Does the emerging church offer a legitimate and helpful critique of Western evangelical Christianity in the 21st century? Or is it merely a movement comprised of disgruntled cranks intent on deconstructing Christianity to the point where there is nothing meaningful left?
I was reminded of these diametrically opposed interpretations of the emerging church today when giving a seminar titled ‘Is Religion Doomed?’ at the New Horizon conference at the University of Ulster in Coleraine.
Continue reading ‘Emerging & Evangelical Churches: Friends or Foes?’
Today this blog features a guest post from Cary Gibson, whose thought and involvement have helped to shape the Belfast-based Christian collective Ikon. Gibson originally posted a comment in response to my post on ‘What does the Emerging Church Want?: Reflections on a Dark Gospel.’
With her permission, I’ve reproduced that comment here, to draw more attention to the points and questions she raises. She argues that the debate about ‘what the emerging church wants’ is getting bogged down by generalisations, and that it is misleading to frame debate in terms of a ‘retreat’ to the institutional churches.
Continue reading ‘Cary Gibson Guest Post on Emerging Churches – Beyond Generalisations, Retreats and Institutions?’
What do people in the emerging church want? This is a question that is being posed increasingly in one form or another by academics, critics of the emerging church, and people who are themselves involved with the movement.
Of course, if you ask the people who are involved with the emerging church, you will probably get a unique answer from each person. Some want to reform the church institutions in which they were raised. Others think those institutions are beyond reform and they should be ignored or eliminated altogether.
Continue reading ‘What does the Emerging Church Want?: Reflections on a Dark Gospel’
Margaret Poloma and Ralph Hood’s recent book, Blood and Fire: Godly Love in a Pentecostal Emerging Church (NY University Press, 2008), left me feeling more than a little uncomfortable. Poloma and Hood offer a sociological account of a church that has ‘failed.’
By ‘failed’ I mean that Poloma and Hood’s research coincided with a time when the Atlanta-based congregation they were studying abandoned its downtown premises. The homeless they were trying to attract were seemingly forgotten about.
Continue reading ‘Poloma and Hood Book Review: Blood and Fire – Is this the Emerging Church?’
Some time ago, Fr Michael Bennett, a missionary priest of the St Patrick’s Missionary Society (Kiltegan, Wicklow) now serving in South Africa, wrote a series of guest posts on this blog about the Irish Catholic Church.
Now, Fr Bennett reflects on a post on this blog about a talk given by Dr Peter Rollins at Trinity College Dublin at Belfast, ‘The Resurrection as Insurrection.’ Fr Bennett has some doubts about Rollins’ articulation of doubt, but argues that what Rollins has to say can make some positive contributions to church life in a variety of expressions.
Continue reading ‘Fr Michael Bennett on Peter Rollins — Doubting Doubt?: Guest Post’
In the West, where ‘institutionalised’ forms of Christianity seem more tired, creaky and discredited by the day, some people involved with ‘emergence Christianity’ or the ‘emerging church’ are advocating a ‘religionless’ approach to Christianity.
The term ‘religionless Christianity’ is associated with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor implicated in the plot to assassinate Hitler during the Second World War. Bonhoeffer’s ideas around religionless Christianity are somewhat fragmented, due no doubt to the conditions under which he wrote – in prison and awaiting execution in a context of extreme socio-political upheaval.
Continue reading ‘Are there any Christians in Religionless Christianity?’
During the question and response time at a seminar last week by Dr Peter Rollins (a philosopher whose ideas have been associated with the emerging church movement), a member of the audience asked: where are all the women? About 30 people had turned up to listen to Rollins, and there were only three women among them (myself included).
This question prompted some discussion about the emerging church in general, and whether it is dominated by white men. This thorny question has been generating debate in the US, as explored by Prof. Gerardo Marti last month on Duke University’s Call & Response blog.
Continue reading ‘Emerging Women? Is the Emerging Church Dominated by White Men?’
Dr Peter Rollins, a Research Associate with Trinity College Dublin at Belfast (the Irish School of Ecumenics) returned to Belfast today for a seminar on ‘The Uprising of Christ: The Resurrection as Insurrection.’ Rollins is currently based on the east coast of the US.
Rollins is fresh off his Insurrection Tour of US and Canadian cities, in which he, Pádraig ÓTuama and Johnny McKeown provided a pub-based example – in word, music and visual – of what Christianity in post-modernity might look like.
Continue reading ‘Peter Rollins Seminar: The Uprising of Christ’
There’s not much in Philip Pullman’s latest book, The Good Man Jesus & the Scoundrel Christ, which would be new to anyone familiar with the Gospels.
Sure, his story has two characters, Jesus and Christ, in the place of a singular ‘Jesus Christ’ figure. In Pullman’s story, Mary gives birth to twins: Jesus and Christ. Pullman sets up the Christ character as a foil to Jesus: Christ wants to build a controlling church institution, while Jesus wants to free people from the shackles of moralism and soul-destroying religious obligation.
Continue reading ‘Philip Pullman Book Review: The Good Man Jesus & the Scoundrel Christ’
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