Soul Friend by Kenneth Leech

Author:Kenneth Leech
Title: 'Sould Friend. Spiritual Direction in the Modern World'
Publisher: Darton, Longman and Todd, London, 1998.

He is an Anglican priest and community theologian. In this book he tackles what he calls the dangers of the ministry being, 'trivialised, professionalised and enclosed within an elitist and inward looking enclave.' According to George Carey, who writes the Foreword, 'It places spiritual development firmly within both the corporate and sacramenetal life of the Church.'
'Christians are not seeking a solitary walk with God, a private mystical trip, a flight of the alone to the Alone. They are involved in a corporate search for humanity, renewal, the Kingdom of God, the transfigured cosmos, the Body of Christ. It is within the context of the flock or the Body that all mystical theology is practiced, and there are very serious hazards and danger when the spiritual quest occurs outside that framework. That is not, of course, to deny the fact of spirituality outside the confines of the church. But the great teachers of the spiritual life in almost all traditions are one in warning of the dangers of the spiritual ego-trip, the search for enlightenment which ignores the common life, the human community, the demands of justice and peace. In the fourteenth century, Ruysbroeck had harsh words to say about such seekers. Whereas “the enlightened loving man flows out [1] to all men in charity in heaven and on earth…these men go their own way.”On the other hand, the spiritual masters stress that “Christian perfection is perfect justice, and perfect justice is perfect charity… If the perfecting of our spiritual life be nothing else than growth in justice and charity, then its essential law will be progress.’ [2]