Richard Foster

Richard James Foster was born on June 8, 1942, in Alamosa, Colorado, to working-class parents. His father was a railroad man, his mother a homemaker who died when Foster was thirteen. The loss marked him deeply and contributed to what would become a lifelong search for authentic spiritual experience. He grew up in a small Quaker community in the San Luis Valley of Colorado, where the silence and simplicity of Friends worship planted early seeds of contemplative inclination, though his teenage years were marked more by rebellion than piety.

Foster attended George Fox College (now University) in Oregon, a Quaker institution where he encountered faculty who took both rigorous scholarship and spiritual formation seriously. It was there he began reading the Christian mystics and discovered that the evangelical tradition of his upbringing had largely forgotten practices that had sustained Christians for centuries. After graduation in 1964, he married Carolynn Stahl, with whom he would have two children. He earned a Master of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary in 1967, where he was exposed to a broader theological world while maintaining his Quaker roots.

Upon graduation, Foster returned to pastor Friends churches in California and later in Colorado. During his pastoral years in the 1970s, he began experimenting with ancient spiritual disciplines in his own life and introducing them cautiously to his congregations. The response was mixed. Some found in these practices a depth missing from their faith; others worried he was importing Catholic mysticism into evangelical Protestantism. The tension was real and sometimes painful. Foster was walking a line between traditions that had been separated for centuries, trying to recover what he believed was the common heritage of all Christians.

In 1979, Foster joined the faculty of Friends University in Wichita, Kansas, where he taught for several years before moving to Azusa Pacific University in California. His academic career provided the platform and credibility to pursue what was becoming his central passion: recovering the spiritual formation practices of historic Christianity for contemporary believers. He founded Renovare in 1988, an organization dedicated to calling the church to spiritual renewal through the classical disciplines of faith.

His Writing and Its Influence

Foster began writing in the mid-1970s, but it was Celebration of Discipline, published in 1978, that established his voice and mission. The book introduced evangelical readers to twelve spiritual disciplines drawn from across Christian history: meditation, prayer, fasting, study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, worship, guidance, and celebration. What made the book remarkable was not its originality — Foster was explicit about drawing from centuries of Christian practice — but its ability to translate these ancient methods into language and forms accessible to twentieth-century evangelicals.

The timing was providential. American evangelicalism in the late 1970s was experiencing both unprecedented growth and a growing sense that something was missing. The charismatic movement had awakened hunger for genuine spiritual experience, while the emerging church growth movement often seemed to emphasize technique over transformation. Foster offered a third way: the tested wisdom of Christians across the centuries, presented not as museum pieces but as living practices for contemporary disciples.

Celebration of Discipline became one of the most influential Christian books of the late twentieth century, eventually selling over three million copies. It was followed by Freedom of Simplicity (1981), which explored the spiritual discipline of simple living, and Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home (1992), which introduced readers to various forms of Christian prayer from across traditions. His Streams of Living Water (1998) mapped six great traditions of Christian spirituality, arguing that each preserved essential elements of the faith that the others needed.

Foster's approach consistently emphasized practice over theory. He was less interested in theological debate than in helping people actually experience God through time-tested means. This practical focus, combined with his Quaker commitment to the "experimental" knowledge of Christ, made his work accessible to readers across denominational lines. Catholics found him irenic rather than hostile; mainline Protestants appreciated his historical grounding; evangelicals trusted his commitment to Scripture and personal relationship with Christ.

The influence has been substantial. Foster essentially created the contemporary spiritual formation movement within evangelicalism, inspiring countless retreat centers, spiritual direction programs, and church renewal efforts. Publishers began commissioning new editions of classic spiritual texts, often with introductions by Foster. Seminaries that had never taught contemplative prayer or spiritual direction began adding courses. The recovery of Lectio Divina, contemplative prayer, and other ancient practices in evangelical circles can be traced largely to Foster's influence.

Criticism came primarily from two directions. Some evangelicals worried that Foster was leading the church toward Catholic mysticism and away from the sufficiency of Scripture. Others, particularly from academic theology, argued that his historical treatments were sometimes superficial and that he romanticized pre-Reformation spirituality while overlooking its cultural limitations. Foster generally responded to such criticism with characteristic humility, acknowledging the legitimacy of certain concerns while maintaining that the hunger for authentic spiritual experience demanded a response that went beyond doctrinal correctness.

Who should read Foster: Those who sense that their Christian life has become overly cerebral or program-driven and want to recover practices that engage the whole person in relationship with God. He is particularly valuable for evangelical readers ready to learn from the broader Christian tradition without abandoning their core commitments. He is not for those who see any deviation from modern evangelical practice as compromise, nor for readers looking for quick spiritual fixes rather than patient formation over time.