Some evangelicals believe the church of Acts went into hibernation until the Reformation. Anything written, sung, or prayed after around A. D. 200, but before 1517, is relegated to the recycle bin of “Catholic”.
This attitude commits several errors, and ends up cheating Christians out of a treasure-trove of devotional classics. For one, the Roman Catholic Church as we know it today developed during the Middle Ages, but it still contained several evangelical elements. Those evangelical elements coalesced around the radical or magisterial reformers in the late Middle Ages, while the opposing elements galvanised their hostility to the evangelical gospel at the Council of Trent. For that reason, it’s possible to find writers within the western church with evangelical leanings before the Reformation.
One of those writers is Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380–1471). He was a German-Dutch monk, priest, and spiritual writer, and a member of the Brethren of the Common Life. The monastic groups acted like quiet protest movements within Catholicism, calling for true piety, real humility, and separation from worldliness. A medieval Christianity that was falling in love with political power on the one hand, or navel-gazing into complex scholastic debates on the other, was failing to produce earthy, practical godliness.
The Imitation of Christ provides a tonic. Divided into four books, it calls on Christians to follow Christ’s example in humility, suffering, and sacrifice. Christians are exhorted to see the hollowness of worldly wealth and fame, and embrace whatever suffering God sends to humble our souls. For a modern Christianity obsessed with personal expressiveness and fulfilment, The Imitation can feel like some strong medicine,
Thomas’s view of the Mass obviously represents the errors of his days – only radicals like the followers John Wickliffe were bold or insightful enough to deny transsubstantiation. But even here, the chaff to be sifted out does not detract from the real grain that is present. Á Kempis’ writings have been read profitably by Christians across continents, centuries, and Christian communities. In other words, far from being a sectarian Catholic, Thomas à Kempis offers us classic, timeless, Christianity. I believe 21st-century Christians will read this devotional classic from the 14th century with great spiritual profit.
