The Celtic Way
By Ian Bradley.
DLT. 134 pages. £3.95
ISBN 0 232 52001 1
Celtic Christian Spirituality: Medieval and modern sources
By Oliver Davies and Fiona Bowie
SPCK. 244 pages. £15.99
ISBN 0 281 04765 0
Exploring Celtic Spirituality: Historic Roots for Our Future
By Ray Simpson
Hodder & Stoughton. 210 pages. £7.99
ISBN 0 340 64203 3
Restoring the Woven Cord: Strands of Celtic Christianity for the Church Today
By Michael Mitton
DLT. 178 pages. £7.95
ISBN 0 232 52101 8
Celtic spirituality in various forms, Pagan, New Age, Ecumenical and New Church, is now all the rage, and the sheer volume of books on this topic can be quite bewildering. And, of course, the Celtic scene, with its fascinatingly intricate artwork, immediately lends itself to modern marketing.
The Celtic Way
Ian Bradley is a lecturer of Theology and Church History in the University of Aberdeen. He is also a Church of Scotland minister. Already reprinted three times, The Celtic Way outlines both history and outstanding features of Celtic Christianity, 'presence', 'protection', 'monasticism', 'pilgrimage', 'the goodness of nature' and the use of imagination, including art, music, poetry, dreams and visions. It focuses as usual on the period 400-1200 AD.
I believe that there are aspects of Celtic Christianity which could be helpful for Christians of today, but Bradley does not identify these with clarity.
Celtic Christian Spirituality
Oliver Davies and Fiona Bowie both lecture at the University of Wales, Llanbedr, and have authored a number of publications on Celtic spirituality, both Christian and otherwise. This new work contains an introduction which is important because it summarises the latest scholarship on Celtic Christianity and an anthology which includes some works not otherwise easily available.
They state that Celtic Christianity had certain distinctive features, such as a positive attitude to the creation, artistic imagination and community. They also believed that the body (as well as the mind) should be involved in worship, a belief which expressed itself ironically in asceticism. And there was a strong apocalyptic preoccupation with the Judgment and the end of the age.
Exploring Celtic Spirituality
Ray Simpson's book is the last of the books listed to be published, yet it is apparent that he has exerted something of an influence upon Mitton and others.
Ray Simpson was founder of the ecumenical Bowthorpe Community Church in Norfolk. After his first pilgrimage to Lindisfarne in 1985, he has been increasingly involved in the development of a Celtic Christian spirituality for today. He has founded the Community of Aidan and Hilda (CAH), a network of people desiring to follow the Celtic Christian way, with a U.S. chapter called the St Aidan Trust. At present he lives in Lindisfarne and is involved in spiritual direction, training and writing.
Despite a number of reservations on my part, Simpson's book set off some very deep reminders within me of former dealings from the Lord. Among these there is a need for us to sit loose to our daily round and for us to be open and willing to break off to serve others. We need to be strongly aware of the Lord's presence with us wherever we go, to sort things out with God in moment-by-moment prayer. We need to set times aside for fasting and reflection. We need to be good stewards of creation. We need to seek the anointing and leading of the Spirit in all our ministry.
Restoring the Woven Cord
Michael Mitton, of evangelical background and currently Director of Anglican Renewal Ministries, believes that he has at last discovered his roots in Celtic Christianity after going on pilgrimage to Lindisfarne in 1992, and has produced this devotional study.
Each chapter consists of a story about a Celtic 'saint', a reflection by Mitton on the story, a Bible reading, an application mainly in the form of questions, and a prayer. The stories are taken from historical sources and are, on the whole, based on the facts as we know them. Mitton tries to avoid romanticising the Celts, and neither does he whitewash the historical role of the Church of Rome in smothering Celtic Christianity.
As a devotional book, it is quite successful, being extremely well written and well structured. It draws our attention to many values often neglected by today's Christians, such as humility and a non-materialistic attitude to life.
Along the way, he points to faults in some modern approaches to Celtic Christianity, such as the 'danger of romanticising the Celtic church and overlooking its weaknesses' (p.2). Mitton correctly observes: 'So many are approaching the Celtic church interested only in their own agendas' (p. 8). If only Mitton had heeded his own advice!
Syncretism
The major danger with the entire area of Celtic spirituality is the problem of syncretism, the attempt to incorporate pagan elements within Christianity. This is more true of post AD 410, following the advent of Celtic monasticism, than before. Bradley is very open about the fact this later 'Celtic Christianity' did incorporate some pagan elements.
However, because Bradley takes this expression of Christianity as his canon, he judges everything else by that standard. Nowhere does he make plain that the norm for the Christian must always be the apostles' doctrine, which is synonymous with the New Testament. It can never be the teachings and practices of other Christian groups, however attractive they may appear. So according to Bradley: 'Words like ransom, advocate, justification and propitiation were alien to their thinking about Jesus Christ and his saving work.' Yet those very words are not the invention of 'Western' theologians, but are found in the New Testament itself.
What is surprising about Bradley's book is that although he is willing to admit that later Celtic Christianity adapted and absorbed many pagan beliefs and practices, this feature is treated as valid identification with the native culture.
Because Bradley makes no serious attempt to distinguish between legitimate cultural factors and the demonic dimension of pagan cultures, he seems perfectly happy to accept the entire baggage of later Celtic Christianity, with its invocation of saints for protection, alleged sensations of saints' and angels' presences for company and protection, the use of the caim, or 'circling prayer', for protection, and distorted views of the afterlife. With reference to beliefs, he is inclined to accept the view which he attributes to these Celts of underrating of original sin and overrating of free will, and of viewing sin as an external force, rather than as an innate feature of human nature. Pelagius, too, is seen as typical of the Celtic church, despite the British Celts' appeal to Gaul for Germanus to visit Britain and deal with the error of Pelagianism.
In general, supporters of Celtic Christianity appear far too confident about their ability to discern where the lines should be, which must raise doubts as to whether they have successfully grappled with all these complex issues.
An area where syncretistic thinking emerges in Mitton's book is in his attitude to 'holy places'. Superstitious attitudes to the alleged sanctity of places and of evil presences 'infecting' places and objects are encouraged. Instead of pointing out the defects of this viewpoint, Mitton himself appears to condone this, but where is the warrant for such beliefs and practices in the New Testament?
Miracles?
A related problem area is the attitude expressed concerning parapsychical phenomena.
The Celtic Christians experienced many miraculous phenomena. Some of these may have been from God, others may have been neutral or natural occurrences, and others may have been demonic counterfeits. But most of the accounts of these are third party reports, and insufficient data is provided to facilitate discernment by 20th or 21st century Christians. It is particularly dangerous to covet phenomena when we lack clarity as to their source.
Spiritual gifts in the Bible are always sovereign manifestations of the power of God which can be given unexpectedly by God or in answer to prayer - even today. They are not at all in the same category as parapsychical tendencies which can be acquired gradually through ascetic practices and techniques specifically designed to induce states of altered consciousness, or suddenly through personal contact with demons.
Unlike our other authors, Simpson, at least, seems to have some Biblical grasp of the issues, for he wrote: 'Anointings of the Holy Spirit in Celtic times did not come to order, but they were not in short supply ...'
Dreams, visions and Jung
The failure of advocates of late Celtic Christianity to discern the essence of spiritual and psychological phenomena is particularly evident in the area of dreams and visions.
Bradley, for instance, seems to accept all dreams and visions as communications from God, rather than seeing the need to exercise spiritual discernment between purely natural dreams, dreams which are visions from God, and dreams of demonic origin. Mitton adopts a similar stance, seemingly under the influence of Jung.
Jungian influence is evident also in Simpson, who explored his calling to a semi-monastic life with, among others, a Jungian-trained spiritual director.
The ecumenical agenda
As in most of the modern books on Celtic spirituality, Bradley tones down the dispute between Celtic Christianity and the Church of Rome. Davies and Bowie play down the extremes to which the Church of Rome went to force the Celts into conformity by speaking of the 'harmonisation process that was characteristic of the Christian Church throughout Europe at this time.'
It is true that most of the disputes arose from the Celts' unwillingness (rightly so) to be dominated by the Church of Rome rather than from essentially doctrinal differences, yet it is the case that the possibility of domination by Rome is still very much with us today. People need to be made aware of this rather than being made to feel that those who refused to give in to Rome were either immature or sinful in some way. Rome was almost always the aggressor and the oppressor. Why should we try to blame the victim?
By contrast with Bradley, Mitton makes no attempt to whitewash the records of the Church of Rome towards dissenters. However, Mitton admits discomfort with his Reformation heritage, desiring reconciliation with Rome. So, because the Celtic church flourished prior to 'our days of separation' and 'the divisions of the Reformation', he thinks that Celtic roots contain a possible key to Christian unity since Celtic Christianity was around before the Reformation.
In this way, the Reformers are also made out to have been on a level playing field with Rome and are often scapegoated. But from pre-Reformation history, including both the Church of Rome's attitude to Celtic independence and their attitude to the Lollards, it is plain that the Church of Rome's desire for pre-eminence is central to the problem. It is, therefore, grossly misleading to imply that the Reformation was a sinful dividing of the ways by two equally guilty parties.
Simpson adduces conclusive evidence to show that the Church of Rome had consistently dealt with the Celtic church and non-conformity in a domineering and self-righteous way. Yet, in spite of this, he seems to want to apportion blame evenly between Roman Catholics and Protestants.
Nevertheless, there was in later Celtic Christianity a great deal of superstition and corruption. This should warn us that the process of 'digging from spiritual wells' outside the apostles' doctrine must always be conducted in the full light of Scripture.
Mike Taylor
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