Emerging Africa

This has been a week of emerging stories, and increased energy. So I propose that we conduct a few interviews. Subjects can include:

• People, either members here or not
• Communities or Churches
• Mission, Projects or Events
• Vision or ideas

The interview is one better than the "let's go around a share something" or just waiting till inspiration strikes, because it is conducted by someone who hopefully has carefully investigated a little around the subject, and can bring some constructive structure to it, and can draw people out.

The Afrika Burn 2008 synchoblog is as follows:

• Nic Paton (emergentvillage) : "Burner Culture and the Emerging Church"
• Interview with Brendan Smithers, of The Upsetters, creators of The Wish (2008) and The Turbine (2007)
• Nic Paton : "Soop - sound (waves) out of place"

Cross-posted from Emergent Villiage

He said to me: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.” [Revelation 1]

• Is there a parallel between our questions of origin and our questions of destiny?
  
• Does the emergent view put us in a position to understand and deal with these questions better than our forebears?
  
• Can we ask these questions in a fresh way, so as to bypass the clichéd discussions of evolution vs. creation and original sin or original blessing (on the alpha end), or hell vs. heaven (at the omega)?

Or AfrikaBurn: Why the church should be there...

The 2nd regional Burn (Burning Man event) will take place between the 16th and the 19th October near the Tankwa Karoo National Park, Northern Cape, South Africa. Theme: Power.

Last years event was genuinely life changing for several of us. I want to spell out why this was, and to give a few reasons why "the church" - or Christians who care about mission, community, creativity, and the sacred - should be there. See the "testimonies" here, as well as some serious evangelical scholarship on Burning Man.

Last month (July 2008), evangelical Christian magazine Joy featured an article on the Emergent Church.

Graeme Codrington responded on his blog post called "Lies about truth", which I recommend, but I wanted to add my voice to his, because I think the general view as put out by publishers such as these are distinctly one sided. I feel full of hope and excitement at what the EC movement is bringing to us, and I can't watch those with the media say-so simply dominate the "debate".

Modernism: The predominant worldview of the 20th Century, comprising of:

1. The culmination of the Individual as Ideal, at the expense of Community.
   
2. A belief in "Progress": Man's indominitability and superiority in the Order of Things, as represented in his unsustainable exploitation of the Earth.
   
3. A faith in technology - abstraction from nature - to provide man's needs.
   
4. A hope in a final, universal, and therefore static, solution to mans problems.
   
5. A denial that the creative process is ongoing, and that we will forever be faced with the unknown.
   
6. An epistemology (theory of knowledge) based in rationality at the expense of emotional intelligence and intuition.

I am becoming aware of a tension between 2 strands of Emergence - the postcolonial and the postmodern.

This tension provides us not with a problem to be solved via a bosvergadering or an ecumenical council, as in politics, but rather an opportunity. I have been noting various grumbles from either "camp" towards the other; the postcolonials suggesting the postmoderns are theorists, out of touch with African issues, and the postmoderns suggesting that there is a good reason to theorise, deconstruct and analyse, as well as to take the lead of European philosophical and church movements.

We had a rather (to use a new phrase of Matt Stone's) "pluriform" representation amongst the contributors, which is what was wanted. From measured Reformed exposition, to unbridled Gnosticism, from Emergent Chaos mongering to Evangelical Order management, from Explicit Patriarchy to The New Feminine Divine, a fairly wide range of views has come into view.

And although there were as few tentatively "guilty of heresy" charges, and gratuitous use of the newly in focus "H" and "O" words, the overall tenor was conversational, not judgemental. No-one resorted to mudslinging, and everyone was at pains to "express the hope that they hold". I salute all, those posting and those commenting!

OK that’s the feel good stuff out of the way: what were the criticisms?

In the last while we have enjoyed, thanks to Stray, a virulent discussion around post modernism. As in all good discussions, it began to veer into other territory, and I felt it was time for a new post.

Aratus pointed out that the famous scripture from Acts "In him we live and move and have our being" was a quote from 2 Greek poets, (including his namesake). This is blindingly obvious, because Paul starts by saying "As your own poets have said...". But this is my point, I have thought about and celebrated this phrase as being exclusive to an incarnational faith through Christ, for many years.

I can't help noticing that the previous 2 heartfelt postings, "What does it mean to truly love God?" by Annalisa and "Original Sin and The Sinful Nature : Sex, Sexuality and Homosexuality" by Stray have not attracted any comments. Also comments made in the past months have not engendered much response.

I wanted to say something, because I felt that both Annalisa and Stray really put their hearts out there, and I just wanted to thank them for doing so.