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Course 2 · Lesson 1.2

A deliberate approach to Christian life

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 2 outline

Module 1: What Solitude Is and Is Not

  1. Solitude, isolation, and withdrawal from responsibility
  2. A deliberate approach to Christian life
  3. Solitude without superiority

Module 2: The Long Tradition

  1. Anthony and the first hermits
  2. The Desert Mothers and the sayings of the elders
  3. From the desert to the monastery: Pachomius, Basil and Benedict
  4. Hermits and anchorites in the later church

Module 3: The Church and the Solitary Christian

  1. The church as the body of Christ
  2. What Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians say requires a church
  3. Fellowship without a congregation

Module 4: Independence and Its Limits

  1. Reading Scripture for yourself
  2. The limits of private interpretation
  3. Testing teachers and online voices

Module 5: Accountability and Humility

  1. Spiritual pride
  2. Self-deception and confirmation bias
  3. Finding real accountability

Module 6: Building Your Framework

  1. Private devotion and communal life
  2. Drafting your framework
  3. Review and revision

All courses

Program / Course 2: The Solitary Christian in Depth / Lesson 1.2

What you will learn

  • Explain what it means to live the Christian life deliberately instead of by default.
  • Describe what this course means by the word solitudinarian, and what the word does not claim.
  • Identify the parts of a deliberate approach: purpose, practices, obligations and review.
  • Recognize the historic idea of a rule of life and why it is useful to a person who studies and prays alone.

The big idea

A deliberate approach to Christian life means choosing your practices on purpose, giving reasons for them, and checking them over time, instead of drifting into habits. Many people are solitary by accident: a move, an old injury from a church, a busy schedule. This course treats solitude as something to be chosen, ordered and examined. A deliberate life is not the same as a superior life. It is a life in which a person knows what he or she is doing, and why, and who is able to say so if it goes wrong.

Key terms

Solitudinarian
A word this course uses for a Christian who deliberately gives a large place to solitude in his or her faith. It is not an official label of any church, and it is used here only to describe a way of living.
Deliberate
Done on purpose, after thought, with a reason that can be stated.
Rule of life
A written or agreed plan of prayer, work, rest and relationships. Monastic communities have used rules for about sixteen hundred years.
Vocation
A calling. In Christian use, the particular life and duties to which a person believes God has called him or her.
Default
What happens when no one chooses. A default faith is one that simply follows habit, mood or convenience.
Examination
A regular, honest review of how you have lived, usually in the light of prayer and Scripture.

Background

Two people may both pray alone at home and read the Bible without attending a congregation. One may be in that situation because of a move, a period of grief or a wound that has never been dealt with. The other may have thought about it for years, written down reasons, listed what is lost and gained, and arranged to be corrected by a trusted friend. Their outward lives look alike. Their inner lives are very different. The first is drifting. The second is doing something deliberate.

The word solitudinarian is not a historic denomination. It is used in this course as a plain description: a Christian whose approach to faith gives solitude a central place. Other such people would use other words: hermit, contemplative, independent, unchurched, homebound. The course does not need you to agree with any of these labels. It asks you to think about how you came to be where you are and whether you are living there well.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Notice that you already have an approach

Every Christian has an approach to faith, even one who has never thought about it. It is made up of what you actually do on an ordinary week: when you pray, what you read, whom you listen to, whom you answer to, and what you give up. A person who has never written this down still has it. The first task is to see it plainly.

Jesus asks his hearers to count the cost before they commit. “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?” (Luke 14:28). Paul urges the Ephesians to “walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise” (Ephesians 5:15). Both texts assume that a believer can step back, look at a life and plan it.

Step 2: Ask why you do what you do

A deliberate approach can give reasons. Some reasons are good: you have a duty that keeps you at home, you live far from any church, you need quiet to pray, you are working through a difficult question and want to do it slowly. Some reasons deserve a second look: you are angry at a pastor, you dislike being told what to do, you enjoy feeling different from other Christians.

Write your reasons down. Then ask which of them you would be willing to say aloud to a wise Christian who loves you. A reason that cannot be spoken to anyone is often a reason that cannot stand.

Step 3: Order your practices

Christians through the centuries have found that a life of prayer needs shape. Benedict of Nursia, in the sixth century, wrote a Rule for monks that fixed times for prayer, reading and work, and in it he warned against idleness. The Orthodox tradition speaks of a prayer rule, often given by a spiritual father. Methodism took its name from the “method” of John Wesley and his friends at Oxford, who kept a strict schedule of prayer and study. Catholics have long spoken of a rule of life and of the duties of one’s state in life.

The details differ, but the idea is shared: decide in advance what you will do and when, so that your life of prayer does not depend on how you feel. A modest rule that you keep is worth more than an ambitious one that you drop in a week.

Step 4: Name your obligations

A deliberate approach counts what you owe. A parent owes time to children. A worker owes honest work. A grown child may owe care to an aging parent. A believer owes love to neighbors. These duties are not interruptions to the spiritual life. In the Christian tradition they are a large part of it.

Place these obligations in your plan first, and then place your solitude around them. If the order is reversed, solitude begins to crowd out the people who depend on you.

Step 5: Build in review

A deliberate life is a reviewed life. Ignatius of Loyola in the sixteenth century taught a short daily review of one’s day, called the examen, and Catholic and many Protestant Christians have used forms of it since. Monastic communities ask for regular reports to an abbot. A solitary person must build review in on purpose, because no one else will. Pick a fixed date each season and ask: what is bearing fruit, what is not, and what has changed?

  1. Can I state in two sentences why I live my Christian life as I do?
  2. Which part of my present approach did I choose, and which part just happened?
  3. What do I owe to others that my plan must protect first?
  4. What fixed practices do I keep, and when did I last keep them for a full month?
  5. Who could read my written reasons and tell me honestly what they think?
  6. When will I next review this plan, and what would make me change it?

Examples

Drifting

A man moved to a new city four years ago and meant to look for a church. He never did. He still prays sometimes and reads Scripture when he is stirred to. He would say he is a Christian who “does his own thing.” He has never decided anything. (A constructed example.)

Deliberate

A woman lives two hours from the nearest church of her tradition and cares for her father. She prays morning and evening, reads a Gospel chapter at lunch, speaks with her pastor by phone each month and drives to a service four times a year. She has written all this down and reviews it each January. (A constructed example.)

Deliberate in form, not in substance

A student draws up a detailed schedule of prayer and study, and shows it to nobody. He includes no obligations to his roommates and no way to be corrected. After six weeks he abandons it and concludes that structure does not work. The problem was that the plan had no relationships in it. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

Catholic

Catholic teaching speaks of the duties of one’s state of life and of a universal call to holiness for all the baptized. A deliberate plan of prayer is encouraged, and spiritual direction is the usual way to review it. Catholic teaching also holds that personal devotion is meant to lead into the sacramental life of the church, not to replace it.

Orthodox

Orthodox Christians often keep a prayer rule, a set of prayers and readings that is given or approved by a priest or spiritual father. The rule is meant to be kept faithfully and adjusted only with counsel. Private prayer is seen as an extension of the church’s common worship, not a separate path.

Protestant

Protestants stress that every believer may come to God directly, and many encourage a daily time of Bible reading and prayer. Some traditions, such as Wesleyan and Puritan ones, are known for methodical self-examination. Opinions differ about how much structure is helpful and how much depends on a local congregation.

Scholarly and secular observers

Researchers who study habits find that people who decide in advance when and where to do something tend to do it more often than people who rely on mood. This is a general finding about behavior, not a religious claim. It is consistent with what the monastic writers observed long before.

Why it matters

Without a deliberate approach, solitude tends to turn into whatever is easiest. Prayer shrinks, study becomes browsing, and the people in your life see less of you without knowing why. A deliberate approach does not make a person holy, but it gives the person a chance to notice what is happening and change it. It also makes honest conversation with others possible, because there is something definite to discuss.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Deliberate means rigid.

Correction: A deliberate plan can be simple and flexible. The point is that changes are chosen, not that nothing changes. Benedict himself allowed the abbot to adjust the Rule for the weak and the sick.

Misunderstanding: A written plan shows that a person is more spiritual.

Correction: A plan shows only that a person has thought about the matter. Jesus warned against practicing piety to be seen by others (Matthew 6:1). The test is the fruit in love and honesty, not the neatness of the schedule.

Misunderstanding: Solitudinarian is a church or a movement.

Correction: It is a descriptive word used in this course. It carries no membership, no teaching authority and no claim of rank.

Misunderstanding: Choosing my own approach means I need no counsel.

Correction: Choosing deliberately includes choosing who will review your choice. Proverbs says, “he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise” (Proverbs 12:15).

Knowledge check

What is the difference between a drifting and a deliberate approach to Christian life?

A drifting approach is made of habits, moods and circumstances that nobody chose. A deliberate approach has stated reasons, ordered practices, named obligations and a time for review. Two lives can look alike from outside and still differ in this way.

Why should obligations come into the plan before solitude?

Because duties to family, work and neighbors are part of Christian life, not obstacles to it. If solitude is placed first, it can crowd them out. Placing duties first and building solitude around them keeps the person honest and keeps others from being harmed.

What is a rule of life, and who used it first?

A rule of life is a plan of prayer, work, rest and relationships. Monastic writers of the fourth to sixth centuries, such as Basil and Benedict, wrote well-known rules. Lay Christians have since adapted the idea to ordinary life.

Why does a solitary person need to build review into the plan on purpose?

In a community, others notice problems and speak. A person who lives alone does not have this built in, so a fixed date and a trusted reader must be added deliberately.

Think it through

  1. Which parts of your present approach to Christian life were chosen, and which just happened?
  2. What reasons for your practices would you hesitate to say to a wise friend? Why?
  3. What obligations must your plan protect before anything else?
  4. What would a yearly review of your practices look like for you, and who might read it?

Independent assignment

A one-page statement of approach

In your own notebook, write about one page (250 to 400 words). Describe your present approach to Christian life as it really is. State your reasons. List your practices and your obligations. Name one person who could be asked to read it, even if you do not yet ask. End with the date of your first review. Keep this page, because later lessons will build on it. Do not submit or post it.

Further study