Living Faithfully in a Fragmented World: Lessons for the Church from Macintyre's After Virtue

by Jonathan R. Wilson

This book describes several aspects of contemporary culture that create both opportunities and threats to Christian mission. It offers insights and practices that the church today must embrace in order to live faithfully and witness effectively to the gospel. Following a presentation of the church's history in relation to Western culture, several chapters draw upon specific suggestions in Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue--that we live in a fragmented rather than a pluralistic world; how the church has compromised its faithfulness by accommodating the mainstream of morality; implications stemming from the collapse of the Enlightenment project; and the need for a new monasticism together with forms the life of the church must take to sustain a faithful witness in contemporary culture. Jonathan R. Wilson is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA, and the author of Theology as Cultural Critique.

Genres: Theology, Philosophy, Spirituality, Christian, Christianity, Christian Living, Nonfiction

96 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1998

About the author

Jonathan R. Wilson (PhD, Duke University) is Pioneer McDonald Professor of Theology at Carey Theological College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He previously taught at Acadia Divinity College and Westmont College and has served as a pastor. He currently serves as Senior Consultant for Theological Integration with Canadian Baptist Ministries and is a Teaching Fellow at Regent College. He is the author of numerous books, including Living Faithfully in a Fragmented World, A Primer for Christian Doctrine, and God So Loved the World.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Living Faithfully in a Fragmented World by Jonathan Wilson draws on the insights of Alasdair MacIntyre to discern what faithful Christian community needs to look like in our modern world. He concludes that nothing less than a new monasticism is needed.

In Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue, he draws several important conclusions. First, that all humans fundamentally live within a narrative. This is true for Christians as well. So, we need to live within our own narrative tradition, warts and all. Only in the midst of an honest reckoning with our past will we be able to truly live in the present. Second, MacIntyre points out that our world is deeply fragmented. Nothing is really coherent anymore, and that includes our Christian gospel. This is why we are so easily co-opted by society for causes which are opposed to the gospel. The only way to overcome this is by recover of the telos, or a defined end we can work towards. This brings us to MacIntyre's third point, which is that modern man, having lost their telos, has left only the ability to reduce everything to preference, which ultimately, is a reduction to power. The most powerful get to say what is right and wrong, because everything is mere preference. Fourth, summing up all of these, MacIntyre points us towards the need to recover tradition, especially recovering Christian traditions and practices as good in themselves.

MacIntyre's book pointed out the failures of the Enlightenment project which brought us into this mess. Unfortunately, the church has been too tightly identified with the surrounding culture to have escaped unharmed. In the church, we too are living in a society where everything seems reduced to a will to power, and we have lost our end. Because of this, Wilson argues that we need new communities which will enable us to live faithfully in the midst of a fragmented world. These communities, are part of what Wilson calls new monasticism.
The new monasticism is a movement which doesn't seek to support or be supported by larger society. These communities exist in the midst of society and live in the midst of society as a witness to the gospel. Contrary to what many critics may say, this is not a retreat or withdrawal from society for the sake of their own purity. Instead, it is "an intentional concentration of relationships and discipline for the sake of faithful witness to the gospel for the sake of the world's salvation."

Wilson gives us four different characteristics which will mark new monasticism. First, monasticism is marked by a recover of the telos of this world that is revealed by the gospel. By doing this, it will seek to heal the fragmentation of our lives. Second, this new monasticism will be a monasticism for the whole people of God. Unlike the old monasticism, it will not divide the church into religious and secular vocations. All will be called to live faithfully. Third, the new monasticism, like the old, will be disciplined. This can only be accomplished through small groups of people. Fourth, new monasticism will be undergirded by deep theological reflection and commitment.

While those four characteristics apply to all new monastic communities, many questions will have to be left to particular groups and places to answer, questions such as "what form should worship take? Should it be 'high' church or 'low' church? Should we seek to recover ancient liturgy? Should we practice the ancient monastic disciplines? What would the 'simple' life look like today?"

The new monasticism, claims Jonathan Wilson, is a gift of the Holy Spirit, not the result of brilliant planning or structure. However, these communities to have particular dangers they are tempted to fall into. They are tempted to communal egotism, viewing themselves as God's gift to the world. They are also tempted to the dangers of romanticism and utopianism. There is also the danger of utilitarianism, of thinking they are living a useful way. Finally, Wilson also mentions the danger of Pelagianism. This is the belief that man can save or sanctify himself without need of God's grace. While it is rare to find this error explicitly endorsed, it is a powerful belief that pervades the church and new monasticism.

Jonathan Wilson calls new monasticism a gift of the Holy Spirit to the church. I would tend to agree with his assessment. I have great sympathy and interest for what new monastics are doing. I hope to learn and apply some of their lessons in my own life.

Living Faithfully in a Fragmented World is not a perfect book. If you've already read After Virtue, like me, you won't find much new in the societal analysis in the book. In addition, the frequent references, in the second edition of the book, to new monasticism, did not flow well. But overall, it was a quick and insightful read, and one that help further cement my own understanding of the lessons of After Virtue.

[Sanjuro · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is fantastic. Something tells me from the too few ratings it's received that it has not garnered the readership it deserves, but it has some remarkably important things to say to the church. Although the book is centered on "new monasticism," which is important in itself, it offers important insights into church life more broadly. It is full of important critiques of the ways that the Church has become fragmented, and how this has come about due to its entanglements with the world. Wilson addresses the failure of the Enlightenment, the ways that Nietzsche's philosophies have unconsciously engrained themselves into the Western psyche and into the Church itself, and he helpfully adapts Alasdair MacIntyre's philosophy of virtue into a workable model for Christian engagement. My favorite part of the book is the way that, on the one hand, Wilson insightfully critiques the Church's enchantment with politics, and shows how this entanglement has compromised the Church's mission, but on the other hand he does not advocate for a retreat from all of society. The church can pull away from civil human structures and still be aggressively missional. This is better than Dreher's escapist version of the "Benedict Option," and also better than the full missional approach which seeks to redeem everything, including the political sphere. Wilson's vision is wiser and more shrewd than either of these two extremes. This is a helpful book that I know will inform my ministry moving forward.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book trying to follow up on Alasdair MacIntyre's, After Virtue. As a fan of MacIntyre, I'm not sure if I necessarily learned anything I didn't already know, but I don't think that was the point. It was good to see someone follow-up more explicitly the line of MacIntyre's vision of a hopelessly fragmented moral tradition into the church. The warnings are trenchant about the dangers in this age of fragmentation and need to be heeded, if we expect to be a credible voice.

I also got this book because of an interest in the New Monasticism, a movement in which largely middle-class Christians move themselves into the urban 'desert's as part of intentional communities to serve Christ in the neglected places of the world. I'm sympathetic to the New Monastic movement, partly because of my own interest in Benedictine spirituality and because I think it important to seek community. Wilson does a mostly good job connecting the fragmentation described by MacIntyre with the oft quoted comment of MacIntyre's about needing a 'new Benedict'. Wilson offers the New Monastic movement as a possible sources for this 'new Benedict', but offers trenchant warnings to that movement to avoid. I do wonder sometimes if Wilson, by concentrating so hard on the New Monasticism, might be too focused on one solution when others might also present themselves, even from the fragmented tradition that we see around us.

On a purely technical aspect, it doesn't help that many of the passages on the New Monasticism in this second edition feel rather pasted on. That makes sense because this is a second edition and Wilson's explicit aim is to connect the dots to a movement which he mostly inferred in his first edition. Still, when one can see the joins of a re-write, some smoothing over probably needed doing.

Otherwise, a good book and well worth reading.

[Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great little book that popularizes Macintyre's book After Virtue and applies it to the communities often call "New Monastics," offering a kind of apologia for them and some guiding advice.

Macintyre argued that the modern world is not truly pluralistic but fragmented, and in the fragments, the Christian must recover their story and tradition. They must accept their history as a community, both as saintly and as sinful to be true witnesses of Christ. This tradition-as-history comes together in the present as a set of practices and orient life.

Christianity must recover a set of practices that allows them to navigate the fragmentation of this world. For the New Monastics, this means a set of alternative virtues that rely less on the complex of consumerism, capitalism, militarianism, individualism, etc. And these means forming an intentional community that develops these.

The book is short but offers an important challenge. Most churches today are dependent, ambivalent, or worse highly reliant and supportive of these things. The form of the church has taken on a shell of Sunday services, rather than the deep counter-formative calling the early church underwent. While the word "New Monastic" sounds like it is trying to make people into monks, the reality is more to the effect that Christians are called to alternative community, something most are not doing. We need to change that.

[John Bober · Rating 3 out of 5]

An analysis of Alastair MacIntyre’s After Virtue focused on being faithful to God and growing towards Christ by the grace of the Holy Spirit (sanctification). At the end of each chapter he makes comments on what he feels the New Monasticism should focus on. In the Afterword he responds to RA Carson’s criticism of his book. Wilson doesn’t examine the “old monasticism” but was familiar with St. Benedict & John Cassian (he didn’t list them or St. Basil in his Bibliography). He doesn’t provide any names or details of existing New Monastic Communities of the time, other than one reference to Rutba House. He refers the reader to Luther Smith’s book describing five intentional communities.

[Ben McDonald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, the book was a good read. At times it became tedious and though the book is fairly concise, the author focuses on small details that do not helpfully demonstrate/defend his arguments. I did find his rebuttal to D. A. Carson's critiques of this 'new monasticism' very insightful, and I also found his description of cultural fragmentation very convincing. Overall, it was a good read but came up short in some areas.

[John Koeshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought the book was not too complicated. He does a good job of building on Alister Macintyre’s analysis and builds on it. He makes a cogent argument for the reformation of the church and a recovery of embodied and Gospel-based communities.

[Ian Guy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Discusses the failure of the Enlightenment, learning from Alasdair MacIntyre's 'After Virtue', and then reflecting on the implications for new monastic communities.