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.

 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.