In May 2008, Buddhist and Christian monastics gathered at Gethsemani Abbey, Kentucky, to discuss how their respective religions conceived of our relationship with the planet, and what they felt was the responsibility of their faith traditions, orders, and individual communities toward healing both our inner and outer ecology. Green Monasticism collects the wisdom of these scholars and practitioners in a volume that reflects both deep engagement with and critical thinking about protecting the environment. "We need people of faith to encourage us to find ways to live more sustainably and responsibly on our planet. Monastic communities embody values such as modesty, thrift, and gratitude, and we can be inspired by their commitment and dedication to these ideals. Green Monasticism encompasses their voices and aspirations, and I welcome its contribution to the environmental debate, which is the most urgent challenge of our time."---Wangari Maathai, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, author of Unbowed and The Challenge for Africa "A unique contribution to the growing literature in the area of religion and ecology. It draws on the experience and reflection of those trying to live the monastic challenge in the midst of our massive environmental crisis. The essays convey a deep wisdom honed over time and convey a longing for the flourishing of the community of life."---Mary Evelyn Tucker, Forum on Religion and Ecology, Yale University "There is much wisdom for everyone contained in both Buddhist and Christian monastic practice, as there is in the Gethsemani dialogues. Green Monasticism will encourage others to continue this vital discussion and make monastic practice even more relevant to today's social and environmental challenges."---Ven. Yifa, author of Discernment

For three decades, Monastic Practices has been a valued resource for English-speaking aspirants to monastic life. In this revised edition, updated and expanded, Charles Cummings, OCSO, explores the common practices of the monastic life in order to rediscover them as viable means of leading persons to a deeper encounter with God. How do monks and nuns occupy themselves throughout the day? Have they modernized their lifestyle or is it still cluttered with medieval customs? Could any of the monastic practices be of use to those outside the monastery? A certain wisdom is necessary to know how to use such practices and how to give oneself to them until they lead one to God. After long monastic experience, Cummings shows us how the ordinary things we do constitute our path to God. In the art of living life, he argues, we are always beginners, searching for God through our concrete circumstances and actions.

This book describes the vision of a "Green Revolution" proposed by Peter Maurin, co-founder with Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker Movement. Peter's vision may be described as a new lay ecological monasticism for individuals and families. His program included three interrelated projects: 1) creation of rural ecovillages pursuing prayer, study, and agriculture; 2) creation of urban houses of hospitality to welcome the marginalized poor; and 3) ecological universities in which workers would become scholars and scholars would become workers. Peter saw the entire program as part of the search for a post-capitalist and post-Marxist new civilization, yet one rooted in ancient human spiritual, social, and ecological traditions.

New Monasticism is a growing movement of committed Christians who are recovering the radical discipleship of monasticism and unearthing a fresh expression of Christianity in America. It's not centered in a traditional monastery--many New Monastics are married with children--but instead its members live radically, settling in abandoned sections of society, committing to community, sharing incomes, serving the poor, and practicing spiritual disciplines. New Monasticism by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove offers an insider's perspective into the life of the New Monastics and shows how this movement is dependent on the church for stability, diversity, and structure. A must-read for New Monastics or those considering joining the movement, it will also appeal to pastors, leaders, those interested in the emerging church, and 20- and 30-somethings searching for new ways to be Christian.

Monasticism, in all of its variations, was a feature of almost every landscape in the medieval West. So ubiquitous were religious women and men throughout the Middle Ages that all medievalists encounter monasticism in their intellectual worlds. While there is enormous interest in medieval monasticism among Anglophone scholars, language is often a barrier to accessing some of the most important and groundbreaking research emerging from Europe. The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West offers a comprehensive treatment of medieval monasticism, from Late Antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages. The essays, specially commissioned for this volume and written by an international team of scholars, with contributors from Australia, Belgium, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States, cover a range of topics and themes and represent the most up-to-date discoveries on this topic.

Can early medieval monasteries serve as a model of sustainable development and environmental conservation in today’s world? Inspired by Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Sí and Benedictine communities around the world whose shared monastic values inform ecological practice, Monastic Ecological Wisdom uncovers the hidden story of early Christian and monastic care for the earth. In Monastic Ecological Wisdom, Samuel Torvend shows how it is possible that medieval monastic values and practices could assist in the careful conservation of what we claim is God’s first gift, God’s first gesture of grace: the earth and all that dwells with it. By reflecting on an ecological reading of New Testament texts, the Rule of St. Benedict, and early monastic engagement with the natural world as seen in the life of St. Benedict, such practices can serve thoughtful Christians today who care deeply about living in harmony with the earth and all who call it home.

For most of the last century, popular and scholarly common sense has equated American evangelicalism with across-the-board social, economic, and political conservatism. However, if a growing chorus of evangelical leaders, media pundits, and religious scholars is to be believed, the era of uncontested evangelical conservatism is on the brink of collapse-if it hasn't collapsed already. Combining vivid ethnographic storytelling and incisive theoretical analysis, New Monasticism and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism introduces readers to the fascinating and unexplored terrain of neo-monastic evangelicalism. Often located in disadvantaged urban neighborhoods, new monastic communities pursue religiously inspired visions of racial, social, and economic justice-alongside personal spiritual transformation-through diverse and creative expressions of radical community. In this account, Wes Markofski has immersed himself in the paradoxical world of evangelical neo-monasticism, focusing on the Urban Monastery-an influential neo-monastic community located in a gritty, racially diverse neighborhood in a major Midwestern American city. The resulting account of the way in which this movement reflects and is contributing to the transformation of American evangelicalism challenges entrenched stereotypes and calls attention to the dynamic diversity of religious and political points of view which vie for supremacy in the American evangelical subculture. New Monasticism and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism is the first sociological analysis of new monastic evangelicalism and the first major work to theorize the growing theological and political diversity within twenty-first-century American evangelicalism.

Christianity and monasticism have flourished along the Nile Valley in the Aswan region of Upper Egypt and in what was once Nubia, from as early as the fourth century until the present day. The contributors to this volume, international specialists in Coptology from around the world, examine various aspects of Coptic civilization in Aswan and Nubia over the past centuries. The complexity of Christian identity in Nubia, as distinct from Egypt, is examined in the context of church ritual and architecture. Many of the studies explore Coptic material culture: inscriptions, art, architecture, and archaeology; and language and literature. The archaeological and artistic heritage of monastic sites in Edfu, Aswan, Makuria, and Kom Ombo are highlighted, attesting to their important legacies in the region.

Examinations of the culture - artistic, material, musical - of English monasteries in the six centuries between the Conquest and the Dissolution. The cultural remains of England's abbeys and priories have always attracted scholarly attention but too often they have been studied in isolation, appreciated only for their artistic, codicological or intellectual features and notfor the insights they offer into the patterns of life and thought - the underlying norms, values and mentalité - of the communities of men and women which made them. Indeed, the distinguished monastic historian David Knowles doubted there would ever be sufficient evidence to recover "the mentality of the ordinary cloister monk". These twelve essays challenge this view. They exploit newly catalogued and newly discovered evidence - manuscript books, wall paintings, and even the traces of original monastic music - to recover the cultural dynamics of a cross-section of male and female communities. It is often claimed that over time the cultural traditions of the monasteries were suffocated by secular trends but here it is suggested that many houses remained a major cultural force even on the verge of the Reformation. James G. Clark is Professor of History at the University of Exeter. Contributors: DAVID BELL, ROGER BOWERS, JAMES CLARK, BARRIE COLLETT, MARY ERLER, G. R. EVANS, MIRIAM GILL, JOAN GREATREX, JULIAN HASELDINE, J. D. NORTH, ALAN PIPER, AND R. M. THOMSON.