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’
Why are the Irish Catholic bishops complaining about the Civil Partnerships Bill, which is being debated this week in the Dáil?
The bishops’ criticisms have not been welcomed by government ministers, who say they have taken great pains to make sure it does not undermine marriage or the Irish constitution.
Continue reading ‘The Irish Catholic Church & the Civil Partnerships Bill: What’s ‘Morally Wrong?’’
Reflections on and results from my School’s major research project, ‘Visioning 21st Century Ecumenism: Diversity, Dialogue and Reconciliation,’ have become available in a variety of outlets over the last few weeks. The research team is hoping that the publication of these results will stimulate new conversations about faith and religion on the island of Ireland.
The May/June 2010 issue of Doctrine and Life (Vol. 60, No. 5) has published an article by me titled, ‘Visioning 21st Century Ecumenism: The View from the Pulpits, the View from the Pews.’ This article outlines the major findings from our surveys of faith leaders and laypeople. These are organised under the following headings:
Continue reading ‘Visioning 21st Century Ecumenism: More Research Results Now Available’
Patrick Mitchel, a lecturer in theology at the Irish Bible Institute in Dublin, has posted a blog about ‘Irish evangelicals: unity in diversity or just disunity?’ In the post, Mitchel engages with a chapel message delivered by Crawford Gribben last month at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.
Gribben is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern Print Culture at Trinity College Dublin. His talk is aimed at an audience of American seminarians from the Reformed tradition, and his purpose is to provide them both with a general perspective on the lie of the land on Christianity in Ireland, and a particular view of evangelicalism in the Republic.
Continue reading ‘Evangelicalism in Ireland: Slow Motion Revival or Faction Fighting?’
I’ll be conducting a seminar based on the findings of my School’s IRCHSS-funded research project, ‘Visioning 21st Century Ecumenism,’ on Wednesday April 28, 2010 from 12 noon- 1p.m. at The Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin at Belfast, 683 Antrim Road.
The title of the seminar is ‘Faith and Community Relations: Perspectives on Diversity, Reconciliation and Ecumenism.’ I’ll outline key findings from recent the surveys of faith leaders and laypeople, as well as insights from the on-going case studies of faith communities.
Continue reading ‘Seminar on Faith & Community Relations April 28, 2010′
Richard Clarke, Church of Ireland Bishop of Meath and Kildare, was last month elected President of the Irish Council of Churches. His term will last until 2012.
The April 9 edition of the Church of Ireland Gazette features Clarke’s election on its front page. It reports that Clarke says there are ‘three major tasks facing Irish ecumenism today’:
Continue reading ‘Bishop Richard Clarke Elected President of Irish Council of Churches’
Two weeks ago at the Re-Emergence conference in Belfast, Phyllis Tickle said that in the past 18 months, she had detected ‘emergence’ Christians beginning to distance themselves ever farther from the evangelical roots from which so many of them had come.
The controversy brewing in the US over Brian McLaren’s new book, A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions that are Transforming the Faith, seems to confirm that observation.
Continue reading ‘Brian McLaren: A New Kind of Christianity?’
This morning’s BBC Radio Ulster edition of Sunday Sequence featured an interview with the newly elected moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Norman Hamilton. Hamilton had a fairly wide-ranging conversation with presenter William Crawley in the ten minute slot which started the programme.
One of Hamilton’s more memorable lines was that ‘relationships matter,’ to which he added the words, ‘Institutions don’t deliver good relationships.’
Continue reading ‘Norman Hamilton, New Presbyterian Moderator: Relationships Matter’
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