Calvinism's Spiritual Blind Spot According to a Calvinist

I recently read an article by NeoCalvinist theologian Al Wolters.  The primary recognition that he has received over the years has been for his book "Creation Regained," a book which has been highly read in Calvinist circles and in seminary classrooms.  While the whole article is truly fantastic and highly informative, there is one portion of the article that I found particularly interesting.

To preface, he is speaking about neocalvinism (Dutch Calvinism, not Piper and Driscoll Calvinism) as a whole, about what it has offered our world, and what it has yet to gain.  While he reflects upon the philosophical and theological implications that the neocalvinist branch of Protestantism has had to offer, he does admit that prayer and spiritual discipline has been neocalvinism's blind spot throughout the years.   

"A related issue is the place of spirituality and the traditional spiritual disciplines. Although Kuyper was a man of intense prayer and a deep devotional life, and Dooyeweerd gave a pivotal position in human life to the modality of faith, many of their intellectual heirs have paid more attention to the dangers of pietism and its relative neglect of the call to cultural discipleship than to the importance of cultivating genuine piety or authentic spirituality. Generally speaking, neocalvinists are more noted for their intellectual ability and culture-transforming zeal than for their personal godliness or their living relationship with Jesus Christ. This is of course not to suggest that there is some kind of inherent tension between intellectuality and spirituality, but only that the neocalvinist polemic against a pietistic otherworldliness can have the unfortunate effect of throwing out the godly baby with the pietistic bathwater. But even apart from the danger of this polemical one-sidedness, I believe that neocalvinism has neglected to its detriment the whole range of traditional spiritual disciplines, as cultivated in Protestant, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox circles. The practice of various kinds of prayer and meditation has not enjoyed a great deal of attention or emphasis.
This neglect has been both theoretical and practical. To my knowledge there has been little study of the pistical modality from the point of view of the dynamics of spiritual life as described in the great devotional classics, nor has there been a great deal of actual cultivation of the traditional "spiritual exercises" in neocalvinist circles. I suspect that reformational philosophical insights might actually be quite helpful in spiritual direction and the personal cultivation of spiritual growth, but I know of no literature where this is explored. Speaking for myself, I have found that exploring the tradition of Ignatian spirituality has been stimulating and enriching, but has also left me with many unanswered questions."

While I am grateful for Wolter's observation and I totally agree with him from my own experience in working with not just the Neocalvinist movement but with Calvinism as a whole, I am very curious about a few things.  He confesses that he has had to look to Ignatian spirituality for his own spiritual formation.  While I truly sympathize with him on this one because I to have looked into the past to put into practice the wisdom of the ancient Church (Chrysostom, Palamas, Maximus the Confessor, Symeon the New Theologian), I have not been able to do so without experiencing a fair amount of tension in the process.  To put it simply, these men had radically different worldviews than Calvinists do, including Ignatius.  You don' have to go to far in reading any of them to understand that their spirituality was directly tied to their sacramental theology, to the role of bishops in the church, and tradition.  Ignatius even goes as far as to say that without the bishops, a church cannot be called a church and that Christians need to be obedient to their bishops (To the Ephesians 2:2, Philadelphians 1:1, To the Trallians 3:1).  If you do not know this already, most Calvinist circles have rejected the role of the bishop (even though Calvin didn't!). 

The tension that I feel is that, if I want to remain a confessionally faithful Neocalvinist, I have to pick and choose which portions of these ancient spiritual teachings to adopt.  And, to be faithful to the Reformed confessions, church order, and catechism, I have to consciously choose to reject everything else men like Ignatius (and countless others) have to offer.  I understand that many folks will not see a problem with this.  However, to do so would be to divorce these teachings (from Ignatius, Palamas...etc) from the context in which they were bred.  To do so would literally diffuse the whole picture of what these early church fathers had to offer.  Do we believe that we can adopt an ancient spiritual teaching, such as that of Ignatius, that was directly connected to views that placed the role of the bishops and the sacrament (particularly the Lord's Supper) in a place of priority in spiritual formation while we don't place priority on these things ourselves?  Can we truly say that we can fully adopt such a spiritual method whenever our Christian worldview is played out much differently than the worldview of the ancient Church?  We can say all that we want to about this, but history proves the point.  The ancient Church operated in a much different way than the ways of Calvinism today.  It looked much different than the way we look today.

I am not seeking to corner and criticize Wolter's thought here.  Again, I whole-heartedly agree with him and am very grateful that he has written what he is written.  To put it bluntly, Calvinists are notorious in our day for "sucking at prayer," as I have heard it put by a few Calvinist pastors.  The only concern I have is how Wolters can adopt an Ignatian spirituality with such ease.  I am not saying that he is wrong for doing so.  I just simply have not been able to do so with the ease that he seems to present.  For, I want to take both the ancient spiritual teachers and my own Calvinist faith seriously.  And, to take both seriously causes a dilemma for me because both present radically different views of Christianity and life in Christ.

Here is the link to Wolter's article: http://www.cardus.ca/comment/article/282/what-is-to-be-done-toward-a-neocalvinist-agenda/