In a previous blog, I introduced two key images from Phyllis Tickle’s The Great Emergence. In this blog, I engage the book critically and reflect on how its ideas are standing the test of time. Twelve years since the books’ publication, to what extent they continue to shed light in our current moment and to what extent they need adjusting? It is unfortunate that Phyllis Tickle is no longer with us to engage in dialogue. May she rest in peace with her savior. Yet, I pay homage to her legacy by engaging with it faithfully.
Reformation, Counter-Reformation And Technology
The Great Emergence claims that Christianity is undergoing a reformation. Is that really true? To answer this question we must first better understand our historical moment. That is, screen technologies have enabled not just the fast dissemination of information but an unprecedented democratization of truth. Let me explain. We live in a world where competing views of the world can co-exist without being settled by an external authoritative force. There is no-longer one source of truth legitimized by political or financial power. Instead, in a world of small screens, individuals are custom-making their reality by the minute.
This development is rather complex, one that would require multiple blogs to fully explain. Yet, the point I am trying to make is that people with diametrically opposing views can be physically side-by-side while living in different worlds. Even as the same historical events touch them, their framework of reference is so different that they might as well be living in alternative realities. That is, this is not just about seeing things differently but fundamentally experiencing them differently.
What that means is that we have no longer one historical moment but a multiplicity of parallel narratives. Hence, one can’t no longer simply state that the church is undergoing a process of Reformation. Instead, what you have are currents of reform and preservation living parallel and at times colliding against each other. In short, one can speak of both a Reformation and a Counter-Reformation happening side by side within the Christian community in our time.
The Swirling Center and Secularization
In a previous blog, I explored the book’s metaphor of a swirling center to explain what was happening in North American Christianity. The Great Emergence spoke of a center in which people were mixing different elements of the diverse segments of the faith. Yet, this metaphor is limited in that it suggests a mixing of elements internal to Christianity only. It does not account for when Christian groups are going outside the household to find inspiration.
For example, churches that now offer yoga in their premises, a recent increased interest in mindfulness among mainline churches and the incorporation of psychological knowledge and techniques into evangelical counseling ministries. It also fails to account for the integration of science and theology and current reflection on technology. These are all examples where Christian groups are interacting with outside agents in search of wisdom.
I would characterize this mixing with outside elements as part of the irresistible pull of secularism on religious communities of all faiths. When saying secularism, I do not mean anti-religious per se but instead as outside of traditional religious bounds. The term is there to describe human activities that occur external to religious frameworks. In that, and here is an important point, it does not mean anti-Christian necessarily. In other words, forces of secularization are not destroying the Christian message but forcing it to be re-framed in new terms. I will speak more about that in future blogs.
The Dismantling of Organized Religion
Can we even speak today of an emerging Christianity? This may strike as a paradoxical statement given that I have devoted the last four blogs to the this phenomenon. But the question is less about recognizing the inevitable shifts in Christianity and more about whether what is emerging is Christianity at all. Is this an emergence of new Christianity or a whole different thing altogether?
In the previous paragraph I spoke of secularism not destroying but re-shaping Christianity. Yet, could it be that it is changing it to such an extent where it can no longer be a religion or faith as originally idealized? To be honest, I don’t really know the answer to this question. Instead, what I see this as an open question to which the answer is unfolding each day. The future of Christianity will hinge upon how we answer it.
Here is where I move on to another seminal work on this topic. Namely, Diana Buttler Bass book Christianity After Religion. If Phyllis Tickle framed well the crisis, Diana Butler Bass offers glimpses of where it is going. She recognizes that the long term effects of secularization represents a wholesale shift of Christianity from religion to spirituality. How is that happening? That is what I would like to explore in the next blogs.