What do we mean by Religious Life?

By Rev’d Dr Tim Watson

In November 2021 the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture is welcoming more than 100 members of traditional, modern and emerging Religious Communities to a three-day ecumenical conference entitled “Ancient Futures: The Renewal of Religious Life in the Australian Church”.

What exactly is meant by “Religious Life”: do “Religious Communities” have a technical definition, what do they have in common, and what is their distinctive place within the life of God’s church?

Prayer

Religious Communities have always emerged from the experience of personal prayer. Pioneers such as Antony of Egypt, the “father of Western Monasticism”, and Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, began as solitary figures seeking to hear the voice of God, and wrestling with their demons in the desert in the footsteps of Christ. The Communities that formed around these founders grew from men and women who sought to emulate them: to pray as they prayed, and share their common life. Today’s Communities still take the personal spiritual autobiographies of their founders – for example, Teresa of Avila’s “Interior Castle”, or Loren Cunningham’s “Is It Really You Lord?” – as their template. Another contemporary example is the “24/7 Prayer” movement which has birthed a Religious Community, the Order of the Mustard Seed, drawing on the prayer practices of the 18th century Moravian Brethren. This grounding in specific ways of praying, with reference to the personal spiritual experience of specific individuals, underpins all Religious Communities and gives to each its distinctive character.

Poverty, chastity, obedience

Following Christ in Community is an intentional step with radical implications. For many Religious Communities, the commitment to common life requires a formal life vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience, traditionally referred to as the “Evangelical Counsels”. (Though history reminds us that Communities have sometimes become rich, unhealthily autonomous, and not always models of chastity.) For all Religious Communities, whether traditional or emerging, membership requires a commitment to a binding rule – which is the root meaning of “religio” – and specific stipulations in respect of economic and family circumstances, authority and discernment. This can take many different forms: many modern Communities don’t require a life commitment, for example, and members can be married or single. But it’s fascinating to note that the desire to “take life vows” is widespread among members of emerging Communities – almost as if the call to follow Christ in Community carries, as part of its DNA, an instinct to make an unconditional covenantal gift of self within a particular form of life.

Structures

Emerging “bottom-up” from prayer and personal spiritual experience, and expressed in autonomous structures which emerge organically from their distinctive forms of life, Religious Communities have always had a complex relationship with the “top-down” hierarchies of denominations structured around dioceses, parishes, and formal divisions between “lay” and “ordained”. Often Communities, for example the Franciscan movement of the 13th century, emerge to challenge church structures which need fresh energy and spiritual renewal. Sometimes hierarchies resist this: in the 18th century John Wesley’s Anglican Methodist Societies were mistrusted and marginalised, with the result that Methodism became a separate denomination. Sometimes they embrace it: in contemporary Wellington, New Zealand, Justin Duckworth spent two decades leading a non-denominational New Monastic Community, Urban Vision, before swiftly becoming first an Anglican, then a priest, then Bishop. At the end of the second millennium, marked by the “end of Christendom”, many Religious Communities have either chosen to remain independent of denominational structures, such as Taizé or Northumbria, or have emerged from a non-denominational church context where traditional hierarchies seem increasingly irrelevant, such as Youth With A Mission. At the same time, emerging Communities often experience a “deficit of catholicity” and seek relationships with brothers or sisters in traditional Communities (and sometimes even with bishops!) to provide the experience, wisdom and oversight they lack. Religious Communities have been a vital element within the Church since its earliest centuries, and their flourishing will be indispensable to its future. Archbishop Justin Welby recently described them as “the canary in the coal mine” of the contemporary Church, and called for “a wild burst of fresh and Spirit-fuelled imagination” about Religious Community life in the 21st century. As Community members from a wide variety of contexts prepare to gather together at the ACC&C in November 2021, let’s pray that the Holy Spirit will enlighten and inspire us, as together we seek God’s wisdom for the renewal of God’s Church in Australia.

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