Posted 83 days ago

The Great Emergence Book Review

By Tim Mathis

Like every other emerging Christian blogger, I recently finished a single-sitting reading of Phyllis Tickle’s mini-masterwork, Great Emergence, The: How Christianity Is Changing and Why (emersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith). In the interest of sounding like a critical observer let me say from the outset that I find her opening thesis questionable: that the “emerging church” conversation is of similar historical significance to the birth of the Christian Church, the Great Schism of 1054, and the Reformation. (I will say thanks though Phyllis, we’re flattered, and I hope you’re right!)

Now that we have that out of the way, let me gush (!!!):

I’m having a hard time describing how much I loved this book without using expletives! She outlined convincingly the primary existential crises of the 21st century postmodern Christian West concisely and brilliantly, which happen to be the exact existential crises that I went through in my transition away from the Evangelicalism of my youth (and she listed them in almost the same order that I experienced them)! She avoided the trap of labeling emergence as any one (easily dismissible) set of ideas or organizations, and pointed out that our “conversation” includes the totality of the world’s post-modern expressions of Christianity! She accurately described and accounted for the crisis of religious authority that millions of us are experiencing, and pointed to emergence as an expression of the new global and multicultural nature of life in the Christian West! And this book came from Phyllis Tickle—an elder stateswoman of the Episcopal Church and Christian world in general! Someone my church will actually listen to! It all adds up to the most important Christian book of the year! OH SNAP critics of emergence, you got served!!

Deep breath. Deep Breath. Phew. I’m glad I got that out. I’m calming down now. Okay…

The fact is, whatever its limitations this book is without a doubt the best and most readable primer on the Emerging Church phenomenon that I’ve come across, and concisely summarizes the main intellectual and historical influences that have initiated this “conversation” –in North America and I would argue the English speaking world as a whole. It defends the spiritual legitimacy, vibrancy and necessity of the EC conversation, and locates it accurately within the Western cultural context from which it arose. In a note on page 164 Tickle compares Brian McLaren’s A Generous Orthodoxy (Harper, 2005) to Luther’s 95 Theses. Her book is more like that. It’s not that, and there are probably times that she, like me, gets carried away in her enthusiasm, but what the book represents is emergence being firmly and officially nailed to mainstream America’s Church door. Bravo and once again, thanks Phyllis.

Tim Mathis lives with his wife Angel on Capitol Hill in Seattle, and is currently aspiring to be an Episcopal priest, writer, and member of the Anglican Order of St. Stephen

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