Durham E-Theses Modern developments in Christian community living within the Church of England since 1945, with special reference to St. Julian's, Lee Abbey and the Pilsdon community Edmondson, Christopher P. How to cite: Edmondson, Christopher P. (1971) Modern developments in Christian community living within the Church of England since 1945, with special reference to St. Julian's, Lee Abbey and the Pilsdon community, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/10178/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Modern developments in Christian eommunity living within the Church of England since 19^5i with special reference to St. Julian's, Lee Abbey and the Pilsdon Community. Rev. Christopher P. Edmondson, B.A..(l97l), Dip.Th. (1972) St. John's College, Durham The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. CONTENTS Christian Comnmnity - Its Meaning In Society And Biblical Tradition .. .. 1 The Religious Life - Its Establishment, Decline And Resurgence l8 St. Julian's Community k8 The Lee Abbey Community 72 The Pilsdon Community .. 97 The Way Ahead Il6 Bibliography 131 ABSTRACT In the six chapters of this thesis the concern is with the growth in England of non-monastic, Anglican-based communities, which have arisen since 19^5. The meaning of the word 'Community', in both the general and Christian sense is examined, in the light of both the sociologicsil and Biblical traditions. Essential also in this is the historical perspec• tive, and so the developments in community living in the Anglican tradi• tion since the Reformation are considered, including the revival of the religious life which began in the nineteenth century. Three communities serve as particular illustrations of the type and variety of these developments. The first is St. Julian's, founded in 19^1, with a particulsir concern for caring for missionaries on fiu-lough, though the ministry has widened considerably in subsequent years. The second is Lee Abbey, a conference centre in North Devon which began as a community in 19^5* Here some sixty people, lay and ordained, run holi• day house parties and conferences geared to promoting evangelism eind renewal in local Churches,, or simply a time of refreshment and relaxa• tion in a Christian atmosphere. Finally, the Pilsdon Community is examined, founded in 1958 as a 'therapeutic' community. Its aim is to minister to those in special need or difficulty, individuals whom society often rejects and discounts. These three examples have been chosen because they have all been established for over twenty years and therefore some assessment of the work they have done and continue to do is possible. In the last chapter, as well as looking briefly at other more recently established developments in Christian community living, an attempt has been made to assess the significance of all this for the Church at large and to show how the local Church can learn from the example and life of these communities. CHBISTIAN COmUNITY - ITS MEANING IN SOCIETY AND BIBLICAL TRADITION Olive Wyon in her book Living Springs makes the point that the history of the Christian Church is one of decline and renewal. This is the context in which we must put the developments in community living which have taken place in this country since the Second World War, and which will be our concern in this thesis. There are many at this time who ask such questions sis, "Has the Church a future?", and "Can the Church survive?"; statements are made such as, "The Church is in decline", "The Church is unintelligible and irrelevant", and "The Church makes less and less impact on late twentieth century scientific man". It may well be that these statements contain an element of truth, particularly as far as certain traditional forms of Church life are understood, but at the same time, renewal is taking place in the Church throughout the world, and many different enterprises which both speak to the present situation and seek to be pointers to the Church of the future are to be found. To quote Olive V/yon again: New life seems to be welling up from unseen springs. One way this is happening is in the search of the last three or four decades for a contemporary pattern of Christian living which involves some form of community life. Some of these endeavours have been on a large scale, some have been small; they have, come into being for different reasons and in different ways, but nevertheless they are now a phenomenon to be reckoned with in society today. This is a vast subject, because it is a world-wide movement; so of necessity, our study is very restricted, being confined to England, and to some of the developments which have taken place here. Throughout we shall be asking a number of questions about the 'Community Movement'. How has this development of Christian community living come about? VJhat are the people involved trying to achieve? Is it within the established churches and denominations? Is it divisive, or is it an indicator of the way in which the Church should be functioning now and in the future? Vi?e shall begin to examine these questions in this chapter as we look at some aspects of society today, and how much it is changes in society that has prompted this 'Community Movement'. V/e shall need to try to define community and to look briefly at the Biblical understanding of community, before moving on in the next chapter to look at earlier atti• tudes towards community living (and in particular attitudes to the monastic life), within the Reformed tradition. Chapters 3, ^ and 5 will be concerned with three specific communities which have emerged and developed in the period since 19^5» and the final chapter will sinalyse the significance of this movement towards community living, both in relation to the communities discussed in detail, to the phenomenon in general and what all this has to say to the Church at large. As the history of the Church is one of decline and renewal, significant religious movements in the past have always been in answer to a need at that time, e.g. from a Protestant point of view, the Reformation of the sixteenth century, or in the eighteenth century John Wesley and the founding of Methodism; also in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries we have the Evangelical Revival, and the Oxford Movement. Although the 'Community Movement' is not on the same scale as the movements mentioned above, what has happened in the last thirty- five years seems to have occurred, as before, in answer to a need within the established Church. We must first ask - "li/hat is that need?", and to answer this we must put the 'Community Movement' in the wider context of social change in the last hundred years, and in particular the period since 19^5. From the simple pattern of traditional rural communities, many people now live in a complex, mechanised, industrial society where there often appears to be little sense of community. Within all this, there is an element of paradox - people are becoming less self-sufficient and more dependent on others for their living, and yet there is less of a sense of belonging to a community of any kind. Though transport, com• munications and the mass media have brought people closer together, subjectively speaking they are more at a distance. Everywhere where there has been industrial growth and urban develop• ment, there are isolated families, feelings of remoteness, insignificance and powerlessness, and: It has led to the isolation of the nuclear family, to the predominance of partial secondary contacts over deep (2) personalised relationships. Or, to put it another way, we live in a mass society where relationships are essentially contractual, and as a result there can be little feeling of belonging, only a "phoney kind of togetherness", what Robert Merton has called "pseudo gemeinschaft". (We shall look at the use of this term Gemeinschaft in more detail shortly.) To quote a leading Christian commentator on this subject: Probably the greatest change that has happened to us in the west is that we no longer live in the security of small detached communities. In the Middle Ages the life of the great majority of people was lived in isolated self- contained communities - the manor, the village, the town, the nation, Christendom. The walls around these communi• ties are all down.^-^^ The changes in life which were so evident in the latter part of the nineteenth, and early part of the twentieth centuries, have accelerated even more in the years since the Second World War, Although there is a certain inevitability about change, and people expect it, nevertheless the natural reaction to it is fear.