I came into the PCUSA through the emergent movement. Coming from a conservative evangelical background, I followed the emergent movement (before it was called emergent) into an emergent seminary until life circumstances led me to a mainline PCUSA seminary. I feared my emergent postmodern theology would be co-opted by modern mainline constructs, but I found the opposite. My theological imagination went deeper as I read constructive and post-colonial texts and learned to think more critically. Many of the theological and spiritual resources I had been longing for were present in the history and ongoing trajectory of progressive mainline theology.

However, my experience in mainline churches was just the opposite. I felt I had stepped back decades in worship experience, accessibility, and engagement with the world. My struggle went beyond traditional versus contemporary styles. I wondered, where was the imagination I found in the classroom on Sunday morning? How did this exciting theology translate into visible action that invited others outside our communities to participate? Denominational structures and programs felt like an insider’s world that was completely foreign to me.

Carol Howard Merritt, in her new book, Reframing Hope, responds to these concerns. Like me, Merritt has found the progressive mainline tradition life-giving and supportive. She believes the history of the mainline church’s concern for justice and peace-making is a profound resource that American culture and our world are looking for. Merritt is passionate in her belief that mainline communities embody hope for a postmodern globalized world, however we must reframe that hope to make it accessible to younger generations.

Merritt speaks with a pastor’s heart and a researcher’s mind. Her conversational writing is in a language that is native to progressive mainline congregations. While her first book, Tribal Church, addressed how to include a younger generation in churches, this second offering looks at how the mainline tradition can reimagine its structures in the contemporary world. She examines authority, community, communication, message, activism, creation care and spirituality–offering insightful perspective and a way forward on how the contemporary church can respond and find new life.

This book is an essential resource in many ways. Presbymergents and “loyal radicals” of other denominations will find a helpful discussion of what makes us distinct in the emergent movement. Merritt puts voice to why I, and many others, choose to be in a denomination and what our hopes are for the future. Generation X-ers will find resonance in Carol’s experience of the world and view of faith and why something just doesn’t quite feel right about many churches. Church leaders will find a multitude of ideas and directions for how to restructure all aspects of their church. Prayerfully reading this book and considering its ramifications will spur many congregations’ vision and mission.

Reframing Hope is not a call to be less than we are as mainline congregations. Instead, Merritt passionately, prophetically and tenderly calls us out to be more fully who we are. As we move into naming our past and imagining our future, we will grasp the hope that Merritt holds out for the church in contemporary society.

I just finished reading David Kinnaman’s Unchristian: What a new generation really thinks about Christianity. It’s an insightful window into the perceptions of the Mosiac and Buster generations, both those in and outside the church, on Christianity, Christians, morality, and behavioral norms.  The data is drawn from extensive surveys conducted by the Barna Group, and the analysis is laced with pertinent stories and narrative.

While I found myself a little prideful that we Presbyterians aren’t subject to a lot of the perceptual problems that our more evangelical brethren are tagged with, the book nonetheless has some things to say to us as we try to reach these generations.

I’m wondering if anyone else has read the book and what you took away from it.

This post is written by Rev. Carol Howard Merritt, the author of Tribal Church and a member of the Presbymergent Coordinating Group. It is cross-posted from her blog, Tribal Church.

I recently read The Great Emergence. It is an important piece in the conversation and there’s a lot to talk about in it. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s an easy read, and it’s friendly for lay people. Phyllis Tickle places the emerging church in the context of gritty history, and her writing style shines when she reminisces. The way that she details the women’s movement, for instance, is charming.

Tickle has a refreshing perspective, and much different than most Episcopalians that I’ve met. As an example, she highlights John Wimber and the Vineyard Church has an important moment in church history, while I’m often hard-pressed to find a mainliner who knows what that is.

At the heart of Tickle’s analysis, there is the question of power. And in particular, she points out the threat to sola scriptura. In the Reformation, “scripture alone” (along with the five other sola’s) became the source of authority became the passionate cry for so many who wanted to critique the Roman Catholic Church.

And now, in the midst of postmodern upheaval, with the evolution of literary criticism, we are beginning to realize how one cannot rely on the words of Scripture alone. There has to be someone reading, there has to be someone interpreting. And since we are all different, with a multiplicity of passions and histories, when we sit down with the Scriptures, we cannot divorce ourselves from the process.

We bring ourselves into it. We have on that page, not only the words, but also the context of the author. And the choices of the translators. Add to that, we have our own our educational background, our personal history, our historical context, our motivations. The page gets very crowded. And so, we realize that a plain reading is not possible. When there is a text, there is disagreement. And sola scriptura breaks down.

So, where is the power now?

It is in Scripture and in the community, the conversation, the network.

I appreciate the way that Tickle broadens the conversation, explaining the upheaval not only from the conservative corner of the church (which we most often hear about), but also pointing out what is happening with Social Justice Christians (Mainline denominations like PCUSA), Liturgicals (Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Roman Catholics), Renewalists (Charismatics, Pentacostals), and Conservatives (Evangelicals).

There are a couple of places that I have some disagreement, maybe in what was left out more than what was there. Although Tickle brought up the women’s movement and much of her conversation hinged on Diana Butler Bass’ important idea of sacred re-traditioning, I was hoping that she would write more about women.

All of the amazing and fresh work that is happening in theology, where women’s voices are being heard and taught. They have been earth shattering and courageous as they have take on texts of terror and demanded that their perspective be heard in our academies, with all of their particularities. What women have been doing in our pulpits for the past fifty years, surely that has shaken the foundations of Christendom. Feminist critiques, whether they be from Julia Kristeva or Rita Nakashima Brock, have had a highly significant impact on our faith in the midst of postmodernity.

Unfortunately, The Great Emergence does not reflect the great diversity of gender or ethnicities that are causing shifts in American religion. It is an account of players who are almost exclusively white males. This is not a new critique of the emerging church, and certainly not a new one from me. I was just hoping that Tickle would bring a much-needed corrective to the conversation.

There are other points of discussion that I could bring up. For instance, we could talk about technology, crowd-sourcing, and whether is it truly egalitarian (Albert-Laszlo Barabasi’s convincing me otherwise).

There also seems to be a sense, from Tickle’s analysis of the gathering center, that there are pure emergents, and others who are more on the edges (she nods to the metaphor of rose petals).

I would tend to disagree with this. It seems to me that we are all emerging from something, but Tickle seems to be saying that those who are emerging from evangelicalism are somehow more central to what is happening in the whole Christianity.

Am I understanding this correctly? And if I am, if evangelical emergence is at the heart, then that could explain the movement’s propensity for glossing over important women’s voices.

I’ll close with a question. In the pages, Tickle says that the hyphen-mergents (presbymergents, Angli-mergents, Metho-mergents, Luther-mergents) will need to decide, “Which are we, and where do we belong?”

This aside is probably the one place where I disagree with Tickle the most. I am a postmodern Presbyterian. I may not fit into a chart very easily, I may not fit into my own denomination very easily. But I do not feel any pressure to make a decision one way or the other about who I am or where I belong.

So, what do you think?

Today I finished reading Karen Sloan’s Flirting With Monasticism. I started reading it this past Monday, and even amidst the chaotic backdrop of VBS at our church, I just couldn’t put it down until the end. That’s because threaded throughout her exploration of the Dominican Order, its traditions, and history is a beautiful and engaging story — Karen’s story. As an advocate of open-source software, I can thoroughly applaud and admire someone who bravely opens and lays bare the “source-code” of her life for all to see and benefit from.

Ever since I read about ancient practice of “White Martyrdom” in Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Civilization, I have been fascinated with “new monasticism,” and the resurgence of communal, liturgical practice. Like Karen, I have longed for a way to “enter into a way of life with a community intentionally invested in forming a shared life.” I was really bummed when, at the age of 31, I first learned about the Taize community in France (for young adults up to age 30).

In the fall of 2008, I’ll be enrolling in Seminary. I’ve really gone back and forth on this one, and was once adamantly opposed to the idea of seminary. Now, I’m committed to it as part of my process for ordination in the PCUSA, but I still struggle when people ask me “why” I want to go to seminary. I meet a lot of pastors who consider seminary a place of “practical/vocational training” for ministers. That just doesn’t resonate with my postmodern, emerging self, nor do I think (sorry, apologies to those who disagree — just my opinion) most modern seminaries function well in this capacity.

Enter Karen’s Flirting With Monasticism, and a description of her experience as part of a group of Christians during her undergraduate years:

“Ministry easily flowed out of living so closely with others. Prayer needs and opportunities to serve were often quite obvious. Finding time to toss a Frisbee or joining a group for a meal didn’t require a great deal of effort. We had discussions in our classrooms, and we continued thoses discussions back in our rooms. Invitations to Bible studies were regularly given. Interactions with the broader campus community were nearly constant. My mentors were committed to praying together for the needs of people on campus and for each other. As I prayed with them and did ministry alongside them, a vibrant depth of friendship emerged that I could draw strength from and invite others into.”

While she does go on to point out how temporary college communal experiences are in contrast to the permanence of life in a Dominican order, it got me to thinking. At the conclusion of the book, Karen issues this challenge:

“Not everyone will be called to join an order. However, if we are paying attention to the internal prompting of the Holy Spirit, we may find ourselves flirting with monasticism. We may find ourselves considering how we can live by rhythms of contemplation and action in community with other followers of Jesus.”

In this light, perhaps postmodern emegents can view seminary as a monastic experience: Not so much an attempt to meet externally imposed expectations or criteria, not rushing and focused on a “future career,” but rather a chance to slowly, deliberately study something we love, in a close-knit, residential community of “novitiate” seminarians mentored by “professed” faculty, all working together toward a common goal — with the daily rhythms of study, chapel, fellowship, discussion, and prayer.

Thinking about it that way, for me at least, transforms seminary from an ordeal to endure, to something much more…attractive. And I’m starting to feel fliratious. Thanks, Karen.