Book Review - Sheri D. Kling, "A Process Spirituality" - Breathing In New Moments of Transformity

In a word, we must share cultures of belonging. There's no mystery here. We all know this. Process Spirituality is simply a way to say,

"Hey, let's learn to get along, respect each other, try to love one another, and let societal transformation become a worldwide contagion."

Put God in the middle of all this and you have the fuller story. Again, no mystery here, but there is every reason to pursue this dream till it becomes a real and constant model for behavioral change.

R.E. Slater

July 31, 2020

*I'm sure this would be a helpful book to read but at $95 the masses will never see it. If process Christianity has anything to offer it needs to be affordable and available to everyone. Otherwise we're left to figure it out on our own. - re slater

SHERI D. KLING

B.A. PURDUE UNIVERSITY, M.A.T.S. LUTHERAN SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY, PH.D., M.A.R. CLAREMONT SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY

https://theology.sewanee.edu/

https://theology.sewanee.edu/faculty-staff/kling-bio/

Sheri D. Kling studied theology with an emphasis in religion and science at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC) and then followed her passion for connecting theology and spirituality with psychology to the Claremont School of Theology (CST) in Claremont, California. Seeing deep resonances between the process thought of Alfred North Whitehead and the analytical psychology of Carl Gustav Jung, especially in terms of creativity and transformative spirituality, she integrated the work of these two thinkers in her doctoral program.

As a public scholar-theologian, Kling works in the interdisciplinary space where worldviews, beliefs, and practices can create either dis-ease and suffering or psycho-spiritual wholeness and common flourishing. Drawing from process philosophy/theology, Jungian psychology, and mystical spirituality, Sheri focuses on communicating theological ideas and practices that positively impact humans’ relationships with God, self, and world, especially the use of dream work as a spiritual practice for divine encounter, personal integration, and widening our relationship to creation.

In the fall of 2017, Kling traveled to Prague to speak at the International Transpersonal Conference and on the way there, delivered three lectures at Palacky University in Olomouc, Czech Republic where she had been invited to be a collaborating lecturer for their program in social and spiritual determinants of health. Also that year, she participated in a webinar on Real Spirituality for the Church organized by Process and Faith, a part of the Center for Process Studies that brings resources on process theology to congregations.

Prior to entering graduate theological studies at LSTC, Kling had a successful career in marketing and communication in the enterprise software industry in the Atlanta area followed by a deeply creative period in the arts as a performing singer, songwriter, and recording artist. While enrolled in doctoral studies at CST, she served as project manager for strategic planning at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California. It was this extensive background that led her to Sewanee and her first position as associate registrar for curriculum, publications, and communication. She considers her current position in the School of Theology to be the culmination of her work experience, theological education, and passion for spiritual transformation.

Books

• “Avoiding a Fatal Error: Extending Whitehead’s Symbolism beyond Language,” in Rethinking Whitehead's Symbolism: Thought, Language, and Culture, Edinburgh University Press, September 2017
• “An Aesthetic Revolution of Love,” in For Our Common Home: Process-Relational Responses to Laudato Si', Process Century Press, August 25, 2015
• “Bifurcation: Divorce or Divergence?” Response to Jeffery D. Long (“Non-Duality, the Bifurcation of Nature, and the Question of Maya: the Integration of Jain, Vedantic, and Process Approaches to Deep Ecology”) and Donald A. Crosby (“In Imago Naturae: the Ultimacy of Nature as a Closing of the Gaps”), in Beyond the Bifurcation of Nature, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, November 2014
• Finding Home: Rural Reflections on the Journey to Wholeness

Other Publications and Papers

• “The God of their Dreams: A Qualitative Inquiry into the Lived Experience of Christian Dream Workers and the Mystical Nature of their Experience” Presented in the Mysticism Group for the American Academy of Religion/Society for Biblical Literature conference in November of 2014. 
•  “Wisdom Became Flesh: An Analysis of the Prologue to the Gospel of John” Currents in Theology and Mission, Vol. 40, No. 3, June 2013
•  Review of “The Holy Spirit, Chi, and the Other: A Model of Global and Intercultural Pneumatology, by Grace Ji-Sun Kim” Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue, Issue 10, September 2012
• “Darwin, Hubble, and God: Theologies of ‘The Fall’ in Light of Modern Science” Claremont Journal of Religion, Issue 2, July 2012

Music

Let It Unfold, 2002

Heartland, 2005 

Passions & Prodigals, 2005

Amazon Link

A Process Spirituality:

Christian and Transreligious Resources

for Transformation Hardcover

by Sheri D. Kling

American culture is in a state of critical fragmentation. The author argues that we will solve neither the ecological crisis nor our social estrangement from each until we transform our perception of life as embodied and interconnected, and rediscover what is sacred through transformative lived experiences of wholeness.

Using an embodied theological framework supported by comparative, hermeneutical, and constructive methodologies, A Process Spirituality synthesizes theoretical, empirical, and practical resources to construct a hopeful and holistic understanding of God, the world, and the self. 

Interweaving Alfred North Whitehead’s vision of a relational cosmos with Carl Gustav Jung’s integrated, relational psyche, and a powerful spiritual praxis of dream work creates a generative matrix through which to perceive a God-world reality characterized by value, relationality, and transformation in which individuals matter, belong, and can experience positive change.

Such a Christian and transreligious vision of hope offers individuals the possibility and capacity to move from a state of fragmentation to one of psycho-spiritual wholeness and flourishing.

About the Author

Sheri D. Kling is associate dean and executive director of the Beecken Center of the School of Theology at the University of the South, a faculty member of the Haden Institute, and a visiting lecturer with Palacky University in Social and Spiritual Determinants of Health.

Review

In this bold book, Sheri Kling offers an integrative vision for a better future. Incorporating psychology, philosophy, religion, and more, Kling weaves together a proposal to overcome division and confusion. This book is for those who want to united deep thinking and open living for real transformation!

-- Thomas Jay Oord, author of The Uncontrolling Love of God

Christianity is at a crossroads. Perhaps this is fitting for a religion whose central symbol is the cross. In the United States, more people than ever before report being religiously unaffiliated, especially young people. At the same time, more people are identifying as "spiritual but not religious." Sheri Kling's A Process Spirituality is indeed a resource for effecting the much needed transformation of the Christian religion so that it might better address the pluralistic spiritual needs of our age. With help from Whitehead, Jung, and feminist theology, Kling brilliantly diagnoses the cosmological and psychological underpinnings of the modern world view, clearing the way for a renewed appreciation of the embodied and imaginative dimensions of human spirituality.This is not just another theoretical framework, however; Kling also shares well-developed practical methods for the cultivation of dreams and healing encounters with the divine that, God willing, will help revitalize Christian spiritual life by welcoming the followers of Jesus into the more relational, inclusive, and human mode of existence that, it is safe to say, he originally intended.

-- Matthew T. Segall, California Institute of Integral Studies

This is an exquisite text joining mind, body, and spirit. Within its pages, we find wisdom to guide our personal lives as well as our lives as planetary citizens. Twenty-first century wholeness and healing must embrace conscious and unconscious, analytic thinking and dream work, and tradition and novelty. Sheri Kling provides an integrative path toward the healing we seek for ourselves and our communities. In a time in which theologians, psychologists, and philosophers often think small, Kling provides a large vision of the human adventure, capable of inspiring us to take responsibility for our own healing as well as the healing of our communities.

-- Bruce Epperly, author of Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed and Become Fire: Guideposts for Interspiritual Pilgrims

Reading through the pages of Kling's inspiring book, I found myself digging into this remarkable treasure chest that she has opened, with valuable insights from Whitehead and Jung, dreams and religious tradition, all working together to produce something truly wonderful. Here is a work well worth reading, and then reading again!

-- C. K. Robertson, Canon to the Presiding Bishop for Ministry Beyond the Episcopal Church

Kling's "process spirituality" is based on Alfred North Whitehead's cosmology and Carl Jung's psychology. Jung's psychology, she holds, "is to the human psyche as Whitehead's metaphysics is to the cosmos." Her aim is to construct a spirituality that is robust, liberative, and transformative, helping us overcome modern fragmentation and that will produce more joy, more love, more compassion, and more wholeness for those who embrace it." Central to her program is the use of Whitehead and Jung in the service of dream work. Whereas she considers her project deeply Christian, she also calls it transreligious, because it is based on the "capacity for spirituality in every individual." Kling's Process Spirituality should become a path-breaking book.

-- David Ray Griffin, author of The Christian Gospel for Americans

This is a book with an important message for our time, written with great compassion and insight into the contemporary religious situation. We need religion, says Sheri Kling, but the old symbols and ideas of religion no longer work. Contemporary people need to be shown how to connect with them in new ways. To this end, she suggests we construct an experiential bridge to religion. Kling uses the religious philosophy of A.N. Whitehead and the spiritual psychology of C.G. Jung as our guides. She argues that Whitehead and Jung can be compellingly combined to achieve the task of religious renewal that neither system can achieve in isolation. The way forward, she indicates, is to connect the metaphysical with the ground of human experience. A Process Spirituality is as convincing as it is refreshing. 

-- David Tacey, La Trobe University; author of The Postsecular Sacred

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

​

Sheri D. Kling 

https://www.openhorizons.org/sheri-d-kling-whitehead-jung-and-psycho-spiritual-wholeness.html

Whitehead, Jung, and Psycho-Spiritual Wholeness

After having successfully defended my dissertation on Whitehead, Jung, and dream work as a spiritual practice for transformation at the Claremont School of Theology, I submitted two topics to the International Transpersonal Conference scheduled for September of 2017 in Prague. Its theme, “Beyond Materialism – Toward Wholeness,” fit well with my own research looking at the fragmentation in the U.S. caused I believe, at least in part, by the dualistic, mechanistic, and materialistic worldview within which we are living.

I believe strongly that the metaphysical cosmology of Alfred North Whitehead and the analytical psychology of Carl Gustav Jung are life-giving resources that can serve our psycho-spiritual wholeness well at this time in our history. This is even truer when combined with an authentic spiritual practice, such as dream work, that leads us to what I call embodied experiences of wholeness. The reason such embodied experiences are necessary is because simply assenting to any one of the many preferable worldviews available to us now, whether process philosophy/theology, panentheism, indigenous worldviews, ecofeminism, or similar relational cognitive frameworks is inadequate because we cannot think our way into a new way of being. We are facing a climate catastrophe that can end mammalian life as we know it on this planet. We are fragmented societally, interpersonally, and intrapersonally, and better ideas aren’t enough to get us to the transformation we need to live and relate to each other differently.

In Prague, I delivered a presentation entitled “'The Terrible Need for Metaphysics’: Answering Hillman’s Challenge through Whitehead”, along with a workshop discussing the relational-imaginal theory of dreaming I’ve developed.

Upon my return from Prague, Rosemarie Anderson, one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology and a fan of Whitehead invited me to submit an article for an upcoming issue of The Humanistic Psychologist focusing on transpersonal psychology. In that paper, “Whitehead’s Metaphysics as a Cosmological Framework for Transpersonal Psychology”, I make the case that Whitehead’s thinking can offer a solid framework for transpersonal psychology “because of his:

1. integration of subjective, objective, and transpersonal experience within one integrated cosmos,
2. argument that existence is made up of dynamic events that are both mental and physical,
3. unification of body and mind,
4. refusal to bifurcate subject and object within a relational reality,
5. validation of nonsensory perception as the basis for internal relations, and
6. description of a participatory cosmos of creativity and freedom where novelty, value, purpose, and transformation

are universally available realities.”

But what does all of this mean for those of us who are just trying to increase the amount of wholeness and flourishing, or what Whitehead called “zest” or “intensity of experience,” in our own lives and in the lives of others?

For many years, archetypal psychologist James Hillman had a deep aversion to metaphysics because he was focused on the human psyche alone. But when he heard physicist David Bohm admit “frankly and sadly” that “physics had released the world into its perishing” through the nuclear bomb, Hillman suddenly “saw the terrible need for metaphysics.” In a chapter of the book Archetypal Process: Self and Divine in Whitehead, Jung, and Hillman, Hillman wrote,

The internal needs of the soul require that its psychology meet the soul's concerns about the nature of the cosmos in which it finds itself…Soul seeks to understand itself beyond itself; it attempts, in a strangely persistent and universal way, always to fantasy beyond; otherwise, would we have the many sciences and philosophies, the theories of origins and ends? This paranoid restlessness of the soul to be metaphysically satisfied by ultimates of meaning must be acknowledged as one of its internal needs.

It is an internal need of the psyche/soul to understand itself in relation to the cosmos in which we live. When we engage Whitehead at the level of cosmos, engage Jung at the level of psyche, and embrace spiritual practices that foster embodied experiences of wholeness, we learn in our own deep experience that we are part of a primordial, transpersonal Reality that shows us that we matter, that we belong, and that we can experience positive change.

Speaking at the recent Haden Institute Summer Dream & Spirituality Conference in Hendersonville, NC, I wove together ideas from Whitehead, Jung, and also Fr. Richard Rohr (whose recent book The Universal Christ has been getting a lot of well-deserved traction) to talk about “The Whole-Making Nearness of God.” How can such ideas offer us hope in troubled times?

From a Whiteheadian perspective, we can understand God to be both near to us and actively involved in our wholeness because for each one of us, God is present to us, internal to us, in every moment of our existence, and offers us the creative possibilities that can move us out of our painful pasts into transformed futures. I believe that dream work is one practice we can use to discern those possibilities.

This is true no matter our place of birth, no matter our current or past circumstances, no matter if we believe a certain doctrine or not, no matter our gender, no matter the color of our skin or the content of our bank accounts. It is true for every one of us because this is how the world itself is continuously created. And the possibilities offered by God are always relevant for that moment. God offers us God’s self and God’s vision for our best outcome in every moment. God and God’s possibilities for our wholeness are as near to us as our next breath.

From a Jungian perspective, the “Unspeakable” primordial mystery at the base of all life is encounterable through the god-image in the psyche he called the Archetypal Self. And that Self works toward our wholeness as it draws us on a path of individuation in which we are given opportunities to integrate shadow material and novel possibilities by holding the tension between the opposing forces within us until our transcendent function kicks in, offering us something creatively transforming. This can often be experienced as a flow of grace.

We matter. We belong. And we can experience positive change because the Big Reality that we encounter at the base of our lives is seeking our wholeness and is encounterable within us. 

Kling singing at Haden Conference: @ Robert Haden

Sheri Kling “The Whole-Making Nearness of God”

Sheri's Music Blog/Vlog -
https://www.sherikling.com/works/music/

Abstract

Whitehead’s Metaphysics as a Cosmological Framework

for Transpersonal Psychology

Sheri D. Kling, University of the South

https://www.openhorizons.org/sheri-d-kling-whitehead-jung-and-psycho-spiritual-wholeness.html

​

"While it is tempting to eschew metaphysics in our postmodern and poststructuralist milieu, one of the reasons given for the founding of transpersonal psychology was a dissatisfaction with existing “person-centered” psychologies that “ignored placing human beings within a cosmic perspective” (Hartelius, Friedman, & Pappas, 2015, p. 44). Even more significantly, Grof (2015) sharply critiques those scientific approaches that take “leading paradigms for an accurate and definitive description of reality” and whose materialistic explanations of reality cannot account for recent observations in consciousness research.

This paper argues that the philosophy of organism of Alfred North Whitehead provides an effective metaphysical framework for transpersonal psychology because of his integration of subjective, objective, and transpersonal experience within one integrated cosmos, his argument that existence is made up of dynamic events that are both mental and physical, his unification of body and mind, his refusal to bifurcate subject and object within a relational reality, his validation of nonsensory perception as the basis for internal relations, and his description of a participatory cosmos of creativity and freedom where novelty, value, purpose, and transformation are universally available realities."

​God's Nearness and God's Wholemaking:
Springboards for Reflection 

Sheri Kling

https://www.openhorizons.org/sheri-d-kling-whitehead-jung-and-psycho-spiritual-wholeness.html

Madeline L'Engel & Thomas Oord - Being Light in the Darkness

"A Wrinkle in Time" author Madeline L'Engel's postmodern day counterpart is theologian Thomas Jay Oord who similarly deals with the issues of light and darkness - of how a loving and sovereign God acts in a world filled with sin and evil. In essence, God’s love makes a real and direct difference in the world and that without it there would be no hope. Evil would fill the entirety of its condition where no goodness or love could be found.

Yet God's love makes a real difference against evil when men and women submit to His divine love providing outcomes to creation which could not exist without creaturely obedience in response to the divine call, revelation, and examples set forth in Scripture (Jesus, for one) by God's positive, direct actions to love.

God's love is a love which partners with His creation without coercion, controlling, or determining obedience. Like a marriage partnership, He works within the limits we allow Him who fills His children with love and goodness when tempted at all times to give up, to allow sin and evil full reign. Little Meg in L'Engel's story fought against this same urge to discover she had the power to say no to evil when allowing the love and light of God's presence to guide her actions.

Some Christian groups call this incarnating moments of Jesus when God's presence in our faith in Him become pregnant with empowerment by His Holy Spirit. Other Christians, using less direct Christian descriptions, sense only the power and presence of a loving God asking us to say yes to Him that He might bring hope and healing not only to ourselves but to those around us in fundamental acts of Christlike actions.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

March 13, 2018

Reference Links:

• A Wrinkle in Time
• Uncontrolling Love Essays
• Uncontrolling Love

 

What Does God’s Love Do?

http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/what-does-gods-love-do#undefined.gbpl

by Thomas Jay Oord

March 7, 2018

If God’s love is uncontrolling, what does it actually do? Is God uninvolved in our lives? Or is God more like an object that inspires without directly affecting us?

In a recent International Journal of Systematic Theology article, Kevin Vanhoozer offered a dialogue between John Webster’s views of love and my own. Kevin wonders if my view of God’s uncontrolling love means God is ineffective in bring real change.

In this essay, I explain that God’s uncontrolling love makes a real and direct difference in the world.

What Divine Love Does

Vanhoozer wonders what God’s love actually does. “If it is real,” he says, “it should make a difference.” I agree.

My theology emphasizes that God’s love makes an actual difference in creation. God acts in many ways to promote wellbeing. God is the necessary cause in the existence of everything, moment by moment. But I do not think God’s action controls others.

I often refer to Aristotelean notions of causation when explaining my view. I think God expresses love as efficient, final, or formal causes, for instance. But God never acts as a sufficient cause. That would involve divine control. God always loves, and divine love is uncontrolling.

God’s love is more than an example that we might find inspiring. It is also directly affecting us moment by moment, empowering us to choose.

An Uncontrolling God Acts

Vanhoozer’s comments remind me of a worry the philosopher Arthur Holmes once raised. Holmes argued against theologies that say God lovingly persuades but never coerces. To him, the God who persuades “cannot act.”[1]

Holmes seems not to see the important distinction between 1) acting that affects outcomes and 2) acting that unilaterally determines. The vast majority of, if not all, actions we witness in the world affect others without controlling them.

In my view, God’s always acts, and divine love is action that makes a difference. Creatures or creation more generally cannot prevent God from acting. The outcomes God desires for creation, however, require creaturely response. Because God’s actions are always loving, God never singlehandedly determines others to generate outcomes.

The Marriage Proposal

I acted when asking my fiancé’ to marry me. Her favorable response, however, was required for the outcome I desired.

If I had tried to force, control, or unilaterally determine her, few would call such coercion loving. If she responds positively to me, however, we can say my action made a difference in generating the outcome I wanted: marriage. I think divine love is analogous.

Of course, I’m happy to say that my marriage proposal was accepted, and Cheryl and I have been married for almost 30 years. And my goal for our marriage to be excellent still requires her response. One person cannot guarantee a happy marriage!

God’s Love is Effective

Vanhoozer introduces a word in his essay that I do not think describes my view of God’s action well. That word is “non-effectual.” When summarizing my theology, he says I believe “God thus loves creatures not by strongly causing (i.e., determining) good things, but rather by constantly issuing non-effectual calls, thus weakly causing good things (when they happen).”

The word “non-effectual,” as Vanhoozer uses it, might sound as though he thinks my view entails that God’s actions do not produce any effect. He apparently means by “non-effectual” that I am claiming God’s actions do not necessarily produce God’s desired effect.[2]

To describe my view better, Vanhoozer might rephrase his sentence. The revised sentence might say “God loves creatures not by controlling events and thereby unilaterally causing good things but rather by constantly calling and empowering creatures, thereby symbiotically causing good things (as creation cooperates).”

This alternative statement rightly emphasizes my view that God’s actions are causal but not controlling. God’s actions in the world require creaturely cooperation to produce the results God wants. God’s actions prompt creatures to act in ways to produce some desired effect, but they do not necessarily produce such an effect.

Is Strong Divine Action “Determining?”

In summarizing my view, Vanhoozer says “strong” divine action is “determining.” This implies that weak divine action involves lack of control, in the sense of not producing the desired effect necessarily.

It seems that Vanhoozer believes controlling others to produce desired outcomes is the “stronger” form of power. I once believed this. But as I have argued in various publications, I now believe God’s almighty power is uncontrolling love.[3] And as I argued in previous blogs, this uncontrolling love can do miracles.

I believe the strongest form of power is cooperative rather than controlling. And many essayists in the new book, Uncontrolling Love, seem to agree.

God Acts as an Omnipresent Spirit

Let me conclude with brief words about God’s being. Like most theologians, I think that God is incorporeal. God is spirit (Jn. 4:24). I deny that God has a localized, physical, divine body with which God exerts an impact.

The biblical notions of God as ruach and pneuma are important for understanding why God fails to prevent genuine evil. While in some instances we use our bodies to prevent evil, God as spirit has no localized divine body to use in this way.

As spirit, God exerts efficient causation of the sort we think metaphysically analogous to other causal occurrences in the world. But efficient causation does not mean sufficient causation. Affecting others doesn’t mean controlling them.

One view of the human mind-body relationship helps as an analogy. Just as our minds exert efficient causal influence upon our bodies without entirely determining them, so God as spirit exerts causal influence upon creatures without entirely determining them. God acts causally without controlling others.[4]

Conclusion

God always acts, and we creatures cannot control God. God’s love is uncontrollable.

But God’s actions never control creatures. “Love does not force its own way,” to quote the Apostle Paul. Or to put it my language, God’s love always influences but is also always uncontrolling.

We cannot control God: God’s love is uncontrollable! But God can’t control us: God’s love is…

TJO

Notes

[1] Arthur F. Holmes, “Why God Cannot Act,” in Process Theology, ed. Ronald Nash (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1987).

[2] I am grateful to Kevin Vanhoozer for responding to a first draft of this essay and clarifying what he means by “effectual.” I tried to incorporate his thoughts here.

[3] See my books, Defining Love: A Philosophical, Scientific, and Theological Engagement (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos, 2010); The Nature of Love: A Theology; and The Uncontrolling Love of God.

[4] For more on God acting as a spirit, see my essay, “The Divine Spirit as Causal and Personal,” in Zygon 48, no. 2 (2013): 466-77.

* * * * * * * * * *

Against a personal struggle to make sense of evil L'Engle found a way to communicate her Christian faith to a world struggling with the same: “If I’ve ever written a book that says what I feel about God and the universe, this is it,” L’Engle wrote in her journal about “A Wrinkle in Time.” “This is my Psalm of praise to life, my stand for life against death.”

R.E. Slater

March 13, 2018

“A Wrinkle in Time” author Madeleine L’Engle. (Crosswicks) 

Publishers rejected her, Christians attacked her: The deep faith of ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ author Madeleine L’Engle

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/03/08/publishers-rejected-her-christians-attacked-her-the-deep-faith-of-a-wrinkle-in-time-author-madeleine-lengle/?utm_term=.88714a8525aa

by Sarah Pulliam Bailey

March 8, 2018

It took 26 publisher rejections before Madeleine L’Engle could get “A Wrinkle in Time” into print in 1962. The book was an instant hit, winning the Newbery Medal the following year, but despite its wild success, L’Engle still had fierce critics — including a good number of them who disliked her book for faith reasons.

While L’Engle considered herself a devout Christian, and sprinkled the book with scriptural references, she was accused by some conservative Christians of promoting witchcraft and the occult — an accusation made later against “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling.

The religious wariness likely also contributed to some publishers’ rejection of the book, but it didn’t stop “A Wrinkle in Time” from being popular for more than 50 years after it was finally saw the light.

A Disney film adaptation of “A Wrinkle in Time,” which opens Thursday, stars Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Chris Pine and Zach Galifianakis, and is directed by Ava DuVernay of “Selma.” In the story, 13-year-old Meg Murry, played in the film by Storm Reid, is guided by three angelic beings on a quest to find her father, a scientist who had gone missing.

“If I’ve ever written a book that says what I feel about God and the universe, this is it,” L’Engle wrote in her journal about “A Wrinkle in Time.” “This is my psalm of praise to life, my stand for life against death.”

Ava DuVernay's adaptation of the classic book has an all-star cast, including

Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling.(Walt Disney Pictures)

[ Sorry, grownups. ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ is a kids’ film — for better and for worse. ]

Before she died in 2007 at age 88, L’Engle was the rare writer who ran in both liberal mainline Protestant circles and elite literary ones in New York City, and who also had made conservative evangelical fans around the country. L’Engle was part of an exclusive society of authors, including Eugene Peterson, Richard Foster and Philip Yancey, who remain popular among evangelical readers.

“Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys,” L’Engle wrote in her book “Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art.”

L’Engle is sometimes compared with 20th-century British author C.S. Lewis, who wrote popular children’s literature, as well as books defending and explaining the Christian faith. L’Engle graduated from Smith College, and a collection of her papers is held at Wheaton College, the evangelical school in the Chicago suburbs that also holds some of Lewis’s papers.

She wrote that publishers had trouble with “A Wrinkle in Time” “because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children’s or an adult’s book, anyhow?”

“A Wrinkle in Time,” by Madeleine L’Engle. (Square Fish) 

A woman named Claris Van Kuiken, who was a member of the Christian Reformed Church, wrote a 1996 book titled “Battle to Destroy Truth,” tying L’Engle’s work to New Age spirituality. She argued that L’Engle’s works “preserved the ‘ancient wisdom’ or ‘secret doctrine’ condemned by God Himself.”

L’Engle was baffled and frustrated by some of the vitriol she faced from fellow Christians, her granddaughter Charlotte Jones Voiklis said Wednesday. Although she once considered herself an atheist, after L’Engle became a Christian, she had a daily practice of reading the Bible and praying. Her granddaughter said L’Engle’s coming to her faith was slower “acceptance of what she had always known to be true,” rather than a sudden conversion moment.

“She was a Christian because she was deeply rooted in its traditions and language, and she was moved by and trusted in its stories,” Voiklis said.

Although L’Engle did not like denominational labels, she mostly attended Episcopal churches, serving for about four decades as a librarian and writer-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, an Episcopal church and one of the largest cathedrals in the world.

“The themes that are important in Christianity permeate her writing: good and bad, light and darkness,” said the Rev. Patrick Malloy, subdean of the cathedral. “She was open to questions and to looking at new ways to say old things.”

In the 1990s, L’Engle began attending Sunday services at All Angels Church, an Episcopal church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side known for attracting artists. She wanted the smaller community of All Angels but still attended noon prayer and evensong services at St. John the Divine, Voiklis said.

St. John the Divine Cathedral. (Sarah Pulliam Bailey) 

Voiklis, who co-authored “Becoming Madeleine,”said her grandmother’s faith informed everything she wrote, including numerous books, plays and poems.

“She preferred scientific metaphors, and scientists to theologians, because she understood that science is more open to revelation than religion,” Voiklis said. “Religion divides us into teams.”

L’Engle wrote that “A Wrinkle in Time” was her rebuttal to German theologians, who she complained were too rigid in their answers to cosmic questions. “It was also my affirmation of a universe in which I could take note of all the evil and unfairness and horror and yet believe in a loving Creator,” she wrote in “Walking on Water.”

But some conservative Christians took offense to elements of “A Wrinkle in Time,” including what they saw as relativism. The book lists Jesus alongside the names of famous artists, philosophers, scientists and Buddha.

The idea of conformity is one of the major themes in the novel, which was published during an era when Communism thrived. Conservative Christians were not only confused by the book, said Don Hettinga, an English professor at Calvin College, but they also proved its point by forcing conformity to a certain way of thinking.

“A Wrinkle in Time” author Madeleine L’Engle. (Crosswicks) 

L’Engle was not afraid to push buttons, said Luci Shaw, a poet, co-author, editor and a friend of L’Engle’s for more than three decades. She said L’Engle was a universalist, believing that all humankind will be invited into heaven, and she loved gay people at a time when many Christians were suspicious of them.

“Many conservative churches draw a circle, and certain people can’t enter the circle because they haven’t been baptized or committed themselves to Christ,” Shaw said. “Jesus drew a circle that was much bigger, and it included everybody. She had a broad sense that we’re all in this together, that God’s love is the power that runs the world.”

In some ways, L’Engle could be compared with Marilynne Robinson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Gilead”; a member of the liberal-leaning United Church of Christ, Robinson still finds fans among conservative evangelicals. But L’Engle was likely more controversial because she was writing for children, said Sarah Arthur, author of a forthcoming biography of L’Engle titled “A Light So Lovely.”

“If Madeleine had backed off from theology, it would’ve been safer,” Arthur said. Her literary friends often didn’t understand why she had to write so much about faith, Arthur said, while she received criticism from some conservative Christians. Yet she straddled both the Christian publishing world and a nonreligious publishing world in ways most authors cannot.

Hollywood has sometimes struggled with films that have spiritual or religious undertones. The film “Noah” received backlash for its loose interpretation of biblical narratives. “Exodus: Gods and Kings,” about Moses, was criticized for whitewashing the characters. And some filmmakers don’t include religion at all: Angelina Jolie’s film “Unbroken,” an adaptation of Laura Hillenbrand’s book on Olympian Louis Zamperini, did not include his Christian conversion.

The film adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s classic sci-fi fantasy novel “A Wrinkle in
Time” had its trailer debuted at the D23 Disney convention in Anaheim. (Reuters)

Early reviews of “A Wrinkle in Time” are mixed, drawing a 44 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And a film starring Oprah, who is also controversial among some conservative Christians, might not attract the same kind of crowd that soaked up films such as “The Passion of the Christ,” “The Blind Side” and Disney’s adaptation of Lewis’s “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”

Arthur fears that the film could turn L’Engle’s work into a “ ‘power of positive thinking’ approach to spirituality.”

“There are a lot of people who believe the strength that you need to fight the darkness is in you,” Arthur said. “But it’s because they were connected to the source of light who is Jesus. If it’s unmoored from Madeleine’s Christian faith, it’s missing a big piece of the spiritual thrust of what she was doing.”

The film, which preserves “a more vague spirituality,” makes no effort to appeal to the moviegoing audience that typically flocks to Christian movies, writes Alissa Wilkinson, a film critic at Vox and an English professor at King’s College in New York City. Instead of including particulars about many religions, Wilkinson writes, the film smooths “them all out into a vague swirl of ‘love.’ ”

Would L’Engle have liked Hollywood’s adaptation? Her granddaughter, who saw an early version, said it gave her the “same feelings of inspiration and optimism” as the book.

Hettinga, who had not seen the film, believes L’Engle would have loved the reinterpretation that made the main character, Meg Murry, a black girl from an interracial marriage. For its time, L’Engle’s book was groundbreaking by portraying Murry’s mother as a well-educated scientist with two doctoral degrees.

“I think she would like something that caught the spirit and wouldn’t try to be literal,” Hettinga said.

SPB

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Additional References to L'Engel's work

“The wound is the place where the light [must] enter you.” – Rumi, Persian

21 Memorable Quotes in "A Wrinkle in Time."

One of the many themes of the movie speaks to the idea of conformity. Says L'Engel's daughter: "...The story wasn't a simple allegory of communism; in a three-page passage that was cut before publication, the process of domination is said to be an outcome of dictatorship under totalitarian regimes, AND by an excessive desire of security under democratic countries." Now isn't that interesting? It wasnt until a year ago in 2017 that many can now see the truth of how fear brings about so much damage to a society. - re slater

Wikipedia, "A Wrinkle in Time"

I loved the mystery and wonder in the first third of the movie and had wished it persisted throughout the script though at some point one has to acknowledge that each of us deserves love and that this affirmation needs to be repeatedly expressed enough until it finds a home within our souls against all the words and lies which too often lingers in our ears holding its message back. - re slater

Rereading “A Wrinkle in Time,” After a Childhood Enthralled by Madeleine L’Engle