Celtic mission myth and facts

Just replied to someone in an email group about contmeporary Celtic Christian beliefs and thought it might be worth posting here too.

Historically it seems pretty clear that the Celts were as doctrinally orthodox as anywhere else in Christendom at the time. They differed in practices to do with dates and customs and their style of church organisation was determined by serving an agrarian tribal society rather than an urban citizenry. The myths are about creation centredness, gender equality and to a lesser extent inculturation. -Or at least that is how it looks to me!

On the other hand these modern myths about the Celtic church do have some historical grounding; there is surely a lot to be learnt from their style of organisation and mission [though a lot too has been read in from our own agenda]. There are signs that they may have retained [imho] a fuller place for women in church organisation -but much of what is written lately goes way past the evidence and meets it coming back. The creation-friendliness is largely the product of an agrarian society and a closer reading also shows that nature was seen also to have demonic elements far from the fluffy bunnies approach some seem to want to find [sorry -that may be too harsh].

However, the fact that many of our contemporaries are keen to find nature-friendliness, gender equality and culturally-sensitive organisation among other things, tells us that there is a need for the church to address them with utmost seriousness and that there is a desire to root these concerns in a tradition that is bigger than postmodern concerns. I wonder whether our mythical Celtic Church has not actually been unconsciously woven fromfact and fantasy as a Christian corporate psychological response that enable us to hold up a mirror to what the Spirit is saying to us, the Churches and that we find hard to hear or see any other way...