It is all too easy to dismiss the so-called ‘institutional church’ and it’s structures. So people leave. But I actually think that the real problem concerns us more with what or who we have lost sight of – the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the piety/devotion and spirituality of that life as a disciple. Furthermore, I think that we have so engulfed the life of the church with traditional-ism and sense of our ‘good order’, that these have become the new ‘relics’ for our devotion. I am suggesting that simply to balk at institution and structures alone is inadequate. The cracks in the structure of the Christendom church are seeing various movements arise as I would suggest we can see from church history. In the crucible todays world I wonder if there are insights we may more fully gain from the past.
I have been following the threads of Paul (Prodigal kiwi Blog) on monastic spiritulaity, forms and old new, emergent church matters. Most of which has been part of my own ongoing musings. You can pick up some of Paul's stuff here - June 02, 2005 Shaping Holy Lives - on Benedictine Spirituality; June 07, 2005 Imagining a New Old Church; June 08, 2005New Monasticism – Contemplating a way of living publicly
I was also interested in June 21, 2005 The future of the Church in the West Doesn’t Lie in the Emerging Church Movement and followed from there the piece by Alan Rox. on emergent where he offers very insightful and dare I say 'balanced' critique.
So to lessons from the past. I do think that the recovering of spiritualities from the great monastic traditions and their directing us to key aspects in areas such as leadership, are helping inform and give potential to reshape us today. I want to add to that mix by suggesting that to be emergent, also has something of the devotio moderna in it.
::
Devotio has classical patristic and medieval roots. It carries the sense of inner and outer devotion; modernus simply meaning present day, now. Hence devotio moderna is the piety for now. A religious movement of the 14th Century that lasted to the 16th century in the Low countires of Europe. It had its devotional roots in the 12th century devotion of the likes of St Victor, mysticism of the Rhineland (Eikhart and Jan van Ruysbroek) had created fervour that moved out of the religious institutions and into what are seen as houses of laity. Their intent? To establish the religious, pious life by other forms, spiritualities and structures, than was thought to be offered by the older orders rules and traditions, especially monastic institutionalism. So perhaps we also need to push on beyond lessons from the monastic and explore what led towards reformation. Devotio moderna emphasized the following of the example fo Christ, while living communally, but without vows, in the world. They had a stress on habits of prayer, meditation, communal reading and work. It empahasised a practical piety. Seems to me that emergent is such an expression among us today - a devotio post-modern ? as we find ways forward into reform and beyond.
