In her book, "The Great Emergence", Phyllis Tickle reflects on this notion that every five hundred years, or so, the church has a huge rummage sale to determine what is still essential for the church today and what needs to be set aside for a time, or perhaps, even forgotten. She does a wonderful job reflecting on a timeline where this "rummage sale" has happened historically and culturally within the Christian Church. She, of course, believes that the church is going through such a sale now in the form of emergent and post-modern scholarship and conversation. I would agree with her. I think that the progressive, orthodox, and conservative congregations are clarifying their positions by what they are choosing to retain or to throw out as far as doctrine and dogma that has defined the theology, liturgy and understanding of this historical faith. In a time of pluralism and more and more familiarity with other religions and other spiritual disciplines, we are no longer seeking to be the monolithic people we once were, and consequently, we are freer to choose what means something to us and what has lost its relevance without the fear of being judged a heretic or fearing for our lives. In this time, it has become easier to disagree with theological principles and to choose principles that are relevant and life-giving.
I see this happening very specifically in the use or lack of use of the creeds in many of our American churches. More and more Protestant churches are moving away from creedal expressions. The churches that seem to keep the creeds within the context of their week to week services are the Catholics, Orthodox and what might be called the higher liturgical traditions. The fundamentalist have rejected outright creeds for most of their history. The Methodist, Presbyterians, Reformed Congregations, and newer denominations such as the United Church of Christ, have been inconsistent with the use or non-use of historical creeds. I think for the UCC, this practice depends upon the pastor and the specific theological training that the pastors may have received.
I think the movement of the Jesus Seminar, and scholars, theologians, and authors like Spong, Crossan, Borg, and Myers have examined with great scholarship and much writing the limitations of such doctrines as the Trinity, the Virgin birth, Incarnation, Bodily Resurrection and the doctrine of Christ's divinity and humanity as somehow equal with Spirit God. For obvious reasons to the rational mind these traditionally orthodox understandings of Jesus Christ and the Christian faith have been called into question and all of them have worked hard to breath new life into the human Jesus and the Spirit God without all the doctrine and dogma that has been a barrier to Christian faith and maturity. I think their efforts have been appealing to younger, more rational people who see themselves as spiritual, but cannot "buy into" the notion of some of the third and fourth century ideas that really did more to remove the humanity of Jesus and inadvertently also "watered down" the power of Spirit God in an attempt to legitimize and embrace the doctrine of the Trinity and this notion of Jesus as both truly divine and truly human. In the end, I don't believe that this has helped the cause of the Christian faith and scholars like Phyllis Tickle and the emergent church are reclaiming, what perhaps the first century Christians believed about Jesus Christ. For Phyllis Tickle and the emergent culture this is the great divide of the Christian faith as it is understood between newer and older Christians. I think there is some merit in their observations and scholarship.
As I prepare my discipleship lectures, Sunday School lessons, and sermons, I have been very aware of the current scholarship that is available as it relates to the Christian faith and have been weaving the progressive threads through the holes that have been left by the modern church fathers and mothers, trying to reclaim the original Christian community as best we can in a culture that thrives on capitalism, consumerism, and irresponsible freedom. As I babble on, I have found new and renewing energy in freeing the gospel to live by removing the "old layers" of ancient scholarship and am finding new freedom that had been stifling and breathless. Phyllis Tickle and many others have given for me both permission and a lens to explore the faith that has much more meaning to me than ancient ways of interpretation and understanding. .
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