The Monastic Ideal of Evelyn Underhill
The year 2025 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Evelyn Underhill, the agnostic-turned-Anglican writer on worship and mysticism. Underhill’s expansive vision of the Christian life was rooted in pagan and Christian Neoplatonism and, especially, the Christian mystical tradition, which was often found most clearly in the “monastic system.” She argued that the “mystic way” was available to all Christians and was rooted in the sacramental life of the parish church and in personal spiritual disciplines, especially retreats. Underhill’s practical mysticism brings the monastery into the parish, arguing that the Christian life is the monastic life.
The 2025 James Lloyd Breck Conference on Monasticism and the Church seeks to investigate Underhill’s mystical theology to discover how she understood the role of monasticism in the history and spirituality of the Church and how every Christian can be a single-minded mystic.