Two contrasting views of "the emerging church".... (Main Forum)

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Sunday, October 23, 2011, 08:44 (580 days ago) @ Dolores

Thanks for those links, Dolores. I was curious at what Richard Rohr had to say and checked out the first video and in doing so found a whole heap of others down the right hand side of the page. After listening to Richard I had a look at the second one below which is a fundamentalist critique of the emerging church movement.

To me the second video is illustrative as to why it is too premature to speak of an "emerging church". As I keep writing, fundamentalism poses a massive challenge to modern human civilisation. We're dealing with forces in the psyche of these people that are more powerful than almost anything else known to humankind. It's like trying to negotiate with Islamic fundamentalists who fly jet airliners into tall buildings believing sincerely that they have been sent by God to impose Sharia Law on the world. There is simply no language any reasonable people can use to placate the fears and insecurities of the fundamentalists. They need certitude more than they need their breakfast each morning. They are not interested in "truth". Their need is for certitude. Catholicism suffers from this today as much as all of the other great religions of the world.

I do think there is a strong desire in many people for a new religious synthesis that challenges the fundamentalist synthesis of what the religious/spiritual quest is all about. I think Richard Rohr covers that well in the first video below. The people who are interested in that though are temperamentally not attracted to any kind of zealotry. They are not going to go to the barricades in defence of what they're searching for unlike the fundamentalists who will literally martyr themselves in defence of the certitudes they need more than their morning porridge.

We live at a fascinating moment in history and I would love to be around in a couple of hundred years' time to see what emerges from what is shaping up as a life and death struggle (certainly perceived that way from the fundamentalist pov). In the big, big picture I am confident the fundamentalists will not succeed. My confidence in that emerges from a look at the long sweep of human history — the Ascent of Humankind. Reason and common sense, tolerance and the rule of law, will eventually re-emerge triumphant as it always has since the first human crawled out of the first cave or the first embryo. There will be more wars and crusades though from the kindergarten elements with this unquenchable drive to prove their God, or their rules, or their way of looking at life, is superior to everybody else's God, or rules, or way of looking at life.

Richard Rohr on the Emerging Church?

How Dangerous Is The Emerging Church?

Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]