Emerging Communities • Ancient Roots’ first podcast episode! I talk with Ivan Kauffman about the New Monasticism: a Christian ecumenical movement with roots in evangelicalism, of intentional communities most often located in impoverished inner city neighborhoods, with a strongly articulated social justice orientation and an aspiration to learn from and appropriate elements of the classical monastic tradition.
Ivan is a self-identified Mennonite Catholic, a participant in the Mennonite-Catholic dialog group Bridgefolk, and a lay associate of Saint John’s Benedictine Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. Presently, Ivan is a scholar-in-residence at the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research. His research focuses on the interface of religion and politics in history, with an emphasis on peace and nonviolence, and the many ways Christians have come together through the centuries to build communal lives of radical discipleship. Ivan is the author of Follow Me: A History of Christian Intentionality, which was written to provide a historical framework for understanding the New Monasticism movement.
In our conversation, we discuss Ivan’s experience attending the June 2004 New Monasticism gathering, wherein the 12 Marks of the New Monasticism were discerned as articulations of shared values and practices. We also discuss the strengths, gifts, and challenges facing New Monastic and other lay intentional community movements, the New Monasticism’s relationship to the classical monastic tradition, and finally, Ivan’s wide-angle view of the historical context in which the New Monasticism is taking shape—what he calls “the view from 40,000 feet.”
It might be helpful to have the 12 Marks at hand while listening to the podcast:
1. Relocation to the abandoned places of Empire.
2. Sharing economic resources with fellow community members and the needy among us.
3. Hospitality to the stranger
4. Lament for racial divisions within the church and our communities combined with the active pursuit of a just reconciliation.
5. Humble submission to Christ’s body, the church.
6. Intentional formation in the way of Christ and the rule of the community along the lines of the old novitiate.
7. Nurturing common life among members of intentional community.
8. Support for celibate singles alongside monogamous married couples and their children.
9. Geographical proximity to community members who share a common rule of life.
10. Care for the plot of God’s earth given to us along with support of our local economies.
11. Peacemaking in the midst of violence and conflict resolution within communities along the lines of Matthew 18.
12. Commitment to a disciplined contemplative life.
Enjoy, and please share your comments. I especially appreciate hearing what questions arise for you, so that I might integrate them into future interviews.
Into/Outro music “He Prabhu” by Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, OSB Cam., and John Pennington, from Compassionate and Wise.
Julian, that was great! I love the music and your introduction with the music really sets the tone for the thoughtful discussion that follows. Thanks for sharing this. It naturally raised a lot of questions for me, especially in regard to the movement’s seeming to overstep the church and what intentionality and discipleship formation should be occurring there. Ivan’s frustration over having not been fed in evangelical churches is common, I think.
I’m also fascinated by the distinction being drawn between celibacy and monasticism, with this movement’s appropriating the monastic part but not its full asceticism in terms of celibacy.
I’m interested in forms of asceticism that are emerging peripherally: with environmental motives, for instance. The whole micro-movement of people attempting to produce Zero Waste is really fascinating to me, with its intentional asceticism as a response to devastating impacts our waste is having on the earth.
I appreciated Ivan’s calling attention to “compassion” as a reason for why things are happening now as they are – that seems tied somehow to a sense of responsibility. Especially here in the U.S.
Thanks, Rachel. Yes, the whole issue of appropriating monastic asceticism sans celibacy is a question worth pursuing more deeply. For Ivan, it’s only Anabaptist communities that have been able to do something analogous to this in an enduring fashion, with of course a more radical disengagement from the surrounding culture than the vast majority of expressions of classical monasticism. Still, the Catholic Worker movement includes families in the mix, and the Oblate movement has its own form of evolving spirituality that I think is more than merely derivative of the monastic. So there are other models and possibilities if we broaden the lens a bit.
The Camaldolese have been speaking of a “new asceticism,” referring primarily to the incorporation of new forms of contemplative asceticism (formal meditation practices, yoga, etc.) that are more attuned to body-mind-spirit integration than previous forms, which often enough have been built upon an at least implicit body/soul dualism. But I appreciate your point, too, that new forms of asceticism are also emerging in response to crises in the world. In fact, this is where I think the New Monasticism has something valuable to contribute to the tradition–in its bringing monastic values of peacemaking, economic sharing, and stewardship to bear in the social/political arena. Put these poles together–a new, integrative contemplative asceticism and a new social/political/ecological asceticism–and I think we have a powerful foundation for a “new monasticism.”
It’s wonderful to see the various expressions of monasticism flowering!
It should be noted, however, that some forms of contemporary monasticism are more inclusive than others, such as welcoming gay and lesbian members as well. It seems to me that #8 on the list should be updated. (Not all monogamous heterosexual couples have children either).
Perhaps, but since this is such a raw, contentious issue, I don’t think inclusion of gay and lesbian couples (I assume couples are what you’re implying) can be an actual mark of what is meant to represent a broad Christian movement. The New Monasticism literature that I’ve encountered on the subject is clear on countering homophobia in the churches and in the broader society, and welcoming of gay and lesbian persons into community, but evasive on whether the latter implies the expectation that such people observe mandatory celibacy. As problematic as this lack of clarity might seem, at a time when the churches are so bitterly divided on such matters, I would say that this stance is a step forward and at least implicitly open to individual communities discerning which path to take.
[…] insistence upon doing theology in the context of rootedness in one’s neighborhood, to New Monasticism’s provocative first mark (“relocation to the abandoned places of Empire”), to Servants […]
[…] of commitment and participation analogous to that of monastic orders) might look like, which Ivan Kauffman insists Christian churches urgently need to […]
Any idea how I might contact Ivan Kauffman, Julian?
I’ll try to get you connected.