Would a Protestant form of monasticism help liberate evangelicalism?

Would a Protestant form of monasticism help liberate evangelicalism?

A CHRISTIANITY TODAY EDITORIAL

SEPTEMBER 2, 2005

This article was first published August 12, 1988

John R.W. Stott, the elder statesman of British evangelicalism, has stated recently that if he were young and beginning his Christian discipleship over, he would establish a kind of evangelical monastic order:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/septemberweb-only/52.0.html

Monastic life thus became a living protest against the secularization of Christianity, against the cheapening of grace. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

How can believers be the salt and light of the world when they leave the world and isolate themselves in the desert? I am Evangelical, but I see this viewpoint as totally erroneous if not outright extremist. Throughout some 2000 years monastics have served the Church and all the Christian world very well. In this I say monasticism is not an escape from the world rather it is an escape to God for the sake of serving the world. The most valuable books and studies in the history of the Church were written by monks. The isolationism of which monks are frequently accused is a positive activity and vocation. As regards monasticism, we must acknowledge that both Orthodox and Catholic monks have done momentous services to Christianity. Rev. Youssef Samir

That’s an interesting article and the reaction of believers to a visitation of God has been this type of community many times throughout the centuries. The example at Hernhutt with the Moravians and more recently the community that has sprung up in South Africa after the Lord brought a revival to the Zulu through near Durban. Erlo Stegen is seem as the leader of this group but the revival didn’t come until the saints met and examined their lives to see whether they matched the Scripture. At one point the Spirit fell and sharing of goods and desire for community was prompted by the Spirit rather than dictated by a man’s vision. The initial group was quite small but God drew people in for healing, deliverance from demons and to be born again and filled with the Spirit. Eventually a community was formed to serve and care for all the people who came to visit and to send out evangelistic teams into the countryside and around the world. This group has so many similarities to the Early Church seen in Acts.

I think there was a trend toward a type of monastic community life when the article was written. Many of the communities that existed when Stott was writing no longer exist. My guess is that they fulfilled the purpose God had for them. Occasionally I hear about new communities springing up so God is certainly not done working through this means.

No, John Stott also believed in Annihilationism and did not believe in Hell.

This world view would damage the church and there is no biblical grounds for it.

Mark 16:15 ESV
And he said to them, "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.

//This world view would damage the church and there is no biblical grounds for it. //

Much to the contrary, there is a plethora of scriptural support for it- at least for the view termed Conditionsl Immortality. There are two different views of "annihilationism”. One view holds the the wicked are snuffed out of existence at the moment of death- no hell. Conditional Immortality espouses that the wicked will suffer in hell as long as is just and then are snuffed out. As stated there is a plethora of biblical support for this view.