Holy Living: The Christian Tradition for Today

by Rowan Williams

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams writes frankly on belief, Christianity and the place of religion today. Apart from being a scholar and theologian, Rowan Williams has also demonstrated a rare gift for writing plainly and clearly about essentials of the Christian faith. In Holy Living, he writes with profound perception about the life of holiness to which we are called. The range of Williams’ frame of reference is astonishing--he brings poets and theologians to his aid, he writes about the Rule of St Benedict, the Bible, Icons, contemplation, St Teresa of Avila and even R. D. Laing. He concludes with two chapters on the injunction "Know Thyself" in a Christian context. Throughout, Williams points out that holiness is a state of being--it is he writes "completely undemonstrative and lacking any system of expertise. It can never be dissected and analysed."

Genres: Theology, Religion, Christianity, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

Published November 21, 2017

About the author

Rowan Douglas Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth, is an Anglican bishop, poet, and theologian. He was Archbishop of Canterbury from December 2002-2012, and is now Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge and Chancellor of the University of South Wales.

Reviews

[Nate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rowan Williams demonstrates a deep, thoughtful, penetrating grasp of a variety of topics, from the Rule of St. Benedict to Teresa of Avila's perspective on Scripture and the Eucharist, to Julian of Norwich's "anti-theology", in addition to engaging Bernard of Clairvaux and Augustine with Lacan and Hegel. This guy knows his stuff. Not only does he have a wide-ranging perspective on a variety of topics related to Christian tradition, he deeply cares that this engagement benefit the faithful and move the Church forward as it honestly wrestles with applying the tradition to the present and future. The chapters in this book were all taken from different talks from the 1990s to the 2010s. Lots of food for thought and action.

[Zak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of these essays were 5*s some were 2*s, not because they were bad but because it was too big brained for me.

Didn't realise this was going to be a set of essays and it wasn't always clear what the connection between them was, except that Rowan was clearly always making some deep important points, even if I didn't always understand them.

[Jake Watts · Rating 2 out of 5]

Loved Williams’ last two books. This one was pretty tedious. It’s only redeeming essay was on Julian of Norwich.

[Evan Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would’ve given it 4.5 stars if I could. I loved every essay except the last one.

[Hunter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rowan Williams is often described as dense and prevarication-prone by his detractors but in this collection of essays Williams provides us with succinct, brilliant discussions of topics as broad as Christian sexual ethics, analytical self-knowledge within the Christian paradigm, and contemplation. The essays on sexuality and the eucharistic theology of Theresa of Avila were my favorites but all are worth a read.

[Farah Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is not for a casual read .
You have to employ a lot of cognitive faculties to get the matter out of it .
It was insightful .My favourite chapters of the book were chapter 2 (Health and Healing ) and Final Chapter (Know thyself :What kind of an injunction?),primarily because it gave me the missing puzzle regarding the theology of health and healing .
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Quoting the author -chapter 2 “Health and Healing”“Matt 12 :43-45 (Return of evil spirits)”One of Jesus ‘s most powerful and memorable images is this picture of the self as an untenanted space , an uninhabited space into which flow the forces of destruction .I want to suggest that our theology of health and healing is connected with understanding how the world comes to be “inhabited”.
‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us ,’ says the forth gospel .God lives his life in a human identity ,filling flesh with divine communication and divine freedom itself .
This most fully ‘inhabited’,most fully ‘saturated ‘ flesh which is the humanity of Jesus Christ becomes the supreme instance of health ……
***Health is something to do with the bridging of a gulf or healing of a schism between flesh and spirit .
**Somewhere in the background is a brokenness , an emptiness , that needs to be addressed , and into which Jesus speaks ;and act of healing frees the person to express what they are made and called to be
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The above lines from the book for me personally was eye opening .
Ironically I was also reading the gospel of John chapter 11 Jesus raising Lazarus to life .
My attention was mainly drawn to Mary and Martha and I tried to imagine the emotional turmoil they would have experienced leading up to the death of their brother when they probably would have held on to hope that Jesus would show up and the days after his death when hope was shattered and pain beyond what the heart can bear would have been thrust upon them without invitation .
I was beginning to experience various emotions ranging from sadness , devastation and also a bit of disconnect from God and quickly that escalated and resulted in me looking into my past and reliving similar experiences and I was filled with so much pain .I realised then ,the capacity for the Human mind to be so dramatic and leading one down a rabbit hole of compounding emotions when given free reign even for a minute , it’s capacity for being self destructive was evident .But quickly I recalled what I had just read from Rowan William’s book of the flesh being reduced and being saturated by the spirit .
If I changed my perspective of how I was seeing the same situation and changed my focus to the glorious way in which Jesus raised Lazarus (A man deemed dead walking out of the tomb)there by strengthening the faith of all who saw it , and Jesus saying this was done for the “Glory of God” that changed my response to peace and calm.So basically practising reducing the feelings of the flesh and operating in the spirit changed my emotional state .
And I guess that is where Rowan Williams is making the connection :mental and physical health is at its ideal or to say operating as designed by the creator ,when the flesh is saturated by the spirit (like the house being tenanted and inhabited by the spirit )

To be able to achieve this state of being saturated in and by the Spirit, one first needs to make the discovery of their created identity as explained by Rowan William who quotes many scholars in this topic as seen below :
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Again quoting lines from the last chapter :
***The therapy -oriented culture of the North Atlantic world in the past couple of decades has increasingly taken this picture as foundational , looking to ‘self-discovery’ or ‘self-realisation’ as the precondition of moral and mental welfare.
*****Adam is placed in Eden and told to eat and drink and enjoy himself .
Divine grace hides in Adam the saving element of epinoia, intellectual grasp , but this has to be activated by a saviour who is first and foremost ‘remembrance’.The Gospel of truth accordingly describes the one who is saved from wreckage of the cosmos as the one who ‘knows where he comes from and where he is going to ‘
*****Why does Adam fall ?By misunderstanding the meaning of human dignity .He forgets that he is a creature (and thus dependent on God) and is expelled from Eden and thus becoming subject to a second and more serious ignorance of himself , forgetfulness of his rational and spiritual nature .Not knowing oneself , then, and not knowing God are intimately connected :
If I do not know that Iam Gods creature because Iam hypnotised by the grandeur of the intellectual gifts given to me , and I shall not in fact know how to exercise those gifts and I shall cease to be a rational creature .
Faulty self knowledge has led to our present sad plight .
What then does it mean to know myself truthfully ?
It is to see my helplessness and loss ,to discover that I now live in a region where likeness to God has been forfeited .
Yet simultaneously I must know that God continues to hear me and to give me grace .
I see myself as a fallen sinner , I must also see myself as a graced sinner .
The spirit of God begins to realise in us the dignity of Gods children by forming us in holiness .

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What I derived from the above is that , the first step is to realise our identify in Christ which enables us to operate in the spirit which is the ideal state to have mental and physical health and healing .

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**The chapter about sexual purity was a bit confusing to me as the author seemed to suggest that there isn't sufficient direction from Jesus on this topic .quoting the author “Perhaps the first thing to say is that there isn’t really very much in a way of what we should think of as sexual ethics in the New Testament “

For me This was rather misleading because when Jesus has said what he has said regarding marriage and sexual purity in (Mark 10:5-9)(Matthew 5:28)Mark 7(20-23) and that is not including the many statements of Paul on this topic .
This is not to use as a righteous weapon on human kind and beat everyone around with what the Bible states ,but more about the fact that the Bible does say what it says and we cant say that it didn’t say something when it does .

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Overall this was a great read , and great theology and brilliantly connected and delivered in exquisite language although I had to toil at times and squeeze my cognitive faculties to understand it , Iam very glad I read it .

[Mike Beranek · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sorry now I've heard the doctor in person a number of times and have been transfixed by his calm command of the spoken word and his eminent and fathomless spirituality, but..... A number of his books that claim on the cover to be of popular theology I find complete turkeys on attempting to read. The author heads out on a lengthy saga of philosophy and reflexion on works like the Rule of Saint Benedict -- which I would rather recommended one reads straight up in a modern English translation -- thoroughly readable, and brief! This dry journey takes various tacks until one forgets where one was heading. There are good engaging publications by the great man and polymath, but I suspect the best for mere commoners are those based on his excellent sermons. At least this is a highly intellectual approach to the topic of holiness and the heart of it was lost on me and I struggle for some reason not to feel guilty and inferior for not managing to follow it, but that's how it's delivered - 'now keep up at the back will you!'.

[Toby · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is, as with a few RW books, a miscellany of essays and talks packaged together - rather deceptively in this case - to suggest a coherent whole. As with similar such titles, the result is a curate's - or former archbishop's - egg. The best essay was that on Julian of Norwich. The three essays on Teresa of Avila were probably good if you approached them with a good grounding in the theology and practice of St Teresa, which unfortunately I did not. The last essay on self-knowledge and the contemporary trend to refer to true/false selfs promised much but disappeared down a rabbit hole of philosophy (it was written for a philosophy journal). One of the real benefits of reading RW is his references to other books and scholars, and his footnotes can easily send the reader off elsewhere. I will probably end up buying Geoffrey Hill's Collected Critical Writings. Whether I will read or understand them is another question. He is, after all, supposedly as difficult to follow as Rowan Williams himself.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the first half of Holy Living especially strong, although I was a bit lost toward the end. Rowan Williams always offers a depth that lingers.

One line from Chapter 7 stayed with me:
“I discover how to see other persons and things for what they are in relation to God, not to me. And it is here that true justice as well as true love has its roots.”

Rowan’s wisdom is profound, and I’m grateful he continues to share it through his writing!

[Igor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whoever wrote in reviews that this book is hard, or difficult to understand, should simply read it again.