COMMENTARY: Glimpses of the Emerging Center

c. 2006 Religion News Service RICHMOND, Va. _ “Your generation will have to die before we can move on,” a 20-something told a 60-something at a national church convention last summer. “He could be right,” the 60-something said last week, but maybe not. Veterans of religious wars are highly invested in seeking control of the […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

RICHMOND, Va. _ “Your generation will have to die before we can move on,” a 20-something told a 60-something at a national church convention last summer.

“He could be right,” the 60-something said last week, but maybe not.


Veterans of religious wars are highly invested in seeking control of the Titanic, rather than rethinking the Christian enterprise for challenging, post-modern times.

While the same old warriors fight the same old battles over sexuality, church property, denominational leadership, control of seminaries, doctrine, and who’s to blame for shrinking membership, more and more believers gravitate to the margins.

There, in home churches, cell groups, web-centered networks, faith-discussions at coffee shops, and membership _ avoiding participation in traditional worship _ the “dis-organized” tune out of organized religion and find their way forward.

What the 20-something didn’t see was that it isn’t just the young who are moving to the margins. Brian McLaren, a 50-year-old leader of the so-called “emerging church movement,” told the Going Forward Together Conference here about an elderly French woman who wearied of her lifeless parish and began hosting weekly dinners in her home, where believers and non-believers gathered to talk about God.

A middle-aged church veteran condemned her for abandoning institution and doctrine. A Roman Catholic priest, however, praised her quiet effort and said, “You are the future of the church.”

It is never easy to see the future while living it. Like a proof-texting biblical literalist, trend-spotters tend to be selective in what they see and how they extrapolate. But it seems clear from this year’s Going Forward Together event that there is considerable enthusiasm for moving on, and not just among 20-somethings who find organized religion’s issues meaningless, but among 40- and 60-somethings who also find them lifeless and futureless.

Speakers at this conference, attended by Episcopalians from across the country, talked about a collapse of the historic “two-party system” in religion, where all matters could be addressed by a dualism such as liberal-conservative, sacred-secular, old-young, male-female.

Speakers talked about networks, as opposed to hierarchies and boundaries, and how faithful people find each other through an informal process similar to social networking. The conference itself felt like networking. Begun two years ago as a way for Episcopalians to get beyond decades-old bickering and power struggles, the feast has grown in size and stayed fresh.


As diverse people found each other; new ideas emerged; worship took place in a half-dozen different styles; and participants relished heavy-duty presentations that left them exhausted.

As a workshop leader and eager listener, I heard no enthusiasm for defending old structures or for perpetuating old arguments, but rather a yearning for connection, for moving on, for seeing opportunity and hope.

People talked of growing appreciation for all 2,000 years of Christian heritage, from ancient tradition to virtual prayer groups. One speaker termed it a “convergence” of many roads.

This isn’t the “next new thing” in a linear progression from apostolic orthodoxy to storefront Pentecostalism. Rather, it’s an epochal claiming of an entire tradition, in which sectarian die-hards will drift to separate corners to snarl, but the forward-looking among evangelical, liturgical, charismatic and liberal traditions will find their common ground on the free-flowing margins and then in an emerging center.

To that end, participants showed enthusiasm not only for soaring ideas, but for the hard and practical work of nurturing healthy, forward-moving faith communities.

KRE/JL END EHRICH

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, consultant and leader of workshops. His book, “Just Wondering, Jesus: 100 Questions People Want to Ask,” was published by Morehouse Publishing. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C. His Web site is http://www.onajourney.org)


To obtain a photo of this columnist, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!