{"id":1751,"date":"2022-06-27T08:23:58","date_gmt":"2022-06-27T12:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1751"},"modified":"2022-06-27T08:23:58","modified_gmt":"2022-06-27T12:23:58","slug":"the-great-emergence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/06\/27\/the-great-emergence\/","title":{"rendered":"The Great Emergence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Churches are famous for rummage sales.\u00a0
\u00a0
\u201cRummage\u201d is a word that gets very little play in contemporary conversation.\u00a0 It might be defined as \u201ca confused miscellaneous collection.\u201d\u00a0 A rummage is a mishmash, a jumble, a stew, a hodgepodge, a clutter, or an agglomeration of a great many items that at first glance appear to have little in common.\u00a0 We speak more often today of garage sales, flea markets, and yard sales \u2013 annual opportunities to clean out the attic or the basement.\u00a0
\u00a0
The Right Reverend Mark Dyer, an Anglican bishop, has made an interesting observation.\u00a0 He suggests that about every 500 years or so the church at large has a giant rummage sale.\u00a0
\u00a0
The church cleans out its attic, so to speak.\u00a0 Some things are worth keeping.\u00a0 Other things definitely need to be thrown away.\u00a0
\u00a0
The late author and lecturer Phyllis Tickle agreed.\u00a0 She pointed out that after each of these every-500-year rummage sales, three things usually happen.
\u00a0
First, a new and more vital form of Christianity emerges.\u00a0 Second, the old, existing structures of the church \u2013 which had gradually become rigid, fossilized, and unbending \u2013 are changed for the better.\u00a0 And third, both the new form and the old form of the church begin to reach new geographies and new groups for Christ \u2013 something that could never have happened before.
\u00a0
The easiest way to examine this idea is to look at history itself.\u00a0
\u00a0
We\u2019re not likely to discover key events happening precisely at 500-year intervals.\u00a0 What we\u2019ll find instead are general periods of growth and change.\u00a0 And the people who lived during these times didn\u2019t always recognize their significance, let alone use the word \u201cGreat\u201d to describe them.\u00a0 Nevertheless, if we go back 2,500 years, we can tentatively identify six \u201cGreats\u201d \u2013 including the time we\u2019re living in right now.
\u00a0
500 B.C.: The Great Transformation<\/strong>.\u00a0 Historians have long been fascinated with what seems to have been an explosion of religious and philosophical enlightenment that happened simultaneously across the East and the West.\u00a0 Within a narrow window of time, the Jews return from exile in Babylon, buoyed by the writings of their greatest prophets.\u00a0 Buddha and Confucius introduce new schools of personal devotion.\u00a0 The<\/em> Upanishads<\/em>, some of the sacred texts of Hinduism, come into existence in India.\u00a0 Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle take Western philosophy to new heights in Greece.
\u00a0
First Century A.D.: The Great Arrival<\/strong>.\u00a0 Jesus is born.\u00a0 After a brief ministry, he is crucified and resurrected.\u00a0 He and his disciples launch the global phenomenon of the church. \u00a0The Romans besiege Jerusalem and destroy the temple in A.D. 70, leading to Christianity\u2019s gradual departure from its Jewish roots.\u00a0
\u00a0
500 A.D.: Gregory the Great<\/strong>.\u00a0 The Catholic Church\u2019s place as the central force in Europe is secured by one of its finest popes, a man who humbly describes himself as \u201cthe servant of the servants of God.\u201d\u00a0 Gregory\u2019s advocacy of monasticism ensures that Christianity, as well as the ancient classics, will survive the so-called Dark Ages.\u00a0
\u00a0
1054 A.D.: The Great Schism<\/strong>.\u00a0 After a thousand years of seeing themselves as members of the same universal Body of Christ, the spiritual leaders of both the West (the Catholics in Rome) and East (the Orthodox in Constantinople) excommunicate each other over fine points of doctrine and practice. \u00a0Despite sincere efforts at reconciliation in recent years, this great divide remains.
\u00a0
1517 A.D. The Great Reformation<\/strong>.\u00a0 A German monk named Martin Luther, hoping to bring reform to Catholicism, nails his list of 95 theses (or theological talking points) on the church door in Wittenberg.\u00a0 Instead of dialogue he unwittingly ignites a revolution.\u00a0 Protestant congregations decide to separate from Rome.\u00a0 Catholic leaders ultimately reform their own church in dramatic fashion, and both Protestant and Catholic missionaries take the gospel around the world during the Age of Discovery.\u00a0
\u00a0
Which brings us to today. \u00a0Five hundred years after the Reformation, we live at a hinge-point in history in which virtually everything the church has held dear for the past two millennia seems up for grabs.
\u00a0
Is the Bible still trustworthy?\u00a0 Does creation still make sense in light of evolutionary theory? \u00a0Should marriage uniquely remain a lifelong covenant between one man and one woman?\u00a0 Are denominations (all 32,000 of them) still worth holding on to?\u00a0 Do \u201creal\u201d followers of Jesus have to speak in tongues like the Pentecostals?\u00a0 Or try to change secular society like the Social Justice Christians?\u00a0 Or fight the culture wars like American evangelicals?\u00a0 Or return to the ancient beauty of liturgical worship like the Catholics, Orthodox, and Anglicans?\u00a0
\u00a0
The rummage sale is on. \u00a0
\u00a0
Phyllis Tickle called our time The Great Emergence<\/strong>. \u00a0It\u2019s a heady and exciting moment in history.\u00a0
\u00a0
But we can\u2019t overlook the fact that it\u2019s also a jarring and disorienting moment for many who cherish a deep love for God and the church.\u00a0
\u00a0
Insightful people agree that every expression of Christianity \u2013 whether Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, charismatic, or independent \u2013 needs to be transformed.\u00a0 We need a new Reformation \u2013 one that will preserve the theological and ethical treasures of what it has always meant to know Jesus (things that must never be jettisoned in a rummage sale), but which will also help us courageously say \u201cEnough!\u201d concerning attitudes and practices that betray the very heart of the gospel (things such as racism, homophobia, political hatemongering, and ignoring the plight of the poor).\u00a0
\u00a0
As Jesus reminds us, the new wine of the Good News cannot be contained by old wineskins that have already expanded as far as they can.\u00a0 That enduring truth must be rediscovered by every generation of his followers.\u00a0
\u00a0
So, what vibrant expression(s) of following Jesus will predominate over the next five centuries?\u00a0
\u00a0
No one can say with assurance.
\u00a0
But here\u2019s what we can say: \u00a0God has always been in the business of doing something new.\u00a0 \u201cSee, I am doing a new thing!\u00a0 Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?\u00a0 I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland\u201d (Isaiah 43:19).\u00a0
\u00a0
That new thing may not be a familiar thing.
\u00a0
But by the grace of the God who is Lord over history, it will be a very good thing.\u00a0

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Churches are famous for rummage sales.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cRummage\u201d is a word that gets very little play in contemporary conversation.\u00a0 It might be defined as \u201ca confused miscellaneous collection.\u201d\u00a0 A rummage is a mishmash, a jumble, a stew, a hodgepodge, a clutter, or an agglomeration of a great many items that at first glance appear to have little in common.\u00a0 We speak more… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1752,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[227],"class_list":["post-1751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-reformation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1753,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751\/revisions\/1753"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}