A big category but increasingly seen as very worthy of scholarly interest.

Exploring Celtic Spirituality is a helpful introduction.

Seemed more appropriate to ask this question here, although it was prompted by Richard's quibble on Languages Without Scripts. I'm genuinely interested in what you would see as the defining characteristics of the Celtic Church, and which church you are referring to as Britain's first State Church.

I am very ambivalent about Celtic Spirituality. Almost everything I come across that is written on the subject appears to owe more to modern feminism, New Age-ism and Pantheism than to historical Christianity. In an Irish Celtic context, much has been made of the transition from Goddess worship (itself of dubious historicity) to Christianity. -- ps

The New Celts by Roger Ellis and a collaborator is another pretty enthusiastic book on the subject, which I have read bits of. I have some time for the book because my whole family recently visited Roger and Maggie and family and saw what the church they lead in Chichester is like. Fantastic. We heard only women teaching (three in all - an accident I think!) and the best, the one I felt I learnt the most from, was just 22 years old. In that sense of women being free to lead with gusto it was very Celtic, as was the acceptance of youth culture generally. All my children loved it. But the presentation of the demands of the gospel, of suffering and sacrificial living and spiritual warfare, was also well, very Celtic.

It all depends what you read back into the limited data we have from those times, I'm sure. The pagan Celtic old-agers are also meeting the New Agers with gusto. Thanks for the very open question. We should get Roger and Maggie onto it. And others. -- Richard Drake

See http://www.carlmccolman.com/whatiscelticspirituality.htm and links from there for examples of what I'm talking about. -- ps