Will the real Celtic spirituality please stand up?

I've been writing and saying for years that we need to realise that most of what passes for Celtic Christianity nowadays is a mirror of our own desires. So I pass this article on to you for the next time you need an antidote to the slush merchandising and the newagery.

That makes me sound more cynical than I am, but I wanted to get your attention! I actually think that the contemporary phenomena going under the label are important, the main thing is that we don't look for too much in them by way of historical accuracy and authority. However, I think that it is fine to find a way to contain a set of Christian spirituality themes, provided we realise that this is what we are doing. IT seems to me the importnat themes are: creation affirmation, equality [especially gender], revival of creativity and 'folk' arts, contextualisation /inculturation ... maybe there's one or two more [what do you think?] ... but you get the idea.

There is a small degree of basis for these themes in the historical data but we should rmember that our romantic view of nature was not theirs, and they were as ascetic as any medievals, sometimes more so and the inculturation only went so far and mostly it was down to losing contact with mainstream Europe after the withdrawal of the ROamns from Britain and before the return of the Roman Church some four hundred years later; so more by accident than design really.

And before you think that I'm a bit sour-grapes-ish, remember that a goodly chunk of my ancestry came from Wales.

I'll leave you with a quote from near the end of the article:
What traditional Irish Catholicism, the Calvinism of the Highlands and the Calvinist Methodism of Wales shared, at least until recently, was a set of values hat would have most modern Celtic revivalists shuddering, namely a keen interest in theological nitpicking, spiritual severity, and a fairly hard and unforgiving attitude towards the flesh.
Or is that what the nasty English made them? ;-p
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