Are we in a "Great Emergence?" [Talk amongst yourselves.]
Questions (some mine, some Phyllis Tickle's):
PT describes the shifts in Christianity over the last 2000 years. The split of Asiatic and African Christians from European Christians, the formal establishment of a structured Monastic tradition in Christianity (500s AD), the split of the Roman Catholic Church from the Orthodox church (1000s), the Reformation (1500s) and in the 2000s is there another shift?
Luther discussed how there should be a priesthood of all believers - is that more possible now-days thanks to technology, literacy and access to various Christian traditions and practices?
How much of Christian tradition is from the Hellenist (Greek) and Roman traditions? Should there be an effort to become more like the early church (ie, pre-Constantine or, maybe more Jewish?)
Where is the authority of the larger Christian church today?
(Popes, priests, mega-church pastors, Scripture, Holy Spirit, the Christian community)
How can we live responsibly as devout and faithful adherents of one religion in a world full of devout and faithful adherents to many other religions (who we are coming into greater contact with!)?
Are you Orthopraxic, Orthodoxic, Orthonomic or Theonomic (is there a personality quiz for this one?)?
If you are all of the above, you may be "emergent/emerging"
Phyllis Tickle describes the Christian landscape not as "left and right" but using an idea, developed previously, that there are four quadrants --> "Liturgicals", "Social Justice Christians", "Renewalists", and "conservatives". She describes the "Great Emergence" as made up of those Christians trying to seek a balance between these four traditions, centered amid orthopraxy and orthodoxy, orthonomy and theonomy.
See: http://www.thegreatemergence.com/Home for more info about the book.
