Will 2012 Christians withdraw into private worship?
Image via Wikipedia Ever since the New Testament epistles were written, Christians have received advice on how to live the Christian life . How much should we pray? What progress can we expect to make in achieving biblical holiness in this life? Is perfection an attainable goal? Is Christianity best lived out in normal circumstances of family, marriage, and vocation, or in hermit-like isolation from others or in communities specially formed for the purpose of cultivating prayer, worship, and work? As persecution of the early church died out and Christians gained freedom of worship in the Roman Empire , the monastic life originated as a lay movement offering specific answers to these questions. With martyrdom no longer a means by which people could demonstrate the Gospel’s demands of self-sacrifice, many believers found the sinful condition of Roman culture so oppressive that they “dropped out” of society altogether. They sought to express the spirit of ascetic devotion through mo