A Critical Reflection on Sarah Mullally’s Novena God With Us
«but test everything; hold fast what is good.»
1 Thessalonians 5:21
Fourth essay out of five on Sarah Mullally’s novena
The devotional document God With Us, written by Sarah Mullally for the Thy Kingdom Come initiative, represents very well one of the deepest tensions within contemporary Western Christianity. We are not dealing with a text openly hostile to historic Christianity. Nor are we dealing with a secularising manifesto or an explicit denial of the Gospel. On the contrary, we are faced with material that appears profoundly pastoral, filled with biblical language, human sensitivity, references to the Holy Spirit, calls to prayer and exhortations to Christian service.
And precisely for that reason it deserves serious attention.
For the most influential movements within contemporary Western Christianity do not usually destroy Christian language; rather, they preserve it while slowly displacing its content and centre of gravity. They retain the traditional words, yet reorganise them around new theological and cultural sensibilities.
That is the true challenge posed by this document.
The text possesses real strengths which ought honestly to be recognised. It would be unjust to evaluate it caricaturely or deny its positive elements. Sarah Mullally writes with evident pastoral concern. There is within her reflections a genuine sensitivity towards human suffering, fragility, loneliness and despair. Her experience as a nurse and her involvement with palliative care repeatedly appear as the emotional background of the material.
This gives the text a human closeness that many contemporary doctrinal writings have lost. There is no sense of coldness or academic distance. The reader feels accompanied rather than instructed. The document knows how to speak to the emotional exhaustion of modern people, especially within a cultural context marked by anxiety, isolation and spiritual weariness.
It must also be acknowledged that the text attempts to move believers towards concrete evangelistic concern. The emphasis on praying for «five people» who do not yet know Christ seeks to awaken spiritual responsibility and personal mission. At a time when many Western churches have abandoned even the language of evangelism, that is not insignificant.
Moreover, the document is literarily well constructed. It uses familiar biblical narratives, effective pastoral imagery and emotionally accessible applications. Its tone is warm, meditative and reflective. It does not attempt to impose itself aggressively. It spiritually persuades through empathy and contemplation.
And precisely there the problem begins.
What is most dangerous about this material is not what it explicitly denies, but what it silently displaces.
As the document progresses, the Gospel gradually begins to reduce itself to presence, accompaniment, listening, service, care and relational experience. Christ appears primarily as a model of closeness and humility, rather than as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The Holy Spirit appears more as a consoling presence and force of emotional mobilisation than as the one who convicts the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgement.
It is significant that throughout the document the Holy Spirit appears primarily associated with accompaniment, listening, presence and emotional strengthening, while his relationship to revealed doctrinal truth occupies a far less visible place. Yet in the Gospel of John, Jesus declares that the Spirit will glorify Christ, remind the disciples of his words and guide them into truth (John 14:26; 16:13–14). In the New Testament, the ministry of the Spirit cannot be separated from the preservation and proclamation of apostolic revelation.
In this novena, by contrast, the emphasis progressively falls upon how the believer feels accompanied, heard, strengthened or inwardly affirmed. Faith begins to present itself less as confrontation with the holy truth of God and more as an experience of emotional support and spiritual accompaniment. Little by little, Christianity risks becoming principally a space of inward wellbeing, where humanity’s deepest need no longer appears to be forgiveness of sin and reconciliation with God, but rather feeling understood, sustained and validated.
Repentance almost completely disappears. This is especially significant considering the very subject of the novena. The document revolves around Ascension, Pentecost, the work of the Holy Spirit, evangelism and the call to bring others to Christ. Yet central concepts within apostolic preaching in the New Testament appear absent or barely implied. Repentance does not structure the spiritual vocabulary of the text. Sin is scarcely ever named explicitly and appears only indirectly or tangentially. There is no clear reflection upon human guilt before God, divine judgement or conversion understood as turning away from sin and entering into new obedience to Christ.
Likewise, the cross is never presented primarily as atonement for sin nor as the place where God reconciles fallen humanity to himself. Instead, the dominant language of the document revolves persistently around categories such as accompaniment, listening, presence, service, human connection, emotional support and spiritual reassurance. None of these realities is wrong in itself. The problem emerges when they begin occupying the central place that once belonged to sin, redemption, repentance and reconciliation with God.
This does not demonstrate an outright denial of the Gospel, but something subtler and therefore harder to discern: a theological selection that preserves the gentler forms of Christian language while leaving its more confrontational content at the periphery. There one of the deepest characteristics of contemporary Western liberal Christianity becomes visible: it does not need openly to deny the historic doctrines of the faith in order progressively to empty them of practical centrality. It is enough simply to stop speaking about them, move them towards the margins and reorganise spiritual life around sensibilities more acceptable to contemporary culture.
Even when the document speaks of grace, the emphasis falls primarily upon acceptance, relational permanence and unconditional care. Grace ceases to appear principally as the sovereign act by which God justifies the ungodly through Christ, and instead comes to be perceived more as compassionate accompaniment amid human vulnerability.
That progressively alters what begins to occupy the practical centre of Christian life.
Biblical Christianity certainly includes compassion, accompaniment and service. Yet those realities flow from a deeper truth: humanity is lost in sin and needs reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ. When that centre weakens, Christianity slowly becomes a spirituality of relational wellbeing.
Another especially delicate aspect is the way the document understands the action of the Holy Spirit. The text constantly insists upon «listening» to the Spirit, perceiving his whispers, recognising inward promptings and responding to personal spiritual impressions. Of course, Christian tradition has always recognised the guidance of the Spirit. The problem does not lie in the existence of deep devotional life nor in the reality of spiritual guidance, but in the way the document appears functionally to reorganise the relationship between Scripture, experience and discernment.
This may be observed in several moments throughout the document. In the reflection on Samuel, for example, the emphasis ceases to fall primarily upon God’s objective revelation and shifts instead towards the subjective experience of correctly «listening» to the Spirit. The text states: «We all have our own ways of tuning into that “radio frequency” which works for us and enables us to hear the word of God.» And then: «For me, it is a place in my house where I go every morning to pray, study the Bible, say Morning Prayer, do my devotions or simply remain in stillness.»
The problem does not lie in devotional practice itself, nor in the importance of prayer or spiritual stillness. The problem emerges when the functional centre of the biblical narrative ceases to be the sovereign revelation of God and instead becomes a search for inward «tuning». The metaphor of the «radio frequency» is particularly revealing because it suggests that the principal key to spiritual life consists in learning to perceive personal inward experiences.
Something similar occurs in the reflection upon Elijah and the «gentle whisper». There the document asks: «What is that question each of us must answer again and again?» And then adds: «Because if the question keeps returning, we know God must have a reason for it!»
Here the criterion of discernment begins to shift towards the psychological persistence of an inward impression. The practical implication is significant: a repeated subjective experience begins to acquire functional spiritual authority. Yet within the classical biblical tradition, the normative criterion is never simply the intensity or recurrence of inward experience, but the objective revelation of God in his Word.
Something similar may be observed in the reflection upon Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. Although the narrative of Acts 8 culminates with Philip objectively proclaiming Christ from the Scriptures, the emphasis of the novena falls primarily upon the relational act of «beginning the conversation». The practical centre no longer appears to be primarily the doctrinal content of the Gospel, but the human experience of approach, conversation and interpersonal connection. None of these elements by itself constitutes an explicit denial of biblical authority. The problem emerges cumulatively. Little by little, Scripture begins functioning more as a catalyst for subjective spiritual experiences than as objective, sufficient and normatively binding revelation for the faith and life of the Church.
That has enormous consequences.
For a spirituality centred upon «what I feel the Spirit is telling me» can eventually justify almost any doctrinal revision, especially when contemporary cultural sensibilities exert pressure upon complex ethical questions.
And there inevitably emerges the great underlying tension surrounding this document. Sarah Mullally has been associated with the Living in Love and Faith process, through which the Church of England opened space for the blessing of same-sex unions, departing from the historic Christian understanding of sexuality. That reality necessarily changes the reading of this novena.
For the document constantly speaks about obeying the voice of the Spirit, allowing oneself to be transformed, listening to God’s call and acting according to his guidance. Yet the inevitable question arises: how is that voice discerned?
The New Testament teaches that the Holy Spirit never contradicts the Word inspired by the Spirit himself. Yet throughout much of contemporary Western Christianity precisely the opposite phenomenon may be observed: subjective spiritual experience begins to reinterpret or relativise the historic biblical witness.
And thus a profound ecclesial incoherence emerges. When Scripture confronts contemporary cultural sensibilities, its authority becomes flexible. Yet when spirituality, prayer, accompaniment or mission are discussed, pneumatological language reappears with enormous emotional intensity.
That is precisely what makes this kind of material so persuasive. It does not sound like a denial of Christianity. It sounds Christian. It feels Christian. It speaks about the Holy Spirit, Christ, prayer, humility and mission. And many of its elements are genuinely Christian. That is precisely one of the most complex and dangerous characteristics of contemporary Western Christian liberalism. Unlike classical theological liberalism, which often openly denied miracles, resurrection, biblical inspiration or fundamental doctrines of the faith, contemporary forms usually operate much more subtly. They do not necessarily abandon traditional Christian language nor openly attack the essential elements of historic Christianity. Rather, they progressively displace them towards the periphery while reorganising spiritual life around new axes: emotional experience, pastoral accompaniment, personal validation, relational inclusion or inward wellbeing.
The result is a Christianity capable of preserving much of its historic vocabulary while silently altering what once occupied the central place. The cross, sin, repentance, the holiness of God, the normative authority of Scripture and the need for reconciliation with God are not necessarily explicitly denied; they simply cease to structure everyday spiritual life. Faith then begins to present itself principally as an experience of welcome, reassurance and human accompaniment, rather than as the transforming proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Thus the centre has shifted. This may also be seen in the document’s insistence upon transforming the world through ourselves. Although there is partial truth in this, the danger lies in turning the believer into the functional axis of divine action. Little by little, the objective work of God gives way to an activist and anthropocentric spirituality.
The use of the well-known quotation attributed to Teresa of Ávila is especially significant. There the emphasis falls upon ourselves as now being Christ’s hands, feet and eyes upon the earth. As a metaphor for Christian service, this may be valid. Yet without sufficient doctrinal balance, the result may become a vision in which Christ is functionally reduced to our human action and compassionate presence. In other words, the objective transcendence of God slowly begins dissolving into a spirituality of human accompaniment.
The phenomenon is especially complex because it rarely presents itself as an open denial of historic Christianity. It expresses itself through warm, relational and spiritually sensitive pastoral language, preserving much of traditional Christian vocabulary while silently reorganising its practical and doctrinal priorities. It does not destroy Christian language; it re-signifies it from within.
That is why the problem with this kind of spirituality is not merely doctrinal. It is also anthropological and cultural. It perfectly reflects a deeply therapeutic contemporary Western civilisation, where the greatest evil is no longer sin but emotional suffering, and where salvation increasingly comes to be identified more with emotional reassurance than with reconciliation with God.
In that context, the Holy Spirit ceases to appear primarily as the one who sanctifies, convicts of sin and glorifies Christ, and gradually becomes instead a presence directed principally towards psychological comfort, personal affirmation and emotional relief.
And yet, precisely because the document contains genuinely Christian elements, it ought not to be dismissed superficially. Its pastoral sensitivity, concern for human suffering and desire to mobilise believers towards service reveal legitimate longings.
The true challenge consists in recovering those dimensions without losing the centre of the Gospel. For historic Christianity never separated truth and compassion. It never opposed doctrine and mercy. It never set holiness against love. Christ did not come merely to accompany humanity in its darkness. He came to save it from that darkness.
And the Holy Spirit was not given merely to make us feel accompanied, but truly to unite us to Christ, transform us according to his truth and lead us into obedience to the Gospel revealed in the Scriptures.
