The Great Emergence

EXCERPT FROM CATALOG
The first pattern that we must consider as relevant to the Great Emergence is Bishop Dwyer's rummage sale which, as a pattern, is not only foundational to our understanding, but also psychologically very reassuring for most of us. That is, as Bishop Dwyer observes, about every five hundred years the empowered structures of institutionalized Christianity, whatever they may be at that time, become an intolerable carapace that must be shattered in order that renewal and new growth may occur. When that mighty upheaval happens, history shows us, there are always at least three consistent results or corollary events. First, a new, more vital form of Christianity does indeed emerge. Second, the organized expression of Christianity which up until then had been the dominant one is re-constituted into a more pure and less ossified expression of its former self. As a result of this usually energetic but rarely benign process, the Church actually ends up with two new creatures where once there had been only one. That is, in the course of birthing a brand new expression of its faith and praxis, the Church also gains a grand refurbishment of the older one. The third result is of equal, if not greater significance, though. That is, every time the incrustations of an overly-established Christianity have been broken open, the faith has spread--and been spread--dramatically into new geographic and demographic areas, thereby increasing exponentially the range and depth of Christianity's reach as a result of its time of unease and distress.