Is Separation from Society a Sin?

You often hear Protestant Bible teachers and pastors condemn Christian hermits, ascetics, and monastic practices. The consensus seems to be "shame on them for removing themselves from society" and "we are called to be lights to the world and a witness within society".

While I agree with the doctrine that Christians are to share their faith with others, this does not mean there is no justification for withdrawing from society and pagan culture, and even from institutionalized churches, to get alone with God, to contemplate, study, and pray in solitude.

There are tremendously blessed examples of isolation, of getting away from the human herd, of retreating to a quiet, lonely place to focus on God and the inner life of the soul, our mental struggle with personal sin and spiritual  combat and growth.

I have a hard time with those who are quick to condemn the Christian hermits and ascetics. I have derived great spiritual value from the writings of monks, nuns, and hermits who lived in the first to fifteenth centuries. 

Many times, they left the church because it was thoroughly corrupt, and so was society.

They left their friends and companions, who were submerged in sinful talk and behavior. They renounced both the hypocrisy of their religious leaders and the lure of their pagan, wicked culture. 

So they went out into deserts, caves, mountains, islands, wilderness, to pray, fast, study scripture, contemplate, struggle with sin in their souls, fellowship with other hermits and monks, and share their insights with people who came to see them.

I'm wary of those who despise and ridicule these great and wonderful saints. Often it seems that the injunction to "remain in society and be a light to others" is based on an unspiritual attachment to worldliness, success, materialism.

Some may say that monasteries and hermitages degenerated into a spiritual elitism and became corrupt, and even perverse, with such practices as self-flagellation and dangerous deprivations, indicative of masochism and prideful bravado.

Every revolutionary or reform movement becomes corrupted into reflecting what they rebelled against.

From the very beginning of the Christian faith, which began as meetings in private homes and in catacombs, there were tares sown in with the wheat, wolves in sheeps clothing, false teachers and prophets infiltrating.

At one point, apostle Paul said, "All they that be in Asia are turned away from me."

As I have not found a church to participate in, I have my own hermitage, a monk's cell in which I train myself and worship and study. 

From my study of three volumes of The Philokalia, and Evolution of The Monastic Ideal, and other literature, including works by Thomas Merton, I get the sense that withdrawal from church and state can be a very good thing, and not necessarily a rejection of the Great Commission, or an alienation from society, as most Protestant Bible teachers and pastors think it has to be.

My study of early Christian ascetics shows that they were taking the "love not the world" command seriously and deprived themselves of luxuries, dainties, gluttony, and participation in the culture that surrounded them.

But today, you can barely distinguish Christian culture from pagan culture in terms of music, literature, dress, speech, divorce rates, predators, etc. 

A good example of mainstream heresy is THE SHACK or PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE books.

When the institutional church is corrupt and contrary to Biblical teachings and practices, a hermitage or monastic life style can be a remedy for individuals. 

The book PAGAN CHRISTIANITY by George Barna and Frank Viola (I'm not endorsing Frank's other works and associations) is a great resource on what is pagan in the modern church, including one pastor doing all the oratory in a local church and acting as CEO.

Materialistic church people like to warn believers to not depart from society, to live a normal life, work at a regular job, and be around average people.

They insist on joining a local church, so as to obey the instruction of  "not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together". But the "church" is "wherever two or three are gathered together in My name", Jesus said. 

Jesus Christ himself often withdrew not only from society, but the "church" (temple at Jerusalem), and even the fellowship of his own disciples, to mountains and wilderness locations, "lonely places", to pray and have a private audience with God the Father.

I think the current danger is not "exclusion from society" but immersion in it -- with conformity to its attitudes and behaviors.

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