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Celtic Christianity

We Live in Times

...In which the majority of the population of Britain still believe in God and think well of Jesus Christ, yet only a small minority attend worship in the historic churches with any regularity. We live in times in which there is a growing dissatisfaction with the scientific and technological world-view and in which there is an increasing acceptance of the paranormal and the reality of unseen worlds, yet this is in no way Precipitating an increase in church attendance. We live in times when meditation groups, alternative therapies and self-awareness courses are mushrooming, yet these and many other spiritual practices are held at arm’s length by most churches, who consider them at best eccentric and at worst pagan.

It is thus clear that for most people today something is rotten in the state of institutional religion. It is seen as largely boring and irrelevant. People are seeking for a deeper meaning of life elsewhere, often in the East, with its many well-tried mystical paths.

It is in this context that those who are determined to find their spiritual renewal in their culture are discovering with surprise and delight that in Celtic times from the first to the seventh centuries, there used to be a type of Christianity in these islands, which was different to the Roman Catholic or Protestant denominations, which came later. This Celtic Christianity promises to provide them with the nourishing alternative they are looking for.

Iona

It would be tempting to dismiss this rediscovery of and enthusiasm for Celtic Christianity as a romantic yearning for a lost golden age, an escape into a twilight world of enchanting legend but dubious historical authenticity. Doubtless there is that element in it, but behind the romance there do seem to be certain characteristics discernible in Celtic spirituality, which are legitimately making a powerful appeal to modern men and women in search of their soul

The first of these is the apparent lack of a strong, centralized institution. In the later Roman and Protestant churches, ecclesiastical organizations were modeled on political and military hierarchies with imperial pretensions, whereas it appears that among the Celts the church was much more decentralized, was less authoritarian, valued personal sanctity more than doctrinal orthodoxy and local variation more than international uniformity. It is easy to see how attractive such a devolved, indigenous and unstructured system seems to those who today want freedom to pursue their own personal pilgrimage. Whether such a system would be quite so appealing, were it accepted that it also emphasized a rigorous, solitary asceticism like that of St Anthony and the Desert Fathers of Egypt is another matter.

The second characteristic of Celtic Christianity that resonates with contemporary concerns is its creation spirituality. To a generation which has come to see environmental issues as top of the ethical agenda, it is of the utmost importance that the Celtic saints included animals, crops seasons, elements and the stars in their understanding of God’s providence and plan. For them, all nature expressed the character of God. The way we treat animas soil and natural resources as if they were merely soulless commodities in the market economy would have been considered blasphemous by Sts Kevin, Petroc, Piran, Columba and many others who counted horses, cows, otters, blackbirds, wild boars, foxes, badgers, calves and does among their close friends and disciples.

The God of the Celtic saints was green, largely because of a third distinctive characteristic, namely continuity with the pre-Christian past. The earlier religion of the pagan Celts was seen not so much as having been superseded by their new faith, but, at least in certain respects, to have been fulfilled by it. This was very much the case with the Druids, who had seen the coming of the Christ by clairvoyance and who in many instances made a peaceful conversion. The bad name the Druids have to this day comes mainly from our Roman conquerors, who had political motives. Such evidence as there is, shows that the Druids prepared the way for a harmonious transition to the new religion. We may still have much to learn from them.

The fourth characteristic follows on from this. It can be described as a openness to the psychic, a knowledge of the subtle body, the astral and etheric planes and a consequent experience of the nearness of the Otherworld. Both Catholics and Protestants over many centuries have condemned this side of the Celtic inheritance as occult magic, but this has been motivated largely by the jealousy of the ecclesiastical hierarchies, who have been ruthless in the suppression of all competition. But recent research has established the authenticity and universality of the psychic dimension and is consequently validating many of the otherwise wildly improbable miracle stories associated with the Celtic saints. Celtic Christianity shows that the psychic can complement the spiritual and that it need not be the enemy of it. This is of crucial importance to all those who have been alienated from the churches because their psychic experiences have not been respected.

Courtney Davis admirably expresses the four distinctive characteristics of the Celtic saints in his images and in doing so embodies a fifth, that of artistic expression. His mastery of vibrant colour, intricate design, and careful craftsmanship is perfectly suited to his subject. His distinctive Celtic style is imbued to an almost uncanny degree with the same creative imagination which produced the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels.

Foreword by Dr.Gordon Strachan from “The Book of Celtic Saints” Illustrated by Courtney Davis with text by Elaine Gill.

First published by Blandford Press (1995) PB ISBN 0-304-35834-7