I love the monastics as much as the next guy. Through their writings and witness, we gain valuable insight into church history, theological development and faith practice. Wilson-Hartgrove asserts in a fascinating article that the benefit derived from them can go deeper, resulting in a transformative experience that mirrors the desert fathers’ intense communal focus.
When I read Jonathan’s article as a theologian, I heartily agree with his concepts. When I read again as a youth ministry practitioner, I am overwhelmed by the difficulty of possible implementation. The tension between these perspectives plays directly into the author’s argument, which he summarizes anecdotally by quoting the equivalent of a monk’s motivational poster: “Everybody wants to join the revolution, but no one wants to do the dishes.”
This is at least doubly true in the context of an adolescent subculture that is simultaneously idealistic and individualistic. Most teenagers want to be a part of something significant, but few are willing to inconvenience themselves in order to participate in said significant thing. While I enjoyed and was personally challenged by Wilson-Hartgrove’s suggestions, I find myself asking some pretty deep questions.
Personal vs. Private
First, he speaks of the difference between faith being personal and private:
Benedict’s whole-life spirituality is a radical departure from standard religion in American culture. While it assumes that our relationship with God is intimately personal, it leaves no room for our individualistic assumptions that faith is private.
This sounds well and good (to be sure, I agree), but how do students walk that tightrope? Most of the kids in my ministry are convinced that the moment they wake up for school, they are mandated to leave their faith at home with the rest of their valuables, or at least secured in their lockers until the final bell rings. They live in homes with giant garage doors and tiny front entrances—bulwarks of privacy. While many put themselves out there on Facebook, few are truly vulnerable in social media. It’s too risky. They could be bullied, ridiculed or even abandoned. In fact, most kids have been bullied, ridiculed and abandoned into silence. They have been trained to be private. And it’s not always out of selfishness. Sometimes they are that way because of fear.
So how can we encourage them to have a deep faith that is at once deeply personal and very public? I’m certain Benedict would supply some answers. What I’m not sure of is that Benedict understood the plight of today’s adolescent.
Rule of Life vs. Legalism
I love the idea of a rule of life. When I was completing my studies in church history, I even adopted a sort of 21st-century rule of my own. There are certain values, habits and disciplines I want to live by—no exceptions. Some of them are pertinent only to me; others involve relationships and community.
As a 30-year-old who has had ups and downs in his own faith journey, I think I have arrived at a place where I can examine my adherence to that rule with honesty and objectivity that does not make me a slave to it as the Judaizers were slaves to the law. Rather, I consider it a guide. It is by grace that I am saved and in obedience that I respond.
But I also remember what I felt like when I was 12 or 13 and missed a day of reading the Bible or said a cuss word. Ravaged by guilt, I wondered if God loved me, if he could or would forgive me, if I was headed straight for hell.
I am not sure how to teach students to live in community by a rule of life without nudging them ever closer to an understanding of Jesus that is severely flawed. What happens when they sleep through an alarm alerting them to rise and pray? What about when someone in their small group gossips about them and brings a schoolful of ridicule upon them and they have a hard time forgiving? Will their concrete-thinking minds be able to separate struggle from sin? Will their failure to abide by the rule lead them to despair? I’m not sure, and I’m not saying it means we shouldn’t try. I simply struggle to feel confident that this will not be a huge obstacle.
I wholeheartedly agree with Hartgrove when he concludes that “the truest radicals aren’t yelling down the corporate elites… They’re learning to pray.” Yet I wonder how effective our efforts to introduce a way of life such as Benedict’s will be. While students long for community, they are also in a process of discovering themselves. Until they know who they are, they may never truly belong to any group.
Our primary task is to inform students’ identities as they are shaped by Jesus, not other people. Only then will young people emerge who are so passionate about the revolution that they are willing to scrub some pots and pans in order to see it come to pass.
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