“Where is the gospel?” or so I found myself asking all throughout.1 In what is ostensibly an apologetic, Nouwen seems to shy away from any mention of what makes the Christian life at all distinctive and worthwhile: the redemptive power of Christ on the cross. One is taken and adopted as a child of God, through Christ’s work. One is blessed and broken, as Christ was blessed and broken. One is given for others, because Christ first gave himself. Here the Eucharist is used as a framing device yet entirely emptied of its meaning and power. For one is beloved in the Beloved. It’s no surprise, then, to find that his friends found the book uncompelling; how could it, without the gospel? What might have been a tender testament to the salvation that comes only from above becomes only impotent word-wrangling and hollow mysticism.
- Henri J. M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved (New York: Crossroad, 1992). q.v.