There is currently a discussion going on about the supposed contrast, and transition, between the “gospel-centered” “third wave” of evangelicalism (associated with figures like John Piper and the late Timothy Keller) and the “spiritual formation” “fourth wave” of evangelicalism (associated with figures like John Mark Comer and the late Dallas Willard). I am suspicious of over-relying on this periodization, partly because like all periodizations it conceals as much as it reveals about its subject matter; from my acquaintance with Piper’s and Keller’s works, they are by no means soft on the need for spiritual transformation as not only a result of coming to know the gospel but as a means of more deeply apprehending the gospel itself, and from my acquaintance with Willard’s and Comer’s works they are by no means soft on articulating the substance of the gospel or the importance of recognizing it as a gift of pure grace. (Do not take anything I say below as a judgment for, against, or even particularly about any of these particular teachers.)

But if there is any use in this periodization for general heuristic value — as describing “normative moods” or “characteristic emphases” and not classifying individual teachers or intellectuals — my sympathies generally lie with the normative moods and characteristic emphases of the spiritual formation wave. This is for a very straightforward reason. We do not come to “know” anything at all without already holding and giving at least tacit commitment to it, and we do not acquire more than a tacit commitment to anything we “know” without purposely apprenticing ourselves to it — a kind of apprenticeship that entails our trust in the Master of our apprenticeship, which is to say a submission to His purposes in our learning and training and a corresponding abandonment (at least in principle) of our own purposes. (Lewis’s remarks about this in “The Weight of Glory” are unsurpassed for clarity, even if there are more philosophically sophisticated treatments available in print — hello, Polanyi!) In other words, the gospel has to be lived to be understood, just as it has to be understood to be lived.

The spiritual formation wave recognizes and receives this core phenomenological insight as its basic impulse. Squabbles about how precisely articulated certain doctrinal commitments of the spiritual formation movement and its leaders are (or are not) miss the basic point. Yes, faithfulness to the teaching of Holy Scripture is of utmost importance; but how will they know how to faithfully rearticulate what Holy Scripture says if they have not understood it, and how can they understand it without living it, and how can they live it without obediently imitating the One Who speaks its words in the first place? An accurate, if of course not maximally precise, summary of the Gospel really is “Jesus loves you and wants you to be like him.” Absent a real emphasis on spiritual formation as discipleship — as apprenticeship to Jesus — there is a real danger of “gospel-centrality” morphing into a Tillich-style “accept the fact that you are accepted!” gospel proclamation accompanied by what can only be experienced as disconnected legalism in the realm of, you know, actual lived behavior (the very thing that, after allegiance to Him, the Jesus who meets us in the New Testament makes it eminently clear He cares about).

Of course there are characteristic and formally similar dangers inherent to the spiritual formation movement — “it doesn’t matter what you believe, it’s all about how you live!” readily slips into an equally legalistic “if you don’t live this exact way / practice this specific discipline / have this precise emotional experience you are No True Christian.” (It was, of course, necessary for John Piper to write a book entitled When I Don’t Desire God.) I know of no paradigm that lacks such dangers. No approach to Christian faith is guaranteed proof against misunderstanding or hypocrisy. But the spiritual formation emphasis begins with the premise that, as St. Augustine taught, the human being is homo amans precisely before she is, and in order to be, homo cognens. It is not merely that faith seeks understanding; it is that understanding depends on faith.

Aim, truly aim, for spiritual formation into the image of Christ, and the whole knowledge of the gospel — which is Christ Himself — will be added unto you; even as indeed in this life you struggle to imitate Him and will never finally reach the fullness of His likeness (yet, perhaps, much more than you think!). Aim for the knowledge of Christ without expressly seeking the power that kindles that knowledge into love, and you may well find that you get Christ anyways — He is, after all, notoriously gracious like that; or you may, more tragically and horrifyingly, ultimately find that you have not gotten Him after all, and that His words to you and your ilk are not “Enter now into the joy of your Master” but “I never knew ye; depart from me.” Both waves may get you where you want to go; but I know which I would prefer to ride.