Book Review #1 - "The Great Emergence" by Phyllis Tickle

Jill Pratt
October 7, 2009
Church & Mission in a Global Context, Dr. Bolger
Book Review #1

The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why
By Phyllis Tickle

Chapter 1 – Rummage Sales: When the Church Cleans Out Its Attic
Phyllis Tickle does all students a favor with her clarity of focus in her writing style, as evidenced by the opening chapter. She manages to summarize the previous 500-year blocks of history in regards to Christianity, as well as Judaism, and even reaches beyond to other world religions and periods of great thinking. This framework is greatly beneficial to classify this knowledge under, in terms of organizing thoughts and retaining a clear memory. The description of the period between 900 BCE and 200 BCE, with all the growth that took place during it is rightly summed up as, “…humanity, in other words, that was emerging; and it was bringing with it both its religions and a growing sense of itself as more than victim to circumstance,” (30). This is an exemplary statement of Tickle’s thinking communicated in a straightforward manner that is beneficial for all.

Chapter 2 – Cable of Meaning: The Loss and Discovery of a Common Story
The cable in this chapter and its parts is an excellent diagram in which to derive concise meaning from, regarding the connections of religion and the order of operations found in the 500 year cycle of change: spirituality, corporeality and morality. I was struck by the description of the 500-year cycle, because as an American, much of my faith growing up has rested in a sense that “things are ok” meaning that there is religious consensus of the important Christian ideas. The 100-year time of mending and the 150 years of calm in between that and the beginning of the unfurling of ideas are actually brief and not comforting at all. Finally, the simple explanation of consensual imagining with the flat world example finally put into words what has been floating in the back of my mind for several years now, and excites me to finally be able to characterize some of my thoughts regarding Christianity and the importance of right-thought.

Chapter 3 – The Great Reformation: A Prequel to Emergence
The author’s comparison of the parallels between the Great Reformation and the Great Emergence is intriguing as even a layperson only beginning to understand these complexities can see similarities today, with the unfortunate practice of “competition over cooperation” continuing to prevail, evidenced in the campaign for democracy that is linked to American Christianity (59). Are we really repeating the past?

Chapter 4 – Questions of Re-formation: Darwin, Freud, and the Power of Myth
What is striking in this chapter is that an individual and her or his thinking and writing can be the catalyst for profound change. This seems to be a demarcation of our present time, more so than say during the 16th century. Whereas kings and armies used to hold the influence, today the common man, thinking in his laboratory, can generate change in our landscape of thought and practice, with assistance of course from the communication tools we now have. And while Tickle points out in the footnotes that this treatment only has room for North American Christianity (although no doubt disregarding North Americans south of the United States), I could not shake the desire to consider other Christian groups in the same conversation, (75).

Chapter 5 – The Century of Emergence: Einstein, the Automobile, and the Marginalization of Grandma
In regards to Einstein and Faraday, it is peculiar that the more humanity understands the laws of the God’s creation, the less we attribute to God. Just as with the Fall, human beings’ understanding of God’s knowledge drew them apart from him, not closer. And while study can be considered a spiritual discipline, does it always serve to rip us from childlike faith? Much more can be said of this chapter, but perhaps the point that was most personal to me was around the Sabbath and the disappearance of the evening church service. It hit home how much I truly am subject to my culture, no matter how cross-cultural I would like to be. I remember as an undergraduate student struggling with real guilt for several years about attending evening church services versus their morning counterparts. Upon reading that they used to be the norm, I realized how silly and truly relative feelings, even ones associated with spirituality, can be.

Chapter 6 – The Gathering Center: And the Many Faces of a Church Emerging
Through this reading I have come to understand my own life in a new time period- one that I did not ever realize before, as described in the introduction to this chapter. I had always felt that my life had begun (in the 1980’s) during a time of certainty, but through this examination I have come to believe that what I mistook for certainty was merely childhood and now that the first quarter of my life has elapsed, I am painfully self-aware. Except now I have the gift of a framework that my awareness can operate within and gain direction from, which is a true comfort.

Chapter 7 – The Way Ahead: Mapping Fault Lines and Fusions
In the closing paragraph, the word “reconsideration” jumps off the page. Is that not what the cycle is all about? If so, this Great Emergence has brought us to the point of reconsidering consensual imagining, “rewriting Christian theology” and then starting the process all over again (162).