As some of you all know I am part of a church that is among those in the movement known as the New Monasticism. It consists largely of small churches across the United States whose members live in close geographical proximity to one another, seek to relocate to the abandoned places of the empire, nurture a common life, live under a common rule (though the content of such a "rule" is pretty fluid between and even within communities), and practice Christian initiation, and a number of other such marks.

In a May 22 contribution to God's Politics: A Blog by Jim Wallis & Friends, EPer William Cavanaugh continues to take on Catholic neoconservative George Weigel's attempts to argue for the justice of the Iraq War.  In particular, Cavanaugh (rightly, I think) homes in on why the church should not (contrary to Weigel's assertion otherwise) relinquish its moral judgment on matters of war to government authorities--a point that Cavanaugh made clear earlier in an article in Commonweal magazine (and available at Godspy).

     I’m so excited for this summer’s Ekklesia Project Gathering! As a participant for the past two years in EP’s Congregational Formation Initiative (affectionately known as CFI), I’m looking forward to finally coming together to elaborate on what has been taking place within several congregations across the United States. The Congregational Formation Initiative is an ambitious pilot program developed to explore how churches intentionally go about doing the work of Christian formation within a variety of contexts. Specific curriculum written predominantly by Phil Kenneson was distributed to selected pastors and/or educators to lead within their congregations. Members of those congregations willingly took on a two-year commitment to be a part of this larger study. The dedication of the pastors and participants involved in CFI has been amazing, and the results are only now being revealed.