The whose who in the zoo and just what kind of animal are you? Phyllis Tickle 'Emergence Christianity'

So what kind of church do you go to? Are you a Christian...a Bible believing Christian (as opposed to a ...)? We love wearing labels in a sense of self assurance and identity (I'm in...even if in means the rebellious out) and we love placing these labels on others as a sense of security (deciding whose in and whose not). Phyllis Tickle in her book Emergence Christianity published in 2012 now reveals that there is a fork in the emergence tree. Before those who sought to break away from stale institutional forms of church in their theology and ecclesiology motivated by a sense of mission and incarnational gospel would label themselves 'progressive' or 'emergence/emerging/emergent' or 'fresh expressions/pioneer'(the latter now being associated more with institutional churches like Methodist and Anglican). This general tree has now developed a spilt.
Lecturing in 2011 on hermeneutics and 'postmodern' responses to this in church forms, students studied the emerging church associated with Brian McLaren, Rob Bell and others. As I researched material for the students to use in their critique I came across a scathing clip by Mark Discoll on the matter: CLICK HERE I was surprised at the names associated with each and suprised that Mark would be so disapproving of Brian and Rob. I was also fascinated at how he defined 4 streams within this emergence philosophy. Another exposition of the movement was by an insidious summary by Piper concerning Brian and others posted in 2010: CLICK HERE.
What a zoo and what wild animals!!!
Both Discoll and Piper refer to MacKnight (author of the Jesus Creed...a good book) as a former supporter of Brian who now no longer supports Brian and both make some really outrageous claims about people and the movement as a whole. Tickle helpfully sheds light on these matters in her book. Indeed after MacLarens 'A New Kind of Christianity', MacKnight produced an article 'Here I stand' as a critique of Brian and which now serves as the point and manifesto of the split in the branch (p.156). This resulted in Emergent church/Christianity associated with names such as MacLaren, Bell etc. and Emergence Christianity/Church associated with names like MacKnight and Driscoll (p.142-143). Tickle insinuates that this split in Protestant Evangelicalism considering the neat divide already mentioned has also given rise to a New Calvanism in the likes of Piper and Discoll (p.190).
"Whenever one speaks of anything,one speaks from a particular point of view. When one speaks of religion, one speaks from more than a point of view; one speaks from a lifetime investment in a canon or particular explication of truth" Tickle, p.208

'UBUNTU' in the Xhosa culture means: "I am because we are"…

An anthropologist proposed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put a basket full of fruit near a tree and told the kids that who ever got there first won the sweet fruits. When he told them to run they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats. When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had all the fruits for himself they said: ''UBUNTU, how can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?''

'UBUNTU' in the Xhosa culture means: "I am because we are"

In a Western culture where religion and faith become just another commodity that we own, possess and consume, the term Ubuntu is a huge challenge as to what it means to have a faith and how that faith impedes, impacts and informs us as humans within humanity as a citizins. In many ways what it is we believe as individual holders of truth is irrelevant if that truth has no positive, loving impact on us as citizins and as a result a positive loving impact upon the communities we act in as a citizin. The true test of how these views hold us and us them in community is when we are confronted with those who oppose us and or who stand in opposition to what it is we hold. Such complex inter-plays of ethics, faith, morals and values are not always straightforward or simple but are vital in creating an existence that can live together in harmony for the future and generations to come. The acts in many parlaiments regarding same sex marriage, future concerns of the reduction of food and water and the destruction of natural resources are just some of the complex issues and discussions that will test the views we hold and how we act as citizins in community. How can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?

The ultimate religious sacrifice is to give up God

click here

Worth the listen

Open the mp3 clip. It is a rather long clip but profoundly challenging...take the time to lisen
- what needs to change?
- how?
click here

The main thing, is the main thing

The main bit is at 2:10 to 2:46 in the clip.....listen carefully
- what is the main emphasis in our faith expression?
- what is the priority?
- how can we move others towards such an ideal?
click here

think forward

What we believe emanates from who we are. And who we are is not about dogma, or even about moral behavior, but about dying to ourselves. This is part of the conversation between ThinkFwd host, Spencer Burke, and Pete Rollins, author of How Not to Speak of God and The Orthodox Heretic. They explore the ideas of truth and God, of resurrection and insurrection.Truth, says Rollins, is not one extreme or the other; its not the middle of the extremes. Truth is at both extremes. While traditional Christians say, God is present. God exists, and Christianity is true; atheists say God isnt there and Christianity isnt true. These two extremes push Rollins to explore a 3rd position and he likens it to the story of Jesus on the cross, when He felt forsaken by God-- God not present--and yet God was completely present. And so the 3rd position dwells in the very place in between. Rollins says Christians are called to dwell not on one side of the other, but in the very split that Christ opens up: between old and new; between Judaism and Christianity.
- do you live in the tension that is the split?
- how can we live more in balance?
- how can we bring movement towards balance in our faith expressions?

Jay Bakker

I am moved by the emotion in this clip click here

Brian Mclaren answers the million dollar question

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/brian_d_mclaren/2010/07/let_there_be_peace_in_our_individual_identities.html

Barque: Thomas Moore's Work: Give up thought patterns for heaven on earth

Barque: Thomas Moore's Work: Give up thought patterns for heaven on earth

Compassion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s30ZKjNfRlU
I have met too many people hurt, rejected, struggling and broken who do not fit the stereo-type the conservative church would have you believe but people with tears in their eyes shattered by the words spoken in judgement. I heard a good friend say once, 'God aint gonna judge you for being too kind and compassionate...rather for not being enough'

Thomas Moore

There are two ways to be spiritually secure: one is to attach to a fixed and uncomplicated teaching, leadership, and set of moral standards. Another is to be open to life, ever deepening your understanding and giving up all defensiveness around convictions. The first way offers only the illusion of certainty, an illusion that must be maintained by anxious inflexibility. The second is to live from a deeper source, with values that cannot be codified in a list of rules. Central among these values is love, understood as profound respect for others.
Writing in the sand, p.xvi

I am drawn and challenged by these words because as I stand aloof as an on-looker at my own faith, the tradition I am a part of, I see these two tensions exist in futile revelry. Not only do I straddle both these opposing worldviews and philosophies in my working context, I have also colluded with both like a harlot, guilty myself of the illusion it evoked until my reality and the 'shit that happens' rocked me into the reality of failure and rejection. And at that point of isolated vulnerability, it is the latter that has been the most accepting, restorative and the most honest option for me to pursue as a new deeper experience.

Performance and Auntenticity

Christian ministry somehow failed to professionalize:
the clergyman is a jack of all trades...there is nothing which he does that could not be done equally well by a lawyer or bricklayer in the congregation...He does not have a job at all in any sense which is readily understandable today, and today, more than ever before, a person must have a job in order to fit into society...p87

Performing priesthood made him less authentic rather than more: instead of finding unity in a variety of roles, he had come to believe that he was acting rather than being true to himself ...p88

Redefining Christian Britain

In a module on inter-professionalism the above statement hit me like a ton of bricks. My hidden status and profession as a minister, I suggested clergy could be part of this inter-professional discussion. Laughter burst forth as if I was the new comedian on the block. Have we 'de-professionalised' ourselves? Has society? Have we just been left behind, asleep?

I do feel we still have much to offer, some more so than others, but the challenge lay mockingly on the table...can we again be a part of society in a way that contributes and that is valued by society?

The gauntlet perhaps is more personal and boils down to authenticity?

Colin Morris

Perhaps Christianity became a problem solving religion when, instead of it converting Europe as is widely supposed, European culture converted Christianity from being a near-eastern apocalyptic faith into a western problem solving ideology to be harnessed to the needs of an optimistic and thrusting scientific civilization. p61 start your own religion

john shelby spong

Look at him! Look not at his divinity, but look, rather, at his freedom.
Look not at the exaggerated tales of his of his power, but look, rather at his infinite capacity to give himself away.
Look not at the first-century mythology that surrounds him, but look, rather, at his courage to be, his ability to live, the contagious quality of his love.

p16...in grief situations that i have entered as a pastor, it is inevitably the religious person who is insensitive, who feels compelled to speak surface assurances, who suppresses real feelings with homilies on faith, and who readily supplies pat answers for diffecult and complex questions.

p54...i am glad the realm of spiritual is no more. i am glad that the god identified with this realm is dead. we isolated the god of our religion in a system and located it in an otherworldly ghetto. Now the secular world has killed that god...but a god who could be isolated from the world could certainly not be either the god of the hebrews or the god of the bible. so perhaps the death of that god is only the death of an idol who masqueraded as god for almost 2000 years...for the first time since christianity escaped its jewish origins, we again perceive reality as a whole.

p164...orthodoxy will have no power unless honest heresy is a possibility.

Browning quoted by Drane

Most of us stand on the boundary: religious communities attract us; we may even participate in them; but we also wonder if they make sense.
The McDonaldization of the church

i-revtrev

Exert from new book:
I like to think that one day out side time and space (I know, that is a paradox!) there existed (another paradox because to exist assumes time) this ‘being’ called Love. This Love was not some ungraspable phenomenon like the wind but had a personality and other personable qualities and in its nature being love, seeking to love, Love decided to create a life that would be able to share in this life force of love but also be objects of love, experiencing and being loved by Love. However, understanding the complexities of this mystery love (and truly who today still understands love), Love gave Love a name…God and so we have: God is Love.

Desperate housewives does church

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xyVEEHidhGE&feature=related

Ronald Cole Turner

It is altogether likely that the church will marginalize itself in the role of chaplain, picking up the peices, caring for the bruised, mopping up the damaged, but never engaging the engines of transformation themselves, steering, persuading, and transforming the tranformers.

Richard Holloway

He understands the necessity of law and its origin in our fear of the chaos of our own undisciplined passions; but he also recognises that the law itself can only shakkle, never transform the passions; and it is the transformed heart that is his ambition because it alone can chnage the world ... doubts and love p194

Rumi

Come come whoever you are
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving,
It does not matter
Ours is not a caravan of despair
Even if you have broken your vows
A thousand times it does not matter
Come, yet again, come