THE IDEA OF a Protestant monk is not necessarily a contradiction in terms. The Anglican and Episcopal Churches have supported monastic communities since the 1840s. But to most evangelicals, the elaborate liturgy and love of history and hierarchy typical of parts of the Anglican Communion are as alien as Rome. Instead, New Monastics find inspiration in two very different strands of Catholic religious life: The ancient cloistered Celtic monks, and the wandering Franciscan friars.
New Monastics have picked up on the popular renaissance of Celtic culture underway in America for the past 20 years. Andrew Fitz-Gibbon, founder of the Lindisfarne Community, a New Monastic organization in upstate New York, is a professor at SUNY-Cortland. He is an ex-Baptist from England who became interested in Celtic spirituality through the history of his native Northumberland.
"In the States, there's an awful lot of romantic nonsense [about the Celts]," he said. "They were a ruthless, warlike, bloodthirsty people. There's a tendency to recast them as environmental feminists, and they weren't that...[but] they were less hierarchical than Rome, though still hierarchical; they were dissenters, and Americans like dissenters."
Vancouver, Wash.-based evangelicals S.G. Preston and his wife, Linda, were inspired to found their monastic order, the Knights of Prayer, after visits to Ireland and Assisi, St. Francis's homeland - and a passing encounter with Thomas Cahill's "How the Irish Saved Civilization" (1995) in a Newark Airport bookstore. The Celtic monks "were like Billy Graham," Preston said. "They were missionary monks - totally different from the Middle Ages kind of thing, when monks wanted to go on retreat against the world." For Protestant evangelicals with a long tradition of hostility to Rome - and whose interest in monasticism does not mean a new love for hierarchy or authority - these monks' nonconformity makes their Catholicism easier to swallow.
While the Prestons consider their monastic order a "prayer encouragement ministry," a Web-based mission that provides resources and structure for evangelical individuals interested in monastic spirituality, other New Monastics cite the more activist model of the Franciscans, who fought bitterly with Rome during the 13th century over their radical vow of poverty. "It's easier for evangelicals to connect with Franciscans because the Franciscan order is a preaching order," said Mark Van Steenwyk, founder of the New Monastic group Missio Dei in Minneapolis. "The evangelical impulse is there."
-Molly Worthen
