Krister Stendahl, the retired Lutheran bishop of Stockholm, has a wide reputation among theologians for his knowledge of the Bible. During his years as professor and dean at Harvard Divinity School, he provided guidance to a generation of young scholars and leaders of religious communities. Though now officially retired from academia and from church administration, he continues to offer spiritual inspiration to the many people whom he meets.

Recently Bishop Stendahl gave me for this column a copy of a small book he has written about the Holy Spirit. Entitled “Energy for Life,” this pock-et-sized volume delivers much meaningful reflection on the work of the divine Spirit in human life. Its subtitle, “Come Holy Spirit – Renew the Whole Creation,” uses the words of a prayer for the book’s framework.

As the author explains in his preface, he deliberately chose the word “energy.” “When I tried to answer the question how I personally experience the Holy Spirit, then the first and clearest answer had to be: as energy.”

Commenting on the prayer “Come, Holy Spirit,” Bishop Stendahl notes the oddity of asking for a divine coming when the Spirit is already within human hearts. Rather, he suggests, “it is .  .  . we who should come, open up to, become aware of, the power of the Spirit.”

The author sees the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the threefold character of God along with God’s oneness, as basic to Christianity. Far from being a frill, this teaching has an importance to the faith of Christians that remains central. Bishop Stendahl finds the Trinity vital to his own life.

Here is how he sees this teaching at work: “My faith badly needs to be challenged by the Trinity, by the mystery that rescues me from picturing God in all too human form.” To the bishop, this serves as a reminder that the divine cannot be reduced to human images. The Spirit reminds us that, ultimately, God is above all that we can conceive.

This understanding of the Spirit also frees us from an understanding of God based merely on gender. The author observes that in Greek the Spirit is “it”; in Hebrew, the Spirit is “she.” In both instances the Spirit cannot be made into our own human image.

Turning toward the book of Genesis, Bishop Stendahl sees the Spirit at work in the creation of the whole world and also of human beings. We humans have responsibility for two kinds of actions toward the world. First, we are called upon to exercise dominion over other creatures, and second, we are to keep and take care of them.

The first function, control over created things, we have tended in modern times to overemphasize. The author suggests that we need to balance that approach with tender loving care for all creation. That will move us to keep our rivers and oceans from being polluted and our land from ruinous overdevelopment. Nature, as the Spirit of God teaches us, is too precious for wasteful plunder.

The Holy Spirit, seen as the energy that repairs and renews the world, works through all people of good will. Thus no religious group can claim ex-clusive power to achieve God’s plan. Krister Stendahl, a Christian bishop, puts it this way: “It is the blasphemy of blasphemies to think that only what is done in the church, by the church, and through the church – and/or by and through Christians – can be of God and all else is wrong and destructive.”

The earliest Christian community, a gathering marked by both unity and diversity, shows the creative power of the Spirit. For Bishop Stendahl, the varie-ty of spiritual gifts flows from a sharing in the one Spirit. This variety does not damage but enhances community.

What makes this happen is love that respects everyone. “This is not just tolerance, but a positive embracing of the other in the awareness that it is those who have different gifts and visions who can enrich me and our common community.”

This column calls attention to only a few of the rich insights found in this little book  Fuller appreciation of Bishop Stendahl’s writing would require more space and further analysis. Interested readers can order “Energy for Life” from Paraclete Press in Brewster, Massachusetts (508) 255-4685.

Richard Griffin