The Religious Life: Dodo or Phoenix?
When the Anglican Communion Institute recently held its House of Studies here at the Spiritual Life Center, the Sisters were invited to attend, and several of us did so. A particularly stimulating series of papers was Dr. Philip Turner’s “Moral Theology: Dodo or Phoenix?” Dr. Turner stressed that Christians are finding it very difficult today to discuss ethical questions, especially the “hot button” issues, with the surrounding culture, because a common language and common set of understandings no longer exist. Most of his talks dealt with these basic understandings. However, at the end, he moved to a more immediate and practical level: “What would happen if Christian congregations throughout this land became communities of character wherein both young and old learned to be different sorts of people – people whose lives are shaped by patience, kindness, sympathy, long-suffering, truthfulness, forgiveness, and the other graces mentioned in the letters of Paul?”
That rang a clear bell. What is a monastic
community doing, if it is not trying to be
such a “community of character” and
a visible workshop of how Christians ought
to live? How can we as religious contribute
to this rebuilding of Christian ethics and
this attempt to speak to the post-Christian
culture?
Most of Dr. Turner’s talks were devoted to establishing the theological foundation for Christian ethics, using the Epistle to the Ephesians as his primary text. This material is too long and complex to summarize here, but is well worth reading at www.anglicancommunioninstitute.org. The principal point I wish to use here deals with the focus, the primary location, of ethical decisions. In Dr. Turner’s argument, today’s culture centers in satisfying the autonomous individual, isolated from both society and history. “What I happen to want, at this moment, to fulfill my own self-development, is an absolute and a ‘right,’ and nothing can contradict it.” The Christian cannot argue with this position in the culture’s own language — it is no use to advertise that Christianity is more “fun”— but must instead place it in a larger moral universe. We need to look first to the good of the community, not to our personal gratification. Also, personal decisions need to be part of a history: I have an identity over time, and I need to act consistently with that identity.
Dr. Turner is looking to see Christian congregations become workshops where these principles can be applied. Today that will mean living counter-culturally, while at the same time trying to re-educate both ourselves and others as to exactly what our Christian beliefs require. A convent certainly ought to be a good place for this. It is true that the monastic vocation stresses the call to individual sanctification, sometimes to the point that the “larger moral universe” is relegated to the background. Dr. Turner mentions this, and we older religious can remember some of it. But some of us — and I can speak now only for my own community — have been moving in precisely the direction he is envisaging, toward a focus on the community. After all, though every Christian is called to the same conformity to Christ, monastics live out this call in a particular way.
First, a religious community is precisely a community, and as such strikes at the root of “autonomous individualism.” The good of the individual is inseparable from the good of the Body. When a young woman comes to us and says, “I’d like to be a Sister, because it would be a good setting for my musical career,” there are some things she has not yet understood. But if she says, “There must be more to life than this constant dog-eat-dog battle for a better job,” then perhaps there is something here she needs.
Second, both the community and the persons comprising it have an identity over time, a history. They do not bounce randomly from one moment to the next, but seek to live in a consistent way. This is expressed most radically in life vows, a promise to be faithful to this way of life in this community all my days, about as counter-cultural a witness as one could make in today’s world. It also implies both that the community will care for its own elderly whenever possible, and that it will shape new ventures in ways consistent with its traditions.
Third, the common life is deeply rooted in the Scriptures. Several hours each day are spent in choir, reciting the Psalms, and hearing the narrative of Scripture read aloud. In a time of widespread and profound Biblical illiteracy, this immerses us once again in the Biblical worldview, in knowing that God is Creator and sovereign, that the world is a mess through human sin, and that Christ by his death and resurrection has redeemed it and called us into his covenant community.
Finally, the monastic vows themselves witness to a larger vision than that of our culture. Poverty can be heard to say, No, you don’t need More Things. Let go, do with less, and be a good steward. The vow of Chastity (here meaning celibate chastity) proclaims that God is enough, and that he gives his grace for what our culture says is impossible. Obedience is especially likely to raise red flags. However, to say “Mother, may I?” does not demean me, but rather sets both of us in an ordered universe under God’s authority.
Few are called to the full 24/365 monastic commitment — though more might hear that call if they understood it clearly — but all Christians aspire to the same basic principles. Consequently, the goals of the religious life can easily be shared and applied in other contexts.
Our communities are not isolated. They are “permeable” in various ways to the larger Church and to the world at large. Friends, guests, and casual visitors pass through convent doors; parish and diocesan groups often have connections with religious houses; some friends are sufficiently attracted to this way of life to become formal Associates under a rule of their own. All of these are exposed to the round of Scripture and to groups of their brothers and sisters trying to live a counter-cultural, Christian life.
A religious house is a community, but so is a family, and so is a parish. These are places for putting the needs of others ahead of our own, for practicing the virtues of patience, kindness and forgiveness and all the rest. It should be, and of course often is, perfectly natural in a family to take a turn at the dishes without being asked, or in a parish to make sure an infirm elder has a ride to church. Family meals and simply doing things together can be a very important witness.
Monks and nuns make vows for life. But so do married people, so do ordinands, and so do all Christians at baptism and confirmation. Faithfulness to these vows is a tremendous witness to our fragmented, restless culture. A golden wedding can be a momentous event in a family or parish.
Monastic life is rooted in Scripture and nourished by Scripture. So is anyone who follows the Book of Common Prayer. It has justifiably been said, all Anglicans are Benedictines. An Associate usually commits to some form of daily Office. Anyone can share in this to some extent, by regular Bible reading, at least a minimal Office, and, of course, Sunday worship through the year. These practices both give a public witness and deepen one’s own grasp of the Bible’s world view. When the children of the family share in this, they gain a grounding in Scripture that can’t be taken for granted anywhere else today.
The monastic vows themselves are not unique, but simply one expression of principles that apply more widely. “Poverty” in the sense of stewardship, of knowing when enough is enough, and of sharing certainly applies to everyone. Not everyone is called to celibacy, but all are called to loving, chaste, respectful, non-possessive relationships, and these too depend on the grace of God.
Obedience is so out of fashion that it deserves mention of its own. We are all bound to obey God, as Lord of all. To obey another human being implies that that person has authority over me; that in turn implies a structured, hierarchical society. Unpopular as that model is in some circles today, it remains the Biblical model of the way human society should be ordered. So it is Biblical and Christian for children to obey parents, citizens to obey laws and policemen, employees to obey employers, Christians to obey their bishops and clergy. Most adults will sometimes find themselves on the commanding side of the fence, as parents, teachers, employers, rectors: this responsibility too is under God’s authority. Christian authority can and should be firm as well as loving. It is when authority becomes “autonomous” that it becomes tyranny, and civil disobedience may have to come into play. But obedience itself, rightly understood, is responsible and freeing for both parties, because both are obeying God.
Dr. Turner concludes, “If Christian Ethics and Moral Theology are to arise like the Phoenix rather than disappear like the Dodo, they will have to become before anything else a form of communal and individual witness to what God has accomplished in the life, death and resurrection of Christ and to the completion of this grand purpose in Christ’s second advent.” [slightly condensed] Our monastic houses are trying to bear witness to these things: their friends, neighbors, and fellow Christians are invited to come and see what this is all about, and to find their own ways to learn from it and to grow in the service of the one God.