Book Notes 6

I read all of Gibbs and Bolger's 'Emerging Churches' for my final book notes. It was tasty good...ha ha ha...just kidding, but seriously...to the noooootes!

Chapter 1

This chapter identifies areas with which the culture in the United States and the UK are leaving behind modern forms of churches. This is an introductory chapter, and as I have 11 to cover I shall keep my comments brief.

Chapter 2

This chapter is foundational in defining the emerging church movements and its many manifestations. A clear line is made between modern and post-modern forms of church, and how emerging models of church fit within those models.

Chapter 3

This chapter shows how emerging churches have shifted back to a gospel of the kingdom. In this gospel, the words of Jesus are rediscovered. The kingdom as a here and now practice emerges under this gospel as the followers seek to be like Jesus in their everyday lives.

Chapter 4

This was one of the most interesting chapter in my opinion. The way that emerging churches are encouraging a holistic view of Christianity is amazing. For too long the dichotomies between the physical and spiritual has existed. By removing secular space, the emerging church seeks to destroy these dichotomies.

Chapter 5

The community of emerging churches becomes very strong as the members begin to see each other as family. Emerging churches often serve together in the same locations and eat together on a common basis. Life is lived within community as the isolation of the modern world is overcome.

Chapter 6

This chapter details how emerging churches seek to include others who do not follow Jesus into their community. Since the emphasis is placed upon love, emerging churches often invite others into fellowship with them without the direct goal of evangelizing them. The concepts of this chapter were groundbreaking, but I can see how they would be controversial.

Chapter 7

This chapter speaks about how emerging churches seek to engage in a life of service and hospitality. It is not enough for them to simply give money to organizations or have outreaches a few times a year. They seek to live transformed lives that constantly produce the aforementioned values. Again, holism is commonly mentioned.

Chapter 8

Worship is transformed by emerging churches. The era of modernity produced churches where people merely consumed. Emerging churches seek to involve both the mind and body in the act of worship in ways that aren't necessarily charismatic. They also want to have several ages represented in the same room. Holism comes up again...imagine that!

Chapter 9

This chapter emphasizes the emerging church's exaltation of creativity. The church wants to find ways to use culture and produce relevant music and art for the context that it is located in. The church believes that it can no longer afford to be a foreigner within its mission field.

Chapter 10

Leadership models in the church change radically. Many emerging churches want to avoid paid clergy all-together. Obviously, this demands a lot of faith and volunteer time from several people. The concept of the priesthood of all believers is very strong. Sometimes pastors do not even give sermons.

Chapter 11

Another strong movement with the emerging church is to rediscover the mystical practices of old, and to recover traditional liturgies. By doing this, emerging churches reconnect with Christian history in a deeper level than most congregations linked to a traditional denomination. The practice of these ancient rites provide a way to orient the community to God.

church and Mission final class

We reviewed Pentecostalism in this class period. The story of the Azusa street revival is something of great beauty. I've always felt like events such as these are when God is very close. It pains my heart to see humans put so many limits on what the Spirit can do. Pentecostalism has its own issues, but I really wish the stigma around it would go away. That's just my wish though.

Book Notes 5

For this round of notes, I chose to read the first seven chapters of Beyond Christendom. It is a book full of information that I can not do justice here, but the important info I will put down. On a side note, about every fifth key I try to type isn't registering and it is really irritating. I thought at first that only a few keys were out, but it is basically my entire keyboard. Really awful. Really really awful.

Chapter 1

This chapter was about Globalization. He talks about the term and how he understands it. One of the main theorists he presents and critiques a writer for the New York Times named Thomas Friedman. Hanciles major critique of Friedman and of others is their lack of accurate historical information in their theories. Hanciles sees Globalization as a phenomenon that has been slowly developing throughout the past several centuries.

Chapter 2

In this chapter, Hanciles presents several arguments that point towards the blending of global cultures. The idea I drew from most in this chapter is the section in the beginning where he talks about the positions of secular humanism. There was a popular idea in Western academia that religiousness would simply pass away. There are still some proponents of that theory (see Bill Maher, or however you spell his last name). However, Hanciles states that is clearly not true. In fact, He says that even the opposite is true. Out of this chapter, that idea is the one that stuck out the most for me.

Chapter 3

Hanciles uses this chapter to show the conflicting double nature of globalization. At the same time that it is homgenizing culture, it is also polarizing cultures against one another. The high scale with which the phenomenon of globalization penetrates other cultures is not met with a complete lack of opposition. Hanciles seeks to give his readers a level-headed understanding of the topics a hand and prevents himself from being biased towards any certain explanation of globalization.

Chapter 4

Hanciles tells a story that has been told several times in this chapter. He chronicles the birth and many crimes of Christendom. However, the point he reaches towards the end of the chapter should be pointed out. He speaks of the vernacular Bible, and the efforts to translate the Bible into native languages. He then states that Christ can't be one's savior unless Jesus speaks directly to the culture one is trying to reach. In other words, faith has to be personal. Indigenous forms of Christianity are not only important, but absolutely essential if this argument be true. Neat.

Chapter 5

In this chapter all of the age old figures on church attendance and such are presented. However, he spends quite a bit of time explaining the importance of African Christianity. They have a faith that is very alive and now they are migrating to other places with it. He says this was able to occur because of their pre-existing religiosity, so they were able to take seriously the claims of the Gospel. I think it's important for people from the West to understand the importance of their Christian brothers and sisters from overseas

Chapter 6

This chapter begins presenting Hanciles main thesis in this book. That is that immigration is one of the major if not the major influence on the spread of global Chrisitanity of the past several centuries. He then traces the theme of immigration through the Bible in this chapter and shows that it is a major way that God has used his people throughout time. He states that the ministry of Jesus was that of a wanderer and an immigrant. Such notions should be paid attention to. I know places where stating this could get one shunned from that community, but these ideas are not radical!

Chapter 7

Here, Hanciles gives a history of various migratory periods in world history and shows how they strongly influenced the spread of Christianity. The most important statement in this chapter is about Britain. He states that the greatest clash against the influx of Islam into the UK will not be from British Christians, but from African Christian immigrants who are flooding into that country at a rapid rate. I think it is amazing what one can see when one looks where no one else has. Hanciles states at one point that books like the one he is writing are rare finds. But why I ask?

Church and Mission class Nov 30

We finished up the reformed church and began talking about the free churches. I have always found it ironic that the reform movement turned around and killed and persecuted other reform movements. Growing up in my hometown, the impact of these conflicts could still be felt. I have been privy to several arguments over the smallest concepts of Christian faith. For example, whether baptism by sprinkling or full immersion was the best way or not. From my perspective these arguments are entirely useless.

Church and Mission class Nov 25

Few were in class, as many had already started to travel for the Thanksgiving holiday. The class was surveyed about the remained material and we decided that we should cover pentecostalism. It is pretty incredible that there are only 2 class periods left. Where did the time go? Hmmm....

church and mission class nov 23

The Lutheran church was finished up, and my questions were answered. We also had a rousing discussion on some emerging churches that came from the Lutheran church. I find it interesting that renewal is happening within denominations. I would like to someday visit these churches. We also started discussing the reformed church.

Church and Mission Class Nov 18

The class has now entered the Protestant reformation. The Lutheran tradition was covered. What I am most interested in are the modern Lutheran churches. What are they like? What defines them and sets them apart from other churches? This is not clear to me yet. Hopefully these questions will be answered.

Book Notes 4

For the 4th book notes I read the first 6 chapters of Global Pentacostalism. An interesting read since it covers the more recent expressions of the barely more than a century old church system. The author calls these expressions Progressive Pentacostalism.

Chapter 1 - This chapter is really an extension of the introductory material of the book and lays the author's foundation for what is being said through the rest of the work. The book identifies four key types of Pentecostal churches that include actual denominations, independent churches, prosperity churches, and renewal movements. The author postulates in this chapter why Pentecostalism is so successful and states that it may be in large part because it addresses many areas of life that the modern world view fails to address.

Chapter 2 - This chapter was incredibly fascinating to me. I grew up in Oklahoma and am not unfamiliar with Pentecostalism. What I am familiar with though is the very legalistic forms that it takes. However, this book is very clear in stating that Progressive Pentecostals are increasingly NOT legalistic although there still remains significant pockets of those that are. This chapter actually explains in good detail the different way that Pentecostal churches have begun to formulate a theology of holism. This is incredibly interesting since the foundation of the church in the early years was to focus specifically on the heavenly realm. Ideas like top-down evangelism flowed from such beliefs. The clear line between Pentecostals and Progressive Pentecostals is drawn in this chapter and it is a line that is incredibly intriguing. Again, the key issue is the theology of holism.

Chapter 3 - A wealth of information of Pentecostal ministry is located within this chapter. The authors focus on different ways the progressives have formed ministries to reach children. Several examples are given where the main focus was on the unconditional love of the child. This is in sharp contrast to the 'purity' model where the main focus would be to reject those who might be considered to be engaged in sinful behavior.

Chapter 4 - This chapter is similar in structure to the 3rd, but it mainly focuses on the Pentecostals work with the drug addicted. Here, the issues of healing is presented as well. In many of the ministries the supernatural intervention of the Holy Spirit in the overcoming of addiction is highlighted if not directly emphasized. The authors share several dramatic stories in order to fuller demonstrate this side of Pentecostalism.

Chapter 5 - This chapter is a bit more analytical and seeks to determine the nature and function of Pentecostal worship. One of the main conclusions made is that it is communal. The authors feel that the outward expression of faith in Pentecostal worship is not only communication with God and individuals, but between the individuals in the congregation as well. One of the specific examples the chapter gives is how people begin to sermonize when they are praying. In this way, they are communicating both corporately and with God.

Chapter 6 - The authors use Max Weber's ideas of the Protestant Work Ethic in order to analyze how Pentecostalism changes lives. One example they show is that economic progress is an unintended benefit of a changed life. If one comes out of drug addiction etc., then the money spent on those items can now be saved and put toward things that will improve ones stature in the economic realm. The authors also claim that Pentecostalism's strong notion of the priesthood of all believers empowers people to have a strong sense of identity and to fully participate in the community. The authors see Pentecostal churches as the formation of civil society as much as they see it as a church. Intriguing.

Church and Mission Class Nov 16

Our class's continuous march through the different forms of historical Christianity continued with Catholicism after a brief hiatus to focus on the incoming speaker, Graham Cray. Essentially, while there were some Catholics that did much good, the large majority were corrupt slavers that wrought havoc upon the nations they entered. It's pretty much a downer. Although it is very sobering. Pastors accross the nation today preach against Islam. In my hometown I know of an example where the pastor literally told his congregation that Islam wants them to die. I see that there were times where Christianity would kill someone just as quickly. Let us not forget the past, and let us love our neighbors as ourselves.

Missiology lectures

For class we attended the missiology lectures from 3-5 pm. Bishop Graham Cray of the Anglican church was speaking. I was wondering the whole time how the concepts he was speaking of could be applied to the United States. I'm from the Bible belt and there is still an existing Christendom there. How can one revitalize it?

Church and Mission class 12

We moved on from Orthodoxy, and begun studying the beginnings of the Medieval church. It was fascinating to learn from the plights of Charlemagne. However, I have always wondered by such dominantly charismatic leaders have consistently had really crappy sons throughout history. As soon as the leader dies, everything goes to...well...you know the rest of the phrase. It would be interesting to investigate the matter further.

Book Notes 3

For the third set of book notes I read the first 5 chapters of Disciples of All Nations. It was a very historical book, but the most important point I can put in here is something the author does in all five chapters. The author commonly looks at what is going on in the margins of Christianity. This is incredibly helpful, especially during the slave trade when Christianity was in full empire mode.

Chapter 1

This chapter details ways early Christianity was directly helpful to the society around them. Rather than seal themselves off from a world that was suspicious and violent towards them, they promoted charity and a dynamic community. The author uses examples of the apostles as well as Tertullian. The author makes a point of saying that this Christian heritage is crucial if one is to understand what it means to be Christian.

Chapter 2

This chapter is unique as it analyzes some of the interactions between Christianity and the Muslim world. The most powerful point that I feel the author makes here is the argument about a revealed language. Christianity not having a revealed language made it a religion for everywhere and a religion for everyone. At the same time, this also led to the rapid creation of Christianities instead of one cohesive religion. This is one of the major points that Islam scoffed at Christians for in the early days. In a certain degree, that notion still exists today. The Quran translated into English is exactly that...the Quran translated into English. The only true Quran texts must be written in Arab. The Bible is considered the Bible no matter what language it is written in, despite the Catholic church foisted the Latin language upon people. Blame Charlemagne. Word.

Chapter 3

This chapter details the slave trade and colonial aspects. It lauds the early success of Catholic missions even though they would eventually deteriorate. In this chapter and in the next, the author makes it a point to show that many good Christian activities took place during these times instead of focusing on the obvious bad ideas. He certainly admits to and includes the negative, but that is not the purpose of the book. The eventual empowerment that Christiainty gives slaves is an ironic event in the face of a religion that was used to oppress them.

Chapter 4

This chapter builds directly on 3 and many of its concepts are hard to separate. The largest idea is that the reason that Christianity led to empowerment, even in the midst of oppression was the advent of vernacular Bibles. The fact that Africans could read the Bible in their own language made it their own. This one simple aspect kept colonial rule from stripping away their identity completely. Governments were using missionaries to subdue the people, but instead it set themselves up for well-organized and passionate revolutions.

Chapter 5

This is a shorter chapter, but I think the author uses it to clarify a few key points. He wants to show that earlier Christian history existed within Africa prior to the African churches claiming their independence. While many negative events occurred under the colonial church, I got the feeling that the author feels like it is not a good thing to throw the whole thing out with the garbage. In fact, it would seem that this book was written by a true historian. The past is important to know where our future is going...that sort of thing. The analyses in this chapter provide a picture of what various forms of Christanity were able to do in Africa prior to the concept of indigenous churches.

Church and Mission class 11

Hey there class people. Last class we watched another video about Orthodox Christianity. It may have been a bit....one-sided, but it was informational nonetheless. It would do well for Western Christians to fully understand their Christian heritage as going back farther than Luther and Calvin. Yeah, that would be really nice. In other news it's 3:30 am and I shouldn't be up. Dragon Age Origins is an excellent video game.

Church and Mission class 10

The main chunk of class was spent watching a video about the origins of the Orthodox church. It was fascinating to learn about early Christianity and about the councils that decided what the correct beliefs were. I have often wondered how exactly all of that was decided.

Church and Mission class 9

We had a time of finishing up the discussion on the 2nd and 3rd century church. While the intense organization rubs me the wrong way, the ability of the church to articulate its usefullness to society during that time was awesome. Would the church today even have anything to write about?

Church and Mission class 8

Last Wednesday we went over the 2nd and 3rd century churches. I was particularly interested in what the videos had to say about gnosticism. I have wanted to know more about the early Christian sect since the whole Da Vinci code controversy several years ago. While it didn't go in depth on the subject it was nice to get to know the basics. Before then I didn't know anything about it.

Book Notes 2 - An Introduction to Ecclesiology

This book was written by Veli-Matti Karkkainen, and is a very short overview of the vast world of ecclesiology. It advances in 21 chapters that are divided into three different sections. I have a small amount of space to deal with this book as I read the whole thing. It was 233 pages, about 60 more than the requirement. With that being my concern, the paragraphs describing each chapter will be brief.

Part 1 - Ecclesiological traditions

This part gives a brief overview of the ecclesiology of several different denominational traditions.

Chapter 1 - Eastern Orthodox

This church is as ancient as the Roman Catholic church. It sees itself as the one true Church and has several characteristics that set it apart. First of all, the church leans very heavily upon the sacraments. One of the main goals for the church is to bring together people in order to partake in the Eucharist. This leads to a notion that humanity is ever becoming more like God. This is the goal of Eastern Orthodox rather than the more guilt and sin based concepts of the West. The church is literally understood as the 'center of the universe.' Although, the paramount is the local church, not a national or state recognized church.

Chapter 2 - Roman Catholicism

The largest church body in the world. Philosophically, it sees itself as the continuation of the incarnation of Christ. More traditionally, Catholics have understood the previous the terms of the Vatican church. However, understanding of the church as being in direct communion with Christ has been expanding as the years advance. One of the most important developments is that the Catholic church dropped its claims to be the only true church in the years following Vatican II. Although the official claim is to have the most complete revelation of Christ, Catholicism has begun many dialogues with several Protestant and Pentecostal denominations.

Chapter 3 - Lutheran

This denomination is best known for Luther's idea of the priesthood of all believers. This made literacy and the Bible much more important than it was previously. Luther's view was that the Holy Spirit moved through the preached word and the sacraments. Both concepts needed to be executed properly in order to achieve the right effect. Lutheran theology further stresses the love for one's neighbor and the participation in God. As one experiences God on their own, since this is now a responsibility, then one will then experience God's attributes (wisdom, love, etc.).

Chapter 4 - Reformed

The founders of reformed thought are Zwingli and Calvin. Calvin especially differentiated from Luther on the idea of leadership. This is why one will see elders in a Presbyterian church as well as a minister and so forth. Karl Barth has now gone back to further critique reformed thought from within the tradition. He further expanded the notion of the church as 'the body of Christ,' and further believed that the priesthood of all believers would not become strong again until the Pauline gifts of the Spirit were recovered.

Chapter 5 - Free Churches

Ecclesiology for free churches is harder to speak of because it does not represent any single denomination. However, several patterns emerge. First of all, unmediated access to God is stressed with free churches. The notion of the priesthood of believers is mightily strengthened by this belief. Leadership becomes decentralized and the congregation is empowered to perform in ministry. Furthermore, mission and missionary activity is not just seen as something the church does, but as something that is the main purpose of the church.

Chapter 6 - Pentecostal/Charismatic

These churches have a strong emphasis on experiencing God in a personal and supernatural way. The gifts of the Spirit, including speaking in tongues, are thought of as being essential for the life of the lay-person. Most Pentecostals stress the invisible nature of the church and therefore have a strong ecumenical feel to them. On the other hand, charismatic churches have had a habit of going back to the roots of their particular traditions. Charismatic churches also carry a higher value for community then their Pentecostal counter-parts.

Chapter 7 - The Ecumenical Movement

The unity of the church as a mandate of God is the driving force behind this movement. In the past 50 years bodies like the World Council of Churches have been set up in order to seek a more ecumenical church. Some major obstacles lie in disinterest. The fact is, many Free churches do not see the need or believe in the physical unity of existing churches. Churches like the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox are also slow to back down from their 'one true church' understanding of themselves.

Part II - Leading contemporary theologians

This section discusses how modern theologians are changing the faces of their respective traditions.

Chapter 8 - John Zizioulas

A bishop in the Eastern Orthodox church, he calls for true communion. He goes as far as stating that there is not an individual self. He therefore concludes that the Eucharist is the foundational act of the Church. He is also very adamant in the local church. He believes that all other church forms derive from the local church.

Chapter 9 - Hans Kung

A radical reformer of the Catholic church. He believes that the spirit of the church itself is in freedom. He also promotes the idea of the use of charisms, or gifts of the spirit. He believes that the reason that the Catholic church is slow to recognize this is because of legalism. He believes very strongly in the unity-in-diversity concept and is a leader in the ecumenical movement.

Chapter 10 - Wolfhart Pannenberg

Pannenberg is a Lutheran theologian who reacted to the submission of the church to the individual. His ideas strongly promote the church as the primary reason to exist as a Christian. He sees church as a prediction and a sign of a coming age when all would be united under one God. If a person rejects this notion then their election fails. Pannenberg in this way offers a different twist on the idea of salvation and what it means to be the 'elect' of God.

Chapter 11 - Jurgen Moltmann

He was vehemently opposed to the idea of a state church and exclusively believed in believer's baptism. He describes the church as a voluntary gathering of God's people. He also stated that the church should be a missionary church, but not to spread the church but the kingdom instead. In order to perform this tasks the full gifts of the Holy Spirit are absolutely crucial.

Chapter 12 - Miroslav Volf

His ultimate goal is to present the church as an image of the triune God. The presence of Christ is not mediated through the leaders, but through the entire congregation. This is a radical view based upon the several previous chapters. The church is first and foremost an assembly of those gathered in Jesus' name. The universality of the Spirit and full participation of the congregation are stressed by Volf.

Chapter 13 - James McClendon Jr.

McClendon also lifts up the idea of a strong local church. Unlike the previous, he stresses the importance of reconnecting with the Jewish background of the church. He points out that the two did not split until halfway through the 2nd century! The local church is the place to live out this 'new way' of life in Christ. Community is essential.

Chapter 14 - Leslie Newbigin

Newbigin is a fierce advocate for missions. Not only is it important, but the key purpose of the church in general. His thoughts are characterized by mission first, but with ecumenism and the dynamic nature of the church as well. He believed that when the church stopped striving for missions and unity that it was going against its very nature.

Part III - Contextual eccleciologies

These are ideas that present themselves based on certain people groups and cultural anomalies.

Chapter 15 - Non-church movement in Asia

This chapter chronicles the Mukyokai movement in Japan founded by Kanzo Uchimura. Church is to be understand as a meeting between fellow believers. Absolute authority in leadership is not to be trusted and is outright resisted. All church leaders in Mukyokai have full-time secular positions and are volunteers at the church. The relationship between God and the individual is highly stressed. This comes from the mistrust of Western missionaries.

Chapter 16 - Base communities in Latin America

This happens within the Roman Catholic church. Essentially, a shift in understanding from the importance of the Vatican to the importance of the local churches began in Latin America. Churches made up of the poor and disenfranchised began crying out for freedom. Theology became based upon this and the churches become known as churches 'from below.' The hierarchical order of Catholicism was broken and reversed in some circumstances.

Chapter 17 - Feminist church

Stresses that the church needs to find a way to open back up more feminine ideals. These churches focus on more shared leadership as well as reconciling with creation. A more wholistic view of faith is created from their ideas.

Chapter 18 - AIC

Churches in Africa split from Western oriented churches for obvious reasons. This created many churches that are distinctly African. They are characterized by a deep understanding of the interaction between humans and spirits. Oral tradition is also a very important aspect of AICs.

Chapter 19 - Shepherding movement

This movement is fading quite a bit because of the weak foundations of its idealism. However, it stressed the discipleship of the church rather than a strong leader at the top. Many people would be chosen to shepherd the various 'flocks' within the church. This system led to leaders who would not let their authority be questioned.

Chapter 20 - 'world church'

This chapter spoke of the necessity of removing Western bias from missionary work and from the idea of the church in general. Fusing culture with Christ has led to disastrous results and understanding this is the way to move forward.

Chapter 21 - Post-modernism

The idea in this chapter was one of my favorites. Resistance to the intellectual foundations of post-modernism is stressed. The church must set itself up as a separate city and not get swept away by post-modern thought.

Okay...phew! Hope that wasn't too long....

Church and Mission class 7

We finished up the 1st century church, and split up in our groups to discuss it more in depth. I found that the early churches concern with the Lordship of Christ to be most refreshing. We watched a video towards the end introducing the 2nd and 3rd century church. The concepts that it introduced I found to be very interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing how the church was able to grow as rapidly as it did during these two centuries.

Church and Mission class period 6

I was totally in class for day 5, but I forgot to write the thing. Too late now! Anyway, today's class period focused on the 1st century church after the death of Jesus. It was fascinating learning how the communities started to form and how they spread to the different cities. It is interesting how a group that numbered only about 10,000 at the end of the 1st century would come to dominate the religious life in Rome.

Church and Mission Class 4

The class began with watching a video trying to track a historically accurate representation of Jesus. Following from there, the class talked about the 1st century church and what it and its practices looked like.

Book Notes 1 - The Great Emergence

This is the first of six in a series of notes in order to summarize the class texts. The first book I chose to read was the Great Emergence by Phyllis Tickle. It advances in 3 parts and has 7 chapters.

Part 1 - Chapters 1 and 2

The first chapter covers what Tickle calls 'Rummage sales.' Her theory is that every 500 years the church clears out its 'attic' of all of the ways of thinking and being that people have grown tired of in some form or another. We are now in the great emergence. Before that was the Great Reformation and before that, the Great Schism. This chapter spends a good deal of time explaining the Great Schism as it is more obscure in Western history than the Reformation. The foundational problems facing the Church during the schism was the question of how to view the person of Christ. Fully divine? Fully human and fully divine? Etc. There was also the question of the importance of Mary. Part 1 of this book is foundational and sets up the terms that the author uses for the rest of her argument. Moving to chapter 2 one finds such a term. Cable of meaning appears now as a term that is central to the author's proof of the Great Emergence. Tickle asserts that religion is a social phenomenon organized and created by man. While reading this chapter, all I could think is that she has read Peter Berger's The Sacred Canopy. One cannot read chapter 2 without it smacking of Berger's theory of world construction. Essentially, the outside shell of the cable is the world of meaning agreed upon by society. The inside cable are all the pieces that create the shell: morality, spirtuality, etc. Her use of this idea is central for the rest of the book.

Part 2 - Chapters 3, 4, and 5

In these chapters, Tickle traces how the Great Reformation replaced the monastic system and then leads the reader up to the time of the Great Emergence and explains what are the key elements leading to the downfall of reformation thought. Chapter 3 follows the downfall of the monastic system and of the Dark Ages. Key ideas that pulled at the cable of meaning for that world were the discoveries of the earth being round, and that it was not at the center of the universe. The entire world the church had so dogmatically taught simply did not exist anymore and people were left scrambling for explanations. In chapter 4, Tickle moves to present ideas that began to challenge Reformation thought. The sojourners were Darwin, Freud and Campbell. Tickle also points out the importance of mass media in changing the views of the people. She cites the printing press for the reformation age and t.v. and the internet for the emergence age. One of the key points of reformation thought is the idea of sola scriptura, scriptura sola, a.k.a. biblical inerrancy. However, figures such as Darwin, Freud, Faraday, Jung and Campbell downright challenged that concept in various ways. The scientific findings led to the demystification of the world. There was a logical explanation for formally spiritual events. Campbell wrote a book challenging the idea of Christian exclusivity that rocked the world. Chapter 5 furthers the thesis by speaking of the findings of Einstein, Marx, etc., mass transit and media, and the downfall of the matriarchal homes of the early 1900s. Women working in factories during World War II is also mentioned as an example.

Part 3 - Chapters 6 and 7

This is where Tickle tracks and defines the Great Emergence. She starts by presenting a traditional chart of how churches have been separated by type in the past. Through chapter 6, Tickle keeps tweaking the image of that chart to represent the emerging church. The author describes how the emergent church has presented itself as a vortex in the center of this chart. As the movement grows stronger, traditional churches are forced to react. They line up in concentric circles around the emergent church in four different categories. Traditionalists, re-traditionalists, progressives, and hyphenateds. Of the four, progressives seemed to be the most confusing. I didn't quite understand her definition of them. All of this labeling is imperfect, but illuminating all the same. In the final chapter, Tickle presents the new authority that the emergent church may come to rest on. Two key terms are presented. Orthonomy and Theonomy. Orthonomy refers to the idea that if there is an event that is so beautiful that is like the divine is contained within its beauty than it must be true. It is a concept that does not directly translate well into English. Theonomy means that only God can be the source of perfection in action and thought. However, both these terms lend themselves to great weaknesses. Tickle goes on to say that many emergent Christians say authority rests in the community and the Bible. After this, the author explains that this creates something called network theory where Church isn't seen as a particular building or 'thing', but as a vast web spread accross the globe. The book concludes with basically saying we will have to wait and see what comes of all this, but it also comes with a warning. Each 500 year period was followed by great violence. Tickle hopes this does not occur again.

That is the summary of the content of this book. A shorter work, 175 pages or so, but man....packed full.

Church and Mission class period 3

Class began with a listening excercise on Luke 10. The point was to open a discussion of what it looked like to be the church. This led directly into the lecture which was about Jesus and the church. Did Jesus mean to start a church? How did the earliest Christians worship? What did it all look like? These were all questions that the lecture was pointed at. All in all, it was a fantastic class.

Church and Mission Class Period 2

Almost forgot this one! During the second class period the rest of the workload for the class was discussed in detail. Many questions were asked concerning the final paper. Towards the end of class we split up into our discussion groups that we will maintain for the remainder of the quarter. In the group we discussed our personal church background and a little about ourselves.

Church and Mission Class Period 1

Monday was the first day of class. On such a glorious occasion the professor introduced himself and spoke of his expertise. I learned that in this class we shall be studying many different types of churches as well as emerging churches. These posts are due after each class, and the first book report is due on October the 7th. Wednesday we will start Unit 1.