The Naked Intent: On Connecting Asceticism and Activism

This article explores the connections between political activism and Christian asceticism. It does so through a discussion with recent political theologies and historical research into (early) Christian asceticism. Two present-day cases, the Occupy Wall Street movement and the Buy Nothing Year, are used to demonstrate similarities and potential for fruitful engagement between the two traditions. It is suggested that asceticism needs to be understood in a fuller range, incorporating introspective, imaginative and institutional aspects in order to make visible the potential for a dialogue between the Christian ascetic tradition and present-day political activism. The article thus contributes to the discussion concerning asceticism in the Christian tradition, developing public theology as a bodily practice and to a theological understanding of political activism.

Brain and Psyche in Early Christian Asceticism

This study is an 11-part investigation of the psychology and neuropsychology of early Christian asceticism as represented by Evagrius Ponticus (AD 345–399), the tradition's first ascetical theologian and possibly its most influential. Evagrius's biography is reviewed in the first section. The living circumstances and perceptual consequences of desert asceticism are considered in the second. Penitence, dispassion, and the mysticism of “pure prayer” are discussed in the third. Austerities are addressed in the fourth section, particularly fasting, prostrations, and prolonged standing. Ascetical perspectives on sleep, dreams, and the hypnogogic state are analyzed in the fifth. The depressive syndrome of acedia is discussed in the sixth. Evagrius's reports of auditory, olfactory, and visual hallucinations are analyzed in the seventh. Multiple complementary interpretations of demonic phenomena are developed in the eighth section. Evagrius's psychotherapy for anger is reviewed in the ninth. Interpersonal relations among ascetics are considered in the tenth section. The study concludes with a summary.

Cultivating Wilderness: Environmentalism and Legacies of Early Christian Asceticism

Environmentalist writers and their critics agree that Western environmental problems, projects and movements have a marked religious dimension. In an often cited but now widely qualified paper, Lynn White located the roots of our ecological ‘crisis’ in a Judeo-Christian orientation to nature (White 1969). Some contemporary environmentalists call for a new “religion of nature” (Crosby 2002; Willers 1999) or, on the model of modernist negative-theologies, proclaim the death of Nature (Merchant 1980; McKibben 1989); others offer new interpretations of scripture and doctrine as guides for action (Bratton 1993; Hessel and Ruether 2000; McGrath 2002). Political opponents of environmentalist politics also focus on its religious dimensions, though with the aim of discrediting it as unscientific or, among Christians, as pagan (Rubin 1994; Huber 1999; Bailey 2002).

Developing an Adequate “Pneumatraumatology”: Understanding the Spiritual Impacts of Traumatic Injury

Psychosocial interventions and systematic theology are primary resources for chaplains and congregational pastors who care for victims of physical trauma. Yet these resources may not be adequate to address the spiritual impacts of trauma. This article proposes a preliminary “pneumatraumatology,” drawing on early Christian asceticism and Buddhist mysticism to describe one way of understanding the spiritual impacts of traumatic injury. It also suggests possible responses to these impacts informed by narrative/constructionist perspectives and Brueggemann's understanding of the dimensions of spiritual transformation in the Hebrew Bible.