| A Review of
Embracing Emergence Christianity Reviewed by Jennifer Burns Lewis. |
Phyllis Tickle is well known for quipping that every 500 years, the Church goes through a giant rummage sale and clears out old forms of spirituality and practice and replaces it with new ones. The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why (Baker Books, 2008) unpacks this thesis and posits that Protestantism is giving way to Emergence Christianity and it’s upon the premise of this book that Embracing Emergence Christianity is based. In conversations with a small group of six young adults with whom she interacts in this six part study, Tickle unpacks her theories and provides a thoughtful and discussion of Western church history and invites lively interaction around questions of what’s next and where we’re headed.
Each of the six sessions begins with a 10-15 minute presentation by Tickle, followed by interaction with an assembled small group. The accompanying participant’s guide includes short introductory essays to provide background to Tickle’s remarks. In each session, she ponders important topics in a conversational fashion, seated in a chair, surrounded by the circle of small group participants. The interaction between Tickle and the small group assembled to engage with her is as dynamic and as interesting as the short Tickle lecture at the beginning of each session.
The video itself improves with each session. The first part session is not completely framed, with heads cut off, the scene uncentered, and the volume seems unsteady. This improves greatly, even by the end of the first session, and it’s easy to imagine using this study in a small group setting for adult education.
Topics for the six study sessions include “Emergence 101,” “Where Now is our Authority,” “the Twentieth Century and Emergence,” “Gifts from Other Times,” “How Then Shall We Live?” and “Hallmarks of Emergence.” The accompanying study guide includes great, clear instructions and provides several helpful tracks to prompt discussion.
Viewers and students will appreciate Tickle’s seamless discussion of the scope of Christian Church history, American history and a critique of American culture. She seems hardly to take a breath as she discusses sola scriptura, slavery, and the “uppity women” of the suffragist movement at the time of World War I. One will surely leave this series with a deeper appreciation of the sweep of history and the connections, for instance, between the voice of sola scriptura and the voices of women in modern culture. It’s a rich discussion.
Students, teachers and pastors seeking a stimulating series of accessible readings requiring only a minimal amount of preparation will appreciate Embracing Emergence Christianity. A smart educator would have this series available as a resource for any individual or group wishing to have a very accessible, stimulating series upon which to call.
C. Christopher Smith is the founding editor of The Englewood Review of Books. He is also author of a number of books, including most recently How the Body of Christ Talks: Recovering the Practice of Conversation in the Church (Brazos Press, 2019). Connect with him online at: C-Christopher-Smith.com
 Reading for the Common Good From ERB Editor Christopher Smith "This book will inspire, motivate and challenge anyone who cares a whit about the written word, the world of ideas, the shape of our communities and the life of the church." -Karen Swallow Prior Enter your email below to sign up for our weekly newsletter & download your FREE copy of this ebook! |
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