary church. With ease he introduces his readers to the ‘greatest hits’ of the early and medieval Christian mystical tradition, revealing their own systems of thought while also connecting them thematically to one another.”
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