Importance: 10%
The Big Idea
It strikes me that whenever the world has gotten sufficiently crazy and topsy turvy that serious Christians have often looked for an escape. This was embodied in the desert fathers, as well as the rise of monasticism in the medieval age. We seem to be in a similar place in history where the call to go out into the desert will only increase in strength as the world around us goes mad. I know that I feel this pull in the types of practices that feel attractive to me. The hours of prayer are one example, I feel like my life could use the structuring of prayer at the morning noon and night (does not mean I am good at always doing that). But the fact that this is even something that I would like to do as a response to the crazy and exhausting pace and content of life is interesting.
I think that in the coming years we will see a continued rise of different forms of new monasticism. Having the Reformation as our heritage we will have a unique opportunity to affirm healthy faith practices but also to avoid the down fall in the a faith of works that Luther experienced during his time as a monk.