Breakpoint Worldview Magazine: Quiet Flirtation: Monasticism and Evangelicals
About eight years ago, I found myself in a convent in Bogotá, Colombia. I had not planned to get me to a nunnery. But it just so happened that I had signed up for a women’s retreat with the Baptist church where I was serving with youth that summer, and since the local convent had a bit of extra space, they hosted us for the weekend. My room—quiet, clean, white—lacked only one thing: distractions. It was perfect. It felt like I had entered rehab for the chronically over-stimulated. That weekend, I got a taste of something that hordes of evangelical Christians are flirting with today: monasticism.
Be it Baptists, Presbyterians, or Pentecostals, evangelicals of all stripes can be found flitting around the ancient pathways of the Franciscan, Dominican, and Benedictine orders. What’s the attraction? I decided to investigate. It seems the frenzied and the frenetic are finding stillness and order; the alienated are discovering the richness of belonging; and the non-committal are jumping headlong into the freedom of vows. ...
Yes, I'm afraid this just shows some of the dearth of our evangelical commitment, but more hopefully a broadening and deepening of it in a healthy way.
I need to get out to one of those places.
Posted by: Ted M. Gossard | Nov 03, 2007 at 04:11 AM
This is certainly part of the foundation of CovenantClusters...and the Allelon Missional Order that we contemplated two weeks ago in Seabeck.
Interesting, indeed.
Posted by: Peggy | Nov 05, 2007 at 01:51 PM
I have written a small post about this...thought I'd give you the link. I'm not up on all the technical blog stuff...so it's just simple stuff for me... ;^)
http://abisomeone.blogspot.com/2007/11/practice-of-purple-martyrdom.html#links
Posted by: Peggy | Nov 05, 2007 at 02:25 PM
Thanks for the link. I've got you linked up as well.
Posted by: Michael W. Kruse | Nov 05, 2007 at 03:22 PM