Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada Emerging Spirit @ The United Church of Canada

Photo: Mathieu Struck*

The modern age was ushered in by the Enlightenment (mid-1600s to early 1800s). One characteristic of the Enlightenment framework was a rejection of tradition and religious sources of authority in favour of reason and knowledge. Over time, the modern age became wed to the idea of progress and the conviction that science had the ability to make things bigger and better and to solve any problem that arose. The deep assumption was that if and when we could control the natural world we would continue to grow in wealth, health, and leisure.

In the modern age religion became private - a personal matter between ourselves and God, a principle enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Reason and knowledge were part of the public realm - this is the time of the rise in public schools, universities, political parties, as well as capitalism. In the modern age we sought certainty, freedom, and progress.

Most of us in the church were born and raised in the modern age or by modern-age parents. At most, we will be students of the postmodern age.

Postmodernity refers to the progressive loss of confidence in the Enlightenment framework and process. Since 1945 the air has gone out of the Enlightenment balloon, with rapid deflation during the 1970s and 1980s.

Postmodernity has given birth to Green politics and anti-consumerism. Anxiety and fear seem to be more prevalent, perhaps a result of declining confidence that we can solve the challenges ahead - short and long term - through using science and reason. In the postmodern world, knowledge is no longer seen as inherently good. Alongside this culture of suspicion has also grown a new emphasis and delight in inclusivity and wonder. 

As society moves along the shift from modern to postmodern, what are some of the implications for the church and ministry?

Excerpted from the Emerging Spirit booklet, "Congregational Ministry in a New World," which can be downloaded here in full, along with study questions (log in required).

*Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mathieustruck/212751235/

The Christian church seeks to be a community rooted in faith and engaged in the world.

We root ourselves in faith through worship, spiritual practices, caring for each other, and learning together. We yearn to share our faith with those we love and with a world that is hungry for spiritual food. We want our own lives to have meaning, to make a difference for good in God's world.

All of this means that God calls us into relationship with the world, all of the world, not just those people who look like us and think like us. We are called to understand this world in which God calls us to minister.

The world has changed! And you know this.

We no longer live in a world where:

Last year Greg Prato published a book called A Devil on One Shoulder and an Angel on the Other: The Story of Shannon Hoon and Blind Melon. I don’t find this noteworthy because I’m a fan of Blind Melon (actually, I’m only a fan of the song “No Rain”). I don’t find this noteworthy because his book is ranked #7837 on Amazon.com (#95 in the category “Memoirs”). I find it noteworthy because Greg Prato wrote and published the book himself using Lulu.com. Greg Prato is a rebel.

At one time, book publishing was tightly controlled. You submitted a proposal or a first chapter and a few months later a publisher expressed interest. You were assigned an editor (someone with knowledge in your area) and together you completed the book. Sometime, often far in the future, the thing was published.  No more. I could sit down tonight, bang out 200 pages of blog (like the one you are now reading) and send it to Lulu. It would be published online immediately (after using their dandy wizard). Within 5 days you could order on Lulu, and some time in the very near future (if the demand was great enough) it might appear on Amazon. 

Publishing is suddenly post-modern. Greg Prato, countless musicians and millions of aspiring film-makers have decided the same thing: let the people decide what is worthy of attention (and sales). The era of tightly controlled access to bookshelves and CD racks is over, and the people can now bypass publishers and find talent on their own. The modern era of editors, publishers and established critics has come to an end.

What on earth does this have to do with the church? Let me tell you.