The desert fathers arose when persecution ended
According to Henri Nouwen, the Desert Mothers and Fathers came into being as a response to the end of physical persecution. They sought a new form of witness in a world where it was no longer dangerous to claim the name of Christ. And they sought to separate themselves from a society that they felt was poisonous to Christian faith and practice.
💬
But if the world was no longer the enemy of the Christian, then the Christian had to become the enemy of the dark world. The flight to the desert was the way to escape a tempting conformity to the world.
Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart, pg. 4
Responding to a Thomas Merton quote from The Wisom of the Desert, Nouwen observes,
💬
Our society is not a community radiant with the love of Christ, but a dangerous network of domination and manipulation in which we can easily get entangled and lose our soul.
Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart, pg. 5