{"id":3818,"date":"2012-02-14T12:09:37","date_gmt":"2012-02-14T19:09:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3818"},"modified":"2012-02-14T12:14:35","modified_gmt":"2012-02-14T19:14:35","slug":"when-is-a-monk-not-a-monk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3818","title":{"rendered":"When Is a Monk not a Monk?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When he or she is a student at the University of Pennsylvania.<\/a><\/p>\n

Given that this is a religious-studies class (academic, not doctrinal) at a secular university,\u00a0 I thought that the professor had an interesting idea.<\/p>\n

The … course on monastic life and asceticism gives students at the University of Pennsylvania a firsthand experience of what it’s like to be a monk.<\/p>\n

At various periods during the semester, students must forego technology, coffee, physical human contact and certain foods. They’ll also have to wake up at 5 a.m. – without an alarm clock.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rather than reading or watching videos, they would have an embodied experience.<\/p>\n

Now obviously it is a doctrinal-content-free experience on one level: it is just “monasticism,” not Catholic or Buddhist or anything else in terms of content. We might call it “core monasticism,” on a parallel with Michael Harner’s “core shamanism.”<\/a><\/p>\n

The “faith-free” aspect\u2014and the reporter’s failure to ask the how’s and why’s\u2014annoyed Terry Mattingly at Get Religion<\/em>, the blog critiquing journalistic coverage of religion.<\/a> (Believe me, there is plenty to critique.)<\/p>\n

I assume that there would be other ways of stating that requirement that the students eliminate \u201cphysical human contact.\u201d That might have something to do with chastity and celibacy. One wonders why the story didn\u2019t simply state that clearly, right up front. Perhaps it\u2019s more shocking these days to discuss students giving up coffee and cell telephones.<\/p>\n

The key to reading this AP report, however, is to strive not to focus on the content of McDaniel\u2019s class and to try to figure out the degree to which the reporter did or didn\u2019t miss some basic subjects.<\/p>\n

But first, what is the tradition that shapes this form of monasticism that is acceptable on an elite university campus?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the comments, Prof. Anthea Butler, another member of Penn’s religious studies faculty, promises a response in her column at Religion Dispatches<\/em><\/a>. It is not yet published, but I will link to to it when it is available.<\/p>\n

Did the class have a “spiritual” component? Should it have? Or is asking college students to give up cell phones and coffee and to take notes with a pen equivalent to hair shirts, self-mortification, and ora et labora<\/em><\/a> in itself??<\/p>\n

Actually, my first thought was, “Where is the music?” The students should meet at 5 a.m. in a large room with a good echo for half an hour of Gregorian chant. But that would be “content.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When he or she is a student at the University of Pennsylvania. Given that this is a religious-studies class (academic, not doctrinal) at a secular university,\u00a0 I thought that the professor had an interesting idea. The … course on monastic life and asceticism gives students at the University of Pennsylvania a firsthand experience of what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[137,10],"class_list":["post-3818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-academia","tag-american-religion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-ZA","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":339,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=339","url_meta":{"origin":3818,"position":0},"title":"Midnight (imagistic) Mass A few\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 25, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Midnight (imagistic) Mass A few nights ago, M. and I were sharing reminiscences of Christmases long past, including the experience of Christmas Eve Midnight Mass. It wasn't the content of the service that mattered, but the experience: the waiting all evening, driving to the church through quiet streets, the explosion\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":354,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=354","url_meta":{"origin":3818,"position":1},"title":"You've got heresy Originally filmed\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 17, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"You've got heresy Originally filmed in French as Le moine et la sorci\u00e8re (\"The monk and the sorceress\"), this 1987 take on the Inquisition is available dubbed in English as The Sorceress, and it packs some surprises. To quote the Internet Movie Database plot summary: A Dominican friar visits a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13685,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13685","url_meta":{"origin":3818,"position":2},"title":"Celebrate June 5th – Plant a Tree","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 5, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"June 5th is the feast day of Boniface, an English monk who went missionary-ing among the German Heathens, who put an end to his career in 754. But they did not write the history books. Planting a tree would be an appropriate way to celebrate.","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/where-are-your-pagan-gods-now.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/where-are-your-pagan-gods-now.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/where-are-your-pagan-gods-now.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":805,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=805","url_meta":{"origin":3818,"position":3},"title":"Poem on Bridget’s Day","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The Winter(15 Nov. 1966)Wheelbarrow's tire is flat, muddy ground now setsA plaster mould around the folded rubber the firstCold morning of the year.Philip Whalen(1923-2002)One of the trio of Reed College Beat poets, along with Gary Snyder and Lew Welch, Philip Whalen formlly became a Zen monk in 1973.For the Second\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"writing\"","block_context":{"text":"writing","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=writing"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4304,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4304","url_meta":{"origin":3818,"position":4},"title":"Pictish Writing Discovered?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 23, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Some researchers now think that decorative carvings on Pictish memorial stones in Scotland may actually represent a form of writing. The highly stylized rock engravings, found on what are known as the Pictish Stones, had once been thought to be rock art or tied to heraldry. The new study, published\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2252,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2252","url_meta":{"origin":3818,"position":5},"title":"Don’t Mess with the Monk","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Heather Abraham at Religion Nerd (in the sidebar) lists the most outrageous religion videos of 2010. Included is the Christine O'Donnell \"I'm not a witch\" clip that prompted so many Wiccan responses and parodies. \"Dabble-gate,\" as Jason Pitzl-Waters calls it, also made it to number three on his top ten\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3818"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3823,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3818\/revisions\/3823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}