review: The Great Emergence

The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why
Phyllis Tickle

I should begin with a confession. When I first started reading about the emerging (emergent, etc.) church I saw the name of Phyllis Tickle, and kind-of imagined that she was some kind of spoof. British comedienne Caroline Ahern has a character Mrs Merton who hosts a saucy chat-show.  I quite thought that Phyllis was another Mrs Merton.  I couldn't be more wrong.

Tickle is written up as 'founding editor of the Religion Department of Publishers Weekly':  there's no obvious academic credentials here, but the book is thoughtful and well-read.  It's a popular rather than scholarly book, yet is not simplistic in its treatment: it is easy to follow, but does not trivialize the subject material (I have no idea what a professional social historian might make of it).

For this is a broad-sweep social history Christianity: specifically, the branch which became Western Christianity.  I say 'social history' but it's mixed, really: there's an underlying philosophical thread, too.  The central idea is that every 500 years or so, the church has undergone profound change - and that we are in the middle of the latest one.  The sixteenth century saw the Great Reformation; the eleventh, the Great Schism, and the sixth, er, Gregory the Great, who was the final tipping point between the Roman Empire of antiquity, and the new shape of Christendom in the Dark Ages.  Yes, the last of those is a little arbitrary, and that slightly undermines the 500-year argument, but let's run with it anyway.

Those huge upheavals took, of course, about a century to work themselves through.  They coincided with changes in dominant philosophy, learning, science, technology.  This is not a simple story of progress,. a single narrative leading to specific goals: reformation was matched with counter-reformation, for example.  The Great Reformation gives Tickle her main template for studying the Great Emergence: discussion of the earlier upheavals (she calls them 'rummage sales') is quite limited.  The model and analogy works, though.

So the present rummage sale is portended by voices like Darwin and Freud; carried and discussed by mass communication technologies which have profoundly changed how individuals interact with centres of power, and so on.  Onto this canvas comes 20th century physics (and maths, which she overlooks) with deep profound uncertainty in its heart, technologies and emancipated lifestyles which have disrupted traditional families, and social movements like a-religious 'self help'.

Against that context, what is happening to the church?  There's a big movement to the centre - a loss of many traditional barriers among believers - and a counter-movement to cling to the certainties which distinguish one tribe from another: that centre surrounded by people at varying levels of emergence, from traditionalists through progressives to 'hyphenates'. The latter are the tongue-in-cheek epithets of Angl-imergents, Presby-mergents, and the rest who tend towards the new centre, but want to bring something of their heritage.    (Personally, I've .been disappointed never to come across any fellow Brethr-emergents).

The final chapter sets out 'The Way Ahead'.  I won't steal the plot by telling you what happens :) It's strangely ethereal: the book seems suddenly to run out of steam.  I kind-of expected a conclusion, a reflection on the shape of the Great Emergence, a discussion of how much further it has left to run.   There's a  little of this, but largely the reader is left to draw their own conclusions: this chapter is the most speculative, and the least satisfactory.


Over all, this is a great counterpart to  'The New Christians' which I reviewed recently: not dwelling on what emerging churches are up to, but exploring the context and reasons why such things are arising.  The notion that this is as big a shift in Christendom as the Reformation was is something which you can pick up in McLaren, also:  Tickle doesn't claim any originality for either the ideas or even the formulation she presents - there are extensive footnotes.  Of course, some have claimed that 'emergent' is running out of steam: Tickle's perspective, I think, and one I share, is that change is undoubtedly happening, and it will be far-reaching and has gone past the point of no return.   I don't think we can quite picture where it will land, where stability will arise, but there's no going back.