Emerging Church — into the light?

Billed by Brian MacLaren as “one of the most important books of the year,” Phyllis Tickle’s The Great Emergence: How Christianity is changing and Why is a brief and elegantly put together survey of the big things that are affecting us all in the West, and how various sociological and philsophical givens have impacted our faith. She beins with the provocative idea that every 500 years, Christianity has a major rummage sale, in which new ways of doing it have emerged, leaving old ways to redefine themselves or die, whilst restated forms burn off somewhere else.

The Great Reformation is one obvious example, but the Great Schism inaugurated a similar tectonic shift, as did the Collapse of the Roman Empire around the 6th century. These shifts are always presaged by turmoil and uncertainty, and have sometimes involved great violence, but the effect of the process, although traumatic, has been to extend the whole dramatically.

Back in the 60’s Bishop John Robinson used to talk about a New Reformation. Driven by massive cultural change, things that seemed obvious a hundred and fifty years ago seem incredible now, in every field of human endeavour. Einstein, the automobile, the marginalization of grandma, all have played a part. What the internet has done is make everything more immediate. It is almost impossible now to hide where the cracks are showing, or paint over them by appeals to institutional trbalism. The game is up for our ancient certainties, however desperately some hold on to them, as waymarks and/or security blankets.

In such a world, there is always Hope in Christ. Christians have lived through these upheavals in the past, and will no doubt, by the grace of God come out of what’s happening now in some renewed form. As generations unfold, somewhere between 9 and 13 percent push back hard, whilst the others, Conservatives, Social Justice Christians, renewalists and Liturgicals, converge towards the centre of Church culture, making their own trajectories, that map their own fault lines and fusions. In that context it behoves us all to work out the real bases of our authority, and their real implications.

I’m with Brian MacLaren about this book — read it, and reflect on it, discuss it. There is so much fantasy about, from Liberals who seem to believe progress is about to teleport the whole world to San Francisco, to Conservatives who talk as though globalising Christianity can transport us back to the Janet and John mores of the 1950’s by way of rural Nigeria. Compared to that stuff, Phylis Tickle’s book is a blast of cool, proficient sanity. If we can bear to take an aerial view of the trenches, there are big ideas here to help is make sense of a confusing and fluid scene below and around us...

I am banged up having my annual reality check at Saint Wandrille, Normandy, until Saturday. This entry has been preposted. The internet is switched firmly off for the week, and I will be delighted to respond to comments, but only at the weekend.

US Virus — Global Sneeze

As a different world order unfolds, I was intrigued at Lambeth by the way US dissidents have been driving heavy contention in the Anglican Communion — not only content, but style. 30 years ago, it is said, the then TEC Presiding Bishop realised the domestic argument over women’s ordination was a gone coon, but worked to boost the primates’ process to build reinforcements from the rest of the world to relieve the fort back home in the end. That is exactly the modus operandi we have been observing consistently since the mid nineties over gay issues. An open-source, non-Imperialistic, loosely structured organization is terrifyingly vulnerable to entryism and manipulation. Et voilà!

Pinocchio can swear blind that there ain’t no strings on him, perhaps he actually believes it, but, oh boy, just look at the length of his nose. The style, as much as anything else, is the real give-away. To triangulate this observation beyond the Anglican world, I noticed a comment by Brian MacLaren about US Evangelicals and the neocon Religious Right, and how they made exactly the nexus that the Barna Group has observed to be so disastrous for the image of US Evangelicals among Mosaics, even those in Evangelical Churches:

A lot of us feel that we’ve watched large sectors of our Christian community in the U.S. engage in several decades of divisive, ineffective, and downright counterproductive political engagement. At best, many attempts at engagement have been superficial, simplistic, and subject to binary thinking where one or two wedge issues easily distinguish the “good guys” from the bad. At worst, we’ve watched too many of our fellow Christians slip into a “culture war” mindset where neighbors became enemies to be defeated and silenced, not loved as we love ourselves. In addition, we’ve watched too many members of our faith communities be manipulated by cynical politicians who knew what tune to play to get people of faith marching obediently in their parade.

Evangelism in the real world

A Tour de force Monday evening from Brian MacLaren. He showed us a Bridge in Honduras — a marvel of Japanese engineering that survived Hurricane Mitch in 1998. Trouble was, the river didn’t, and it became a bridge to nowhere. The contemporary world is being hit by a cultural and philosophical hurricane comparable in scope to the birth of the modern world. In Cultures making the shift from premodern to modern, the Church is all geared up and converts flow in; but for how long once development kicks in? Experience of displaced communities in Western countries suggests not very long. In Cultures transitioning from modern to Post modern Postcolonial, Churches are stable or declining, winning converts mostly from other churches. The river has moved; and in the majority world development will bring on a shift out of Modern in a few years, not 400, as in the West. Nobody is immune. Any idea, however attractive to some, that the clock is about to start running backwards is nostalgic moonshine.

Most postmodern people don’t relish being far from God, bereft of hope and roots, isolated from loving community, part of the problem rather than the solution. But neither do they want to be religious fanatics, cultists, Us and Them dualists, Church hobbyists, Judgmental fantasists. They need authentic, sane, vibrant faith. Angicanism at its best is well placed to provide safe space to grow this:

1. A gospel which prioritizes Jesus and the kingdom more than institutional religion, with a servant concept of ministry
   
2. A safe platform from which to develop creative fresh expressions of Church
3. A multicultural family, with global flexibility
4. A liturgy that at its best exibits mystery, beauty, rootedness, intelligence and clarity, biblical coherence, as opposed either to absolutism or bigoted, mean spirited zealotry.

Something needs to be done — we need to get this right. This is not a job for commissions and programmes, but for example and engagement. This generation feels increasingly orphaned by the manifest failures of conventional religion, science, government, technology, consumerism. We can reorientate our actvities towards our neighbours — bring good news, hope, gentleness, creativity and respect.

I am impressed by the logic of Brian’s argument. It sheds light on why the fastest growing Church of England congregations, by and large, are Cathedrals. Following it up would involve reimaging our context in a more realistic, low-key, creative and rooted direction. I think I'm up for it.

Sue! Sue! I might even sue you!

Over the pond, from shore to shining shore, various legal eagles are engaging in top gun dogfights about church matters, and it ain’t a pretty sight. I suppose a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, and everyone, of course, is right from their own point of view. “What else were we to do?” I hear everybody saying...

We Brits are good at ignoring sounds of breaking glass from our neighbours, but we still belong to each other, by baptism. If Dustin & Meryl next door lock horns acrimoniously, what kind of idiot do I have to be to stand at the bottom of the garden egging them on or, worse still, join in? But in all humility it strikes me...

I once wrote a thesis about Victorians suing the pants off each other for ritualism, so I want to say that, historically, there is life after litigation (as well as a pile of pants). However litigation, right or wrong, incurs spiritual debt. Here’s this morning’s second lesson from Morning Payer:

Pursue peace with everyone, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and through it many become defiled.

Emergent missional living is far more crucial for future Christianity than denominational turf wars. Reading Brian MacLaren, I reckon Anglicans, with our particular instinct for faith in momentum and diversity, can bring special experience to the party. US fresh expressions, like the Common Table, are great laboratories of the Spirit. Whoever’s right and whoever’s wrong about the particular points in dispute, fellow disciples I like and respect a lot there are saying we just can’t be the kind of disciples God needs us to be for as long as we’re hooked on the whole “litigate to accumulate” thang. Hear the warning of Blessed, but Weird, Al Yankovich:

PS Aviation Art by Lou Drendel