The new (Evangelical) monastics

The Los Angeles Times profiles young Evangelicals who, having grown weary of soft, suburbanized Christianity, have chosen to live monastically, in community with each other. Here's how the story begins:

BILLINGS, MONT. -- In a peeling house on South 32nd Street, five friends came together to stretch their faith.

They left comfortable apartments for a communal home within walking distance of a prison, a pawnshop, a derelict trailer park. Exhaust from a sugar beet factory drifted down the streets.

Moving in last January, they pledged to spend one year together, learning to become true followers of Christ. They would give generously, love unconditionally. They would exchange their middle-class ways for humility and simplicity, forgoing Hardee's fries, new CDs, even the basic comfort of privacy.

"The focus has to be on God and the way of life he has set out for us, as opposed to the way we want to live, which is very selfish," Jeromy Emerling said.

A few months into the experiment, at a weekly house meeting, Jake Neufeld framed the vision this way: "Church is not something we attend. It's something we are."

But even lofty rhetoric could not lift the mood that sleety evening in early April. A quarter of their year together had passed, and the friends felt they had failed. They had not met a single neighbor. They had not given any aid. Everyday life seemed to suck up all their energy; it was draining just to figure out whose turn it was to mop the kitchen floor.

"We're trying to live so every dimension of our lives is different," Jeromy said. Then he admitted: "We don't know what that will look like."

The household consisted of Jeromy, a fundraiser for a Christian nonprofit, and his wife, Debbie, who stays home with their toddler and newborn son; Kyle Porrett, an architect, and his wife, Phyllis, who cares for their baby daughter and two young foster children; and Jake, a builder.

Theirs was a radical vision, but also a trendy one, part of the New Monastic movement sweeping white, suburban evangelicals. In the last few years, perhaps 100 communities like the Billings house have been founded across the country, and hundreds of Christians have attended workshops to learn of the concept.

"There's something happening here, some sort of reformation," said Scott Bessenecker, who studied the movement for his book "The New Friars."

"They're asking the question 'What constitutes God's people?' "

The story provides some insight into the practical difficulties of living in an intentional community, but it's ultimately an unsatisfying account of what this particular monastic-style community is all about. Mark Stricherz at Get Religion identifies why:

[As LA Times writer Stephanie Simon puts it], the couples were dissatisfied with their religion and sought to imitate the early Christians. Maybe this is true, but it sounds like something’s missing. Dissatisfaction with one’s religion at some point is practically a universal sentiment. Few believers, however, abandon their former lives to live like monks.

Simon mentions earlier in the story that the couples are part of “the New Monastic movement sweeping white, suburban evangelicals.” But she makes it sound like a fad rather than a revolutionary social movement.

But that, as Stricherz says, is exactly what the New Monasticism is all about. From the website of the movement:

Throughout the history of the church, monastic movements have arisen during times of rapid social change. When the minority movement that Jesus started was flooded by converts after Constantine, desert mothers and fathers went into their cells to discern a new way of life. When Europe collapsed into the Dark Ages, Benedictines carved out spaces for community and new life. When the advent of a cash economy revolutionized European culture, St. Francis started an order of beggars to proclaim the divine economy of providence. Over the past two thousand years, monasticism has helped the church remember who we are.

Ours is a time of rapid social change. We are post-modern, post-Cold War, post-9/11, even post-Christian. All signs point to change, and we know things aren’t what they used to be. But we hardly know who we are. Amidst wars and rumors of war, our global identity crisis threatens to consume us.

But we have hope. The Holy Spirit is stirring in the places overlooked by Empire to raise up a new monastic movement. We don’t know yet what this movement of the Spirit will become. “New Monasticism” is the language we’re using to talk about it in the meantime.

For the sake of discernment and mutual encouragement, we have connected with other followers of Jesus who are experimenting with a new way of life in community.

Here are the 12 Marks of the Movement. Impressive. Radical Jesus people. May St. Benedict and St. Anthony of the Desert bless their efforts.