New Monasticism: Fringe Christianity?
Written by Mark Van Steenwyk : February 8, 2008
Recently, the Boston Globe ran an article on New Monasticism. The article was very good–the best that I’ve read.
I want to interact with one section of the article in particular. I’d love to hear your response to some questions that the article raises. Here is a snippet of the article, with my comments/questions throughout:
Not all of their co-religionists, however, are pleased with these new spiritual ventures. Van Steenwyk received e-mails from friends concerned about his “fringe activities,” including accusations that he’d “gotten into bed with the apostate Catholic Church.” Deborah Dombrowski, along with her husband, David, founded Lighthouse Trails Publishing and Research Project in 2002 to counteract the “infiltration” of evangelicalism by “mystical spirituality.” She fears that New Monastics’ contemplative prayer is no different from Eastern meditation, and their openness to Roman Catholicism is only the beginning: “where it’s going is an interspiritual, interfaith, one-world religion, where it all blends together.”
I have indeed received concerned emails. And I’ve been asked (both explicitly and implicitly) to justify our ministry. Sometimes, when I’m feeling tired and vulnerable, the challenges from friends and foes alike get to me. Most critiques I’ve heard fall into two categories: theological critiques and practical critiques.
Theologically speaking, would it be so bad if evangelicals became more mystical? What are the good things that evangelicals could learn from mystical traditions? On the other hand, what good things do evangelicals stand to lose?
Practicaly speaking, is living in community, practicing hospitality, and embracing simplicty really that “fringe?” It seems to me that these are all VERY traditional things to do…I think that the last 50 years of affluent living in single-family homes is “fringe.” What should the normative Christian life look like?
Though many Roman Catholics have mixed feelings about evangelicals who adopt a hodgepodge of watered-down monastic practices and call themselves “monks,” some are supportive of New Monasticism. They view the movement as part of a wider rapprochement between Protestant evangelicals and Rome. A half-century of theological shifts on both sides of the divide - Vatican II’s liberalizing impact on the Catholic Church, and the waning of Protestant fundamentalism - as well as the decline of traditional ethnic resentments and an emerging pattern of political cooperation have all prepared the way. Father Jay Scott Newman, a priest in South Carolina, said that the New Monastic movement suggests a profound shift in evangelical identity.
Hardly any “new monastics” that I know call themselves “monks.” And most of us only use the phrase “new monastic” in light-hearted way. Some may be motivated by a sense of nostalgia, or out of a deep commitment to the Benedictine tradition. To me, the movement is more Anabaptistic than it is anything else. But the idea of living in community where you have common prayer and practice hospitality has become so odd to people that it immediately conjures images of monks–who are the only white people in the West who seem to live in community, embrace simplicity, and practice hospitality. The phrase “new monasticism” is supposed to inspire the imagination; it isn’t a claim that we are replacing the “old monasticism” or that we are, technically speaking, trying to bring back the old practices. Instead, inspired by the monastic tradition and other praxis-based movements of the past, we are trying to imagine a new way of life a the 21st Century Imperial context.
To some Catholic observers, it is no shock that evangelicals have begun to feel the lack of organized contemplative life and yearn for a bond with religious tradition - they’re only surprised that it took them so long. “Monasticism has been such a powerful thing in the West and the East for so long that it would be very peculiar if it didn’t, at one point or another, erupt in evangelical circles,” said William Shea, director of the Center for Religion, Ethics, and Culture at the College of the Holy Cross.
“It’s just too long, too deep, too creative a tradition{hellip}You could call this movement ersatz monasticism, but I would hold back and ask, where might this lead?”
The spiritual disciplines movement of the 80s and 90s added spiritual practices to the average evangelical experience. But most of that stuff was too individualistic. New Monasticism doesn’t simply scratch the contemplative itch. There are several other movements that had a hand in preparing the soil for New Monasticism. New Monasticism sprang up at the point where the spiritual formation movement, the neo-anabaptist movement, the social justice movement, and the emerging church movement intersect.
Those of you who are a part of this movement–or at least somehow connected to this movement–what have your influences been? What brought you to the place where you decided to pursue an alternative way of life in community?
One final question: Where do you think this movement is headed?


for further reading . . .
- None Found
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