Asceticism

Asceticism research papers focus on the concept as it relates to Christianity. Religion courses often require exploration of the issue of asceticism and Paper Masters can custom write your explanation of the complex issue for Christians.

In Christianity three important concepts have been peculiarly intertwined. The first of these concepts is asceticism, the second retreat from the world, the third the concept of imitation of Jesus Christ. These three concepts and their interrelationship require that the serious believer confront these issues:

1. The extent to which a true Christian is bound to practice the austerities which Christ himself practiced and enjoined
2. The relationship of ascetic practice to life in the world and life lived apart from the world, either the cenobitic (monastic) form of retreat or the anchoritic (solitary) form of retreat
3. The relationship of (1) and (2) to the fact that the world we live in is radically different from the world in which Christ lived and that these differences would at least seem to demand adaptations on the part of believers lest they become living anachronisms.

Asceticism and the Secular World

This last is an instance of a perpetual problem for Christians, their relationship to the secular world. This problem is especially difficult today because the forces of technology have wrought a world vastly different from what it was 2000 years ago. It is the thesis of this paper that the answer to the problems posed by the need to adapt to the world around us versus the need to adhere to the spirit of Christ's words and actions, the need to "imitate" Christ, is to be found in the life of St. Francis of Assisi, a saint who lived a life engaged in the world while not being of it and who imitated Christ by practicing self-denial without attempting to identify himself with Christ through extreme ec practices.