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The transforming moment: Understanding convictional experiences
In this groundbreaking study of convictional knowing, Dr. James E. Loder (Professor of the Philosophy of Christian Education at Princeton Theological Seminary) builds a framework for understanding human experiences in which ordinary modes of apprehending reality are suspended by the startling intrusion of a convincing insight -- which often arrives with convictional force and transformational power. Interweaving psychology and Christian theology, Loder establishes the five-part pattern of convictional insight in the arts, sciences, the practice of psychotherapy, human development, and spirituality. "Personally powerful, spiritually sophisticated, therapeutically sensitive -- a resource for all who long to find the Face of God in the voids we face." -- James B. Ashbrook
229 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1989
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January 18, 2008
I took a course from Loder at Princeton a few years before his death. I was given an A, but I can't say I understood most of the material. It was over my head, and most of my fellow students, but it was a good experience. He wept every class and we evangelicals (a distinct and embattled minority) knew something spiritual was happening.
Reading, and re-reading, this book is alot like that. It drew me in to an experience that somehow seemed deep and spiritual, but it is hard to articulate why. Now I know there were students who, after many classes, finally 'got it' about Loder. they could offer a much more lucid review. But I think I represent many readers with my reaction. Maybe that's why this is the first review written after 17 years.
The opening illustration of Loder's car accident and near death makes me weep every time I read it. I know that sounds melodramatic, but it is true.
So how do we sort out his approach? I guess the best explanation I can divine -- Loder is a learned, highy complex marriage of Piaget and Freudian psychological theories with Kierkegaardian existentialist theology. Loder argues for a highly individualistic transformational education, invoked by some sort of experience of crisis. The dark night of the soul brings the possibility of the inbreaking experience of God's grace.
Of course, transformation, throgh experience, is Biblical, and broadly speaking has continuity with good Xian tradition from Edwards to the Puritans to medieval mystics to dessert fathers to modern evangelicals. But Loder's individualism and existentialism, not based in community (even if it is EXPRESSED in community), makes it less satisfying than some on that list.
Well, this is wildly oversimplified, and I wish one of his learned disciples would clime in. But I read this book like I read most novels, for a moving emotional experience, not for teaching.
BTW -- Brent Webb-Mitchell of Duke offers an interesting summary and analysis of Loder in his Christly Gestures (2003) book.
Reading, and re-reading, this book is alot like that. It drew me in to an experience that somehow seemed deep and spiritual, but it is hard to articulate why. Now I know there were students who, after many classes, finally 'got it' about Loder. they could offer a much more lucid review. But I think I represent many readers with my reaction. Maybe that's why this is the first review written after 17 years.
The opening illustration of Loder's car accident and near death makes me weep every time I read it. I know that sounds melodramatic, but it is true.
So how do we sort out his approach? I guess the best explanation I can divine -- Loder is a learned, highy complex marriage of Piaget and Freudian psychological theories with Kierkegaardian existentialist theology. Loder argues for a highly individualistic transformational education, invoked by some sort of experience of crisis. The dark night of the soul brings the possibility of the inbreaking experience of God's grace.
Of course, transformation, throgh experience, is Biblical, and broadly speaking has continuity with good Xian tradition from Edwards to the Puritans to medieval mystics to dessert fathers to modern evangelicals. But Loder's individualism and existentialism, not based in community (even if it is EXPRESSED in community), makes it less satisfying than some on that list.
Well, this is wildly oversimplified, and I wish one of his learned disciples would clime in. But I read this book like I read most novels, for a moving emotional experience, not for teaching.
BTW -- Brent Webb-Mitchell of Duke offers an interesting summary and analysis of Loder in his Christly Gestures (2003) book.
September 7, 2017
Met Dr LODER AND his wife at Trinity Presbyterian Hendersonville, NC in 1984. I have read and re-read this book, and maybe I am crazy, but Loder was saying that the true church of ACTS 2, should be the true church now in 2017, i.e. there's something quite out of our control (God) and the end result should leave the transformed more loving rather than less. Of course, the moment for Loder came when he was saved by his wife in a miraculous manner with prayer answered, well, miraculously!
I was then a newly ordained Presbyterian minister open to the works of the Holy Spirit, in Jesus' Name. I am full of strange ideas like this.
I was then a newly ordained Presbyterian minister open to the works of the Holy Spirit, in Jesus' Name. I am full of strange ideas like this.
July 27, 2014
From the “Preface to the Second Edition”:
“As the second edition of this book appears we will be entering the 1990s, almost a decade after the book was first written. The needs it was addressing in the early 1980s are if anything more urgent and timely now. . . .
Those needs may be related to four types of concern which are at issue throughout the discussion of the book. The first and uppermost concern is to understand the relationship between the human spirit and the Holy Spirit in a way that takes account of the human sciences (particularly psychology in the developmental and psychoanalytic traditions) as well the theology of the Holy Spirit (particularly in the Reformed tradition).
The second concern is to bring this understanding to bear on particularly individuals and situations in which spiritual conflict is explicitly or tacitly the key issue. . . . Thus, the second concern is essentially hermeneutical; it is to show how reciprocity between understanding and situation can, indeed, issue in fresh insight and healing.
The third concern, implied in the first two, is for the interdisciplinary methodology that pertains between theology and the human sciences, and guides the unfolding of the relationship between human and Holy Spirit in varied context of though and experience. This methodology may be characterized briefly and transformational and analogical. . . .
The fourth concern is to reinvest theological language concerning the knowledge of God and life in the Spirit with tangible substance and experience.” (pp. vii-viii)
From the Introduction:
“The aim of this book is to set forth a patterned process that describes the inner generative source of knowledge on several different levels of human experience. That pattern characterizes— though does not exhaust— the nature of the human spirit, and in a different but analogical way it also characterizes the work of the Holy Spirit in human experience.” (p. 1)
From the conclusion: “Guidelines into Convictional knowing”:
“Biographies of convicted persons – persons who have been conquered by a vision and have died to everything else, persons who in their confrontation with the intransigency of everyday events have totally exhausted life’s energies, and for whom only the vision was a source of new life – reveal to us the ones who have undertaken the journey of intensification.
Often they have shortened the ordinary course of living, packing more of life into less time, so as to be, above all else, ‘faithful to their vision.’ It has been said of these persons – the artists, the heroes, the saints, the scientists, the prophets – that with the luck of talent and opportunity, they have produced the classic – the class text or the classic life.
We admire these convicted ones and we are glad they paid the price, but we set them apart from ourselves as a special type. Yet in a deeper sense that higher intelligibility implicit in such lives belongs to everyone by virtue of the essential nature of human existence; in the classic we are given pause to listen, as if to some distant voice, vaguely familiar . . . . This happens because of the way we are made; the dynamics and dimensions of human existence . . . are made for – indeed are supremely suited to – that higher intelligibility, and we long for it.
That higher intelligibility, manifest somehow in all realms of human endeavour, is definitively and transformatively revealed in the incarnation – in the One fully God and fully human. . . . The loving embrace which crucifies us, and the crucifixion which frees us, disclose a grandeur of design and an ultimate contingency far greater than the universe itself embodies because they include us and the answer to our relentless question, Why?
No wonder Thomas was afraid. In Him we have to do with ten billion light years of creation, quite specifically at a given point in time made conscious, personal, and accountable to its Creator . . . . The frightening and wonderful thing is to find in the depths of one’s own existence, from whence the question Why?, the answer already given by His Spirit.
Thus the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and the commonplace becomes the place of communion with the awesome God who comes into us, sits at the table and takes food and drink. Who would have suspected such a thing if it were not disclosed to us in the mirror of Jesus, the Christ, the Face of God, the Holy One . . . Thus it is as utterly gracious as it is essential that His image should indwell us and we Him, by the presence and power of His Spirit. . . .
The main goal of this book is not merely reconceptualization but renewal of life in the Spirit of Christ. Perhaps the mutual enhancement of mind and Spirit will yield up new ways of conceiving the life of God in our midst, so that the communion of saints may again – as at its Pentecostal inception – be ultimately defined by no other reality than the Spiritual Presence of God in Jesus Christ at work to restore an anguished creation to its Creator.”
James E. Loder, The Transforming Moment, 2nd ed (Colorado Springs, CO: Helmers & Howard, 1981; 1989), pp. 217-219.
From the conclusion: “Guidelines into Convictional knowing”:
“Biographies of convicted persons – persons who have been conquered by a vision and have died to everything else, persons who in their confrontation with the intransigency of everyday events have totally exhausted life’s energies, and for whom only the vision was a source of new life – reveal to us the ones who have undertaken the journey of intensification.
Often they have shortened the ordinary course of living, packing more of life into less time, so as to be, above all else, ‘faithful to their vision.’ It has been said of these persons – the artists, the heroes, the saints, the scientists, the prophets – that with the luck of talent and opportunity, they have produced the classic – the class text or the classic life.
We admire these convicted ones and we are glad they paid the price, but we set them apart from ourselves as a special type. Yet in a deeper sense that higher intelligibility implicit in such lives belongs to everyone by virtue of the essential nature of human existence; in the classic we are given pause to listen, as if to some distant voice, vaguely familiar . . . . This happens because of the way we are made; the dynamics and dimensions of human existence . . . are made for – indeed are supremely suited to – that higher intelligibility, and we long for it.
That higher intelligibility, manifest somehow in all realms of human endeavour, is definitively and transformatively revealed in the incarnation – in the One fully God and fully human. . . . The loving embrace which crucifies us, and the crucifixion which frees us, disclose a grandeur of design and an ultimate contingency far greater than the universe itself embodies because they include us and the answer to our relentless question, Why?
No wonder Thomas was afraid. In Him we have to do with ten billion light years of creation, quite specifically at a given point in time made conscious, personal, and accountable to its Creator . . . . The frightening and wonderful thing is to find in the depths of one’s own existence, from whence the question Why?, the answer already given by His Spirit.
Thus the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and the commonplace becomes the place of communion with the awesome God who comes into us, sits at the table and takes food and drink. Who would have suspected such a thing if it were not disclosed to us in the mirror of Jesus, the Christ, the Face of God, the Holy One . . . Thus it is as utterly gracious as it is essential that His image should indwell us and we Him, by the presence and power of His Spirit. . . .
The main goal of this book is not merely reconceptualization but renewal of life in the Spirit of Christ. Perhaps the mutual enhancement of mind and Spirit will yield up new ways of conceiving the life of God in our midst, so that the communion of saints may again – as at its Pentecostal inception – be ultimately defined by no other reality than the Spiritual Presence of God in Jesus Christ at work to restore an anguished creation to its Creator.”
James E. Loder, The Transforming Moment, 2nd ed (Colorado Springs, CO: Helmers & Howard, 1981; 1989), pp. 217-219.
“As the second edition of this book appears we will be entering the 1990s, almost a decade after the book was first written. The needs it was addressing in the early 1980s are if anything more urgent and timely now. . . .
Those needs may be related to four types of concern which are at issue throughout the discussion of the book. The first and uppermost concern is to understand the relationship between the human spirit and the Holy Spirit in a way that takes account of the human sciences (particularly psychology in the developmental and psychoanalytic traditions) as well the theology of the Holy Spirit (particularly in the Reformed tradition).
The second concern is to bring this understanding to bear on particularly individuals and situations in which spiritual conflict is explicitly or tacitly the key issue. . . . Thus, the second concern is essentially hermeneutical; it is to show how reciprocity between understanding and situation can, indeed, issue in fresh insight and healing.
The third concern, implied in the first two, is for the interdisciplinary methodology that pertains between theology and the human sciences, and guides the unfolding of the relationship between human and Holy Spirit in varied context of though and experience. This methodology may be characterized briefly and transformational and analogical. . . .
The fourth concern is to reinvest theological language concerning the knowledge of God and life in the Spirit with tangible substance and experience.” (pp. vii-viii)
From the Introduction:
“The aim of this book is to set forth a patterned process that describes the inner generative source of knowledge on several different levels of human experience. That pattern characterizes— though does not exhaust— the nature of the human spirit, and in a different but analogical way it also characterizes the work of the Holy Spirit in human experience.” (p. 1)
From the conclusion: “Guidelines into Convictional knowing”:
“Biographies of convicted persons – persons who have been conquered by a vision and have died to everything else, persons who in their confrontation with the intransigency of everyday events have totally exhausted life’s energies, and for whom only the vision was a source of new life – reveal to us the ones who have undertaken the journey of intensification.
Often they have shortened the ordinary course of living, packing more of life into less time, so as to be, above all else, ‘faithful to their vision.’ It has been said of these persons – the artists, the heroes, the saints, the scientists, the prophets – that with the luck of talent and opportunity, they have produced the classic – the class text or the classic life.
We admire these convicted ones and we are glad they paid the price, but we set them apart from ourselves as a special type. Yet in a deeper sense that higher intelligibility implicit in such lives belongs to everyone by virtue of the essential nature of human existence; in the classic we are given pause to listen, as if to some distant voice, vaguely familiar . . . . This happens because of the way we are made; the dynamics and dimensions of human existence . . . are made for – indeed are supremely suited to – that higher intelligibility, and we long for it.
That higher intelligibility, manifest somehow in all realms of human endeavour, is definitively and transformatively revealed in the incarnation – in the One fully God and fully human. . . . The loving embrace which crucifies us, and the crucifixion which frees us, disclose a grandeur of design and an ultimate contingency far greater than the universe itself embodies because they include us and the answer to our relentless question, Why?
No wonder Thomas was afraid. In Him we have to do with ten billion light years of creation, quite specifically at a given point in time made conscious, personal, and accountable to its Creator . . . . The frightening and wonderful thing is to find in the depths of one’s own existence, from whence the question Why?, the answer already given by His Spirit.
Thus the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and the commonplace becomes the place of communion with the awesome God who comes into us, sits at the table and takes food and drink. Who would have suspected such a thing if it were not disclosed to us in the mirror of Jesus, the Christ, the Face of God, the Holy One . . . Thus it is as utterly gracious as it is essential that His image should indwell us and we Him, by the presence and power of His Spirit. . . .
The main goal of this book is not merely reconceptualization but renewal of life in the Spirit of Christ. Perhaps the mutual enhancement of mind and Spirit will yield up new ways of conceiving the life of God in our midst, so that the communion of saints may again – as at its Pentecostal inception – be ultimately defined by no other reality than the Spiritual Presence of God in Jesus Christ at work to restore an anguished creation to its Creator.”
James E. Loder, The Transforming Moment, 2nd ed (Colorado Springs, CO: Helmers & Howard, 1981; 1989), pp. 217-219.
From the conclusion: “Guidelines into Convictional knowing”:
“Biographies of convicted persons – persons who have been conquered by a vision and have died to everything else, persons who in their confrontation with the intransigency of everyday events have totally exhausted life’s energies, and for whom only the vision was a source of new life – reveal to us the ones who have undertaken the journey of intensification.
Often they have shortened the ordinary course of living, packing more of life into less time, so as to be, above all else, ‘faithful to their vision.’ It has been said of these persons – the artists, the heroes, the saints, the scientists, the prophets – that with the luck of talent and opportunity, they have produced the classic – the class text or the classic life.
We admire these convicted ones and we are glad they paid the price, but we set them apart from ourselves as a special type. Yet in a deeper sense that higher intelligibility implicit in such lives belongs to everyone by virtue of the essential nature of human existence; in the classic we are given pause to listen, as if to some distant voice, vaguely familiar . . . . This happens because of the way we are made; the dynamics and dimensions of human existence . . . are made for – indeed are supremely suited to – that higher intelligibility, and we long for it.
That higher intelligibility, manifest somehow in all realms of human endeavour, is definitively and transformatively revealed in the incarnation – in the One fully God and fully human. . . . The loving embrace which crucifies us, and the crucifixion which frees us, disclose a grandeur of design and an ultimate contingency far greater than the universe itself embodies because they include us and the answer to our relentless question, Why?
No wonder Thomas was afraid. In Him we have to do with ten billion light years of creation, quite specifically at a given point in time made conscious, personal, and accountable to its Creator . . . . The frightening and wonderful thing is to find in the depths of one’s own existence, from whence the question Why?, the answer already given by His Spirit.
Thus the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and the commonplace becomes the place of communion with the awesome God who comes into us, sits at the table and takes food and drink. Who would have suspected such a thing if it were not disclosed to us in the mirror of Jesus, the Christ, the Face of God, the Holy One . . . Thus it is as utterly gracious as it is essential that His image should indwell us and we Him, by the presence and power of His Spirit. . . .
The main goal of this book is not merely reconceptualization but renewal of life in the Spirit of Christ. Perhaps the mutual enhancement of mind and Spirit will yield up new ways of conceiving the life of God in our midst, so that the communion of saints may again – as at its Pentecostal inception – be ultimately defined by no other reality than the Spiritual Presence of God in Jesus Christ at work to restore an anguished creation to its Creator.”
James E. Loder, The Transforming Moment, 2nd ed (Colorado Springs, CO: Helmers & Howard, 1981; 1989), pp. 217-219.
August 3, 2020
This book is a high-level analysis of transforming moments or convicting experience (in a sense, conversion) that takes into account psychology (of, it seems, a previous generation) and Christian theology. It takes seriously the existential and three/four dimensionality of humanity in its probing of the way in which deep change can occur. I'll confess this was for me a very challenging read and definitely requires a lot of the reader. That said, there is richness here in this MA/PhD level discussion that really can help the reader think through the process of conversionary change.
April 3, 2010
This has helped me integrate thinking and reason with experience of faith... which at their best are felt as a promise of the Devine (IIPeter1:3-11) breaking in from the future... calling forth from us the Character development that would conform us more into the image of Christ.
An excelent place to establish a more Christian Epistomology.
An excelent place to establish a more Christian Epistomology.
May 20, 2014
This book by James Loder is hard going, but the journey is worth the trouble. There IS a way of knowing that transcends ordinary language that also is transforming in its power. I can only describe it as the movement of the Holy Spirit in one's life. His insight has been rewarding not only for understanding my own experiences, but also helpful in my counseling as a pastor.
April 4, 2019
Loder draws from theology, psychology, and philosophy to examine that life-changing moment. He sees conversion as a process involving the whole person, and not just an intellectual or emotional change. It does involve struggle, and we can better appreciate the reality of the spiritual conflict when it is not explained away or ignored.
Want to read
June 9, 2011Having trouble making my way through this book. The language is so Christian that I am having difficulty moving past that.
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