Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Phyllis Tickle on the Future of the Emerging Church
Phyllis Tickle is wonderfully fiesty and wise old lady who has unique insight into the trends of American Christianity due to her years as the religion editor for Publishers Weekly. The Out of Ur blog has a great interview with her about what she sees as the future of the Emerging Church, offering both insight and challenges.
She says:
She says:
Q: Would you place the emerging church with Evangelicalism, or it is something else?Read the rest of the interview here.
No, it’s not evangelicalism. American religion has four, pretty much equally divided, quadrants. Evangelicalism is one of them, charismatic Pentecostalism is another, the old mainline or social just Christians is a third quadrant, and then the liturgicals. And where the quadrants meet in the center there’s a vortex like a whirlpool and they are blending.So, much of the political energy is evangelical. There’s no question about that. Much of the religious energy is Pentecostal, but that’s combined with the strong ballast of social consciousness and of applied gospel that comes out of the mainline. And into the mix comes the liturgical traditions with the great gifts of the heritage of the church.
Labels: emerging church
