Monk Habits for Everyday People: Benedictine Spirituality for Protestants
Overview
When Dennis Okholm began exploring the roots of contemporary Benedictine monasticism, he quickly found that St. Benedict has as much to offer Protestants as he does Roman Catholics. In Monk Habits for Everyday People, Okholm—a professor who was raised as a Pentecostal and a Baptist—uses his profound experience with Benedictine spirituality to show how it can enrich the lives and prayer practices of Protestants.
Okholm unpacks the Rule of St. Benedict—a practical guide for living the Christian faith and cultivating Christian virtue—by reflecting on aspects of spirituality such as listening, poverty, obedience, humility, hospitality, stability, and balance. His insights are invaluable to contemporary Christians, who, Okholm observes, have become consumers of religion rather than cultivators of a spiritual life. Readers will emerge not only with the desire to use the habits of monks to enhance their discipleship but also with the tools to start them on the journey.
In the Logos edition, this volume is enhanced by amazing functionality. Important terms link to dictionaries, encyclopedias, and a wealth of other resources in your digital library. Perform powerful searches to find exactly what you’re looking for. Take the discussion with you using tablet and mobile apps. With Logos Bible Software, the most efficient and comprehensive research tools are in one place, so you get the most out of your study.
Get this title, more books, and a larger discount with the Baker Academic and Brazos Press Ethics and Spiritual Formation Collection (37 vols.).
- Shows how Bendict’s Rule is good for all Christians
- Helps Christians reflect profitably on social issues
- Enhances spirituality and discipleship
- What’s a Good (Protestant Evangelical) Boy Doin’ in a Monastery
- Why Benedictine Spirituality for Protestants
- Learning to Listen
- Poverty: Sharing Goods
- Obediance: Objectifying Providence
- Humility: Letting Go of the Mask
- Hospitality: The Guest of Christ
- Balance: God in Everything
- To Change the World!
- A Historical Afterword: Why the Protestant Reformers Opposed Monasticism
Top Highlights
“Our assumptions tell on us. We often harbor the bias that poverty is a sign of sin when, without glamorizing it, it might be the result of being satisfied with little and wanting nothing. Benedict reminds us that the blessed life does not consist in the fulfillment of our material desires but in the redirection of all desires to our seeking of God and love of neighbor.” (Page 48)
“Sometimes we grow by obeying and allowing God’s grace to work through our obedience. When authority and obedience are exercised in a context of trusting and respectful relations, God’s providence can be experienced.” (Page 65)
“But a vow of stability is unique to Benedictine monks. It is a commitment to stay with the same community for the rest of one’s life.” (Page 89)
“‘The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people or gifted people, but for deep people” (Page 23)
“‘Whoever needs less should thank God and not be distressed, but whoever needs more should feel humble because of his weakness, not self-important because of the kindness shown him’ (34.3–4). This reverses our culture’s dogma that the powerful are those who possess more. Esther deWaal puts it poignantly: ‘The weak must have more things than the strong.’2 Some days I am very weak.” (Page 50)
The book's winsome portrait of the Benedictines—and, through their monastic practices, of Christ—makes for a spiritual feast. The historically minded will also benefit from Okholm's careful discussion of why more Protestants should pay greater heed to the Benedictine life.
—Mark A. Noll, professor of church history, University of Notre Dame
Dennis Okholm’s Monk Habits is the perfect introduction to Benedictine spirituality for the earnest Protestant believer. In taking us on his own journey, he invites us to discover Benedict of Nursia and Benedict’s myriad faithful followers over fifteen centuries.
—Tony Jones, author, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier
It is especially important that we now hear from Dennis Okholm, who reminds us that for all Christians, good spiritual habits are good for our spiritual health; that ‘Scripture is the original rule’; and that Christ is the point of it all, our true beginning and our end.
—Kathleen Norris, author The Cloister Walk
- Title: Monk Habits for Everyday People: Benedictine Spirituality for Protestants
- Author: Dennis L. Okholm
- Publisher: Brazos
- Print Publication Date: 2007
- Logos Release Date: 2011
- Pages: 144
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Benedictines › Spiritual life; Christian life; Monastic and religious life; Spirituality › Christianity
- ISBNs: 9781441226587, 9781587431852, 1441226583, 1587431858
- Resource ID: LLS:900338C1E7F7BAD0CC78E8AD6EEF0B4D
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-28T21:00:34Z