One of the good things about being Presbyterian is that we have this inherent historical connection to the Celtic Christianity that flourished in Ireland and other lands on the western fringe of Europe from the 5th through the 12th centuries, give or take. That connection, of course, flows through Scotland, which was evangelized by missionaries sent from the Irish monastery on the island of Iona.
Granted, this connection is fragile, having been largely and habitually buried, ignored, repressed, resisted, and forgotten. The post-Reformation Presbyterian Church of Scotland plowed a lot of energy into exterminating vestiges of the Celtic Church for a few centuries, following in the tradition of the Roman Church. The dominant forms of Western Christianity have been working on stamping out the Celtic stream for 1400 years.
It didn't work. In the last century we have seen a recovery of this memory through figures within the Scottish Church, like George McLeod, Philip Newell, and John Bell. It means that I can legitimately claim access to these roots as part of being Presbyterian, for whatever that's worth.
During it's heyday the Celtic Church was the most energetic, vibrant, and lively expression of Christianity in the west, and was instrumental in re-evangelizing the European continent after the fall of the Roman Empire to Germanic invaders. The Celtic Church was eventually overwhelmed by the dominant Roman Church and went more or less underground for a long time.
Since my seminary days, the spirit of Celtic Christianity has always grounded me. It functioned as a necessary balance to the Neo-orthodoxy of theologians like Barth and Bonhoeffer, who were seminal in shaping my theology. And it was a doorway both to indigenous spiritualities as well as the theology of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Celtic Christianity has therefore been for me a kind of fulcrum or pivot point, standing on which enabled me to turn in different directions while staying grounded.
Celtic Christianity is basically the Christianity of the early Church, planted in the soil of Ireland. The lineage, to use that term rather loosely, is said to flow from the Lord Jesus through the Apostle John, giving special place to the writings of his "school," like the fourth gospel, the Revelation, and the letters of John, in the New Testament. It relied on saints like Polycarp, Irenaeus of Lyons, Martin of Tours, and of course, Patrick, the evangelizer of Ireland. It produced a large family of saints, the most prominent being the much unjustly-maligned Pelagius and John Eriugena. The tradition arguably flowered again much later in mystics like Hildegard, Julian, Eckhart, Henry Suzo, and John Tauler, and still later in writers like George MacDonald, a mentor of C.S. Lewis.
Writers today have tried to identify distinct characteristics of the Celtic Church. Celtic Christianity is at its core the basic Orthodoxy it received through this lineage. There are also documented connections with Egyptian monasticism. The evangelistic approach taken in Ireland was simply the way the early Church operated in a time before the more imperialistic, colonialist model became dominant. It was not some different, special thing.
That being said, writers have identified characteristics of Celtic Christianity that distinguish it from the versions of Christianity most of us have known today, and by which many have experienced abuse.
For instance, Carl McColman lists five on his blog (https://www.patheos.com/blogs/carlmccolman/2007/12/distinctive-qualities-of-celtic-christianity/). (Note: "Columcille" is the same person I referred to above as Columba.):
- Hospitality, and particularly hospitality to all wisdom. This is epitomized by the early Celtic Christian tolerance/acceptance of the Celtic pagan past, at a time when most of Christendom was aggressively attacking all outsider religion as demonic. “Christ is my Arch-Druid,” said Columcille, implying not only his love for Christ, but that in Christ he could also honor the faith of his pre-Christian ancestors. I would think that today this hospitality manifests as a deep ecumenism and also as an openness to all that is beautiful good and true in non-Christian faiths, such as Vedanta or Zen. In general, the virtue of hospitality suggests that the heart of Celtic Christianity is an ethic of welcoming rather than purity.
- Deep love and respect for the earth. This is so obviously part of the heart of the Celtic tradition that it really needs no commentary. But from the folklore associated with saints like Kevin and Brigid, to the lorica attributed to Patrick, to the overall spirit of joy in nature found in early Celtic Christian poetry, this is a constant theme of Celtic wisdom, and one vitally relevant to our day. I don’t remember the exact quote, but Columcille once said something to the effect that the most fearful sound he could think of was that of an ax cutting down a tree. There is the Celtic heart.
- Honoring of women’s ministry. The archetype here is Brigid, the abbess who according to legend was consecrated a bishop and provided spiritual guidance to both women and men. In general, the role of women in early Irish law was much stronger and egalitarian than its Roman counterpart. I don’t want to overstate the case or suggest that Ireland was some sort of proto-feminist paradise, but I do think the relative standing of Celtic women when compared to women in general in the early centuries of Christianity can be an inspiration to all Christians who seek a more equitable theology of the sexes. The Celts remind us that we do not have to be limited by the heritage of the Roman Empire when it comes to understanding the role of women in the life of the church.
- Emphasis on the local. “To travel to Rome: great expense; little profit; but to pilgrimage to Glendalough: little expense, great profit.” Maybe this was just a marketing campaign launched by the good monks of Glendalough, but I think it speaks to a larger sensibility among the Irish (and other Celtic) Christians and general. Think of Holy Wells — each one is unique and different and distinctive. In the Celtic world, the local is just as important as the universal. Celtic Christianity balances universality with honoring of what is distinctive and unique about the locality. Closely aligned with this is the Celtic preference for monasteries rather than dioceses. The word “Tuath” suggests not only a community, but the land where that community lives. I think this goes a long way to explaining the Celtic spirit.
- Deep creativity. From the splendid illuminated calligraphy of the Book of Kells; to the intricate metalwork of the Ardagh Chalice; to the finely-crafted carving that characterizes the Crosses of Monasterboice: Celtic Christianity literally oozes with art and creativity. It’s a highly expressive tradition, full of poetry and folklore and local legends, and even “medieval bestsellers” like The Voyage of Brendan, rich with imaginative storytelling. This I would think is closely aligned with the love of the earth: to celebrate God’s creation is linked with celebrating our own creativity (and using it to honor and praise the Ultimate Artist).
McColman is being a bit over-enthusiastic and anachronistic here, but his points are not inaccurate.
Here's another list by a group called The Prayer Foundation. Let me also say here that with a tradition like the Celtic Church, which has very few reliable ancient sources, there is a tendency to make it look like whatever we want it to look like. It becomes a blank slate upon which almost anything my be projected. Thus there are people writing about Celtic Christianity who are basically neo-pagans and others who are traditional, conservative Orthodox Christians. Sifting through all this requires some discretion and common sense, along with historical knowledge.
The Seven Celtic Christian Distinctives:
1). Hope - Looks first for the good rather than the evil in all things.
2). Equality - Of men and women, clergy and laity.
3). Mystery - The Infinite God cannot be fully comprehended or explained....
4). Environment - Stewardship of God's Creation.
5). Holism - Awareness of the sacred in all times and places; refusal to compartmentalize life.
6). Immanence - God is present with... Creation.
7). Simplicity - Emphasis on the "main and plain" basic essential doctrines.
You get the idea.
In the end, I suspect that the thing that attracts so many to Celtic Christianity is that it doesn't get into the toxic exclusive adversarialities that eventually came to dominate Western Christianity. There is a lot of both/and and few either/ors in Celtic Christianity. It takes seriously the seminal words of Paul in Galatians 3:28, about how in Christ our oppositions, separations, rankings, and animosities are erased, and we are all one. The Celtic Christians expressed the basic truth of Christianity as reconciliation: God is in creation, Christ is fully human and fully divine, and the artificial barriers we construct between genders, races, nations, and classes get dissolved.
In this the Celtic Church, perhaps because it was far, far away from the busy centers of imperial power, was able to maintain something more like the original wisdom of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
There is one thing that modern writers tend to overlook when waxing all sentimental about the Celtic Church, and that is that it was essentially monastic and ascetic. The leaders of religious communities had far more authority and power than the bishops. The monks and nuns of Ireland were famous for their ascetic exploits. One of these was "perigrination," the practice of wandering, often across the sea in small boats on what could become missionary journeys. But they also did other things that we would consider crazy today, like standing in a cold stream with one's arms outstretched and reciting the entire Psalter by heart.
There was, in short, nothing sentimental about Celtic Christianity; it had to do with serious spiritual transformation. The Irish monks would have resonated with the Athonite motto: If you die before you die then you won't die when you die. They took Jesus' teachings and example seriously about losing your life in order to save it and taking up a cross. Theirs was not a theology that would necessarily appeal to self-indulgent, privileged, affluent suburbanites.
While it is grounded in Orthodox Christianity, the Celtic Church was also a bridge to indigenous religion and spirituality. Understood rightly, Orthodox doctrines are radically inclusive in the sense that they do not reject but respectfully reframe and universalize the spirit of legitimate traditional and indigenous faiths which are often very earth-centered. Thus we find in Celtic Christianity some echoes of Druidism. The practice of the Celtic Church was (when possible) to revere and baptize, thus reframing in a universal context, the holy sites and figures of pre-Christian Irish religion. Indeed, for example, stories about St. Brigid the abbess are often indistinguishable from earlier stories about Brigid the Celtic goddess.
Finally, there is a danger that we will get lost in historicity and strive to somehow recreate 7th century Ireland. The Celtic Church was the result of the planting of the seed of the gospel in the soil of Ireland. Our goal must be the same. Not to continue the project of transplanting versions of Christianity that thrived in other parts of the world (mainly Europe), but to plant the seed of the gospel in the fertile dirt of Turtle Island in a way that recognizes and celebrates the spirits of this land. It is emphatically not to participate in the white-supremacist replacement ideology that has dominated what passed for "mission" in our history since 1492. Still less is it to adapt to the rapacious imperialism of Modernity, the idolatry of death that currently throttles the whole creation in structures like capitalism, nationalism, militarism, racism, and colonialism. Instead maybe we need to listen to the voices of indigenous and other oppressed peoples here on this continent, and grow a new community of Jesus-followers in that good, dark, nourishing, receptive soil.
For the seed of the Word remains: Jesus Christ as he is attested in Holy Scripture, embodied and expressed in the bones of core doctrines of Christianity (the structure of the seed, as it were). Are we ready for an indigenous Christianity which is neither Roman nor Byzantine nor Protestant? Are we ready to really see how this soil nurtures the seed?
Finally, another important characteristic of Celtic Christianity is that it grows on the fringes and frontiers. Geographically, Ireland and some of the other lands inhabited by Celtic peoples were never fully integrated into the Roman Empire, if they were conquered at all. Thus Celtic Christianity is a kind of edge-Christianity; it thrives far from power-centers. It finds, lifts up, and identifies with the marginal and the marginalized. The very word "Celt", comes from the Greek term meaning foreigner or barbarian, the people who lived beyond the borders of the Empire. Celtic Christianity, then, is the other-Christianity. It is the faith from the perspective of the people Jesus Christ himself identifies with and welcomes.
It is no accident that the people who kept Christianity most faithfully in Turtle Island were the African slaves and former slaves. They, far more than their white masters who conquered the continent by force and greed, truly got what Jesus and the whole biblical message is about.
Anyway, a "Celtic" Christianity in America will express the faith of marginalized peoples: Indigenous, Africans, Latinos, LGBT+, and others who resonate with the inclusive, universal, and welcoming vision of Jesus Christ.
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