Where is Church??

I've just finished reading Phyllis Tickle's popular book, The Great Emergence. It's a real stew, involving of a lot of complex technology, sociology, and theological development. I spend the bulk of my life working the twin frontiers of emerging communication technology and the ways to infuse that technology into education—at all levels. So I was struck by the way the author touches on—but does not fully explore—the ways the Internet has amplified the emergence she describes.

The emerging Christianity Tickle describes is very much parallel to what, in computing jargon, is called a distributed network. In such a system, if I choose to send a piece of information from Point A to Point B, it will always get there, but the route that it takes will almost certainly be different each time. In fact, the network will likely break that information into separate packets, any one of which may take a different route. Yet, they all arrive, and the message remains intact. We oversimplify the impact of this communication revolution—or Tickle's succession of diagrams of emergent Christianity—at our peril. Each affects us on more levels than we probably recognize.

The “unhinging” that Tickle describes centers on the diminution of families (and mothers and grandmothers in particular) as the arbiters of cultural norms. They didn't do this intentionally; they simply got too busy, or too distracted, or separated by too great distances to pay attention to it. The certainty—and the locus—of authority suffers as a result.

Unlike education, Christianity defines itself in communities, and geography has always been the delimiter of those communities. But what happens if I can do Bible study on a wiki, with participants from around the world? Does the German Reformed churchman from Zurich read St. Luke with the same nuance as mine? Will a young Irish Catholic blanch at my comment about Paul's letters? But isn't this a community of faith also? But now, the community now emerges on new terms.

One of Ms. Tickle's most interesting points is that the movement of emergent forces toward some new state usually engenders a counter-reaction. (Think of the few dioceses that have left the Episcopal Church.) To these folks she attributes surprising importance, noting that their presence acts as ballast, keeping things from rolling too far in any one direction.

Throughout her text, Tickle notes that these changes are, in and of themselves, neither good nor bad. “They just are,” she writes. Gee, thanks; now what do we do?

These phenomena are larger than any of us, or our congregation, or our diocese, or even our church. The riddle lies in how we navigate them from here. I'll to explore the potential of these new media connections—for the better or the less better—in upcoming posts.