Why the Desert Mothers and Fathers Still Matter

In one of his daily emails, Richard Rohr once admitted that he has some issues with the sayings of the Desert Mothers and Fathers — the early Christian hermits and monastics who lived in Egypt, Palestine and Syria in the 3rd and 4th centuries. Rohr admitted that, on some levels, because these writings are so ancient, they can be very problematic when viewed from the perspective of the 21st century: these early Christians can come across as judgmental, sexist (if not downright misogynistic), host...