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Christianity Today, February, 2008 |

Monastic Evangelicals

The attraction of ancient spiritual disciplines.

Chris Armstrong | posted 2/08/2008 10:03AM

A growing number of evangelicals—younger evangelicals in particular—are maturing the movement in another way. They are taking their newfound love affair with Christian tradition and the early ...

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curtis

Posted: February 19, 2008 9:45 AM

Where's Jesus? Why church history? If you want to know what the whole bible church thing is about... look to Jesus. He is the head of the church. He knows what He wants HIS church to look like and to be. He told us all about it in His word. The entire bible is about Jesus.. not what we call "church" or "religion". Man has messed up when it comes to church from the very begining.. so by going back in church history only gives us an older error to deal with. Look at your bible... the new testiment is full of correction to the early church. How about we get right with Jesus and ask Him what our churhes should look like. If you want to go back in time.. go back to your creator . Christian tradition is dead... we should have learned that from Jesus when He dealt with the religious leaders of His day. He called them white washed tombs full of dead mens bones.... He also said... that they belonged to their father satan. Something to think about. Do you really believe in Jesus?

Greg Chase

Posted: February 13, 2008 4:41 PM

Methodologies come methodologies go. What is most important is knowing God, not just about Him. I admit that doing litergies or prayer books have caused me to worship when visiting other churches because it is looking through another lens at the Eternal. However, most of those who were with me from that particular tradition, looked bored to death. Tradition does not bring me to God and worship. Jesus, himself, did not like the traditions of man no matter how godly they seemed. Worshiping "in Spirit and in Truth" in all its freshness needs to come forth from us regardless of tradition. After all we are not the "fiddler on the roof."

Linda

Posted: February 12, 2008 5:18 PM


Why don't these new evangelicals just join the Roman Catholic church?

truth breaker

Posted: February 11, 2008 8:40 PM


:P

Doug Lass

Posted: February 11, 2008 10:14 AM


Seems to me like the ones who deplore this monastic trend are into the traditional " It's my way or the highway"! If they don't want to try it, fine, but don't tell others that they will go straight to Hell if they don't follow your way exactly.

Kathy

Posted: February 11, 2008 10:10 AM

As a Catholic turned Evangelical, and now Evangelical who attends both Mass and Evangelical services each week, I welcome this movement. I long for the liturgy and connection with early church fathers, yet enjoy the spiritual zeal of the Evangelical faith. My zeal for Christ remains strong, and I enjoy being with other Christians who share that enthusiasm, but my desire to worship and pray with other Christians in a quiet, holy environment is fulfilled in the Catholic tradition. I guess I want the best of both worlds. Perhaps someday the two will merge together.

Jeff	Posted: February 09, 2008 3:51 PM

Wow, what harsh comments. First of all, most of those who would be drawn to monasticism are those I would imagine who are burned out from kingdom service and need a pause. When Jesus grew tired he went to the mount and when John the Baptist was killed Jesus took a sabbatical in Syro-Phoenicia. God made the 7th day for rest and the 7 year feast for rest in the land. Monastic sabbaticals for a time is a good method for spiritual renewal.

Susan

Posted: February 09, 2008 7:24 AM

I know people whose Christian walk and spiritual life have been enhanced by several of the disciplines mentioned in the article. Often they minister most to those who formerly worshipped in an environment with more ritual or who are energized by solitude rather than by felowship with others (as a personality characteristic). Valkyrie has so much anger at evangelicals and CT I wonder that time was taken to even read and comment. I hope Valkyrie spends as much time on something in life and faith with which he/she finds favor.

keep searching for righteousness and for God being enough

Posted: February 09, 2008 6:14 AM

the whole search through the historical movement is OK! Let people search, because then God will honour their thirst for righteousness and for doing things which please him. But what the search does show is a lack of fulfillment in God being "enough":Where he is the refreshing water and the life-giving bread and the anointing oil and the word-as-pure-milk. If he is not, we need incense-smoke nor candles nor fancy techniques. But I have to admit that to get to such a perception of God as enough I have had to search and search through all kinds of patterns-of-worship before God rewarded my search by his pure presence and his encouraging words fresh from his mouth. So, guys, do not give up the search through ancient ways until your search is rewarded, which it will be...as long as it is side-by-side with a thirst for righteousness and moral integrity. If you want to hold on to immorality and illicit sexuality then you search will be fruitless. Part of the monasitic life is celibacy.

Ralph Gaily

Posted: February 08, 2008 8:47 PM


.....repetitive prayer (Lectio Divina) ....meditation ......sitting at the feet of McLaren, etc.etc. ....monastaries ......staring into icons ....Roman Catholicism ..... what next ?!? the Dali Lama !

Roger - Australia

Posted: February 08, 2008 7:42 PM


I agree with Grace. I applaud people's zeal for spiritual disciplines and the respect for tradition, provided the focus remains on Scripture and Christ. A pleasant diversion from the hustle and bustle of our consumerist contemporary existence.

grace

Posted: February 08, 2008 6:46 PM


Who is to judge what spiritual disciplines each person chooses to walk closer to our Heavenly Father.

urbanmonk-oxymoron

Posted: February 08, 2008 3:57 PM


well..hope you can hear my one-hand clapping for the comments by 'valkryie'..i just want to second those emotions and post my agreemet..like dylan said 'the moon's not yellow, its chicken'..seems the chickens are running toward post-protestant or pre-reformation with garrish guruism inbetween..web-sites wars and one-minute devotionals..it is disgusting and a mockery..thanks valkryie

Valkryie

Posted: February 08, 2008 3:39 PM

Leave it to the evangelicals to treat monasticism as a smorgasbord where they can pick and choose which elements of self-denial they'll go with. I'm waiting for Shane Claiborne and his ilk to adopt hair shirts, flagellation and best of all, celibacy. Now there's some self-denial! I won't hold my breath. This whole fad is yet another bandwagon going by the eager evangelical crowds who anxiously await the Next Bit Thing. After generations of throwing out church history, evangelicals are now making a theological pigs dinner by picking and choosing this from eastern orthodoxy, that from Roman Catholicism, this from Eastern Mysticism, and so forth and so on. Interestingly, they pick little from the Reformation which they have all decided to ignore. The doctrines Christians used to be willing to die for are now tossed out like a used Starbucks cup. Evangelicals, and this magazine in particular which champions every new fad that comes out, disgust me.

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