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Rightly people have started to ask me the question, what is new monasticism in our current UK context? To begin to answer this, I am going to start putting up blog postings coming out of the discussions I am involved with at the national CofE Advisory Council for Religious Communities and Diocesan Bishops that I was co-opted onto last year. We have been working hard on a proposal to assist the Church to discern, recognise and nurture New Monastic Communities as authentic ‘Acknowledged Religious Communities’. In this document, there is a section on features of new monasticism that I will be using in this blog for our reflection, to which people are more than welcome to respond in the comment section.

So we start with the focus on ‘belief as faithful action’, (you may want to listen to the current podcast entitled followers of Jesus ….. as it does relate to this subject to).

For Monks, Nuns and Friars – there has been the commitment to take very seriously, the stories of Jesus Christ in the Gospels. In these texts, Jesus gives a number of directions and commandments about faith in action. For Jesus it seems – faith is very much about doing – not just thinking. What we do says as much about who we really are. So Jesus’ commandment to Love God, love ourselves and love others – is the central teaching for a faith that leads to action. Also there is the calling to love your enemies, love your neighbour, and a strong call to non-violence. These callings then are very important to new monastics. As illustrated by St Pauls writing in Galatians 5:19-24 there is a strong commitment to the fruit of the Spirit around love, patience, humility in the place of anger, fear and pride.  So how we do community, how we live out and treat each other not just in ecclesial communities, but also how we relate to people has a huge focus in this model of church.

So for new monastics, life then is about belief as faithful action or what is called orthopraxis (right acting or doing). This is why New Monastics have a Rhythm of Life – of the balance of activity of worship, mission and community. So the Moot Community for example has aspirations, spiritual practices and postures which are about how we live as much as they are about what we believe. This is because new monastics believe strongly in what St Francis kept talking about – experience that leads to understanding. So why is this so important? Well as the cynical but truthful video below demonstrates (sorry for the expletives) is that the world is sick of people who call themselves Christians but do not act like they are followers of Jesus Christ. Rightly – the world is not happy with forms and expressions of Christianity that are oppressive or violent in orientation. So for New Monastics – it is about getting back to the basics. The calling to live with the God of love as the orientation of your life, and the struggle to live with gentleness, kindness and humility in a world dominated by power and the ego, and our increasingly post-christendom context.

I think the video below demonstrates this. It is uncomfortable to listen to, because something of what is being said is absolutely true. And for non-Americans – lets not be smug. These same issues are alive and well in the UK Church and beyond. My hope is that New Monasticism in all its smallness and fragility, can play its part in contributing to a more loving expression of church that seeks to follow Christ rather than act like it is God. In this way we hope that New Monastic Christians can be whole, balancing head, heart and wellbeing or rather Orthodoxy, Orthopraxis and Orthopathy and follow Christ so that we can grow into our potentials as human becomings, where discipleship then becomes a whole of life pursuit about living and doing that brings life to ourselves, to others and to the ecosphere. In my next blog, I will try to unpack what the three levels of aspirations, spiritual practices and postures represent. See the vid below! Any questions – do use the comments section.

POSTED 23.01.12 BY: ianmobsby | Comments (5)

On Tuesday 31st January 7.15 for 7.30pm we begin a new group at Moot/St Mary Aldermary building on the work that was done in the Exploration Group last year. Living with the Questions is an opportunity for those who have had experience of Church but not really had the opportunity to question, critique and explore some of the foundational thinking that makes up contemporary expressions of Christianity, drawing on 2000 years of struggle and thought.  Below is a little video that explains what the authors are trying to do – BUT PLEASE HEAR – the intro is quite American in style, so don’t be put off!!

The course has a number of teachers involved in it, Rob Bell from the Iona Community, Brian McLaren, Marcus Borg and many others. The course has 3 main elements with 7 sessions with in these. These elements are the journey, reconciliation and transformation. For more information on the elements and what it is about click here. From those that have tried out this course, I hear that it is a real relief to not leave your brain at the door, and it is for those who are wanting to dig deep and find a more affirming, generous and considered faith.

It would help us to know numbers, so if you are planning to come, please do let us know by clicking here.  Click the link also if you have any further questions….

POSTED 16.01.12 BY: ianmobsby | Comments (1)

Anti-slavery international have launched a new campaign, out of concern for the potential increased people trafficking as a result of the run up to the 2012 London Olympics. It is estimated that at any one time, over 5000 people are trafficked through the UK, forced into prostitution, construction, domestic work and child labour. It is likely that gangs will lure people to the UK for jobs that do not exist. So why not sign the Campaigns pledge here.

POSTED 01.12.11 BY: ianmobsby | Comments Off

St Paul’s Cross in the church yard of St Paul’s Cathedral is the ancient meeting point where the citizens of London would gather to decide matters of common concern.  It was at the Cross that Saxons, Normans and others held a folkmoot in 1066 to decide how to respond to the invading army who were marching up from Hastings.  They committed together to defending the city and eventually were able to negotiate a settlement with William the Conqueror, one which allowed them to maintain their rights and civic freedoms so that London was the only part of England that was not feudalised.  So there is a certain irony that those who inherited the legacy of these civic institutions and freedoms, namely the Corporation of the City of London, are planning to evict the participants in the Occupy movement who are using the same location for a latter day folkmoot.  But then the Corporation now represents those who benefitted from the biggest transfer of assets from poor to rich since the Norman Conquest. Continue reading here

POSTED 01.11.11 BY: ianmobsby | Comments Off

In early 2012, Moot, Christian Aid London Region and SCM are collaborating to support a new Thursday evening gathering in Central London using Moot’s new home at the Guild Church of St Mary Aldermary.

If you are a Christian student in higher education, then we could do with your support.  We are trying to find a name to call it – can you help?  If yes please help us by completing the poll.

POSTED 31.10.11 BY: ianmobsby | Comments Off

Today the United Nations calculate that the world population has reached 7 billion people.  This means that the population has doubled exponentially in the last 30 years.  Further, it is calculated that in the next 30 years we will have to create more food than we have had to find in the last 800 years putting enormous pressure on the world’s eco-diversity and resources.   But – this is not an easy issue.   When it comes to population, what is a sustainable global level?  Again how do such things get decided without giving privilege to the West?  How do we avoid eugenics and stereotyped responses?   I know it is unpopular but China has been an interesting experiment in population control, and they have relieved one crisis of over population but now face another with an increasingly older population.

As Christians I do think we need to engage with this question.  Too often it feels like the Church has no opinion and I do not accept the position of the Roman Catholic Church about family planning approach to birth control is a ‘sin’.  Surely the image in Genesis is about stewardship, and stewardship should not be about reducing the world to a barren resource to meet our own needs.  Surely it is about maintaining the bio-diversity of the planet.  We have as a human race become quite viral, taking over whole habitats and in many places making those habitats unsustainable.  What is our theology and narrative to a Christian approach to population control and stewardship – our silence collectively as Church and Christian on the matter is deafening.

We should not forget the big connection between Capitalism as the dehumanisation of humanity to become little more than economic inputs – a form of violence, and then the same violence being expressed to the planet.  This is oppression of the planet and humanity.  So far the world has relied on the myth of progress, that societies will become better at population control as they progress and that the world will be more valued as we have greater insight into the worlds issues.  However this never quite seems to happen. We forget the distorting effects of the human shadow side and ego – and the distorting effects of greed, anger and fear which resonate with the desire for power and domination as a market value.  So how do we Christians live differently?

I hope protests like that at St Paul’s continue to raise these issues to keep them at a conscious societal level, because it seems we, our churches and our government are more concerned with economics and maintaining our life styles than the prospect of unsustainable population and ecocide.

POSTED 31.10.11 BY: ianmobsby | Comments (6)

Well for the last couple of weeks just around the corner from Moot and St Mary Aldermary, there has been a healthy expression of protest on the steps of St Pauls Cathedral, underlining people’s frustration and unhappiness at our national government and to the City, about what is happening to our society, and a great concern about where we are going.  I was extremely proud of the Church, St Pauls and the Diocese of London, that they allowed the protest to happen, when the City Corporation really would have preferred for it not to be there at all.  Rightly the protesters have pointed out the narrowness of the vision of the way forward held by government and many in business, that the only choice we have is to deepen out market society, to erode our economy from a mixed economy of public and private into one single market with no protection for the poor, the ill and the marginalised, and the terrible greed and opportunities possesed largely by the privileged.  One City firm has just had to justify why its top bosses wages increased by over 30% and the argument was purely because competition for top people made it so.

Aaron gave me the heads up of an article that the famous Slavoj Žižek said in the guardian this week which I think has some great pearls of wisdom.  I am struck by Aaron’s comment to me last night and now as I read this article, that protest is vital, because it creates a space for people to explore other opportunities and choices.  Bruggemann reminds us in his seminal theological text the Prophetic Imagination of how the Hebrews left the bondage of Egypt which founded the Jewish faith began in protest against the domination system, that gave room for God, Gods Spirit and the people to prophetically imagine another way of being.  Protest creates space for this reflection because it challenges the domination system.  As the Exodus was the result of the prophetic imagination of the Hebews coming out of resistance and protest with the domination system founding the Old Covenant, so we Christians, in the New Testament are called to live in the Kingdom of God where mission is about challenging the structures of oppression.  It is exciting what protest might lead to as a prophetic reimagination in the context of the market which has led us to great division between rich and poor with an obsession with growth that is pushing us to climate change and eco-side. So the space for protest is important – or as Zizek says:

“What one should resist at this stage is precisely such a quick translation of the energy of the protest into a set of concrete pragmatic demands. Yes, the protests did create a vacuum – a vacuum in the field of hegemonic ideology, and time is needed to fill this vacuum in a proper way, as it is a pregnant vacuum, an opening for the truly new.”

I tend to not find Giles Fraser at all easy, partly because he is so anti fresh expressions or any rethinking about ecclesiology and have not appreciated some of things I have heard him saying.  However on this issue, I do greatly respect what he has said and in his support for the Protestors.  My heart does go out to the Dean, Chapter and the Bishop of London because they are not in an easy place regarding health and safety and the protection of national monuments like St Pauls. I agree with the words of the Bishop of London, who is keen to ensure that the focus and news don’t go to ‘isn’t the church bad for not supporting the protest’ to keeping it firmly focused on the short falls of economics and the unjustice of the unrestrained market society we have lately become addicted to.  2012 is going to be an even hard year.  No one seems to be aware that all people living on housing benefit in London will have their benefits cut, with the risk that over 70% of those housed in London with housing benefit are going to loose their homes.  This alone makes my blood boil in its complete injustice.  So protest is vital, because many of us feel this Tory government is using the international economic situation as a smoke screen to bring in new policy changes they have wanted to do for years, relying on peoples fears and prejudices to dismantle the last vestiges of what many of us were signs of a healthy society – the welfare provisions and the NHS.  I hope next year that we will all protest at just how wrong things seem to be going, as the rich get richer and the poor loose even more opportunities.  I finish with the words of Zizek:

The art of politics is also to insist on a particular demand that, while thoroughly “realist”, disturbs the very core of the hegemonic ideology: ie one that, while definitely feasible and legitimate, is de facto impossible (universal healthcare in the US was such a case). In the aftermath of the Wall Street protests, we should definitely mobilise people to make such demands – however, it is no less important to simultaneously remain subtracted from the pragmatic field of negotiations and “realist” proposals.

POSTED 28.10.11 BY: ianmobsby | Comments (3)

The Catholics Bishops of England and Wales are asking their congregations to resume abstinence from meat on a Friday. I was raised a Catholic and was always slightly bemused when my mother told me how tightly “fish on a Friday” used to be observed. I like some of their reasoning- to bring back an element of the holy into every day life, to have an act of penitence, and solidarity with those without food.

The thing which has been bothering me is the concept that abstaining from meat is such a hardship. That meat is a luxury. That meat missing meat is an act of penitence.

I’m not a vegetarian, but I’ve been reducing my intake of meat since I realised that meat is a major contributor towards global warming. It’s inconvenient at a restaurant,  and I still love bacon, but I’ve enjoyed the vegetarian food I’ve eaten. It’s no great hardship.

In fact making meat into a luxury by having to abstain is actually pretty counterproductive. Particularly if people go and eat fish instead.

Moot has balance as part of it’s Rhythm of Life. Part of that is enviromental. So here’s a challenge. Eat less meat. Avoid it on a Friday. Not because it’s a luxury, not because it’s essential, but because it’s part of a move towards a sustainable world. And that it is an act of penitence only so far as it’s part of changing your life for the better. An act of self control, a response to a loving God who died on a Friday to show his love.

p.s. if you’re a vegetarian you’re not off the hook. Go vegan on a Friday. And if you’re a vegan then… I’ll have a think.

POSTED 16.09.11 BY: trouncer | Comments (1)

Very pleased that participants in the community are contributing quite a lot to this years festival that includes:

Moot Contemplative Worship at ABIDE
Sat 1pm, Dreaming together with the help of God
Sun 5pm, Dreaming generously with the help of God
Mon 11am, Dreaming for justice with the help of God

Serum Spirituality discussion at JESUS ARMS
Sat 12.30pm, Bigotry
Sun 12.30pm, Divinity
Mon 12.30pm, Belief

Sat 3.30pm GALILEE, Ian Mobsby, Panel Discussion
New Monasticism: is it all hype or refriaring the church?

Sat 3.30pm 6.30pm KITCHEN, Clare Catford, Panel Discussion
Off with the heads – discussion on monarchy and social mobility

Sat 10pm: SOUL SPACE, Ian Mobsby, Contemplative reflection
Contemplative Home-Coming

Sun 2pm-3pm, JESUS ARMS, Meet the Mooters for a drink
Join us to chat about what we are doing, particularly if you are looking for a Christian spiritual community in London.

Mon 3.30pm, JERICHO, Clare Catford, Talk
Forgiveness, the forgotten gift.

Mon 7pm, THE HUB, Katherine Venn, Literature
As you set out for Ithaka, hope the voyage is a long one.

POSTED 18.08.11 BY: ianmobsby | Comments (3)

I am pleased to see that there have been a heathy number of reflections and discussion following the riots with comment by Kester Brewin, Ben Edson and others.

There is a reason behind why those in the riot targeted popular shops. Unlike some commentators I am convinced that it is not just about thugs and greed, but something deeper. For sometime a number of us have pointed out that we have been shifting from a post-modern culture to a post-secular culture as we have moved from being a mixed economy of social and private to a market society. In my writings ‘Emerging and Fresh Expressions of Church‘ and ‘the becoming of G-d‘ I have emphasised the thinking of a number of writers and researchers, that we have for the first time, shifted to a culture defined my consumer satisfaction and gratification. The scary thing about all of this, is that people now define themselves through consumer products – the labels we wear, the cars we drive, the clubs we go to, the networks we choose to belong to. Consumption has become the way that many many people define the self. Now this works very well who have access to credit and wages that can afford this – but immediately this excluded those on restricted or low incomes.

There is a reason that JD Sports and Foot locker have become the emblem of the shopping riots! It is because many people around Clapham Junction who live on the estates where I live use it to define who they are and which gang they belong to. We are using materialism to define who we are and who we belong to regarding community.

For sometime many observers have predicted some form of response to the exclusion of consumption of many – which begins with gang culture and petty crime nicking mobile phones and a like, and just occasionally, when economic recession kicks in – it is likely to raise a shopping riot. We have created our own West Side Story in South London – the have’s surrounded with materialism and consumptive power – and the gangs and the many people as the have-nots who desire to use consumptive gratification to define the self in the same way as the privileged. Both in South London live side by side – and the shops are often the dividing lines between these two sub groupings who co-exist but are definitively not one society.

Quoting The Guardian:

this is what happens when people don’t have anything, when they have their noses constantly rubbed in stuff they can’t afford, and they have no reason ever to believe that they will be able to afford it. Hiller takes up this idea: “Consumer society relies on your ability to participate in it. So what we recognise as a consumer now was born out of shorter hours, higher wages and the availability of credit. If you’re dealing with a lot of people who don’t have the last two, that contract doesn’t work. They seem to be targeting the stores selling goods they would normally consume. So perhaps they’re rebelling against the system that denies its bounty to them because they can’t afford it. The type of goods being looted seems peculiarly relevant: if they were going for bare necessities, I think one might incline towards sympathy. I could be wrong, but I don’t get the impression that we’re looking at people who are hungry. If they were going for more outlandish luxury, hitting Tiffany’s and Gucci, they might seem more political, and thereby more respectable. Their achilles heel was in going for things they demonstrably want.

I couldn’t agree more. For many who are spiritual seekers – they increasingly seek another way to define the self other than consumptive gratification which actually doesn’t really inform who you are – and actually leaves you at the surface of the self.  You are then left helplesss to your inner compulsions – struggling for self control….  consumption sets up another conceptual trap, again quoting from the Guardian:

A generation with a false sense of entitlement, created by the victim culture fostered and enhanced by our consumptive culture and overall leniency displayed, by the criminal justice system. It’s just a glorified mugging, in other words, conducted by people who ask not what they can do for themselves, but what other people should have done for them, and who may have mugged before, on a smaller scale, and found it to be without consequence.

Spiritual Seekers are not the majority of people at the moment.  Most appear to be thoroughly addicted to consumerism and in particular the short lived kick and stimulation of consumptive gratification.  I hope for some – these shopping riots my be a jolt about how wrong it is to define the self through consumption – and that spirituality offers another way.  My little flame of hope – is that contemplative forms of the more mystical christianity and some forms of the more sacramental and charismatic forms of Christian spirituality, enable people to experience real spiritual encounter with God – rather than the momentary kick of consumption.  This is our hope in the Moot community, in many emerging and fresh expressions of church, and there is some evidence that some in our culture are seeking the spiritual instead of the nihilistic and highly addictive route of consumption.  This is a choice about a spirituality that seeks to get beyond the ego rather than benign obsession with it – which will (and in an unrestrained market society this is all about the ego) hopefully help some to reach for something more life giving and which reconnects with God as the source of all existence, health and wellbeing.

In a market society we tend to reduce these issues to little more than market conditions where we loose our common humanity.  The amount of youth unemployment and neglect of the needs of teenagers and younger people is to me abhorrent.  The video below just opens this up as so many youth clubs and support services close. We cannot just put young people out of the front door and not expect repercussions:

The challenge then is for us in Moot and other new expressions of the Church including New Monastics, is then in how to build places for radical hospitality IN but NOT OF our consumptive culture to open up Christian Spirituality – this is what we seek to do in the Moot Lounge Project as one form of radical mission. The other – is to live out this important expression of the Christian faith in love and hope to and in the world. The challenge then is how we do this – but do it – in this current situation we must. This is the challenge for all those who seek the Kingdom of God and its expression in our world – in our Cities and in our neighbourhoods. This is what is means to follow Christ. The gospels speak right into our current context and contemporary culture. Following Christ into Christian spirituality is a hope and gift.

POSTED 14.08.11 BY: ianmobsby | Comments (7)