Gentle Space-Making: Christian Silent Prayer, Mindfulness, and Kenotic Identity Formation
The practice of mindfulness has reached an unprecedented level of prevalence in the US and the UK, both in terms of widespread popularity and in terms of institutional support and investment. One potential clue to this phenomenon may be found in the nature of the institutional contexts that are incr...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Sage
[2019]
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| In: |
Studies in Christian ethics
Year: 2019, Volume: 32, Issue: 1, Pages: 66-77 |
| IxTheo Classification: | CB Christian life; spirituality NBC Doctrine of God NCH Medical ethics |
| Further subjects: | B
Charles Taylor
B End-of-life B healthcare ethics B Sarah Coakley B Mindfulness B Apophatic prayer B Kenosis |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (Resolving-System) |
| Summary: | The practice of mindfulness has reached an unprecedented level of prevalence in the US and the UK, both in terms of widespread popularity and in terms of institutional support and investment. One potential clue to this phenomenon may be found in the nature of the institutional contexts that are increasingly being filled with mindfulness practitioners and seminars: each is deeply embedded in and pervaded by what philosopher Charles Taylor calls the 'modern identity'. This article provides an analysis of mindfulness as a practice of moral formation that challenges these late-modern notions of human agency and identity. It does so by bringing mindfulness into conversation with another contemplative tradition, namely, Christian silent prayer as exemplified in the anonymous fourteenth-century handbook, The Cloud of Unknowing. It then situates these two formational practices within the broader social imaginary that dominates late-modern, North Atlantic life, and ventures a few suggestions about the significance of this overlap for Christian ethics, specifically at the end of life. |
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| ISSN: | 0953-9468 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Studies in Christian ethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/0953946818808142 |