Listening for the Heartbeat of God

Listening for the Heartbeat of God: A Celtic Spirituality
By J. Philip Newell
Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1997
Review by Carl McColman

“Celtic Christianity” is the name given to a distinctive expression of the Christian faith that emerged in the lands where Celtic languages were spoken — Ireland, Scotland, and Wales in particular — during the 250 years following the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the early years of the fifth century. Essentially abandoned to fate and located far away from the center of declining Roman power, the church in the British isles basically made its own way during that quarter of a millennium, combining the mystical theology of early Christendom with the unique sensibility of the Celtic peoples. Although some critics dismiss the idea that “Celtic Christianity” is anything other than a modern romanticized view of the church in the British Isles during that period, many others see in this expression of the faith a path to follow as the church of the third millennium seeks to embrace a more earth-friendly, holistic view of creation, while also deconstructing the compromises made particularly in the west as the church became entangled with imperial and later forms of political power.