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Introducing Christians To Celtic Spirituality

This document introduces Celtic Christianity and discusses its relevance today. It notes that Celtic Christianity offers a holistic model that is bottom-up rather than top-down. Celtic spirituality is described as highlighting hospitality, prayer attuned to nature, awareness of the spiritual realm, adventure, prophecy, healing, and holy living. Elements of Celtic spirituality like a strong sense of place, healing history, and spiritual disciplines can help address modern disconnects from land, community, and faith.

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Arieh Ibn Gabai
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177 views2 pages

Introducing Christians To Celtic Spirituality

This document introduces Celtic Christianity and discusses its relevance today. It notes that Celtic Christianity offers a holistic model that is bottom-up rather than top-down. Celtic spirituality is described as highlighting hospitality, prayer attuned to nature, awareness of the spiritual realm, adventure, prophecy, healing, and holy living. Elements of Celtic spirituality like a strong sense of place, healing history, and spiritual disciplines can help address modern disconnects from land, community, and faith.

Uploaded by

Arieh Ibn Gabai
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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INTRODUCING CHRISTIANS TO CELTIC CHRISTIANTIY

By Ray Simpson, Church Planter, Author, Principal Celtic Christian Studies Tutor
and Founding Guardian of the international Community of Aidan an Hilda. He lives
on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne.

1. Why learn about Celtic Christianity?


a) Because ‘any church or nation that forgets its memory becomes
senile’ (Church historian Professor Henry Chadwick). Scripture
frequently calls us to remember God-guided pioneers such as
Abraham, Israel and Moses, and the ‘rock from which we were
quarried’ (Isaiah 51:1). The story of the pioneers who first
evangelised Celtic lands might be regarded as The Acts of the
Apostles Book Two.

b) Because we now realise that many models of church and mission


have been defective: Celtic Christianity offers us a better model for
today.

i) Previous models have been influenced by Greek dualism


that separates spirit from matter. The Celtic model, like
the Hebrew, is holistic.

ii) Most expressions of church have been top-own, either


allied to empires and states, or started independently by
talented individuals who have not put to death an empire-
building mentality. The typical early Celtic model of
Church is bottom-up, not top-down, incarnational, earthed
in spiritual disciplines that sustain humility, community
and service.

2. What is ‘Celtic’?

The term is used differently by archaeologists, historians and researchers of social


and spiritual phenomena. Historians refer to a language group - the Goidelic-
speaking (Irish, Scottish, Manx) and the Brythonic speaking (Welsh, Cornish,
Breton). These Celts were known as ‘the fathers of Europe’ until Roman armies
pushed them into the western shores of Europe. The apostle Paul wrote to Celts
(Galatians – Gaul, Galicia, Gaelic have the same root). John planted churches
among the Celts of Asia Minor (Turkey) – c.f. The Letters to Seven Churches
(Revelation 1-3). These had the feel of an extended family. They were rooted in
relationship more than regulation. John’s influence came into Europe’s western
shores through Irenaeus (Bishop of Lyons d. c 200) and Martin of Tours. See my
chapter The House That John Built in Houses of Prayer www.kevinmayhew,com.

3. Celtic Christian Spirituality

The term ‘Celtic spirituality’ may be used to describe either pagan or Christian
spirituality, both of which are currently reviving. The term ‘Celtic Christianity’
can refer to the evangelisation of Celtic lands between the 5th and 8 th centuries
and to revivals of very varied expressions of it, (both Catholics and Protestants
have claimed it as theirs). I argue in various publications that the present revival
is more far-reaching because it coincides with the end of the ‘Christendom era’
and with the rising awareness that The Gospel needs to be bottom-up, holistic,
creation friendly and more a Way than an institution, and that models from the
past millennium lack these. In Restoring the Woven Cord (DLT) Michael Mitton
suggests that the Biblical, Justice, Pentecostal, Sacramental, Creation, Community
and Contemplative strands of Christianity were present in early churches in Celtic
lands and that God is calling us to weave these together again today.

Although some scholars are keen to point out that early churches in Celtic
kingdoms were part of the ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic church’ throughout
the world, certain Gospel qualities shine especially brightly in the Celtic tradition.
For example hospitality, prayer in the rhythms of the sun, awareness of the
presence of Christ, angels and heaven breaking into ordinary life, the spirit of
adventure and pilgrimage, prophecy (or ‘seeing’) healing and holy dying. See my
book Exploring Celtic Spirituality (Kevin Mayhew UK or published as Celtic
Christianity by Anamchara Books USA). Much material on these features can be
found in the eighty or more Lives of Celtic Saints, which are mostly late and
sometimes legendary, and in many modern re-telling of these stories. Adomnan’s
Life of Saint Columba and Bede’s Life of Saint Cuthbert are examples of
historical treatment.

A sense of place is part of Celtic spirituality. The Holy Spirit is everywhere, but offers
particular graces to places as well as to people (c.f. Jacob at Bethel). So a recovery of
the importance of the land as in Old Testament teaching is often explored, as also ‘the
healing of the land’. This includes healing of wounded group memory and of the
place upon which wounds have been inflicted. Russ Parker explores this in Healing
Wounded History (DLT). Paul Sparks, in his world tours to promote ‘New Parish’

Celtic spirituality also speaks to the thirst of many free-spirited Christians to re-
connect with spiritual disciplines as an expression of grace. My A Pilgrim Way: New
Celtic Monasticism for Everyday Christians (Kevin Mayhew) explores this.

It also speaks to Christians who are becoming disappointed with churches which
have, perhaps unconsciously, sold out to consumerist and selfishly individualistic
culture. The idea of having churches which we belong to because we are family, not
because we agree about everything, and whose leaders are like senior members of a
family, is being promoted by Bethany Church USA and its Prophetic Ministries. The
idea of churches which support what God is doing in the neighbourhood where they
meet is being promoted by people like Paul Sparks (e.g. his The New Parish). Ian
Bradley in his Colonies of Heaven (DLT) explores lessons we today might draw from
Celtic churches which were extended families or tribes, and I explore this, and the
possible emergence of contemporary villages of God in High Street Monasteries
(Kevin Mayhew).

For more information see our resource catalogue, reading lists and downloads on
www.aidanandhilda.org and www.raysimpson.org

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