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rpp
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Provide some background, please. Most members here are uncomfortable clicking a blind link, especially from a new member.
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tparsons
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SO WHAT IS THE GREAT EMERGENCE?http://media.commercialappeal.com/mca/content/img/photos/2008/03/12/a13tickle1.jpeg
The Great Emergence refers to a book by an incredibly smart genius-type lady, named Phylis Tickle, who has put together the work of other really smart genius-type people like Wolf hart Pannenberg (anyone named “Wolfhart” is cool in my book), Bishop Dwyer and others to argue that the church goes through a massive upheaval every 500 years.
The beginning of the Common Era marked the rise of Apostolic Christianity
Roughly 500 marked the end of Rome and Apostolic Christianity and the rise of Monastic Christianity following the Great Decline.
Around 1000 we saw the end of Monastic supremacy and saw the rise of the Papacy following the Great Schism.
Around 1500 we saw the end of Papal Supremacy and the rise of the Protestant movement following the Great Reformation.
Now, we sit at the dawn of a new era of Christiantiy. Protestantism and it’s clarion call of Sola Scriptura is no longer the dominant source of religious, philosophical or moral authority. Before each of these great upheavals, there is about 150 years in which massive shifts in science & technology, a flood of information, significant loss of human life, changing conceptions of space and other predictable patterns take place. Tickle persuasively argues that we’ve just made it through the 150 years of preparation. Now it’s our turn.
We live in a time destined for world-changers. The time is ripe for a new generation of Luthers and Teresas, Benedicts and Gregory the Greats. We stand at the frontier of a frightening and exciting time when everything is on the line. It’s time to get to work
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CentralFLJames
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I had to delete that image all I kept seeing was a painted face that looked more like bozo the clown than it did a tower of intellect. Ugh…
No I have not read her book but did some online research. Uninspiring - just another example of a secularistic post-modernit religious seer who imagines herself in the mainline Church. She has no realistic credentials to know where “The Church” is headed (It’s the Pope’s job to rudder and project). I note her big life accomplishment was winning a Christy Award in “gratitude for a lifetime as an advocate for fiction written to the glory of God.”
Tickle is neither an academic nor a theologican but I suppose that being a Eucharistic minister and lector in the Episcopal Church and her success in republishing Catholic Divine Liturgy for fun and profit must bestow her with a towering religious authority that gets the attention of the national liberal mullet wrappers (CNN, USA TODAY, NEWSWEEK, TIME and NY TIMES). The pope won’t respond to their emails but she does so she is dubbed “the respected authority of US religion”. Hmm, “Archbishop of the Americas Tickle”?
She has made a personal industry out of repackaging the Catholic Church Liturgy of the Hours for profit as a seperate seasonal series – as if the ancient tradition of the Catholic liturgy was her own invention. It bothers me that The Catholic Church never copyrighted its own works (bible, LoH, hyms etc.) and permitted Protestant copycats to extract billions of dollars in revenues off Church works over the last 500 years.
From online sources I see that this book is nothing more than a Protestant-centric history of “The Church” written by an author who as usual imagines that she resides in the true church. I don’t know when Protestants are ever going to get around to doing the numbers and realizing that Protestantism is a minority – an aberration as much as it is an anathema to orthodox Catholics. An ecclesial community (Catholic view) is not exactly the best vantage point to know what “The Church” is doing or where its headed. Ms. Tickle is writing fiction for non-Catholics. Why put this book up for comment in a Catholic forum? Why does Ms. Tickle even imagine she is even qualified? Did she interview the Catholic pope or bishops before she formed her predictions (or is it a prophecy?)? Nope…
I think it is absurd that a woman who is not even a formal member of The Church (which 1.2 billions Catholics know is seated in Rome) imagines she has a realistic handle on where we are going. The give away about Ms. Tickle’s lack of ecclesial insight is revealed when she suggests that technology and social trends are what are forcing “the church” to change – as if Christ and the Holy Spirit are not in charge and God responds to man’s whims and the latest techo-babbles, knickknacks and practices.
Tickle is clearly a religious-secularist who imagines its the sociological changes that are driving factors in God’s church. In other words God’s not in control - it’s the declining moral condition of sin that drives the evolution of the church to get her the new 10 penny phrase “the Great Emergence”. Frankly, I think she missed the boat/barque 500 years ago in imagining the Luther’s abominations (sola scriptura and sola fide etc.) represent even a semblance of The Church. This book is pandering to Protestant fears that sola-scriptura is rapidly falling apart now (which is true). A more humble and honest book title would be: “The Great Protestant Emergency”.
Ms. Tickle must imagine “The Church” as a big flea market of Protestant denominations under a ragged and tattered big-tent of sola-scriptura – with the much bigger dinosaur of Catholicism (and its little bro Orthodox) cloistered with time-out in the parking lot as a side show attraction. It’s worse than Kool aid - cotton candy and fatty fennel cakes at carnival time is more apropos here. To her credit though Tickle is seeing the core problem of Protestantism (not “The Church”). She traces the diminution of the authoritative place of scripture in culture and Christianity from what she imagines is its heady beginnings in the Reformation to its marginalization in the current postmodern era. She is trying hard to find the center of authority in the mob-rule of Protestantism. Frankly I think she is cleverly pandering to Protestant fears and anxieties by futher spinning them up at how sola scriptura is falling apart just to sell more books.
To quote a reviewer “Tickle sees all denominations, all churches, all movements in the quadrant of Christianity (conservative, liturgical, renewalist, and social justice) as converging toward the center.” Here I must laugh. She really is utterly blind to the fact that the Catholic Church has never had a crisis of leadership and authority yet in her world “The Church” must move toward the center as a reactionary response to the post-modern social chaos and redefinition of the traditional family that is ongoing. This won’t please the fundamentalists nor the “me and my bible” ultra liberal Protestant sects. I can’t help but imagine that Tickle was a big cowboy and Indians genre fan and sees “The Church” now forced to form up the wagons in a circle and stand at the center to define a locus of authority while the Indians circle and attack.
Bottom line - this is another fantasy book of the genre that uses historical evidence to form a structure for fanciful projection. She seems to be oblivious to the implicit suggestion that there must be a prime mover (but leaves it ambiguous as to if its God or Satan?) that is forcing the Church to adapt to ever changing social dynamics in a society that is ever more secular in nature. At least she sees that what she imagines is “The Church” is in a crisis of authority (very true for Protestantism) and so must adapt and will adapt. Most Catholics will see her as a self-ordained oracle who is just predicting the obvious – more fracturing and shredding of Protestantism and the demise of sola scriptura as a unifying authority or organizing principal.
This is nothing but a book intended to extract the author’s vig out of the pockets of old-school Protestants who are having anxiety attacks over the loss of political clout in society and to give the impression that all the social dynamic is just a natural divine response in the natural evolution of “the church”. It sure sounds a lot like socio-ecclesial Darwinism but up close it looks and smells more like cannibalizing one’s own dying corpus to have “one’s cake and eat it too” while self-serving and profiting on selling the obvious outcome to others.
A big-tent garage sale – and those old dusty bibles must go – never mind the Catholic dinosaur out in the parking lot he is just an anachronistic left over.
James
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rpp
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Okay, to me, the use of that phrase, “Common Era” rather than Anno Domini (A.D.) demonstrates that they have succumbed to the modernist influence and I will not read any of their junk. I have never encountered any writer who used that phrased who was faithful to the Church and did not promote heresy. I stopped reading the post at that point.
That and the slobbering worshipfulness expressed when describing the authors in the opening paragraph and that absolutely needless and atrocious picture in the post, I found extremely distasteful and completely not worth wasting my time on.
I am unsubscribing from this thread, yet will remain very cautious of any poster with any variation of the name of “parsons”. How many IDs do you plan on using here? We are supposed to use only one.
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tparsons
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I agree with you. I would never read anything she wrote. This is a copy and paste from a website. I didn’t write one bit of it nor did my wife. The reason I did that is because a poster was reluctatnt to open a link my wife posted in the original and she doesn’t know how to copy and paste I did it for her under her login… BTW- I’m Tony and my wife is Belinda. We were asked to read this woman’s book from a protestant friend, but thought I would get some feedback from our fellow catholics and what we got was chaos except for one reply. Anyway, sorry for all the mess.
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wisdomseeker
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i know you had good intentions. just be very carefull about reading anything that is not Catholic. i wouldnt even consider reading anything that is not Catholic. if you have enough money give to the Church in need and not to protestants who works against the CC. we live in times where many are coming against the Church and our faith. the devil seems to be working through many even Catholics. so it is time that we only listen to the Church and nothing else.
God bless.
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