This section of writings was collected from different calls for papers. The title of each paper is displayed as is the author's name and a short selection from each document.
The new monasticism also has a book published, collaboratively written by authors, activists, community members, professors, and other ragamuffins.
Rutba House member Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove has written a book about his journey to Baghdad and beyond--to new monastic community in America: Beyond Baghdad: How I Got Born Again in Babylon
(Note: All of the links will open a .PDF file in a seperate window. Click here to download the Abobe Acrobat reader if you need an application to view PDF files. )
- New Monasticism articles
Report on the June 2004 School for Conversion gathering
The New Monasticism - Christianity Today
The new monastics - The Christian Century
An experiment in ‘new monasticism’
The New Monasticism - Duke Divinity Online
Finding My Religion, Meet the New Monastics
‘New Monasticism’ on the increase - ekklesia
- The New Saint Benedict by Ivan Kauffman
A large number of intentional communities are currently forming throughout the Christian Churches. They are appearing in all the major western Christian traditions—Evangelical, Protestant, Catholic and Pentecostal-Charismatic—and although they vary in purpose, outlook, and theology, they share a common center: a commitment to follow Christ without compromise.
Most of these communities are small, and when viewed individually appear to be insignificant and ineffective. But when they are viewed as part of a global movement it becomes apparent that an equivalent to the Benedictine monastic movement of the first millennium is taking place in our time.
- St Antony by Isaac
At the beginning of the fourth century, the church saw the dawn of a new age. Constantine, the Roman Emperor, subjugated his enemies with a sword in one hand and a shield bearing the cross in the other. The church historian Eusebius wed the vocation of the church with the responsibility of civil order and told a new story of how God exercises sovereignty over the cosmos through Empire. Many church members, seduced by the hope of Christendom, abandoned their unique mission and assimilated into the Roman Empire’s way of life. The imperial church soon betrayed its mission of embodied proclamation of God’s Kingdom for the hope of an earthly kingdom where the Empire’s light would pierce the darkness of barbarism. In this new conception of God’s reign made manifest through the emperor’s lordship, the people of God no longer held kings and princes accountable to the Kingdom of the Son. The mainstream church shed its distinct way of life after the pattern of Jesus for the sake of relevance to the wider culture. What the mainstream didn’t realize was that by conforming to the patterns of the majority, it abandoned its service to the nations. In this compromised church, the world no longer had a visible alternative to its violent existence.
- Some Theses on the writing of a rule for the “New Monasticism,” with special attention to ecological challenges by Steve Bouma-Prediger
1. Christians are people of the Book, and thus serious reflection on this issue must attend carefully to Scripture. The Bible tells a grand love story of a compassionate God and invites us to write our life-stories as part of God’s great Story.
2. The Old Testament provides much insight on how to live as servants of the one, living God. The Torah (often mislabeled “the Law”) is instruction for living well. The Ten Commandments, or Ten Best Ways To Live, still offer wise counsel, and in particular the case law gives us a model of how the Ten Commandments were applied by the Israelites.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: Mennonite Benedictine Spirituality by Weldon D. Nisly
Since we are in the first days of this Easter season I want to begin with an Easter Gospel. Luke tells the incredible story of Jesus’ resurrection. Following the resurrection is a further revelation that is a paradigm story for Jesus’ followers since that first Easter.
That same day of the resurrection, two of Jesus’ disciples…
“When Jesus was at the table with them, he took the bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them to eat. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized that this was Jesus. And he vanished from their sight. The two turned to each other and exclaimed, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us when Jesus walked along the road with us and interpreted the scriptures to us?’”(Luke 24:13-32, my translation.)
The eyes of their hearts – and ours – were opened forever to see what was in plain sight – the Risen Christ -- on the road to Emmaus, in the revelation of Scripture, in the breaking of the bread, and in communion with each other as the community of faith.