COMPLEMENTARIAN SPIRITUALITY:
Reformed women and union with Christ
By Natalie Brand
WIPF & Stock. 207 pages. £15.00
ISBN 978 1 625 640 000
It is sadly true that when many Christians think of spirituality, they think of mysticism, an ineffable experience divorced from theological knowledge of what God has done in salvation.
Also, as Natalie Brand points out, in writings on spirituality there is often a theologi-cally deficient notion of a (vaguely specified) union with God, rather than what the Bible teaches of union with Christ. Both of these concerns are addressed as Brand presents the theological underpinning for her main concern, a complementarian spirituality – an exploration of the doctrine of union with Christ, and a ‘particularly feminine articulation of its significance and elegance for a contemporary Reformed spirituality, in both corporate and personal spiritual formation’ (p.2). This is not just a study in Reformed spirituality, of which there is a general shortage in contemporary theology. It is also a study in Reformed spirituality with a particular focus on spirituality for Reformed women, from a complementarian viewpoint, of which there is virtually nothing in contemporary literature. This is a very welcome piece of work.
