Living Faithfully in a Fragmented World

Living Faithfully in a Fragmented World is this month’s reading in the Virtual Cloister.  A slight volume of ecclesiology, Jonathan Wilson's book has had a disproportionately large effect, birthing a potent movement called the New Monasticism.  Perhaps this outgrowth of the thought put forward in Living Faithfully is an entry into appreciating the book itself.

The New Monasticism is what might be called the result of a phenomenological reduction performed on the Old Monasticism:  young Christians, looking intently at traditional monasticism, see an essence that is intentional community, with other aspects that might be viewed as accidents, or unnecessary to the essence.

The focus on intentional community provides a counterpoint and alternative, and perhaps a rebuke of a world Wilson describes as fragmented.

Fragmentation is not to be confused with diversity, according to Wilson.  Diversity assumes coherent self-identifying and identifiable communities, seeking to find ways to relate, one community to another.  A fragmented world, on the other hand, is one lacking in coherence, and marked by isolation.

Traditional monasticism, in late antiquity and the middle ages, has been credited with salvaging civilization in the wake of a wrecked empire.

Can intentional Christian communities provide something parallel in our fragmented world now?  This is a question worth our considering together.