This dissertation has argued that, while A. W. Tozer had a number of notable mystical tendencies, his spiritual insights are demonstrably within confessional
evangelical boundaries. He was able to draw from a sizeable list of authors who held beliefs that were, in many ways, quite different from his own while remaining true to his doctrinal convictions. To borrow one of his own metaphors, he was the “hungry bee [that] could get nectar out of any old flower and turn it into honey.”1 By getting nectar from Christian theological traditions that varied in significant ways from his own, Tozer blessed the evangelical world with treasures of inestimable value.
Why Turn to the Mystics?
In spite of the blessing Tozer was and continues to be, there is one question in particular that needs to be asked, especially in view of all the elements of mysticism Tozer rejected.2 Why did Tozer still turn to the mystics for inspiration rather than authors with whom he had more in common theologically? Undoubtedly, Tozer recognized these differences and saw himself as an evangelical. He declares,
Let it be understood by everyone that I am now and have always been an
evangelical. I accept the Bible as the very Word of God and believe with complete and restful confidence that it contains all things necessary to life and godliness. I embrace the tenets of the historical Christian faith without reservation and am conscious of no spiritual sympathy with liberalism in any of its manifestations.3
1A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine (Camp Hill, PA:
Wingspread, 2007), 38.
2These elements have been outlined in the previous chapter of this dissertation.
3A. W. Tozer, God Tells the Man Who Cares: God Speaks to Those Who Take Time to Listen, ed. Anita M. Bailey (Camp Hill, PA: Wingspread, 2007), 107, CD-ROM.
With this statement, Tozer places himself squarely within the evangelical Christian tradition. And yet, he is not afraid to habitually reach outside that tradition in order to draw upon authors from other traditions—usually mystical authors who were Roman Catholics. Why does he feel the need to do this? Were there not authors in his own theological tradition to whom he could have turned?
Superior Devotion to God
One reason Tozer habitually reached outside his own evangelical tradition to various mystical authors is that he believed those authors had a superior devotion to God.
To let Tozer speak for himself,
In my search for God, I quite naturally was led to the Christian mystics. As a young Christian, I had never heard of them nor saw any of their books in the bookstore. A retired missionary thoughtfully placed into my hands one of these old Christian books and I was immediately in love. I discovered that these great saints were uncontrollably in love with God. My love and appreciation for these writers sprang out of my own heart’s deep longing after and thirsting for God. These people knew God in a way that I did not, and I wanted to know that they knew about God and how they came to know it. Certainly, in my admiration for these writers, I by no means endorsed everything they did or taught. I early learned that a hungry bee could get nectar out of any old flower and turn it into honey. For me, it was their utter devotion to God along with the ability to share their spiritual insights and observations that I valued. They assisted me in my walk with God as no other writers even of my day have. And, after all, that is all that really matters. I cannot place too much emphasis on the contemplation of divine things, which will result in the God-conscious life. These old mystics did just that for me.4
In other words, these mystical authors have a quality of devotion to offer that, in Tozer’s opinion, no one else has. It does not appear as though Tozer was ignorant of the
contributions of other authors, including authors of his own theological tradition, but that he simply considered the contribution of mystical authors generally superior.
This is also apparent in the way Tozer speaks of specific mystics. He describes the way in which Frederick Faber was “one whose soul panted after God as the roe deer pants after the water brook” and how “God revealed Himself to his seeking heart and set
4A. W. Tozer, The Purpose of Man: Designed to Worship, ed. James L. Snyder (Ventura, CA:
Regal, 2009), 183–84.
the good man’s whole life afire with a burning adoration rivaling that of the seraphim before the throne.”5 According to Tozer, Faber’s “love for the Person of Christ was so intense that it threatened to consume him” and “burned within him as a sweet and holy madness and flowed from his lips like molten gold.”6 Even though Faber was a Catholic priest, it is evident that Tozer was quite overwhelmed by the man’s love for the Lord. It seems as though Faber blessed Tozer in a way that few—if any—from Tozer’s own tradition were able to do.
Tozer believed he lived in an era when there was a dearth of spiritual writers worth reading. The quality of devotion that existed in the past simply had no
contemporary parallel. Tozer laments,
How few, how pitifully few are the enraptured souls who languish for the love of Christ. The sweet “madness” that visited such men as Bernard and St. Francis and Richard Rolle and Jonathan Edwards and Samuel Rutherford is scarcely known today. The passionate adorations of Teresa and Madame Guyon are a thing of the past. Christianity has fallen into the hands of leaders who knew not Joseph. The very memory of better days is slowly passing from us and a new type of religious person is emerging. How is the gold tarnished and the silver become lead!7
Writers of the past are simply unsurpassed in their passion and “madness” for the Lord.
Of course, the fact that such figures as Edwards and Rutherford are on this list shows that Tozer appreciated their contributions and recognized there were some in theological traditions similar to his own from whom he could benefit spiritually. However, the majority are from other Christian traditions. In Tozer’s judgment, these men and women
“languish[ed] for the love of Christ” to a far greater degree than any of his contemporaries and also surpassed those of his own tradition from previous generations—with very few exceptions.
5Tozer, The Pursuit of God, 38.
6Ibid.
7A. W. Tozer, That Incredible Christian: How Heaven’s Children Live on Earth, ed. Anita M.
Bailey (Camp Hill, PA: Wingspread, 2007), 161, CD-ROM.
Superior Spiritual Experience
Tozer not only found mystical writers to have superior devotion to God but also found that they experienced God in a superior way. That is, they had a depth of intimacy in their relationship with the Lord that surpassed any others Tozer had encountered. He writes,
Some have chided me about my affection for some of these old mystic friends of mine. I have learned to live above that. For me, I only require that a person must know God other than by hearsay. The intimacy of their relationship with God is all that truly matters. If a writer has information to offer that he has obtained by
research, I will pass on him. Give me the writer who has the passion and fire of God in his soul, which flows onto the page.8
Tozer’s comment of knowing God “other than by hearsay” reflects his impatience with those who simply repeat tired old clichés and speak of things they have not themselves experienced. Neither was Tozer interested in those whose writings merely consisted of academic research. Rather, he desired to read people who truly knew God and had experienced a level of intimacy with God that was truly remarkable.
Tozer believed that evangelical Christians of his own day were suffering from a severe over-emphasis on sound doctrine and a corresponding under-emphasis on spiritual experience. He describes evangelical Christianity as only recently emerging from a kind of ice age in which evangelical authors made the grave mistake of only comparing themselves to each other rather than looking back at the way previous
generations of Christians experienced God. Unlike contemporary evangelicals who allow objective truth to eclipse subjective experience, these writers of the past were “superior lovers of God whose devotional works and inspired hymns linger like a holy fragrance long after they themselves have left this earthly scene.”9
Perhaps the way in which those in the mystical tradition are able to surpass those in the evangelical tradition in their spiritual experience has been articulated the
8Tozer, The Purpose of Man, 183–84.
9Tozer, The Root of the Righteous, 76.
most clearly by J. I. Packer in his book Knowing God. Packer discusses the all-important difference between simply knowing about God and actually knowing God. He observes,
“Yet the gaiety, goodness, and unfetteredness of spirit which are the marks of those who have known God are rare among us—rarer, perhaps, than they are in some other Christian circles where, by comparison, evangelical truth is less clearly and fully known. Here, too, it would seem that the last may prove to be first, and the first last. A little knowledge of God is worth more than a great deal of knowledge about him.”10 Tozer would agree.
Even though the mystics he quotes may have understood less evangelical truth, they did more with that small amount of truth than the vast majority of evangelical writers have been able to do with a large amount of truth.
More Conscious of Commonalities
Tozer saw that he had much in common with mystics of the past and paid more attention to these commonalities than he did to the differences. In one place, he asserts that evangelical theology is in accord with many of the actual beliefs of mystics, even though many of those mystics identified with a church tradition that would typically be regarded as quite different. Tozer writes that, in addition to checking his beliefs against Scripture itself, the evangelical “can check the tenets of his total creed against the life- giving, transforming beliefs of church fathers both East and West, reformers, mystics, missionaries, saints and evangelists, and they will check out one by one.”11 The fact that mystics are on this list of those who are aligned with the major points of the evangelical
“creed” demonstrates that Tozer saw a high degree of theological like-mindedness between evangelicals and mystics.
For example, while speaking of Julian of Norwich, Tozer observes that she
10J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 25–26. Italics in original.
11Tozer, The Set of the Sail, 93.