68 Chapter 1 certain politically loaded conception of citizenship; rather, it deliberately allows space for identity groups, including religious groups, to draw on their own traditions and frameworks to give shape to the world alongside other groups. This does not imply a radical return to one clear epistemological system such as, for example, MacIntyre (2007) would wish, but at the same time, it does justice to his call for small communities to practice the virtues and keep their remembrances in the world. Banks’ (2008) transformative citizenship includes what Dronkers (2012) termed ‘faithful citizenship’, which belongs to a model that he referred to as ‘public engagement’, a model that honours the ‘pivotal role of civic commitment’ but also guarantees ‘the freedom to have different motivations for their continued allegiance to the civic community’ (p. 2) (5). A specifically Christian example of this faithful citizenship could be what Wilson (2010) proposed as new monasticism, as based on MacIntyre’s (2007) call for a new St. Benedict. In a fragmented world, small ‘communities of disciples’ should seek to recover ‘authentic discipleship’ through ‘the recovery of wholeness in our understanding of the gospel’ (Wilson, 2010, pp. 14–15). In this process, they need to avoid the ‘reductionistic temptation’ to separate elements of their Christian faith from each other: just a cognitive application of the faith, just an emotional one or just a very practical one. Wilson (2010) learned from MacIntyre (2007) that it is important for Christians to understand the central telos of the goal of their ‘integral mission’ in the world: In recovering this telos, the new monasticism will seek to heal the fragmentation of our lives in this culture. Therefore, the new monasticism will not be marked by a division between the secular and the sacred. Rather, it will see the whole of life under the Lordship of Jesus Christ (p. 60). Small communities or identity groups can help individuals to find meaning and purpose, as well as to contribute to society—and, ultimately, to the whole world—as ‘deep citizens’ (Clarke, 1998, p. 6). This means that they are ‘conscious of acting in and onto a world shared with others’ and also ‘conscious that the identity of self and the identity of others is co-related and co-creative, while also opening up the possibilities of both engagement in and enchantment with the world’ (Clarke, 1998, p. 6). The same conception of citizenship was adopted by Biesta (2009), who warned that other conceptions undermine this kind of deep citizenship. Biesta (2009) was critical of the way in which active 5 Dronkers (2012) distinguished this model from models of ‘moral commitment’, ‘pious loyalty’ and ‘national attachment’, which leave little space for the freedom of the person or the group.
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