Book Review: "The Great Emergence" by Phyllis Tickle

"Every five hundred years, the church cleans out its attic and has a giant rummage sale."

Phyllis Tickle is founding editor of the Religions department of Publishers Weekly. She is the author of more than two dozen books, and one of the most respected and sought after speakers alive in regards to Religion (especially Christianity). 

In this masterpiece Tickle takes a look at where Christianity has been and where it seems to be going. She shows how throughout the history of Christianity the Church has a semi-millennial "attic cleaning" and how in each of these scenarios something new and beautiful has emerged (and even the old is transformed in a positive way).

So if we go back five-hundred years from our place in history we find ourselves on the cusp of the Great Reformation, all though the title "Great" was bestowed in hindsight. Five hundred years before that we find ourselves at the Great Schism. Five hundred years before that the rise of monasticism under Gregory the Great. And of course the greatest of all of these Emergence's is the emergence of the Christian Church out of Judaism that occurred in the first century in the aftermath of what I call the "Jesus event". (Interestingly enough if you go back into pre-Jesus Judaism you can actually observe a similar 500 year pattern.)

Tickle critically examines each of these movements. She shows what conflicts, questions, and social and technological shifts that led to each movement. She examines the effect each had on it's own period of history. And she explores how these movements effected the immediate and long-term future of the Church.

Then finally she looks at the current Emergence that is taking place in the church, and how it has showed up right on schedule. She looks at some of the conflicts, questions and shifts that have led up to it and she paints a convincing picture of the direction it seems to be moving. But most importantly she shows how it is not something to be feared or dreaded, but in fact something that is necessary to the life of the Church.

This book is without a doubt one of the most important books in regards to the conversation of the Emerging Church. And I strongly recommend this book for anyone interested in (or scared-to-death of) Emerging Christianity!

To purchase a copy of this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Emergence-Christianity-resources-communities/dp/0801013135/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321137331&sr=8-1

Welcome to My Emerging Journal

As I have lived, loved and grown I have experienced a significant and startling transformation. This blog is an expression of that transformation... It's my attempt to engage the ancient tradition of the Biblical Conversation and to participate in it.

It also an open invitation for anyone who would like to participate in that dialogue with me.

I am a soccer coach, a youth minister and a lover of poetry and good books. I also love talking about Jesus! If you like you can follow me on Twitter: @Beddard731

Parables

The Kingdom is poetry

In a world of prose.

It seeks not to inform

But to transform.

It is the bud that sprouts forth

From the cracked concrete.

The Kingdom is the music that Christ is singing.

It is in following him that we dance along,

And we try to do so in such a way

That inspires others to join us.

It is in forsaking heaven to embrace the earth

That we find that the Kingdom had been here all along.

It is turning things inside out

And flipping things upside down.

It is exalting the humble

And crying out for justice.

It is alive and active

And sometimes I can still hear it rustling under the stairs.

It cannot be contained by any religion,

Governed by any doctrine,

Or invoked by any formula.

It will not be described,

Prescribed,

Or subscribed to.

It is always only love.

It drinks good wine,

Dances with beautiful women,

And at night it walks the streets

And snuggles up next to the broken.

The Kingdom is making us human again.

We did not start it,

We cannot stop it,

And yet it is the unfolding narrative

In which we enter into every day.

It likes to wrestle, but some days it wears lipstick.

The Kingdom is ‘not a victory march,

It’s a cold and it’s a broken Alleluia.’

It revolts against institutions,

Breaks down barriers

And it promises that you do not have to serve

The face on the coin.

It is good news for the poor,

Liberation for the captive

And it resides in the deep, primal groans

Of all of creation.

And whether up above

Or down below

The Kingdom will one day have the last word.

Christianese?

  
Sometimes I feel like I am doomed to speak fluently and convincingly in a language that I do not understand. I am conditioned to speak Christianese.The situation is so drastic that there are times when I can't even explain something without using words that have been ingrained in my vocabulary by the churchy culture I grew up in. Every now and then I will catch myself saying something only to realize that I don't even know what it means. Worse even, sometimes I say Christiany things that, if I was completely honest with myself, I don't mean at all.
    For example, there is a line in the Lord's prayer that says, "forgive us our sins, as we forgive others". Now I've said this prayer plenty of times, but when I analyze it a little bit I realize that it's not something I want to say. Why in the world would I tell God to forgive me based on how well I forgive others? That's crazy talk, right?  I mean, I struggle with forgiving others, it's really hard. If somebody wrongs me or tries to take advantage of me, it pisses me off. I don't want to turn the other cheek I want to make sure that person is brought to justice, and if that doesn't happen I take justice into my own hands. Really forgiving somebody, not just saying it but living like it too, is not something that I'm accustomed to, and yet I have the audacity to tell God to forgive me as I forgive others.
   So why do I say things, and do things without thinking about what they actually mean? How did I allow myself to become so conditioned by my culture, that words that should carry meaning, and power, and serious implications have been reduced to mindless babble? I recognize the need to un-condition myself, but I'm not even sure what that process would look like. So for now I guess I will just resign to a simple plea, God please help me break the chains of saying words without meaning.

Standing on the desk!

The Dead Poet's Society, in my opinion may be one of the best films ever made. Robin Williams plays an inspiring young teacher named John Keating who believes that education is not so much about teaching your students facts, but teaching them how to think for themselves. In this clip takes a good illustration and turns it into an even better invitation. 


"I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way... You see, the world looks very differently from up here..." is an illustration, but "Don't believe me? Come see for yourselves." is an invitation. Keating does not just want his students to think about what it would be like to stand on the desk, he wants them to experience it first hand. 
I think I am guilty of looking at the life of Jesus in this same way: as an illustration of a way to live. As if the sole purpose of Jesus' visit to earth was to set an example of a good life for us to look at. But maybe Jesus doesn't want us to think of it as an illustration at all, maybe it was an invitation. What if Jesus is saying, "I want you to look at the world in a completely different way, I want you to see it how I see it"? What if He didn't come to set a bunch of standards and guidelines for us to live up to, but instead He came to invite us to live a life completely transformed- a life full of beauty, mystery, and power beyond anything we could even hope to imagine? What if that life He is calling us to is the one that deep down in our hearts we know we were created for all along?
Could it even be possible that Jesus wants to be a part of my story, and me to be a part of His? 
... I certainly hope so!