So good to remember Phyllis. I was just citing her Great Emergence book to a group in Kalamazoo, MI, this afternoon. Curiously, the more dire things get for the future of Christianity, the more hopeful I become. I think there is a major shift coming - indeed, already upon us. All of the perennial traditions are struggling to comprehend …
So good to remember Phyllis. I was just citing her Great Emergence book to a group in Kalamazoo, MI, this afternoon. Curiously, the more dire things get for the future of Christianity, the more hopeful I become. I think there is a major shift coming - indeed, already upon us. All of the perennial traditions are struggling to comprehend what's happening, and all paths up the proverbial mountain have become faint or lost altogether in the Great Storm of modernity/post-modernity. But this lostness, coupled with the advent of technologies that knit us more closely together (even as some drive us apart), are bringing the world's perennial traditions closer to one another. It used to be that only the mystics saw that the religions were different paths up the same mountain, and that while they are all truly different paths, they are ultimately united at their highest level of realization. Now, thanks to the internet, global travel, etc., you don't have to be a mystic to have access to this realization. I predict that as things get worse, the perennial traditions will draw closer and closer together. Not forming a single "world faith," but helping each other expand their views of their own faiths as well as that of others. Through this greater contact, the paths that have been faint or obliterated will become more clearly seen, allowing for the possibility of all the world's perennial traditions (and many more besides) to move to the next level of their journey. As Ilia Delio insists, Christianity is, a religion of evolution. It definitely is, if we believe there is such a thing as the Holy Spirit, or the Living Presence of Christ. Evolution doesn't take place without lots of deaths and resurrections, and an embrace that God is indeed "still speaking" in the world.
It’s been interesting to me sitting on the edges of the emergent/progressive Christian conversation for the last 15 years. There’s been a lot of scurrying and hand wringing over how to stop the hemorrhage and save the church. And my question is always, why? (And I say this a an Episcopalian lover of liturgy with Anglo-Catholic leanings).
Because it always seems to me the question is about saving pensions and jobs and property and status quo. And to me the more interesting questions are: What seed is falling to the ground and dying so it can be reborn? What new thing is springing up, and can we perceive it? Where is the Holy Spirit moving beneath the surface of the deep? How do we faithfully wait at the tomb?
So good to remember Phyllis. I was just citing her Great Emergence book to a group in Kalamazoo, MI, this afternoon. Curiously, the more dire things get for the future of Christianity, the more hopeful I become. I think there is a major shift coming - indeed, already upon us. All of the perennial traditions are struggling to comprehend what's happening, and all paths up the proverbial mountain have become faint or lost altogether in the Great Storm of modernity/post-modernity. But this lostness, coupled with the advent of technologies that knit us more closely together (even as some drive us apart), are bringing the world's perennial traditions closer to one another. It used to be that only the mystics saw that the religions were different paths up the same mountain, and that while they are all truly different paths, they are ultimately united at their highest level of realization. Now, thanks to the internet, global travel, etc., you don't have to be a mystic to have access to this realization. I predict that as things get worse, the perennial traditions will draw closer and closer together. Not forming a single "world faith," but helping each other expand their views of their own faiths as well as that of others. Through this greater contact, the paths that have been faint or obliterated will become more clearly seen, allowing for the possibility of all the world's perennial traditions (and many more besides) to move to the next level of their journey. As Ilia Delio insists, Christianity is, a religion of evolution. It definitely is, if we believe there is such a thing as the Holy Spirit, or the Living Presence of Christ. Evolution doesn't take place without lots of deaths and resurrections, and an embrace that God is indeed "still speaking" in the world.
It’s been interesting to me sitting on the edges of the emergent/progressive Christian conversation for the last 15 years. There’s been a lot of scurrying and hand wringing over how to stop the hemorrhage and save the church. And my question is always, why? (And I say this a an Episcopalian lover of liturgy with Anglo-Catholic leanings).
Because it always seems to me the question is about saving pensions and jobs and property and status quo. And to me the more interesting questions are: What seed is falling to the ground and dying so it can be reborn? What new thing is springing up, and can we perceive it? Where is the Holy Spirit moving beneath the surface of the deep? How do we faithfully wait at the tomb?
Well said.
Amen, Rebekah!