This course will cover the history of Christian Spirituality in the British Isles prior to the Protestant Reformation, including Celtic spirituality, Romano-British Christianity, Anglo-Saxon spirituality, and medieval English mysticism. Students will practice and reflect upon the spiritual disciplines described and prescribed in primary texts (The Cloud of Unknowing, Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection, Julian of Norwich’s Showings, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of English People, Aelred of Rievaulx’s Spiritual Friendship, Celtic prayers and more) in order to better understand the texts in light of their experiences and their experiences in light of the texts. Their reflections will focus on the following two questions: How does the text inform my experience of the spiritual practice? And how does my experience of the spiritual practice inform and deepen my reading of the text? In this class, which will include both lecture and discussion, students will gain a broad knowledge of the various theologies and spiritualties that formed and eventually produced the distinctive flavor of Anglicanism and its many offshoots.
Instructor: The Rev. Daniel London, PhD, serves as the rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA. He teaches courses on Christian Spirituality, World Religions and Anglican Ethics at CDSP, GTU, the School for Deacons, and the Center for Bible Study. He has published several articles and presented papers at academic conferences around the world. He is a certified Forest Therapy Guide and the author of The Cloud of Unknowing Distilled (Apocryphile Press) and Theodicy and Spirituality in the Fourth Gospel (Fortress Academic) He lives in the Transfiguration House in Eureka CA with his wife Dr. Ashley London Bacchi and their two Yorkies, Seabury and Gubbio.