The Work of the Holy Spirit in Christian Practices: A Constructive Proposal

Abstract

There continues to be strong interest in the arena of Christian formation, which isprimarily concerned with developing mature Christians in light of shifts in contemporaryviews on religion and its relationship to ethics. The field of Christian formation has manyfacets one of which is the field of Christian practices. Those who work in this field areprimarily concerned with relating Christian beliefs to the every day lives of Christians inthe interest of providing a stronger witness to the faith. Also, Christian practices are ameans to provide a response to other forms of identity formation provided by a hyperindividualistic consumer driven culture.This thesis is concerned with the question of how the work of the Holy Spirit isunderstood to function in Christian practices? In short, “Does Pentecost have anything todo with how Christians live their daily lives?” To answer these questions a briefinvestigation of present work in Christian practices will be provided to ascertain how thework of the Holy Spirit is present. Thereafter, an example of how the focus on the HolySpirit in the work of Christian practices may be enhanced indebted to Eugene Rogers’work on the Holy Spirit and James K. A. Smith’s work on the formation of Christiandesire will be proposed