In a recent Earthrise witness Catherine (Schuler) Whitney said, “And just like that I saw it—5th City’s true purpose. I was reminded that 5th City is not—and never was—a place. It was a vision.” I think she got it right. I want to expand on the idea of vision a bit from a historical context that predates Fifth City by nearly a thousand years.

I just finished leading an adult church school class through the history of the Christian church during the Medieval era, from Augustine to Luther. It was quite depressing what with the Dark Ages, massive bloodshed, forced conversion, the crusades, the Inquisition. The church spent six hundred years trying to determine the exact nature of Jesus, which it finally did and in the process sentenced non-believers to banishment or death. At the end of the class we wondered how the church could have survived such a history.

Periodically a burst of vision would erupt. Charlemagne in the 9th century had a vision of a unified Christian empire encompassing all of Europe with education, prosperity and equal rights everywhere. It almost came to be but shortly after his death it all returned to the previous state. At the turn of the millennium a young man, Otto III, became emperor of the Holy Roman Empire at the age of eighteen. He and an elder intellectual pope, Sylvestor II, created a new vision of a unified Christian empire but it never came to be. Both died within 5 years.

However, the story I want to relate came from a book by Dorothee Soelle entitled The Silent Cry-Mysticism and Resistance (Fortress Press Minneapolis, 2001, p. 165). The time is the 13th century during the crusades and Inquisition when war and carnage had reduced the available supply of marriageable men. The supply was further diminished by men going into the clergy and religious orders and also by men apprenticing in trades where they were forbidden to marry until their apprenticeship was completed.

On top of that marriage itself was not enticing. Women were expected to be subservient wives and mothers, accepting the occasional (or frequent) beatings for discipline. The culture was divided into two tiers with the church and elite having all the wealth leaving the bulk of the population in poverty and slavery. All in all, the women of the lower elite class were despondent about their situation in life.

Suddenly, a new idea sprung forth—the Beguine movement. The lower elite class women began walking away from it all, leaving behind their wealth and status and banding together in groups of 3-12, living in a common house among the poor. Hundreds and thousands of these living units sprang up all over northern Europe, eventually amounting to as many as a million women (according to the author). They rejected hierarchy and governed themselves in a democratic way. They did not revolt against the church and maintained cordial relations although they were later deemed heretics. They made no lifetime commitment (as in a monastic order) but remained free to marry if they wished. The Beguine refused to have a Rule like the religious orders that demanded exacting discipline. They did not wear distinctive garb but rather a common dress with a broad-brimmed hat. They sustained themselves by manual labor in sewing shops, bakeries, breweries and the like. Most importantly they educated themselves.

Their primary mission was to the poor. They cared for the poor and elderly, often opening medical clinics to treat them and when they died, giving them a dignified burial. While not being allowed to preach, through daily living they delivered the Word of God in vernacular language so the people could understand.

The order was spiritual, perhaps even mystical, celebrating the Eucharist on a weekly basis rather than annually or quarterly as the church required which I’m sure drove the local priest nuts. This went on for about 150 years, from about 1200 to 1350. Eventually it went out of being for various reasons, but it must have had an impact.

By any rational assessment, the church should have gone out of being at the onset of the Renaissance but it didn’t. I’m convinced that it survived because of bursts of vision lived out under the radar that carried a message of hope. Little visible evidence remained for historians to pour over and expound upon, but the ongoing church, crumby and grumpy though it be, continues to be a place where vision of hope occasionally springs forth to sustain us into the future.

There is a kernel of the idea of Beguinage at work in America today where there would seem to be fertile ground. “We are a small, non-canonical, inter-denominational religious community of women who take as our source of inspiration the Beguines of thirteenth century northern Europe. We are creating a beguine model for today. The community consists of married, widowed and single women who follow various Christian religious traditions. Some of us live together in what we call a modern day "beguinage". Others of us live separately.” See www.beguine.org.

Long live vision!

I am Darrell Walker. I attended my first RS-1 in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, in 1972 and remained active on the periphery of EI/ICA for many years. I now live near Sacramento, California.

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-- Darrell Walke - 21 Jun 2007