Informal dialogue focuses on new forms of spirituality in the American church
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06/10/11
Left to right: Winner, Tickle, Jones
Watch their conversation on Vimeo.In the midst of final papers and studying for exams, many students and other members of the Fuller community filled Travis Auditorium on Wednesday evening, June 8, for “Emerging Spiritualities in the American Church,” featuring Tony Jones, Lauren Winner, and Phyllis Tickle and presented by the Berry Center for Lifelong Learning and the Burner Blog.
The three speakers and authors discussed new forms of spirituality in the Church, focusing specifically on the emergence movement. Tickle, Winner, and Jones had convened in Pasadena for the week to teach for the first gathering of the new Christian Spirituality cohort, led by Jones, for Fuller’s Doctor of Ministry program.
Jones, author of
The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier and theologian-in-residence at Solomon's Porch in Minneapolis, noted that 15 years ago, it would have been anathema to celebrate Lent in a Baptist church in his home state of Minnesota. But now, “something dramatic has shifted,” he said. Last spring, the largest Evangelical church in his region promoted a weekly Lenten meditation hour, and many other Evangelical churches are incorporating spiritual practices such as
lectio divina, embracing the richness of the liturgy, and emphasizing social justice.
In her comments, Lauren Winner, author of
Girl Meets God and professor at Duke University Divinity School, observed that in the last five years she has experienced in her own life and seen among many Christians an effort to achieve a balance between active and contemplative spirituality. “I’m not sure I can say that’s a trend in North American spirituality,” said Winner, “but I hope that it is.”
“One of the most fascinating things about emergence Christianity is how it draws from orthodox spirituality,” remarked Tickle, compiler of
The Divine Hours and general editor of the Ancient Practices series. “In the West, we had thrown that away a thousand years ago,” she said, noting that now Western Christians are exploring the use of icons and revisiting ideas of incarnational spirituality. Orthodox spirituality has a further influence on emergence Christianity in that it moves away from ascribing many words and attributes to God and toward mystery and apophatic theology. “Any emergence Christian worth his or her soul,” she said, “would say the idea that we can create a set of rules that describe God is utter arrogance.”
Jones reflected on the beginnings of the emergence movement and conferences that he, Tickle, and Winner attended back in the early 2000s, where they presented on topics such as
lectio divina and the liturgical calendar—now practices folded into many Evangelical communities. “It’s been amazing how warmly emergence spirituality has been embraced among Evangelical circles,” he said, admitting, “I don’t know what’s going to happen next!”
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