Yeah, yeah, I know, sorry for the big long wordy title. I couldn't help myself. I know it probably makes me sound dumb, but it makes me feel intelligent, so humor me.

It seems to me Protestants are far too lacking in self-discipline or willingness to deny themselves any physical pleasure, and excuse their laxity by saying "Well, it's not good or bad, it's just neutral. It doesn't affect me." While we must in no wise fall into gnostic tendency and say all matter and physical is evil, we can't jump into the other side of the ditch as we are so prone to do! There seems to me to be a very big bias against monasticism in our modern Protestant world, and very big bias against any sort of severe asceticism, and the root of it seems to be our overflowing abundance in America. We are so inundated by food, music and aesthetic sound, visual noise and symmetry, pain-relief, mental- and physical-relieving machines that our lax minds have a hard time grasping or conceiving the monastic or ascetic or contemplative life.

Please don't think I'm saying severe asceticism can't have problems and that everyone should live as an ascetic, because that is not what I'm saying. The problem is that because our minds are weak and flabby, we must find excuses for ourselves so that we don't have to push ourselves into any discomfort. Because of this weakness of mind it is easy to look at the negative aspects of asceticism and then never give it a second thought. Here lies the problem, I think. First we must conquer the body, and after we have conquered the body, then we can live with the material in good conscience.

As I see it, there are three general stages of spiritual development in terms of relation to material physical things (i.e. food, marriage, clothes, music, etc.) :

1) Enslavement or weak attachment,

2) Ascetic abstention or semi-forced detachment,

3) Mastery or full detachment.

We are all born into category 1. The problem is that's where most modern evangelical Protestants stay. Asceticism is a more forced attempt to train the soul not to rely on the physical, and thus could be said to be a more 'advanced' stage of a soul than attachment to physical things. It is a weaning, it proves un-reliance upon the carnal and physical and material things, such as food and marriage. But asceticism is only a training ground for the soul, because if we are spiritually detached from the physical, then there is no harm in partaking them or using them. This is how Christ lived; in complete detachment and independence from all physical carnal things and emotion. Thus he was able with good conscience to partake of material things, because of his spiritual strength.

Now I think this points us to the problem of modern evangelical anti-ascetic Protestants, and semi-holier-than-thou spiritual-nobility asceticism. An ascetic would perhaps say that level 2 is higher than level one, which is certainly the case, but they fail to recognize that there is a level three; while a Protestant would perhaps condemn the ascetic and say that there is a level three, while being blind that there is a reason behind asceticism. Thus, both are wrong in that the ascetic doesn't realize that there is a more advanced spiritual state than asceticism and the Protestant doesn't realize that asceticism is a (for the most part) necessary stage in advancing towards detachment and mastery of the physical and carnal.

Now please don't think I'm trying to be all legalistic and that I'm saying you have to go through this specific stage, you have to do this thing, and then you advance to the next level which is defined as so and so… that isn't my point. My point is that in general asceticism is a schoolmaster to proper consideration of the physical and carnal, and that for most it is a necessary step in the process. Thus, as Protestants, we must test ourselves by saying this: are we capable of abstention? Are we capable and willing to go through severe asceticism? Are we detached from the physical so that we have mastery over our appetites and can deny ourselves if it is expedient to do so for the sake of God? If we can answer with a hearty yes to those questions, then by all means there is no harm in partaking of God's good and wondrous gifts of food and marriage and proper clothing! In fact we do God favor by doing so. But if we are attached to these things, how can we say that God is our sole desire? How can we with good conscience partake if we are attached to the gifts themselves and not the giver?