Every five hundred years, the church cleans out its attic and has a giant rummage sale of ideas.

According to Dr. Phyllis Tickle (author and founding editor of the Religion Department at Publishers Weekly), this is an accurate summary of church's massive transitions over time, and the period of dramatic upheaval we are living through right now.

Tickle calls the current upheaval the 'Great Emergence’ - a time of dizzying change and hopeful promise during which a new and “more vital” form of religion emerges. In her book, The Great Emergence, How Christianity is Changing and Why, she contends, "About every five hundred years the empowered structures of institutional Christianity, whatever they may be at the time, become an intolerable carapace that must be shattered in order that renewal and new growth may occur."

To make her case, Tickle escorts readers through the centuries of church history leading to this moment and persuasively charts the character of, and possibilities for, the emerging church. She argues that while the Great Reformation responded to the cry of sola scriptura (only scripture), the Great Emergence is asking a similar question: Where do we get our authority from?

View the video: Dr. Phyllis Tickle - The Great Emergence

Do you think that the church is in the midst of a “giant rummage sale”? Will the church emerge stronger in the end?

Join the conversation, read The Great Emergence, or read other books in the attached Book List, all of which are available in the Church Library.

 

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