There's a Post-Charismatic Movement?

I kicked off what has turned out to be an interesting (and informative, for non-charismatic folks like myself) conversation about the charismatic movement, the post-charismatic movement, and Emergent. See my somewhat tongue-in-cheek post on “The New Charismatics?”

I called out John O’Hara from AGMergent, and he responded promptly with “Is AGMergent Toking the Jesus Bong?”

Andrew Jones was also quick to chime in, and he followed up today with an excellent wrap-up post of sorts. Andrew points out that Rob McAlpine (Robby Mac) has now published his book, aptly titled Post-Charismatic?

My friend Cyndi Clack has an in-depth post that discusses charismania, spiritual abuse, and Derren Brown’s “Instant Conversion Experiment,” which I’ve seen mentioned around the blogosphere in recent months.

A quick search in my RSS reader pulls up:

• an earlier post by Cyndi on “post-charismatic” that I think is also helpful.
• Jonathan Stegall describes himself as “post-charismatic” in his personal story on the AGMergent site.
• Jonny Baker may get credit for coining the term “post-charismatic” in the intro to Alternative Worship.
• Kester Brewin was blogging about being “post-charismatic” as far back as November 2005.

Rise Rally Today in Austin, Texas

Bob Carlton passed along some news about a rally today in Austin, Texas, being called “Rise … a rally for hope.” Jim Wallis from Sojourners is the main speaker, but members of the local Austin faith community will be speaking as well. Bob posted more details on his blog this morning.

The Austin Statesman newspaper picked up on this with a story over the weekend: “Faith leaders seek to bridge divisions, work for social justice.” Here’s an excerpt:

Some of the people who will speak at the rally represent widely different ideologies, but they all see the importance of addressing this question: “How are we called to end extreme poverty, to care for creation, to embody mercy?”

One of the speakers, Neil Blumofe, cantor and spiritual leader at Congregation Agudas Achim, said people of faith should embrace that challenge, even if — especially if — it means crossing ideological barriers.

“When was the last time we could really break down rhetoric?” he said. “When was the last time we could really break down fear?”

Not in a long time, Wallis says. But he believes it’s happening now that young Christians are becoming social justice activists and social justice activists are becoming Christians. And young people especially, be they liberal or conservative, Southern Baptists or Emergent, are willing to work together on issues such as the environment, hunger, health care and genocide.

"Pay-Per-View" Event with Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, and Mark Scandrette

No, this is not a cage match. It’s actually being dubbed a “Leadership Forum.”

John O’Hara over at the Emerging Pentecostal blog alerts us to an upcoming event that will be webcast live via Ustream.tv, which you can access for a small fee:

Cultivating Faith Communities in Emerging Cultures

Some view our rapidly changing world with great dismay. Others view it with great hope. Join authors and innovators Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt and Mark Scandrette in a hopeful conversation about “Cultivating Faith Communities in Emerging Culture Cultures.” You’ll have the opportunity to get a closer look at what’s happening on the cutting edge of the church in a postmodern world emerging cultures as Tony, Doug and Mark draw from real-life experience to lead three separate conversations on theology, church planting, and discipleship.

Date: Friday, June 20, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. PST

Location: Sequoyah Community Church, 4292 Keller Ave. Oakland, CA 94605

Cost: On-Site = $20 (includes lunch); Off-Site = $15 (no lunch)

Questions: Contact John at jfohara@gmail.com

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON REMOTE VIEWING: This is a pay-per-view event. To reserve your seat at the live stream, a payment of $15 can be made by clicking the “TIP JAR” on the ustream.tv page on or before Friday, June 19, 2008. This stream will be password-protected on Saturday, June 20!

Meet Trucker Frank: Part 4

Here’s the fourth video of Tony Jones talking to Trucker Frank (and others along the way):

Watch the third installment of Tony Jones and Trucker Frank

Watch the second installment of Tony Jones and Trucker Frank

Watch the first installment of Tony Jones and Trucker Frank

Weekly Emerging Women Round-up - 5/9/2008

By Julie Clawson, cross-posted from the Emerging Women blog:

So this is turning into a bi-weekly round-up … But there are some great posts out there right now from (and about) Emerging Women. Check them out, join the conversations, and enjoy!

Jan examines our willingness to share the indiscretions of our past (and how that relates to gender) in her post The Secret Life of Moms.

Sally shares her thoughts as she prepares for Mothering Sunday.

Lisa explores the different forms of justice.

Heather questions what it means to take ones faith to the next level.

Anne looks at the nature of disenfranchised grief.

I (Julie) reflect on if Christians should apologize for our communal sins.

And this has been an interesting week for bloggers to examine issues related to gender and women in ministry. A few conversations to check out –
Jenell Paris has created a (so-far) seven part series on the topic. Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Eugene Cho addresses the Biblical defense of women in ministry.

and Rose Madrid-Swetman writes on the need to change power structures in the church to give women more access to leadership.

The Emerging Conversation ... In Judaism

The January 16-17, 2006, gathering of Synagogue 3000 was captured on video, and that video has now been posted online:

Emergent Christian participants were Ryan Bolger, Troy Bronsink, Dwight Friesen, Tony Jones, Tim Keel, Doug Pagitt, and Dieter Zander—some of whom appear in this edited video.

The “blog facilitator” at Out of Ur writes, “The presence of ‘Emergents’ in two major world religions, and the cooperation of the two groups together, elicits a few questions in my mind:

1. For the critics of the Emergent movement: does the development of the Jewish Emergent movement indicate that the Christian Emergents are on to something? That is, does an analogous response from adherents of another religion validate the emergent impulse? If the emergent movement is not a strictly religious phenomenon, but is a cultural one with religious implications, what can traditional churches do to keep up with the times?
2. For proponents of the Emergent movement: what is implied by the fact that Emergent conversation leaders seem more willing to work cooperatively with ‘emergent’ adherents of other religions than traditionalist or ‘Reformed’ Christians? Is the emergent label of greater concern to them than the Christian one?
3. If Jewish Emergents can operate within the institution, why can’t Christian Emergents? Can institutional churches and emergent ones benefit from a collegial relationship with one another?”

Previously: Shawn Landres on “Emergent” and “Emerging”

Emerging Down Under

Two interesting book items from “down under” this week:

Duncan Macleod at Postkiwi.com (from New Zealand, now living in Australia) has an excellent review of Doug Pagitt’s forthcoming book A Christianity Worth Believing (due out June 2): “Doug takes us on a journey with him as he reimagines what Christianity might be about. He introduces us to contextualisation through the Celtic adoption of the wild goose when talking about the Holy Spirit (rather than the traditional dove). He traces the modern obsession with uniformity back to the Greco-Roman adoption of Christianity in the time of Constantine. Today, he says, we’re still interpreting the story of Jesus through the lenses developed for a world dominated by Greek dualism and gods that needed to be appeased. ...

“As much as Doug’s book is about belief, I get the sense that he’s presenting us with a Christianity worth living and worth sharing.”

AusJenny alerted me to Tony Campolo’s latest Red Letter Christians: A Citizen’s Guide to Faith and Politics.

Related: These aren’t from this week, but here’s a few more items of interest …

A new book came out recently entitled Emerging Downunder by Ray Simpson and Brent Lyons Lee (ATF Press), which explores “worldwide conversations about ‘emerging church’ and ‘new monasticism’ and applied it to a ‘downunder’ context.” The foreword by Tim Costello and the introduction are available as a PDF download. According to Amazon, the book won’t be out in the U.S. until September. (HT: Matt Stone)

Nick Fiedler is a USAmerican living in Brisbane, Australia, and he wrote recently about “What Can Emerging Communities Learn from Abroad?”

In response to Tony Jones’ post on “emerging/Emergent,” emergent kiwi Steve Taylor offers his response, as well as three interesting constructive ideas (see the comments section). Anyone willing/able to take on the EmergentTrainManifesto idea? The domain names are available. Which reminds me of Thomas Knoll’s “Emerging Stories” project, which (as of 5/9/2008) still needs four more contributors ...

New Phyllis Tickle Interview

Zach Roberts has a new audio interview with Phyllis Tickle up today over at the Dogwood Abbey website. In it, Tickle talks primarily about spiritual practices.

Rose Marie Berger has a post up this morning on the God’s Politics blog talking about Tickle’s upcoming book The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why. Berger writes, “Emerging Christianity, posits Tickle, brings together — rather than divides — the best practices of the Christian traditions, practices that have been divided in the church and held within denominations for 500 years. It also looks back at ancient church practices and tries to apply them in fresh ways in the post-modern era.”

Berger points to Brian McLaren, Rowan Williams, Karen Ward (of Anglimergent), the New Monastics, and the Sojourners community as other examples of those “who are keeping our rosebush tended.” (Note: You probably have to understand Tickle’s presentation on the “great emergence” to get the rose reference.)

UPDATE 5/9/2008: There is a rumored “Great Emergence” event being organized in Tickle’s hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, for the weekend of December 5-6. More details to follow …