Thank you for your article. I agree we are in an evolutionary time in the church. What I would like to hear are what are the sign or indications. What do you see in this evolving process? Thank you.
Thanks Diana - excellent observations as usual. You remind me so much in your insights of Phyllis Tickle. I met Phyllis several of years back at a conference in Denver. She was at the beginning of her illness and was launching her book, The Age of the Spirit. What a lovely person. Both Phyllis and you give me hope that a new paradigm is emerging that is bringing us closer to what Jesus is all about. I'm hoping at some point you can accept an invitation to Vancouver, B.C. As Ruben points out, Canada needs you too!
Thank you, Diana. You are sniffing down an as yet unmarked trail. Please keep at it. Keep writing, sharing, challenging and encouraging. I watch these things from Canada. We in Canada are well ahead of the USA when it comes to folks leaving main line Protestant churches, the RC church and now even the evangelicals cannot hold their youth the ways they used to. So that part is coming along nicely. As for the wider culture, I suspect the 2020s will be far more upsetting than we now anticipate, but even with this we will not be ready for a serious culture-wide awakening until the late 2020s and 2030s. (By this I mean that a critical mass of opinion leaders need to be open to the notion that no matter what we do there is no way we can extend our Modern Techno-industrial culture beyond the 21st Century. This notion pushes us into free-fall - intellectual, economic, psychological and spiritual. That experience opens new vistas of who and where we are and what we can yet become and be. Or so it seems to me.
You were right and prophetic when you wrote Christianity After Religion in 2012 about the certain demise of the Christian Church without a spiritual awakening and new birth. And you are well aware of the canard about "a prophet being denied among his own". There is scant evidence that mainline and evangelical churches have begun to seriously take what you wrote about and to move into that rebirth. What can be seen seems to be motivated by fear rather than faith in the face of diminishing attendance and revenues. Church/parish buildings continue to be closed and repurposed to other than "religious" use. Graduates of theological seminaries find employment as clergy increasingly limited to the point that "part-time", rather than to clergy positions that can support a family are available upon ordination.
If you are seeing the "Awakening" taking place, please tell me more as I am eager and desperate for that to be present within this body of Christ that is stubbornly locked in White Privilege and Systemic Racism.
BELONGING shifts from membership toward relationship. (which is interactive, therefore experiential)
BEHAVING shifts from rules toward practice. (which is, again, creating -- or getting drawn into by the relationships one has -- experiences and interactions)
BELIEVING shifts from dogma toward experience. (see above)
....I get a little nervous.
When you take into consideration that every person's (all 7.8 billion of us) experience and circumstances are different -- yes, I do understand that we all carry societal baggage but we all, also, carry individual baggage, which is often self-serving -- what I see happening as religion's meaning keeps evolving is the creation of an atomized, self-referential --'70s-style If-it-feels-good-do-it -- religion.
And finally, I've been told I over-think things: in this case I hope so.
I share a certain parallel experience with you having been swept up by the Lord in the early 70's during the Jesus Freak movement. I identify with the activities that initiated you into the faith. I started to feel very uneasy about what I perceived as some imbalance in the church at large about 10 years ago. Then, 5 years ago, the church and politics became partners and Christian leaders I might have respected started spouting some wacky stuff. I was alarmed at the evolution of the "Evangelicals" towards Trump and my head was spinning. I asked everyone I knew what was going on. I was grateful to learn about you and your years of study on this topic and I could finally understand. The Awakening- the Great Awakening. Of course. I remembered that earthquake feeling from the '60s. When the pundits began talking it up I realized that this was a National and even Global phenomenon. I could finally forge ahead knowing what my role would be in this rolling revelation. I am moving my spiritual energy into the future of our children and grandchildren, eventually passing the baton. The Prophet sang it well. "The times, they are a-changin'"
Thank you for your article. I agree we are in an evolutionary time in the church. What I would like to hear are what are the sign or indications. What do you see in this evolving process? Thank you.
Thank you from my soul I needed this most especially today.
Thanks Diana - excellent observations as usual. You remind me so much in your insights of Phyllis Tickle. I met Phyllis several of years back at a conference in Denver. She was at the beginning of her illness and was launching her book, The Age of the Spirit. What a lovely person. Both Phyllis and you give me hope that a new paradigm is emerging that is bringing us closer to what Jesus is all about. I'm hoping at some point you can accept an invitation to Vancouver, B.C. As Ruben points out, Canada needs you too!
Once again, you've written a very helpful essay.
Thank you, Diana. You are sniffing down an as yet unmarked trail. Please keep at it. Keep writing, sharing, challenging and encouraging. I watch these things from Canada. We in Canada are well ahead of the USA when it comes to folks leaving main line Protestant churches, the RC church and now even the evangelicals cannot hold their youth the ways they used to. So that part is coming along nicely. As for the wider culture, I suspect the 2020s will be far more upsetting than we now anticipate, but even with this we will not be ready for a serious culture-wide awakening until the late 2020s and 2030s. (By this I mean that a critical mass of opinion leaders need to be open to the notion that no matter what we do there is no way we can extend our Modern Techno-industrial culture beyond the 21st Century. This notion pushes us into free-fall - intellectual, economic, psychological and spiritual. That experience opens new vistas of who and where we are and what we can yet become and be. Or so it seems to me.
Just wanted to say that, as usual, I really enjoyed your post. Your books have been a great help to me and many others.
You were right and prophetic when you wrote Christianity After Religion in 2012 about the certain demise of the Christian Church without a spiritual awakening and new birth. And you are well aware of the canard about "a prophet being denied among his own". There is scant evidence that mainline and evangelical churches have begun to seriously take what you wrote about and to move into that rebirth. What can be seen seems to be motivated by fear rather than faith in the face of diminishing attendance and revenues. Church/parish buildings continue to be closed and repurposed to other than "religious" use. Graduates of theological seminaries find employment as clergy increasingly limited to the point that "part-time", rather than to clergy positions that can support a family are available upon ordination.
If you are seeing the "Awakening" taking place, please tell me more as I am eager and desperate for that to be present within this body of Christ that is stubbornly locked in White Privilege and Systemic Racism.
And interesting read....however, when I read....
BELONGING shifts from membership toward relationship. (which is interactive, therefore experiential)
BEHAVING shifts from rules toward practice. (which is, again, creating -- or getting drawn into by the relationships one has -- experiences and interactions)
BELIEVING shifts from dogma toward experience. (see above)
....I get a little nervous.
When you take into consideration that every person's (all 7.8 billion of us) experience and circumstances are different -- yes, I do understand that we all carry societal baggage but we all, also, carry individual baggage, which is often self-serving -- what I see happening as religion's meaning keeps evolving is the creation of an atomized, self-referential --'70s-style If-it-feels-good-do-it -- religion.
And finally, I've been told I over-think things: in this case I hope so.
I share a certain parallel experience with you having been swept up by the Lord in the early 70's during the Jesus Freak movement. I identify with the activities that initiated you into the faith. I started to feel very uneasy about what I perceived as some imbalance in the church at large about 10 years ago. Then, 5 years ago, the church and politics became partners and Christian leaders I might have respected started spouting some wacky stuff. I was alarmed at the evolution of the "Evangelicals" towards Trump and my head was spinning. I asked everyone I knew what was going on. I was grateful to learn about you and your years of study on this topic and I could finally understand. The Awakening- the Great Awakening. Of course. I remembered that earthquake feeling from the '60s. When the pundits began talking it up I realized that this was a National and even Global phenomenon. I could finally forge ahead knowing what my role would be in this rolling revelation. I am moving my spiritual energy into the future of our children and grandchildren, eventually passing the baton. The Prophet sang it well. "The times, they are a-changin'"
You still don't 'get it'; They are leaving for very good reasons inherent in Christianity.