the great emergence and place…

I haven’t heard much about The Great Emergence so far (I’m not American), and haven’t read Tickle’s bookyet (I vowed not to buy books a couple of months ago, got to read through some of the books that’s been lying on my shelf first). But I notive some things being tagged with the Great Emergence on facebook the past few days from some friends and contacts. Like this picture:

HAT TIP to Jonathan Brinkwho posted it on facebook and Natanael Dislain who’s facebook feed I found it.

Now, nothing much about this picture, this is the basic of what Tickle’s argument seems to be about, as far as I can gather. You can watch this clip to see her speak on this:

The interesting thing that struck me was that South Africa has known only the last stretch, the protestant one. Especially the Afrikaans part of the country. But so is most (not all) of the emerging conversation as far as I can see. Most of it seems to be happening in countries that was colonized after the reformation, and specifically colonized by protestant countries. America, South African, Australia.

Can other parallels be found? The Reformation n in Germany, that country of the Germanic tribes that was never conquered by Rome, and only later became part of the holy Roman Empire. The Great schism that happened in Constantinopel, where if I remember by history right some big changes was happening because of Islam occupation. And then the council of Nicea, which happened when Christianity was finally released from any Judaistic links it had, and married to Greco-Roman culture.

Point is. From a quick glace maybe the big change in the church is always happening in new locations, places that wasn’t part of the previous big change, that doesn’t have a tradition of more than the past 500 years of church. Well, this is just a totally random thought, so please correct me.

Advertisement