Emergent church, Deep church, Neo-orthodoxy, premodern, modern, postmodern spirituality. Nothing appears out of nothingness, ex nihilo, frequently what we have is merely a response. I've been trying not to post twice in one day but I read some stuff tonight that I feel I just got to post.
I learnt that German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel suggested in the history of human progress there were three dialectical stages of development: a thesis, which gave rise to its reaction, an antithesis which sought to contradict or disprove the thesis, and the tension between the two is generally resolved by means of a synthesis. However I seem to find evidence which says Hegel did not use these terms other than once. The idea is still useful. Much of the history of church life and practice seems to be wild swings of the pendulum rather than living with paradoxes or uneasy hybrids.
Jared at gospeldrivenchurch seems to be a prolific reader and reviewer. His recent review of Organic Community is well worth a read if only because I find myself agreeing with many of his issues. he writes:
[Joseph] Myers writes about cultivating community in and out of an existing environment rather than establishing a master plan and expecting an automatic falling in line. Echoing a growing cultural disenchantment with the small group cure-all, ... Essentially Myers is calling for flexibility, improvisation, nurturing people as people and responding to them, rather than approaching them as numbers or ideas and trying to plug them like tabs into a small group slot. It's like envisioning the cultivation of community like it's jazz music, not a line dance polka.But Jared critiques the very things (read here) that I also find issues with in many schemes. Its dependency upon the same still cultural values of leadership gurus and pop-psychology. The foreword is significantly written by Willow Creek teaching pastor Randy Frazee. In contrast an emergent church antithesis variant comes in Solomon's Porch which Jared provides links to here. Watch the video and also watch your own response to it. It sort of fitted my goth thinking until I realized something was missing.
I'm wondering if we shouldn't be really counter-cultural and wonder what God would have us do or better be. Not by doing the WWJD (What would Jesus Do) thing, but rather fasting and praying about it and asking God directly, expecting an answer. Now isn't that radical, perhaps even goth?
So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Luke 11:9-10
