Fr. Richard Rohr gets it right … on Emerging Church
It seems to me that the emerging church is emerging because people are finding the ability to have a grateful foot in both camps—on in the Tradition (the mother church) along with another foot inside of a support group that parallels, deepens, broadens, grounds, and personalizes the traditional message. But you don’t throw out the traditional message, or you have to keep rebuilding the infrastructure or creating a superstructure all over again.
The emerging church becomes an accountability system for the Tradition, which is needed to keep us honest and not just lost in words. This is a new kind of reformation in which we don’t react, we don’t rebel, we don’t start from zero again. You can’t start a spiritual reformation by spinning wheels, particularly not angry wheels. You have to be for something—totally—or it is not religion.
And so the appropriate questions are: What are you in love with? What do you believe in? What is the heaven that you have already discovered? What good thing do you need to share? This is the only work of soul.
Adapted from the CAC webcast, Nov. 8, 2008:
“What is The Emerging Church?”
This parallels what I’ve been saying lately about the relation between movements and institutions. When movement people don’t understand the value of institutions – and vice versa – everybody is worse off.
Well said, Richard!
