The Vision of the Rock

This is the text of the commencement address I delivered at Pacific Union College on Sunday, June 14, 2007, in Angwin, California.  

President Osborn, thank you for that generous and gracious introduction.  It’s a grand privilege to be back in the august company of the distinguished faculty and staff of Pacific Union College, to share this wonderful occasion with families and friends of PUC, and most of all to celebrate with you, Class of 2007, this historic occasion.

Thank you so much for your invitation.  I’m touched and honored.  My time here at PUC represented three of the most fulfilling years of my life—and it was you who made it so. My PUC experience began with most of you four years ago, and I’m so glad we’re able to mark this occasion together.  I dropped out of PUC and “went South,” so to speak, but you’ve stayed on and completed the degree you came here for.  That’s no small accomplishment, considering only a small fraction of the world’s population hold college degrees.  I join your family, friends, teachers and church in congratulating you today.

Does the name—Teruhiko Okohira—ring a bell?  Yes, it’s a Japanese name.  Teruhiko was born into a wealthy, influential family in Satsuma at the southern tip of the Kyushu Island, known for its Samurais and sweet potatoes.  Teruhiko was born ambitious, just like his father.  He had this firy zeal to be successful in life and to increase his parent’s wealth by many times over.  Not only did he want to be successful in Japan, but also around the world.  He had an uncommon vision for doing business in the global setting before many in Japan thought of it.  Had Teruhiko Okohira been born few decades later, you and I might now be driving an Okohira or downloading videos onto a Teruhiko hard drive.

He was that kind of a man—full of energy and great dreams.  And it was his dream that led him to enter a business college, not in Tokyo, but in the United States at the age of 18 in 1883.  However, it was there that he began hanging out with a wrong crowd—the type that his father disapproved of—Christians.  When Okohira Sr. learned of his son conversion to Christianity, he cut off all financial support for his son, forcing him to find whatever job he can find just to survive.  So, on account of his Christian convictions, Teruhiko spent the next nine years in this foreign land, not sure about where all this would lead. 

But 1892 represented a real turning point in his life.  While working at a hotel in California, Teruhiko accepted the Seventh-day Adventist faith.  When he became an Adventist, everything seemed to come alive again.  In the teachings of Adventism, Teruhiko found a new purpose and meaning.  So the same year, he made yet another momentous, life-transforming decision of his life.  He quit his job and enrolled at Healdsburg College (that would later become Pacific Union College)—to work some way in meaningful service for God. 

To many of his 250 or so peers at Healdsburg, Teruhiko was an oddball—he was older (he was 27), stuck out big time as probably the college’s only Asian, spoke with a thick Japanese accent, having arrived here at late teens.  Yet everyone could see that this man had an uncommon fire in his belly.  During the first two years he was at Healdsburg, he would travel to San Francisco on weekends to teach English and Bible to the Japanese community there, which resulted in the establishment of the Golden Gate Japanese-English School in San Francisco. 

But Teruhiko’s growing passion lay elsewhere.  In 1894, he asked to speak for a Friday night vespers program toward the end of the school year.  In his less-than-perfect yet impassioned message, Teruhiko appealed to the student body for a volunteer to accompany him in returning to Japan to share the gospel message in his homeland where there were no Adventists.

None of the students responded to Teruhiko’s appeal.  But someone else did:  William C. Grainger, president of Healdsburg College since 1886.  Grainger had been Healdsburg’s second faculty member, having arrived just three months after the founding of the college on April 11, 1882—125 years ago, and now the 2nd president of the college.  According to PUC historian Walter Utt, he was a Lincolnesque figure who was more of a big brother figure to the students than an authority figure.  Students hung out in his home regularly, often showing up unannounced for food and friendly conversation.  Utt calls his presidency “days of glory.”

But Grainger, the highly successful president of the college, responded to the appeal by a twenty-something foreign student, and something marvelous and wonderful happened. Two years later, Teruhiko Okohira and William Grainger sailed to Japan as the first Adventist missionaries to the Land of the Rising Sun.  They first started with an English Bible school in the heart of Tokyo which led to the opening of the first Adventist church in Japan.  Today, there are 15,000 Adventists in Japan in 120 churches.

Why am I telling you this story? 

First, the story of Okohira and Grainger embodies what PUC is all about.  Pacific Union College is a small school with a big dream for the world.  Yes, some of you have overtly religious, missionary dream for the world like Okohira and Grainger.  And you must take that calling seriously and responsibly.  But for others, it’s more about making this world a more disease-free place; yet for others, the dream is to extend peace and social justice in places of conflict.  Whatever your dream might be, it must be a dream that is bigger than your own selves.  Yes, some of you will become the type of affluent, successful business professionals that Okohira wanted to be.  But I pray that you leave PUC with an even greater dream—to use your gifts and accomplishments also as a means of compassion.

I also pray that you will dream big toward transforming Adventism.  Down the road, you may feel like you have no need for this church.  And you may be right.  But your church desperately needs you—just the way you are.  We need you to challenge some of the lifeless, rigid, calcified remains of the past that you see in your church.  We need you to help us grow into a community that can be meaningful, relevant, transformative in the world.  That brand of Adventism that some of you see and despise doesn’t have to be the Adventism of the future.  This is a growing, changing, expanding, progressive church that is waiting to be shaped by you.

But I do hope that your dreams will extend beyond the boundaries of your church, family and self. Do not merely dream about what you already know and can control.  That’s not dreaming; that’s just planning.  Have a dream for the strangers around you, for this society we live in, for this world. 

Take one issue, one cause, one problem, and make it your spiritual devotion.  There are 27 million people enslaved in human trafficking today.  Will that be your cause?  More than 400,000 have died in Darfur, Sudan, under what the U.S. government has called a genocide.  Will Darfur be your cause?  Here in California, we receive services of migrant workers and undocumented foreign citizens to maintain our way of life, including right here in Angwin.  There are obvious inequities of wealth and living conditions that we tolerate, because, well, we just do.  Will the plight of these families be your cause?  Or might it be the children and teenagers of your neighborhood and church who can really use a big brother/big sister figure?  Will they be your devotion?  Or could it be bringing art and theater and literature and music to a community in search of an identity?  Would you make that your mission?  For Okohira and Grainger, it was the people of Japan with whom they wanted to share the Adventist message.  What is your dream?

Promise me that you will not stop dreaming.  You will, whether by forces outside of you or within you, encounter the incredibly seductive power of nihilism that tells you to just give up trying, that it really doesn’t matter, that in the end there’s just a gaping, meaningless black hole.  Even if that were the case, humanity calls upon you.  God who holds the universe together calls upon you to partner together in this grand experiment of compassion.

Second, the story of Okohira exemplifies the power of one.  Now, more than ever, helped by the internet and satellite communications, it takes just one person with passion and commitment for the world to make meaningful changes in the world.  What difference will you make in this world—as that one person?  What will be your meaningful contribution to the world?  Some of you leave PUC with very clear ideas about it; others are still figuring that out.  Would you look at the person to the left of you?  OK, did you look?  You cannot wait for the person to your left to motivate you to do something positive in this world.  If you feel it, if you know it, if you’re moved, it’s you.  Look to your right now, please.  Did you look?  Remember that it’s not that person, either.  It’s YOU. 

You and I experienced in a real way when Jake Scheidemann, a PUC alumnus, gave a colloquy presentation last year on his home building project in Nicaragua.  That project began with one grateful person doing one act of gratitude for one town.  And then it spread.  During the colloquy, Pastor Mitchell—one person, another PUC alumnus—felt moved to appeal to you and you responded.  As a result, Maria Luna and her two sons have a warm, dry home to live in.

It took just one person who said, “Yes, I’ll go to Africa to take video footage of the health care work in the nation of Chad.”  As a result, PUC Alumnus Paul Kim’s film, Unto the Ends, is shown each year to hundreds of students entering Loma Linda University and right now dozens of students are volunteering at various hospitals in Africa, including two students at the Bere Adventist Hospital in Chad.

It took just one recent PUC alumnus who said, “I want to examine my Adventist heritage better and study the life of Ellen White.”  That led to the original production of “Red Books: Our Search for Ellen White,” a theatrical exploration that has touched so many of your lives this school year and will go on to do so for years to come.  It just took one person, Mei Ann Teo, a PUC alumna, to give voice to voices that have not been clearly heard in a generation. She has shown many of you the possibility that there are multiple ways of being Adventist and that ultimately “no doctrine or dogma can prevent” your connection with God or this community.

On April 24, 1882 just 13 days after the establishment of Healdsburg College, Ellen White spoke to a gathering of Adventist leaders in the Bay Area about the college.  Quoting a newspaper article, White said, “The greatest want of this age is the want of men—men who will not be bought or sold, men who are true and honest in their inmost souls.”  These are the kind of graduates she envisioned for Pacific Union College.  Over the past 125 years, that vision has become a reality and it continues with you—one by one!

Third, this story show how we all are historically, existentially, and organically connected to each other.  Let me tell you the rest of the Okohira-Grainger story.  Through their work in Tokyo, a young soldier named Hide Kuniya became an Adventist and joined the work of the church.  In May 1904, two Koreans—waiting their ship to Hawaii in a few days’ time—meet Kuniya and both become Adventists.  One goes on to Hawaii, but the other back to Korea.  On the ferry back to Korea, the man, Mr. Sohn, meets an educated gentleman named Mr. Lim, who becomes an Adventist by the end of the voyage.  Lim establishes the first Adventist church in Korea and his ministry results in a Mr. Kim becoming an Adventist. Kim shares Adventism with another Kim, who introduces Adventism to a Mr. Bon who becomes an evangelist and goes around Korea preaching the Sabbath and second coming of Jesus … including to a Mrs. Lee who passes on Adventism to her three children—the eldest among them, my mom.  So here I stand before you because of the uncommon passion and service of Okohira and Grainger. 

You and I don’t need Kevin Bacon and his six degrees of separation to tell us how deeply and closely interconnected we all are.  That sense of deep connectedness heightens the sense of responsibility that we feel about my words and actions (as well as inactions).  Because we’re so interconnected, we cannot ignore the great inequities of the world with regard to access to healthcare, opportunities for financial security, housing and education.  PUC graduates who believe in the creatorship and lordship of God have to been champions for the environment, for public health, for social justice, for community development.  Why?  Because we’re all in this together and to paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr., “Not only is injustice anywhere a threat to justice everywhere, but also pain and suffering and despair anywhere is a threat to wholeness everywhere.”

The Book of Daniel in the Bible talks about a dream that the king of Babylon had.  In that dream, Nebuchadnezzar sees a great multi-metallic statue.  We see in the interpretation that’s given in the story that the different metals represent different earthly political powers.  The climax and punch line of that vision is found in these lines: “While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them.  Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were broken to pieces at the same time and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth” (2:34-35). I’d like to point out two things about this rock. 

First, it is “not cut by human hands,” unlike other metals that have been forced into a certain shape.  It is a rock that is raw, free, original, natural.  It has its own character, its own individuality.  It is one that hasn’t conformed to the values of the statue. Rather, this rock, uncut and unmanipulated, has a value of its own.  It’s an independent, countercultural, radical rock that will not be judged by the statue.

Second, this is a rock that grows.  It is a living, breathing, organic rock that grows.  It is a rock that continues to mature and impact the entire world.  This impact is powerful and eternal.  It contrasts with the impersonal, lifeless statue that may be a nice museum piece, but has no living, life-changing impact upon the world.

You, Class of 2007, are that rock.  The Kingdom of God is not some institution, or some distant future happening.  It’s not even a religion per se.  It consists of independent, radical, countercultural, vibrant, ever-growing people like you whose lives make a positive impact in big and small ways in this world.

For 125 years, PUC has been nurturing such people—“those who will not be bought or sold, those who are true and honest in their inmost souls, those who will stand for the right though the heavens fall.”  I’ll be the first confess that I’m not that person.  But I humbly take up the challenge to grow into such an individual.  Won’t you graduates join me in committing to a people of the living, growing, countercultural Rock?

I challenge you to dream big.  I challenge you to be proactive in your involvement in the world.  I challenge you to take responsibility for the whole world, not just your own corner.  Be a people of the Rock.  Unfortunately, we’ll never hear all of your stories, except the ones that make the news.  But we’ll know that God who is with you will grow with you and impact the world through you, regardless of where that happens.

To paraphrase Christ’s words to Peter, you are a people of the Rock.  Through you, Christ will build and grow His Kingdom of peace, justice and reconciliation. 

The audiorecording of this address can be heard at:  http://www.puc.edu/Departments/Media_Services/recordings/06-17-2007.php 

Saving Face or Saving Grace? The Impact of Experience upon Adventist Theology

This paper was presented at the 14^th annual Spiritual Renaissance Retreat held in Monterey, California, on December 28-31, 2007.  SRR is an event hosted by John and Joan Hughson of Pacific Union College Church and co-sponsored by the Adventist Forums and Adventist Today.

Hiram Edson of Port Gibson, New York—having wept and wept till the day dawned, lamenting the devastating reality that Christ did not return the previous day as he and his fellow Millerites had expected—and now in the morning of October 23, 1844, praying to God for answers and recounting with fellow Millerites all the steps they took to arrive at the conclusion that Christ would return on the Jewish Day of Atonement that year—came to the conviction that “light should be given” and that their “disappointment [would] be explained.”  So he and a friend of his—probably O. R. L. Crosier—began to make their way across his unharvested cornfield to encourage other disappointed believers.  But as Edson wrote later, he “was stopped about midway,” with a view of heaven opening before him. “I saw distinctly, and clearly,” he testified, “that instead of our High Priest coming out of the Most Holy of the heavenly sanctuary to come this earth on the tenth day of the seventh month, at the end of the 2300 days [i.e., October 22, 1844, according their interpretation of Daniel 8:14], that he for the first time entered on that day the second apartment of that sanctuary; and that he had a work to perform in the Most Holy before coming to this earth.”  This experience signified for Edson “the Lord . . . answering our morning prayer; by giving light with regard to our disappointment” (Hiram Edson Manuscript).  And the rest, as they say, is history.

The assessment of this event and the theological process that led to the formulation and development of the Seventh-day Adventist doctrine of the sanctuary and the investigative judgment varies widely depending on the conviction of the interpreter. Traditionally, Adventists have argued that the re-interpretation of Daniel 8:14 triggered by Edson, initially formulated by Crosier, and expanded and systematized by Joseph Bates, James White, Ellen White, and John Andrews represented the unveiling of the end-time normative understanding of Christ’s heavenly sanctuary ministry and the final message for the salvation of humankind.  One Adventist scholar has even called the October 22 experience a “magnificent disappointment” that ushered in the eschatological remnant—the Seventh-day Adventist Church. 

Those outside of Adventism and dissidents within have seen it very differently.  One conservative Protestant writer derided Adventism’s post-disappointment re-interpretation as “a result of a predicament” (Jan Karel Van Baalen, The Chaos of Cults: A Study of Present-Day Isms [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1938], 120). Another criticized it as “the most colossal, psychological, face-saving phenomenon in religious history” and added that the doctrine was “stale, flat, and unprofitable,” on one hand, and “unimportant and almost naive,” on the other hand (Donald Grey Barnhouse, “Are Seventh-day Adventists Christians? A New Look at Seventh-day Adventism,” Eternity, September 1956, 43-45).  Also, such Adventist thinkers as A. F. Ballenger, W. W. Fletcher, Louis Conradi, and Desmond Ford have questioned the tenability of the this teaching from responsible biblical exegesis.

It is not the goal of this presentation to discuss the merits and/or demerits of Adventism’s teaching on Christ’s eschatological ministry in the heavenly sanctuary. Rather, I use the Edson-Crosier-Bates-Whites formulation of this doctrine as a key example that illustrates the towering, yet under-evaluated, impact that experience has had upon Adventist theology.

Regardless of how one regards the Adventist teaching on this subject, it is a truism that the experience of disappointment forced Edson and others to search for an alternate interpretation of Daniel 8:14 and other key texts of Millerism.  Yes, Miller and his cohort read Scripture plainly and honestly with an open and unbiased mind as best as they could. Yet until their clocks struck midnight in the evening of October 22, 1844, they could not see anything wrong with their interpretation.  It was when they were forced by experience and the existential necessity to either reach a different reading of the relevant passages or abandon faith in Scripture altogether that the would-be Seventh-day Adventists were able to innovate and come to develop the understanding couched in the 24th article of the current Fundamental Beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists.

In short, Adventism is indeed a movement born out of a predicament—a crisis of interpretation. But was it just a face-saving phenomenon?  Or is there some saving grace in the way Adventists have incorporated their ongoing experience in the world to their theology?

An analysis of the method that early Adventists used to arrive at their re-interpretation of Daniel 8:14 offers an insight into what might be the saving grace of that face-saving phenomenon.  In coming up with an alternate reading of Daniel 8:14, early Adventists sought to preserve the authenticity of their Millerite experience and the trustworthiness of Scripture and its Divine Author.  It was unthinkable for them to deny that the sweet, blessed experience that led to October 22 was not accompanied by God’s guiding hand. Validating that pre-disappointment experience was crucial for early Adventists.  And that meant protecting the integrity of the biblical rationale that gave rise to their experience. Thus, their re-interpretation was one that allowed them to see God’s hand and find meaning in the full range of experiences before, during, and after the Great Disappointment.  Ironic indeed for the movement heavily informed by restorationism (that sought to return to New Testament Christianity by having no creed but the Bible) who banked their raison d’etre on the sola Scriptura principle and a plain, unadulterated reading of Scripture.

At this point, it is easy to jump on the bandwagon of cynicism and condemn Adventism’s failure to keep experience from encroaching upon their application of the sola Scriptura principle.  No doubt the motivation to save face was there, but the question is whose face?  Because they were sure of the genuineness of their pre-disappointment experience and their ongoing relationship with God, what was at stake for early Adventists was not only their face, but the reputation of God and the trustworthiness of Scripture. As has been pointed out by Adventist writers, this is not unlike   of 1st century Christians as they sought to validate their experience with and proceeding from Jesus and imbue that experience with Scriptural meaning for the present and future.  The challenge for both early Christians and early Adventists was to innovate without robbing the integrity of their experience.

Adventists—like all other Christians—have continually faced that challenge.  And contrary to what some Adventists think or wish, we have never stopped re-interpreting and re-adjusting.  In that process, experience has always played a key role—though rarely fully acknowledged.  Let’s now consider some of Adventism’s fundamental teachings and see how each has been molded, shaped and transformed by experience.

Probably the first major change to Adventist theology was the revision of the shut door teaching, a major component to the budding community’s belief on salvation, church, mission, and the end-time.  Simply put, Adventists until 1850 believed that the door to salvation was closed, except for former Millerites who embraced the seventh-day Sabbath. That basically narrowed the field down to themselves.  But an unexpected development in 1850forced them to change the missiological dimension of that teaching.  That year, James White reported in Review and Herald that a man “who had made no public profession of religion” prior to 1845 had joined the movement.  As a result, Adventists revised their shut door teaching by adding children under the age of accountability and those unknown individuals who had not “bowed to Baal.”  The door remained shut to Christians who heard and rejected the Advent message and former Millerites who rejected the Sabbath teaching.  But the door that was cracked ajar would open even more widely when news of European converts through literature and particularly the work of Michael Czechowski in Switzerland reached Adventists in Battle Creek in the late 1860s.

The experience of having new and unexpected converts join the church necessitated major changes to Adventist theology.  First, the door to salvation was no longer shut and that the time of the shutting of that door—a.k.a., close of probation—was pushed to an unknown time in the future.  Second, the exclusive self-understanding of Adventism was relaxed.  If the door to salvation was still open and there still are people dying without having heard the Adventist message—and presumably some of them will be saved—being part of the Adventist community and accepting the Sabbath message were not absolute requirements for salvation.  This meant that the remnant must be larger than the visible Adventist community—though, paradoxically, the identification of the community as the eschatological remnant continued.  Once again, Adventists pushed into the future the clear formation of the remnant and the institution of the Sabbath message as the seal of the final judgment. Third, just as they did with the remnant, Adventists moved away from the initial identification of the eschatological Babylon as the established churches that rejected Miller’s advent message and the Sabbath message of the emerging Sabbatarian Adventist community to an entity or phenomenon that would form in the future.  When it became experientially clear that time was going to last much longer than expected and that some good things were happening among the Protestant churches of America (such as the temperance and abolitionist movements and later the Fundamentalist movement), it became impossible for Adventists to continue to say, “Babylon has fallen.”  Instead, the language gradually shifted to “Babylon is falling” and then to “Babylon will fall.”  Such relegation of the decisive eschatological events from the past to the future allowed Adventists to experience the present with greater ease.  Fourth, Adventists justified their increasingly exuberant occupying of the present by continually expanding the focus of their mission, which was once restricted exclusively to former Millerites, to include the whole world.  This change, of course, has necessitated further shifts in Adventist theology.  If those outside of Adventism are continually being saved, and accepting the Sabbath message and joining the Adventist church is not an absolute requirement for salvation, what is the purpose of mission?  Especially in this postmodern world, this is a question that Adventists are struggling to answer, and their experiences with world’s religions and cultures are re-shaping their answers in ways that are triggering further changes not only to Adventist missiology, but also soteriology, ecclesiology, and eschatology.

Adventism’s move from anti-Trinitarianism to Trinitarianism is another example of change to theology being informed by experience.  Most early Adventists, having roots in restorationism, rejected the Nicean understanding of the Trinity.  Joseph Bates, James White, John Andrews, Joseph Waggoner, and Uriah Smith, to name a few, believed in a Godhead consisting of the Father, Son and the Spirit, but understood Christ as acreated divinity and the Spirit as the impersonal emanation of the Father.  Adventism’s Trinitarian turn is credited to Ellen White’s 1898 statement in Desire of Ages, where she stated: “In Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived” (p. 530), and referred to Christ as “the pre-existent, self-existent Son of God” (p. 469, 470). There have been a number of conjectures as to what led White to emerge as a full-fledged Trinitarian so late in her life; she was 71 when she published Desire of Ages.  What is of interest to me is the impact of the theological backgrounds and influences that informed early Adventists.  Unlike many other pioneers who came from the restorationist Christian Connexion movement, White grew up a Methodist who presumably believed in the doctrine of the Trinity at least until her involvement with anti-Trinitarians such as her would-be husband, James.  But curiously she remained quiet about the subject until the late 1890s.  That statement about Christ being “underived” is new to Desire of Ages—that is, it is found in neither the Spiritual Gifts nor Spirit of Prophecy series that led to the Conflict of the Ages series where Desire of Ages is found. Her early statements, though never anti-Trinitarian, tended to place the pre-existent Christ in a subservient role to the Father, and the Spirit is often referred to as “it” rather than “he.” Without getting into a debate on whether or not she too was an anti-Trinitarian, what I am interested in right now is the reason for her clear Trinitarianism in the 1890s.

I have two speculations.  First, her experience of 1888.  Something happened at the epochal General Conference session of that year that triggered a powerful paradigm shift in White’s thinking about Christ.  Although she famously remarked that what A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner were saying at that session was what she had been trying to convey for the previous 40 years, what she says about Christ, salvation and Christian living thereafter shows a marked difference from what she wrote previously.  The five Christocentric books that are beloved by Adventists—Stepsto Christ (1892), Thoughts from the Mount of Blessings (1896), The Desire of Ages (1898), Christ’s Object Lessons (1900), and Ministry of Healing (1905)—all come from the period following 1888.  My speculation is that the gospel-centered paradigm shift that White experienced in 1888 represents the beginning of a clear Trinitarian turn, or return. 

Second, her literary dependency, or acts of plagiarism, if you prefer.  A remarkable fact that gets overlooked in the debate about White’s extensive use of other sources in the composition of her books is that she read, thought about, processed, and incorporated mainstream Christian writings.  Well before Adventist ministers began interacting with fundamentalist Christians in the 1920s and 1930s, well before Froom, Read, Anderson and company dialogued with evangelical Christians in the 1950s and 1960s, well before professors at Andrews, Walla Walla, Kettering, PUC, Oakwood, La Sierra and Loma Linda mingled with scholars of world religions at their annual conventions, Ellen White was in deep, intimate dialogue with many of the keen, creative, interesting minds of her time and imbibed what she considered to be the best of their thoughts and interpretations of Scripture and history.  She was not only literarily dependent, but also intellectually and theologically dependent, and—returning to our focus on her Trinitarian turn—I don’t think it would be a stretch to speculate that the growth in her view and expressions can be attributed to her experience with the leading conservative Christian literature of her time.  Once again, experience contributed to change in Adventist theology—in this case, toward historic Christian orthodoxy in the area of the Trinity. (Another that I could have also talked about is the death of James White in 1881 that seems to have freed her theologically.  You may recall Ellen White’s statement in the 1850s about the powerful men in her life who held sway over her work.)

Another example of 19^th century experiences impacting biblical interpretation might be Adventism’s embrace of tithing in the 1880s, which can be said to be as much a direct result of financial need as a conclusion of careful Bible study. In fact, Adventist pioneers initially rejected tithing as an applicable biblical principle.  They believed that it was an Old Testament practice that was no longer valid in the post-New Testament era.  So they opted for free-will giving.  In the 1850s,when confronted with an acute financial need, John Andrews was commissioned to engage in a study of Scripture to give a biblical recommendation.  Interestingly, he could not recommend tithing.  Rather, he devised a graded plan for giving which left much of the decision to the individual’s self-perceived ability to contribute. This greatly enhanced the growing movement’s coffers.  However, after the church organized and institutions sprouted up here and there, the church experienced once again shortage of funds in the 1880s. It was then that D. M. Canright’s argument for tithing as a continually valid biblical principle was accepted. It might be said that were it not for this new plan, the tremendous expansion of mission and organization that began in the 1890s would not have been possible.  Tithing may very well be a God-ordained principle of giving for all time.  But there is no denying that it was the particular situation that Adventists found themselves in in the 1880s that led them to come to that conclusion.

Experience continues to be a powerful impetus for change to Adventism’s theological outlook and biblical interpretation in the 21st century.  First, with the passage of time, the meaning of Adventism is taking on a broader, more diverse, and increasingly postmillennial (in a qualified sense) turn.  Several factors are contributing this shift.  The largesse of corporate Adventism, the vested interest (such as keeping and thriving in one’s job) and the need for maintenance of the structure have long erased the original sense of urgency for preparing for and hastening Christ’s return.  Adventism of the 20th century sought in all earnestness to explain and cope theologically with the delay.  In the latter half of the century, it paid at the very least lip service to the notion of urgency and soonness while feeling simultaneously guilty and uneasy with the obvious dissonance of heralding the traditional Adventist brand of eschatology.  Now after experiencing the second turn of the century, Adventism seems braced for the long haul and an all-out postmillennial eschatology while nominally maintaining the premillennial (though much, much stretched) timeline.  We may still expect Christ to return before the millennium, but there is so much we can and must do before the parousia to build up the Kingdom—and it looks like that will take a very long while.  In the midst of all this, my sense is that the traditional meaning of 1844 will fall by the wayside and become irrelevant.  Nearly two centuries of experience is clearly giving rise to a very different eschatology in Adventism.

Second, looking at the other end of history, the traditional view on the origin of life on earth is being challenged more than ever by discoveries of contemporary science. More Adventists are finding it difficult to maintain the traditional view of creation and the first chapters of Genesis and becoming convinced that evolution declares the handiwork of God. My guess is that over the next century, Adventism will incorporate the evolutionary theory in significant ways in their theology of creation and modify their reading of Genesis and other parts of Scripture to accommodate their revised view on the origin of life. Just as experience is driving Adventists to take a much longer view of the future, it is going to force a much longer view of the past.  As a result, theological modifications in such areas as sin, salvation, Sabbath, and providence will be necessary to make the rest of their theology consistent with the evolution-informed theology of creation.

Third, the traditional views on homosexuality and women’s ordination are bound to change. More than any other factor (be it scientific evidence or exegesis of Scripture), the community’s experience with its own gay and lesbian members—especially the gay children—has impacted and will continue to impact its attitude toward homosexuality and its reading of Scripture on the subject.  I speculate that the same has been true of women serving in pastoral ministry.  In the end, witnessing and being beneficiaries of effective women pastors will lead Adventism past the tipping point on the question of women’s ordination.

To these, I can add a host of Adventist lifestyle standards that are changing because of the disconnect between the propositional claims coming from the 19th century and the empirical experience and observations of the present.  When violation of these standards cannot be shown to be morally and experientially evil, more Adventists will opt to follow experiential knowledge. 

I can also add the growing acceptance of the open view of God, whose foremost advocates are my colleagues, Richard Rice and David Larson.  I do not want to discount in any way the philosophical and theological basis of this view.  At the same time, I think what helps drive this view (of which frankly I am almost persuaded) is the experiential dimension of the presence of evil in spite of the proposed sovereignty of God and the view’s proponents’ desire to find rationale and validation for the existence and character of God.  It is also deeply impacted, by way of process philosophy, by modern science that is leans heavily toward materialistic monism and deism. To put it simply, it is an attempt (like all other theologies) at constructing a theology that makes sense today, given what we know about the universe and what we intuitively believe to be good.

In all this, interpretation of Scripture is at its heart and center.  What should we do when the plain teaching and the traditional interpretation of Scripture neither ring true with our experiences nor meet the real needs of our existence?  And what do we do with when we can no longer speak of a common Adventist experience, but rather Adventist experiences?

My modest proposal is that we keep doing what we have been doing.  To be Adventist does not necessarily mean keeping the same teaching or practice.  Our history is replete with changes—big and small—to our thought and life to bring them to coherence with one another.  Our tradition has been about dialoguing with both culture and Scripture—challenging the former based on our best understanding of the latter, while revising our understanding of the latter based on the challenges from the former.  To be Adventist means to let Scripture read you as you read Scripture.  It means being keenly in tune with life and all its experiences and doing theology actively and responsibly as a community, recognizing the lessons of our experiences as ongoing revelations of God.  What is truly important is not divining what Scripture teaches and following it exactly, but thinking like the communities that authored Scripture and making the same kind of courageous decisions they made, while learning from their mistakes.

Just as William Miller was impacted by the post-French Revolution millennialist ethos as he shaped many of his contemporaries’ understanding of Scripture, just as Hiram Edson, impacted by the Great Disappointment experience, re-read Scripture and re-organized his and many others’ lives by that re-reading, just as Joseph Bates and James White revised their eschato-missio-soterio-ecclesiology when challenged by the unexpected revelation of experience, just as Ellen White broadened and deepened her view of God and Christ when confronted by her profound experience with Christ, we must actively seek God’s revelation in the experiences of our lives and be willing to re-shape, and even abandon, the beliefs of our tradition.

It may be that the temptation to save face will prevent us from changing, or that changing will seem like a desperate act to save face.  But the fact that Adventism has constantly been in flux and dynamically adjusting to articulate the present truth may just be the saving grace of Adventism.

In closing, let us listen to Ellen White’s warning against hardened conservatism:

“Whenever the people of God are growing in grace, they will be constantly obtaining a clearer understanding of His word.  They will discern new light and beauty in its sacred truths.  This has been true in the history of the church in all ages, and thus it will continue to the end.  But as real spiritual life declines, it has ever been the tendency to cease to advance in the knowledge of the truth.  Men rest satisfied with the light already received from God’s word and discourage any further investigation of the Scriptures. They become conservative and seek to avoid discussion.

 “The fact that there is no controversy or agitation among God’s people should not be regarded as conclusive evidence that they are holding fast to sound doctrine. There is reason to fear that they may not be clearly discriminating between truth and error.  When no new questions are started by investigation of the Scriptures, when no difference of opinion arises which will set men to searching the Bible for themselves to make sure that they have the truth, there will be many now, as in ancient times, who will hold to tradition and worship they know not what” (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5, 706, 707).

Monasticism as a Protestant Response to Modernity: The Cases of Möllenbeck, Herrnhut, and Taizé

This paper was presented in an abbreviated format at the American Academy of Religion Western Region Annual Meeting in Claremont, California, on March 11-13, 2006. 

Close to half a millennium has gone by since one Friar Martin of Wittenberg, Germany, soon to become an ex-monk, nailed his 95 theses on that cold autumn night. For the average Christian living at that time, the most “spiritual” way of life was to renounce self and the world and become a monastic. However, the Protestant Reformation would revolutionize the concept of this ideal way of Christian living. Saved by faith alone and called to serve God in one’s own profession, the Reformers argued that monastic life was neither necessary nor helpful for salvation or serving God. In many cases, monasteries were closed by Protestant authorities and monks and nuns were “liberated,” at times forcibly. Thus, the words “Protestant” and “monasticism” have since become mutually exclusive terms in the mind of the general public.  

A shock wave was felt, therefore, when John R. W. Stott, an elder statesman of Protestant evangelicalism, stated in 1988 that if he were young and beginning his Christian service over, he would establish an evangelical monastic order. Joining it would be men vowed to “celibacy, poverty and peaceableness.” Perhaps not coincidentally, Richard Mouw,² professor at Fuller Theological Seminary (now the dean), speaking in the same year, suggested that Protestantism, and its self-consciously evangelical wing in particular, would benefit from “remonasticization”-having a small body of monastics within the church which would call the entire church to a clearer and more radical spiritual life.³ In wishing for some sort of an evangelical monastic order, both Stott and Mouw were reacting to the “mechanisms and mentality of consumerism,”two key hallmarks of modernity, and expressing their desire to bring greater spiritual vitality to the evangelical community.

Such a talk of reinstituting monasticism in Protestant churches (after centuries of denunciation and ridicule) by such staunchly Reformed leaders is puzzling and seemingly anachronistic. However, they were not the first to express their regret over de-monasticization or anti-monasticism of the Reformation. Theologians, Søren Kierkegaard and Adolf Harnack, already in the nineteenth century, yearned for the recovery of monasticism. Kierkegaard declared: “Back to the monastery out of which broke Luther–that is the truth–that is what must be done. . . . The fault with the Middle Ages was not monasticism and asceticism, but that worldliness had really conquered because the monk paraded as the exceptional Christian.”⁴ Harnack also asserted: “Every community stands in need of personalities living exclusively for its ends. The Church, . . ., needs volunteers who will abandon every other pursuit, renounce ‘the world,’ and devote themselves entirely to the service of their neighbor. . . .”⁵ Closer to our time, Charles Mellis traces the history of Christian missions in his book Committed Communities⁶ and makes the penetrating conclusion that “the lack of sodality ‘machinery’ no doubt contributed significantly to the Protestants’ 200-year delay in initiating missionary activities.”⁷ What he means by “sodality machinery” is quite obvious in his tract; he wants mission-minded monastic orders (much like the Catholic Society of Jesus) in Protestantism.

Writing for Christian Century in 1979, Peter R. Monkres, a United Church of Christ pastor, has also called for the creation of Protestant monastic orders for “meaningful expressions of discipleship”⁸ catering to anyone who desires ministry but are not necessarily suited for local church work, and for re-orientation toward “patterns of simplicity” and “new experiences of mysticism,” in a culture of excessive possessiveness and consumerism.⁹Monkres’s call has been echoed more forcefully by James T. Baker, a Southern Baptist intellectual, writing the next year for the same publication. He attributes the lack of deep spirituality in Protestantism to its rejection of monasticism and wonders aloud whether Protestants have not thrown the baby out with the bath water:

We find it a bit ridiculous, although we have our own versions of it, that medieval monks would take such pride in their humility. Yet we are still left, despite our suspicions and reservations, with the chronic Protestant spiritual deficiency. We are in general not an authentically prayerful people. We feel little sense of awe in the practice of our worship. . . . We do not necessarily need a recognized cadre of professional praying men and women. We do, however, need some Protestant form of monasticism that will reach into the body of our churches and restore the lost dimensions of spirituality.¹⁰

Be it of pride or regretful lamentation that one looks at the five centuries of Protestantism, anti-monasticism is an inescapable feature. As we have briefly noted above, the very essence of what it means to be Protestant seemed to be at stake as the church faced the issue of monasticism each time. Therefore, whenever communal movements akin to monasticism arose in the church, the mainstream evangelicals have simply branded them as either radical, fanatical or outright heretical.We find, nonetheless, in the peripheral zones of Protestant history scattered expressions of communal piety–phenomena which one might have easily referred to as monastic, were it not for the Reformation. Though it is debatable whether communal living in Protestantism can be called “monastic,” a word which accompanies the concepts of poverty, obedience and chastity, we can recognize in the history of Protestantism definite movements and communities, however marginal and tentative, which sought to resurrect and/or preserve the medieval tradition of monasticism in their contemporary Protestant contexts. Such movements also constitute important and noteworthy elements of our Protestant heritage.

In this paper, I examine the initial reasons for the rejection of monasticism during the Reformation, recount the major experiments of Protestant monasticism from the Reformation era into the twentieth century, and to compare and mark the development of these major movements. My aim is to help recognize the reasons for the historic Protestant tendencies against monasticism, while learning to appreciate the efforts those courageous and dedicated who fought hard over the centuries to restore and inspire corporate piety in the church. A discussion of the historical background and reasons that necessitated the magisterial reformers’ rejection of monasticism in the sixteenth-century Europe forms the first part of the main body. Positions of Martin Luther and Jean Calvin are spotlighted in this section, while others’ views are included by way of brief insertion to give a fuller picture of the initial rejection and condemnation of monasticism which resulted in actual destructions of monasteries in Protestant lands. The second major portion of our study is devoted to three significant Protestant expressions of monasticism throughout its history.¹¹ They are: (1) survivors from medieval monasticism, notable amongs is the Möllenbeck monastery; (2) the Herrnhut community of seventeenth-century Germany; and (3) the Taizé community, a contemporary ecumenical order in France.  Each of the three receives an equal and separate treatment, but not independent from each other, as I attempt to identify the line of continuity and development in these experiments. I conclude our investigation with a summary of the discussions and consideration of the viability of monasticism as an option for the mainstream evangelicals at the brink of the twenty-first century.

REJECTION OF MONASTICISM BY THE MAGISTERIAL REFORMERS

Against the essentially ascetic concept of spirituality dominant in their time, the leading Protestant reformers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries–Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and others–called men and women of God out of the centuries-old cloisters of Europe. Instead of separating themselves from the world, the monks and nuns were asked to come back into the world in order to change and bring it more into accord with the teachings of the Gospel. The reformers believed that Christians, wherever they may be, are called to active service in the world, not to retirement from it. True spirituality was understood by the reformers as manifesting inwardly, personally, and not necessarily visibly. Such a call to individual life of service and sacrifice in the world found its basis and foundation in the Protestant understanding of justification by faith and the priesthood of all believers. These two concepts were radically antithetical to the medieval concept of spirituality which exalted the monastic way of life as the most ideal. Suddenly, monasticism seemed obsolete and futile, since salvation and justification became God’s instantaneous pronouncement; and the bishop and the abbot were considered no holier than the bookkeeper and the cobbler. Thus, as Hannay points out, it was perhaps “not so much doctrinal differences or political exigencies which split Christendom into the opposing camps of Protestants and Catholics, as a divergence amounting to a contradiction between two conceptions to the Christian life.”12The Protestant Reformation and its presentation of the ideal Christian life–however it was justified by its adherents to be a return to what was primitive and “purely” biblical–had amounted in fact to an absolute revolution. In the Protestant view a good citizen was the best Christian. It was in the faithful performance of life’s common duties that one most perfectly fulfilled the will of God for humanity. By the expression of the body and mind’s natural desires and functions, which included above all sex, reproduction and possession of property, if checked by Scripture, one came nearest to achieving the purpose of the Creator.The Catholic ideal, expressed so vividly by monasticism, had been the ascetic life. The true monk was the perfect Christian. This was, as Thomas à Kempis had said, “the highest wisdom, by contempt of the world to make for the regions of heaven.”¹³ Wealth, marriage, sex and parenthood were looked upon as blinding factors to a person’s eyes to life’s greatest possibility–the mystical vision of God in His glory and splendor, which was to be arrived at by a life of total and absolute renunciation of all. Such a life was not possible for all, but for a few to whom God has granted the vocation to follow a life of perfection. The Protestant rejection of monasticism during the Reformation was, therefore, a logical conclusion of the revolutionary understanding of Christian living that they had come to hold.There also were, of course, negative reasons for their rejection of the monastic life. Many of the monasteries of the era were in dire need of reform. In his discussion of the radical Christian communities of the Reformation era, Rausch, a Jesuit scholar, make the following comments regarding the popular conception of the monastic life in the sixteenth century:

Far too many of the monastic communities had become comfortable homes for the unmarried sons or daughters of the wealthy; many had lost any semblance of religious discipline, regular prayer, or community life. The mendicants, particularly the Franciscans and Dominicans, fought with each other over theology and the question of which community practiced most perfectly the poverty of the Gospel. Meanwhile the figure of the ubiquitous fat friar had become a popular joke.¹⁴       

It, therefore, was not surprising, continues Rausch, that the Reformation would commence out of the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt, Germany, in the person of Martin Luther.¹⁵ He was soon joined by Jean Calvin and other reformers who similarly called for the end of monasticism.¹⁶

 

Martin Luther’s Position

Though his thinking developed gradually, Luther formulated his objections to monasticism in a treatise published in 1552 called De votis monasticis judicium.¹⁷ In this highly influential work, he outlined the basic arguments that would be reiterated throughout the history of Protestantism. He first asserted that no support for monastic vows could be found in the Word of God, and they were in fact contrary to Scripture. “There is no doubt that the monastic vow is in itself a most dangerous thing because it is without the authority and example of Scripture,” wrote Luther.¹⁸ He suggested that to go beyond what Christ commanded and enjoined was not faith, but sin. He stated further that the vows taken by a monk were actually requirements for all Christians; thus the vows represented what amounted to spiritual snobbism.Second, he saw the monastic life as an effort to justify oneself before God, and hence, contrary to the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The very taking of a perpetual vow as a means of salvation denotes a denial of Christ and orients the vow-taker toward work-righteousness, said Luther. On this basis he did not hesitate to say that monastic vows were null and void.Third, he felt that the vows were contrary to Christian liberty. Already, Luther had written some of his important works on Christian liberty, especially the treatise Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen in 1520. In De votis, he took this question of liberty once again, arguing that anyone could keep the content of the vows freely and gratuitously, but not as an obligation. Luther also added that monastic vows were contrary to the first commandment, replacing faith in God with works, and to common sense and reason, demonstrating clearly and at length that it is impossible to keep them. Among the contents of those unkeepable vows, Luther’s criticism of celibacy is the most severe: “There is never less chastity than in those who vow to be chaste. Almost everything about it is befouled, if not by unclean seminal emissions, then by the continual searing of lust which never dies out.”19Such condemnation, however, did not mean a total annulment of the monastic institution which was so pervasive in the medieval society. In a number of passages of Luther we can see evidences of his allowance for certain types of monasticism, especially that advocated by Augustine (perhaps due to his a favorable disposition toward them having formerly been one of them):

I certainly do not say that I would condemn the ceremonies of . . . monasteries; for this was the first discipline of the religious, that he who enters a monastery learns to obey his superior, not to labor for himself but to serve everyone in every way. Truly it was the monasteries that served as schools for the exercise and perfection of Christian liberty.²⁰       

 As late as 1538 he declared:

I should especially like to see the rural monasteries and those that have been endowed stay to take care of noble persons and poor ministers. Nor have I proposed anything else from the beginning. From such monasteries suitable men can then be chosen for the church, the state, and economic life.²¹       

It appears, therefore, that while being opposed philosophically and doctrinally to monasticism, Luther saw at least some minimal practical value of the monasteries and some of the services that they provided to allow for their retainment. And for those who would insist on entering monastic life for the motives judged pure, Luther would allow it, but he admonishes with biting sarcasm to wait until life’s prime years are well gone by: “. . . every person under vows prior to the age of sixty is reproved and condemned by none other than the Apostles.”²² Considering the average life expectancy of that time, Luther was basically consigning monasticism to the morgue. Surely he could not have been envisioning the future of monasteries as nursing homes.

 

Jean Calvin’s Position

Calvin’s views on monasticism were similar to Luther’s. Calvin, of course, never knew monastic life from personal experience. It was perhaps for this understandable reason that, as Biot reports, “we do not find in him, . . ., the personal interest which led Luther to become preoccupied especially with monasticism.”²³ Hence, in the 1536 and 1541 editions of his Institutes, we find no direct reference to monasticism. It was only in the seventh and last edition of the work, published in 1559, that he presented a systematic treatise on the subject. Devoting a whole chapter on monastic vows in Book 4, Calvin declared that since monastic vows were unlawful and superstitious, they could not be binding.²⁴Calvin used three criteria for judging religious vows. The first criterion dealt with the person to whom the vow was made, i.e. God. His argument was that since a vow is a promise made to God, it must please God. However, nothing that a person did could be of any merit, therefore a vow was useless. Second, Calvin said that the person who makes the vow was very important. A vow must be supported by the ability of the one who makes the promise to deliver. For this reason, Calvin rejected the vow of chastity and celibacy. This does not depend on man himself, but on God’s calling, said Calvin. The third criterion had to do with the reasons for making a vow. Calvin listed four instances in which a vow may lawfully be taken–to give thanks and to do penance, regarding the past, and to protect self against dangers and to incite self to the performance of duties, regarding the future.Judged by these criteria, Calvin said that the baptismal vow was legitimate. As for other particular vows, the three criteria ought to be consulted with great caution and consultation. But the monastic vow was to be rejected.Calvin began his explanation of the rejection with a comparison between the state of affairs in his time and the time of Augustine of Hippo. He charged that under the pretext of contemplative life, the monks had turned into lazy do-no-gooders: “Our present-day monks find in idleness the chief part of their sanctity.”²⁵ He pointed out that while monks of the olden days did lead austere lives, their sixteenth-century counterparts were full of vanity: “. . . they count it an unforgivable crime for anyone to depart even in the slightest degree from what is prescribed in color or appearance of clothing, in kind of food, or in other trifling and cold ceremonies.”²⁶ Calvin also subjected monks to considerable ridicule; he accused them of lechery, of having bloated faces and bellies, and of being consumed with concupiscence. Then, he objected particularly to the vow of celibacy which for him represented a rejection of the divinely instituted state of marriage. All these were important charges, but the weightiest item in the scales for Calvin was that the monks had reached the point of seeing themselves as perfect. Supposing themselves to be a spiritually elite group, “they boast that they are in the state of perfection!”27

Summary

We have seen the positions of Luther and Calvin on monasticism and their reasons for rejection. There, of course, were other reformers who have likewise attacked monastic life such as Melanchthon, in his commentary on Matthew 19:21, Zwingli, with his publication of Auslegung und Gründe der Schlussreden in 1523, and Bucer, in his discussion of the institution of marriage in his De regno Christi. The recurring theme in the Protestant attack centered on the issue of celibacy.With Calvin, we observe that Calvin’s charges dealt more with the superficially apparent and immediately recognizable aspects of monasticism such as the monks’ laziness, vanity and boasting of perfection. Deeply in touch with what the mass thought of the monks, Calvin incorporated the popular criticism of the monastic system in his writings. Meanwhile, Luther, having had personal involvement with the system, went right to the root of the institution and shakes the very foundation on which it stands. His Scripture-based systematic attacks on monasticism led literally to the disbanding of monasteries and destruction of abbeys.On the whole, as Biot observes, “the Reform[ation] rejected monasticism as non-evangelical. . . . But at a deeper level the Reform judged the very principle of monasticism unacceptable.”²⁸ As we noted earlier, the revolutionary shift in the understanding of the ideal spirituality caused by the Reformation led inevitably to such a conclusion. Whether the reformers were correct in so identifying the excesses and evil deeds of the monks with the institution itself, thereby abandoning it all, is a question which we touch upon toward the end of our investigation. Whatever the case, immediately following the Reformation small yet determined monastic movements would arise to establish another tradition of communal piety within the wall of Protestantism.

THREE PROTESTANT MONASTIC COMMUNITIES

Despite the censure of monastic life by the reformers, many attempts have been made through the history of Protestantism to found religious communities, and some of these have been successful, at least for a while. Only a few have been accepted by the mainstream of Protestantism; most, branded as cultist and eyed upon with suspicion, have remained marginal and, unable to enjoy wider acceptance, have mostly self-disintegrated. Among them, we examine here three representative communities in the European continent that either emerged as Protestant through the Reformation or sprang up as independent evangelical organizations over the years.

 

Survivors of Medieval Monasticism

The community of Möllenbeck (1558-1675) near Rinteln in northwest Germany was one of the first communities to appear within Protestantism. It was originally Augustinian, but in 1558, under the direction of Father Hermann Wenig, its prior, it realigned itself with the Reformation, or Lutheranism more specifically.

Based on his research, Biot describes that life at Möllenbeck did not change much after the switch in allegiance took place:

Despite this acceptance of Reform, the routine of the monks remained essentially unchanged. Monastic regulations, the various ceremonies, choral chanting of the office–even Solemn Mass–went right on. In other words, the “conversion” did not show. . . .²⁹

Some things, however, had to go; and they dealt with:

. . . the really sensitive points: the theology taught at the convent was modified in accordance with the new dogma, anything in the liturgy suggestive of the cult of saints was suppressed, along with anything (like procession) suggestive of the gaining of indulgences; and everything involving any idea of a sacrifice was withdrawn form the Mass.³⁰    

The monastery then began actually to prosper as an evangelical community, and the number of novices increased quite quickly. Through this, the prior of the monastery became very influential, besieged by constant callers seeking advice and blessing. Yet, the monastery could not survive the bitter controversies, both religious and political, engendered by the Thirty Years’ War, and it finally died out in the 1670s.Little is actually known about Möllenbeck. The monks supposedly continued to live in obedience to their prior, held property as common and remained chaste. However, whether they required new novitiates to keep the same vows, we do not know. Nor do we know how the institution evolved as the new Reformed generation received the baton of leadership. Even less is known of the reasons that caused, or necessitated, the acceptance of Lutheranism. However, we would think that geography played a key role in such a decision–be it out of conviction, political necessity or fear for the future. Whatever the case, the distance from Rome would certainly have contributed to such a remarkable change fairly early on in the course of the Reformation.Two other survivals of Catholic monasticism within Lutheranism should be noted.³¹ The cloister at Loccum, Germany had originally been a Cistercian monastery (founded in 1163), but in 1593 it was reformed in the light of Lutheran theology. Vows were no longer required, but celibacy remained an obligation. Gradually the number of prayer services was reduced from seven to three in line with Lutheran liturgical practice. The community still referred to itself as a Cistercian cloister, and the rule of St. Benedict continued to be observed. A seminary for pastors was instituted in 1792, but the convent remained a separate entity until late nineteenth century when it too died out.Another survival of the medieval order within Protestantism was seen at the convent of Marienberg in Helmstedt, Germany. The convent had formerly been an Augustinian cloister for nuns, but the Lutheran doctrine came to be accepted here in 1569, though not without some opposition. The convent was gradually transformed into an evangelical community for single women. One of the local clergy was designated as the dean of the cloister to supervise regular worship. In the nineteenth century, the convent established a hospital, a school for girls and a public school within the cloister grounds as a service to the surrounding community. As of the mid-1970s, six sisters still remained at Marienberg and conducted daily worship as well as religious retreats.

 The Pietist Communities³²

After Luther, there were various changes in German Protestantism. There were two main tendencies in the church already from the end of the sixteenth century onwards, particularly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The first is known as ‘magisterial’ or ‘mainstream,’ where emphasis was laid on strict doctrine, while the other tendency was known as ‘pietistic.’

Whereas the mainstream reformers had placed the emphasis on justification, Pietists gave special attention to regeneration and sanctification. “Holiness” was a recurring theme in Pietist circles. This holiness was to be lived out in the world. The hope of the Christian was for eternity, but it is in this life that he was called to work out his salvation.

Out of the Pietist strand of the seventeenth-century Protestantism, various community movements emerged that were often monastic in nature. Jean Labadie, a convert from Catholicism to Calvinism, established communities for single men and women in Holland and America. Jean Gennuvit also attempted to restore the cloistered life. Around the same time, Johann Kelpius founded the Wissahickon hermitage in Pennsylvania. According to Bloesch, the piety of these communities was more mystical than evangelical, and the stress was placed on withdrawal from the world into the silence of meditation and contemplation.³³ One group that made a prominent mark on the history of Protestantism was the Herrnhut community.  Founded by Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) on his own estate near Berthelsdorf, Germany, 172234, the Moravian Brethren of Herrnhut sought to work in close connection with the established churches.  From Herrnhut, Moravian missionaries were sent to distant lands throughout the world. Although there was no general community of goods, historians report of the generous and extremely open sharing and intimacy that prevailed throughout. The members were organized into “choirs” based on age, sex, and marital status, and these looked after their spiritual and material needs. There were dormitories for married people, single men and single women. According to their status (married, single or widowed) the sisters had their ribbon, which they wore on their white straw hats, while the brothers dressed simply in gray or brown.The principal occupation was the cultivation of the Zinzendorf lands. Apparently their work paid off quite well from the beginning, as the community quickly became fairly prosperous. As Zinzendorf testifies, work was not to be esteemed a mere servile activity:

To find employment for members of a commune or parish, whatever their trade, in a season of drought, amidst the difficulties which the malevolence of the world creates, besides the continual care that souls demand; to contrive that they shall always have work–this is one of the finest and most important tasks to be fulfilled by those to whom God has deigned to give any authority or post. They do not sin in busying themselves beforehand to provide for all this; on the contrary, they would sin in neglecting this duty.³⁵       

Even from the secular point of view, Herrnhut was an ideal, thriving community, but it was more so spiritually. The spirituality of Herrnhut was said to be thoroughly evangelical, with the traditionally Pietist emphasis on the subjective experience of conversion and a felt assurance of salvation. Hymn singing dominated the daily devotions of the community; and the community was famous for its unique trombone choirs. The devotional texts, the Losungen, comprised the themes for these meetings, and on Sundays there were preaching services as well as singing meetings. The piety of the community was anchored in the message of the cross, with a special emphasis on the blood of Jesus shed for the sinner.  The all-encompassing motive for the brothers and sisters of the Herrnhut community was decidedly restitutionist. Their singular goal was to revive in their own era the most authentic Christian life in history, duplicating the very church in Act 2 and 3 in Jerusalem.From a more objective point of view, it would perhaps be incorrect to call the Herrnhut experience as part of what may be called “Protestant monasticism.” It certainly could not be counted as regular among Catholic monastic communities of its time. This was a community, an “order,” based on individuality. There was neither a vow nor the subjugation of the individual to the established rule; the direction was the opposite–i.e., strong individual spirituality amassed together voluntarily marked the corporate piety. Clearly, all the basic ingredients of the medieval monastic ideals–poverty, obedience and chastity–were lacking; however, in the pursuit of the single goal, the revival of the New Testament church, they were united.Whether monastic or not in the traditional sense, Herrnhut created in fact a whole new way of approaching communal piety. It thus marked the beginning of Protestant monasticism after which all the cenobitic ventures of later centuries down to the present have styled their experiments. In many ways Herrnhut both “proved” and “disproved” the cause of the Reformation. “Proved,” in that it demonstrated the superiority of individually-driven spirituality working in harmony with the collective over against the centrally-imposed piety of the medieval monasteries–that it was neither the monastic vow nor celibacy that sustains a spiritual community. But “disproved,” in that it was not the communal system that was faulty, as the reformers had claimed, but that there was a legitimate place for a close-knit monastic community even in the Protestant church.

 

The Taizé Community³⁶

Since World War II, Protestantism has experienced a remarkable revival of community life.³⁷ Inspired by Herrnhut and the like communities of the preceding generations, many of these communities have sought to work within the established churches while advancing ecumenical ideals. The best known and most representative of all the twentieth-century ventures is Taizé. Taizé is an ecumenical monastery in Burgundy, France, about 10 kilometers east of Cluny, the once center of the great medieval reform. The community finds its roots in the Reformed tradition of Protestantism but has now branched out into a true inclusive ecumenical experiment. At Taizé places of worship are provided also for both Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox in the community’s Church of Reconciliation.Taizé was officially founded in 1949 by a young Swiss pastor, Roger Schutz, whose lifelong goal had been to establish a Protestant monastic community. On Easter Sunday that year the brothers of Taizé, Schutz and six others with whom he had envisioned the community from their university years at Lausanne, gathered in the abandoned parish Catholic church in Taizé to make a public profession. Each promised to live in communion with his brothers, to renounce all ownership, to practice celibacy, and to follow the decisions of the prior so that they might be of one heart and one mind. As the community continued to grow, the need for some written guidelines became more evident. Thus in the winter of 1952-1953, Schutz took some time out for silence and prayer and composed the Rule of Taizé.³⁸The rule is more a description of their life and exhortation than a set of regulations. Its preamble makes clear that it is not to be understood as a law which excuses one from the responsibility of discovering God’s will anew. Organized into four sections, it describes the activities of the community, its spiritual discipline, its vows, and some practical instructions on brothers outside Taizé, new brothers and guests.The spirituality of Taizé represents “an open monasticism.”³⁹ The community does require the three traditional monastic vows of poverty (”Will you, in renouncing all ownership to property, live with your brothers not only in the community of material goods but also in the community of spiritual goods, while striving for openness of heart?“), obedience (”Will you, in order that we may be but one heart and one soul and that our unity of service may be fully realized, assume the decisions made in community and as expressed by the Prior?“) and chastity (”Will you, in order to be more available to serve with your brothers and to give yourself completely to the love of Christ, remain celibate?“).⁴⁰ Nonetheless, open and individual spirit is said to dominate the community. From the beginning the Rulestates, “You fear that a common rule may stifle your personality, whereas its purpose is to free you from useless shackles, so that you may better bear the responsibilities of the ministry and make better use of its boldness.”⁴¹ It continues, “Far from groaning under the burden of a rule, rejoice;”⁴² and “Be a sign of joy and of brotherly love among men.”43The most striking thing about the constitution of this community, as Biot observes, is:

. . . the fact that it was never a clearly defined a priori attempt to imitate some Catholic order or some Eastern monastery. Without knowing exactly where the experience would lead them, the brothers at first joined together simply to lead the life of the Gospel in common. From that point on, as they now recognize, they were feeling their way: Were they, as some of them hoped, to create within the Reformation Churches some form of contemplative life, thus rendering primarily the service of prayer? Or were they, rather, to carry into the workaday [sic] world . . . testimony of Christ’s activity and his presence? What were to be the bonds of each brother with the community? Were they to be purely spiritual, and fundamentally revocable? Or were they, instead, to involve some sort of obligation of a solemn engagement? Thus, it was no a priori conception . . . .⁴⁴       

It was only the inductive experience of the brothers in communal experiment that would form the exact nature and mission of Taizé.Besides the open-ended and individual nature of the community, two dominant aspects that have come to permeate Taizé are those of social involvement and ecumenism. “Open yourself to that which is human and you will see all vain desire to flee from the world vanish from your heart. Be present to the time in which you live; adapt yourself to the conditions of the moment. . . . Love the dispossessed, all those who, living amid man’s injustice, thirst after justice. Jesus had a special concern for them,” say the Rule. This spirit has taken the present-day brothers of Taizé to Germany, Algiers, the Ivory Coast and the U.S. They also participate actively in the liturgical renewal movement in France. “For Protestantism, this means a rediscovery of the pre-Reformation treasures of the Church. For Roman Catholicism, this means a return to the simplicity and compactness of the early Western mass.”45The ecumenical spirit of Taizé finds its basis on the Rule as well: “Love you neighbor, whatever may be his political or religious beliefs. Never resign yourself to the scandal of the separation of Christians, all who so readily confess love for their neighbor, and yet remain divided. Be consumed with burning zeal for the unity of the Body of Christ.”⁴⁶ Though Protestant in its original constitution, Taizé’s unique position makes it easy to reach out those of other background and affiliations on an ecumenical basis. For twelve years before Vatican II, Prior Schutz and the Sub-prior visited the pope privately each year to discuss common concerns. Beginning in the 1960s, groups of Roman Catholic bishops and Protestant pastors have met at Taizé to talk together about evangelism and the ministry–”the first time in France since the Reformation that such a confrontation [took] place.”⁴⁷ Taizé also has close connection with the World Council of Churches, whose headquarters are in nearby Geneva. Many of the brothers either chair or participate as members of the W.C.C. committees on liturgy, social activism and theology. Perhaps the ecumenism of the community was best expressed by Pope John Paul II who visited Taizé in 1986: “By desiring to be yourselves a parable of community, you will help all whom you meet to be faithful to their church affiliation, the fruit of their education and their choice in conscience, but also to enter more and more deeply into the mystery of communion that the Church is in God’s plan.”48Today, the Taizé community has more than 100 monks⁴⁹ and is linked by small groups called “fraternities” around the world in such places as Brazil, Kenya, Korea and Bangladesh. A fraternity can also be found in New York’s “Hell Kitchen,” the bubble of New York’s melting pot. The community has now the entire globe as its parish, less by reaching out but more by drawing in. In 1974 it held a council of youth, gathering some 40,000 young people from across the globe to Taizé. Each year it is visited by tens of thousands of visitors and veritable “pilgrims” from Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox churches.As a monastic community, Taizé has played an important role in bringing a new awareness of contemplative prayer and a sense of liturgy, both to the Reformed churches and the thousands who have spent time at Taizé. It has also provided the Catholic church with a new vision of the possibility of reunion. In many ways Taizé has provided not a revolutionary model of Protestant monasticism but suggested revolutionary possibilities to Protestants for accepting the essentials of the medieval monasticism as a viable and vibrant aspect to their spirituality. It has gone a step beyond the Herrnhut community of two centuries ago, in that it has basically restored all the ingredients of what monasticism has always meant and was aspiring for in the Protestant context and used them as the means for trulyreforming and reconciling the invisible holy Body of Christ on earth.

 

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

It seems that monasticism for the Protestants has come a complete circle. For the reformers the very idea of monasticism was considered as unbiblical, unnatural, inhumane and irrational. The Protestant doctrines of justification by faith and the priesthood of all believers prevented the acceptance of monastic life which the reformers saw as works-oriented, elitist group of hypocrites. Monasteries scattered across Europe were visible representations of the corruption and spiritual laxity of the decaying papacy. Anti-monastic current, therefore, in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestantism was strong and seemingly permanent.

Nonetheless, we see traces of monasticism appearing within Protestantism already during the time of Reformation. However, the extant record of monasteries that switched allegiance during the Reformation and survived the wave of anti-monasticism is scanty. What can be considered as the first successful Protestant experiment with monasticism was the Herrnhut community. Though not strictly “monastic” in its traditional sense, the community’s success provided a model for Protestant reform communities during the two centuries that followed and opened avenues for further experimentation. At its least, Herrnhut suggested the possibility that there can be a room for monasticism with the churches of Protestant tradition. In other ways, the Moravian community “bettered” the medieval practice of monasticism in that it was able to respect the individual strains while uniting all in the community’s singular restitutionist goal. For the medieval Catholic monks, the focus had been on the means (usually self-mortification) by which they strove for whatever their individual goals for perfection were. But as for the brothers and sisters of Herrnhut, the focus was on the common end toward which all strived as a community whatever the means. In that sense they achieved greater unity and focus as a “monastic” community than their medieval counterparts–not necessarily having to enforce unity by external means such as the vows, liturgy or dress code.A century and a half later the Taizé community arose and, though no longer entirely Protestant either its composition or stated direction, reshaped immensely the contemporary idea and possibility of Protestant monasticism. It reinstituted the vows of poverty, obedience and chastity and many of the traditional means of operating a monastery to become a “parable of community,” while reaching out within Protestantism, across the denominational barriers and into the world. Taizé reversed completely and made obsolete the reformers’ denunciation of monasticism. It remains as a witness that monasticism is neither an enemy to the evangelical spirit nor an impediment of Christian service to the world. It stands as a landmark in the history of Protestantism in that it, like the Herrnhut community, shows a distinctive model and possibility for the rest and for the years to come.It is in this context of the history of Protestant monasticism that we can understand and even empathize with the concerns of Kierkegaard, Harnack and Stott. Wrote Baker strongly calling for a systematic reinstitution of monasticism within mainline evangelical Protestantism, organized and supported by the church:

Monasticism’s ideal is to create a race of people who not only can live with the mystery, but who will love it preserve it. It is the task of that race to show the way of poverty to a world sick with affluence, the way of simplicity to a world suffocated by complexities, the way of faith to a world drowning in its own solutions, the way of contemplation of eternal truth to a world lost in shadows.⁵⁰       

The present-day Protestantism, still strongly affected by the vestiges of the anti-monastic current handed down from the Reformation, will still have much overcoming to do if it were to accept such a call to “remonasticization.” However, as we have seen, enough experiments and successes can be identified in our past and present to warrant a strong possibility of a long overdue monastic revival within the churches of the Reformation.

 

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 1. Rodney Clapp, “Remonking the Church,” Christianity Today, 12 August 1988, 20.

 2. http://www.netbloghost.com/mouw/

 3. Ibid.

 4. Søren Kierkegaard, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, ed. and trans. Alexander Drew (London: Oxford University Press, 1951), 502, quoted in Donald G. Bloesch, Wellspring of Renewal: Promise in Christian Communal Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974), 33, 34. 

 5. Adolf Harnack, What is Christianity? trans. Thomas Bailey Saunders (New York: Harper, 1957), 288.

 6. http://www.amazon.com/Committed-Communities-Fresh-Streams-Missions/dp/0878084266 

 7. Charles J. Mellis, Committed Communities: Fresh Streams for World Missions (South Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1976), 34.

 8. Peter R. Monkres, ”An Innovative Ministry for Surplus Clergy,” Christian Century 96 (1979): 151.

 9. Ibid., 149.

 10. James T. Baker, ”Benedict’s Children and Their Separated Brothers and Sisters,” Christian Century 97 (1980): 1193.

 11. In a discussion of the Protestant monasticism, one invariably encounters the phenomenon of the Anglican monastic revivial in the eighteenth century. However, we have excluded the Anglican orders in our discussion in recognition of the obvious differences between Anglicanism and the rest of the evangelical Protestantism and have limited the investigation to the continental movements.

 12. James O. Hannay, The Spirit and Origin of Christian Monasticism (London: Methuen & Co., 1903), 3.

 13. Quoted in ibid., 4.

 14. Thomas P. Rausch, Radical Christian Communities (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1990), 84.

 15. Ibid.

 16. See François Biot, The Rise of Protestant Monasticism (Baltimore, MD: Helicon, 1963) for a fuller discussion of the positions taken by Luther, Calvin and other reformers on monastic life.

 17. Martin Luther, The Judgment of Martin Luther on Monastic Vows, Luther’s Works, vol. 44, ed. and trans. James Atkinson (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966).

 18. Ibid., 252.

19. Ibid., 369.20. Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, vol. 14, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (St. Louis, MO: Concordia, 1958), 301.

 21. Martin Luther, Table Talk, Luther’s Works, vol. 54, ed. and trans. Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967), 312.

 22. On Monastic Vows, 398.

 23. Biot, 29.

 24. Jean Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, The Library of Christian Classics, vol. 21, ed. John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 1274-1275.

 25. Ibid., 1264.

 26. Ibid.

 27. Ibid., 1265.

 28. Biot, 60.

 29. Ibid., 66.

 30. Ibid.

 31. See Frederick S. Weiser, ”The Survival of Monastic Life in Post-Reformation Lutheranism” (S.T.M. thesis, Lutheran Theological Seminary, 1966).

 32. For fuller treatments of the Pietist communities, see Biot, 67-82; Bloesch 44-51; and A. Perchenet, The Revival of the Religious Life and Christian Unity, trans. by E. M. A. Graham (London: A. R. Mowbray & Co., 1969).

 33. Bloesch, 39.

 34. On Zinzendorf and the Herrnhut community, see F. Bovet, Le Comte de Zinzendorf (Paris: Librairie française et etrangère, 1865).

 35. Bovet, 129, quoted in Biot, 71.

 36. For a fuller treatment, see Kathryn Spink, A Universal Heart: The Life and Vision of Brother Roger of Taizé (New York: Harper & Row, 1986); J. L. Gonzales Balado, The Story of Taizé (London: Mowbray, 1988).

 37. See Bloesch, Centers of Christian Renewal (Philadelphia: United Church, 1964); Olive Wyon, Living Springs (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963).

 38. Roger Schutz, The Rule of Taizé (Taizé-Communauté, France: Les Presses de Taizé, 1967).

 39. Rausch, 120.

 40. Including the three here, the six questions of commitments (vows) made at the profession (initiation) can be found in Schutz, 134-139.

 41. Ibid., 15.

 42. Ibid., 11.

 43. Ibid., 19.

 44. Biot, 85.

 45. Malcolm Boyd, ”The Taizé Community,” Theology Today 15 (1958-1959): 497.

 46. Schutz, 21.

 47. Robin Sharp, “Monasticism in Modern Protestantism,” London Quarterly & Holborn Review 187 (1963): 286.

 48. Rausch, 125.

 49. http://www.taize.fr/en

 50. Baker, 1194.