What Do We Call It? Naming the Radical “Yes” in Christian Living

by Evan B. Howard

9/11/2025

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Amy said “yes”: that radical “yes” to a whole new way of life, a way uncommon and unfamiliar to her peers. For her, it was a commitment to remain unmarried, to restrictions in food and clothing, and to a rhythm of life that blended prayer and service. Amy ultimately founded a community of prayerful servants of God and the least, The Sisters of the Common Life. They proclaimed the Gospel of Christ and managed an orphanage, trusting in God to provide their material support. The sisters lived according to a pattern, a sixty-nine page summary of the principles and practices of the community. Over time, Amy found herself overseeing a male division of the ministry. Thousands of children were cared for by their orphanages or hospitals. Furthermore, by the time she died in 1951, evangelical missionary Amy Carmichael had written about 35 books. The Sisters of the Common Life (now known as the Dohnavur Fellowship) continue together to this day. One of Amy’s favorite quotes was from M. Coillard, who when describing the call to evangelization declared, “It is a serious task. Oh, it should mean a life of consecration and faith.”ⁱ

Lots of Christians, from a wide range of backgrounds, make that radical “yes” to choose unconventional ways of life. Take celibacy and family – Celibacy was considered one of the defining features of religious life in part simply because it was unconventional. Women in the patristic period chose to live a life of celibate asceticism while dwelling in the homes of [continent] men. Late medieval Beguines chose celibacy even when formal recognition was denied their chaste lifestyle. Yet the thirteenth-century Humiliati challenged categorical norms by their choice of alternative married living. Similarly, post-Reformation Hutterites formed alternative communities of families. Utopian communities, like the Shakers in nineteenth-century North America, experimented with unique forms of celibacy and sexuality. The Communauté de Taizé was founded (formally in 1949) by a group of Protestants committed to celibacy. “New monastic” groups today welcome both celibate and married members.ⁱⁱ

Or consider alternative approaches to economy and possessions. Some, like the believers in Acts 2, said a radical “yes” to a shared economy or what is often called today a “common purse.” The Benedictine Rule is explicit about the dangers of private property. Some Anglican communities have modeled themselves after early monastic communities and live within a common economy. The Anabaptist affiliated Bruderhof community, begun in Germany in 1920, lives a life of shared possessions as do a number of intentional Christian communities today.ⁱⁱⁱ Others choose a radical life of mendicancy, trusting in God and donations to provide their needs. Wandering Syrian monks in the fourth century, medieval friars, mission groups like Amy Carmichael’s “Starry Cluster,” and today’s “new friars” all travel and trust within an assumed alternative economy.^iv The dispersed Iona community includes financial accountability as part of the Rule of Life of the membership, and many groups today make some kind of commitment to “simplicity” or the like.^v I could also give examples of a wide range of intentionally alternative commitments regarding clothing, entertainment, diet, submission to leadership, stability/itinerancy and more. I will address “conversion of life” below.

As a final example, we can see how people have intentionally ordered themselves unconventionally by means of some kind of Rule of Life. Desert elders spoke of “rules of life” to refer to the pattern of life appropriate to individual programs of formation. Much of the pattern of life within Coptic or other Orthodox monastic traditions was rooted in elder-follower relationships, although monasteries often wrote up “typikons” that provided the basic structure of a given institution. Written Rules of Life became standard, especially after the composition—and later the imposition—of the Rule of Benedict upon many European expressions. In time, customaries and constitutions were written to accompany Rules of Life in order to bring greater clarification and appropriate adaptation of the the life of alternative communities. Membership was defined in terms of “vows”: with different groups taking different vows. In the late medieval period we read harsh critiques of both “vows” and “Rules,” and less formal groups like the [first] Sisters and Brothers of the Common life emerged, who lived “ruled lives without a rule.”^vi In 1625, Mary Gidding, along with her husband Nicholas, a member of Parliment and ordained deacon in the Church of England, purchased a plot of land and ultimately founded The Little Gidding community, where they experimented with “a scheme which should combine the rule of a Religious house with the ordinary routine of domestic life.”^vii Another Nicholas, Nicholas Ludwig, Count von Zinzendorf, composed a “Brotherly Union and Agreement” (1727) for the Christian settlement he welcomed at Herrnhut in Germany. I have already mentioned the pattern of the Dohnavur Fellowship (known by members in a document called Roots). Select groups of Christians have articulated their ways of alternative living through “covenants,” “Rules,” and such throughout history and they continue to do so today.^viii

But what is it they are all doing? Why the choice for the “uncommon,” perhaps even something “more”? What do we call that which these diverse Christians are professing commitment into? In a previous article I issued an invitation to “hear the calls” of Christians through the globe and the Christian community to rethink an ecumenical theology of “consecrated life.”^ix But, is “consecrated life” really the proper identifier? In the end of the present article, I will argue that within the specific context of theological reflection about commitments like monasticism, religious life and things similar, “consecrated life,” is a worthy—though not wonderful—phrase. Nonetheless, even making this suggestion will require, in an ecumenical context, a review of terms that have been used by different Christian circles. It will also require an examination of the meaning of “consecration” in non-Catholic Western Christianities.^x

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