Posted on 04/17/2008 6:09:22 AM PDT by Terriergal
MONTREAT, NC — Diana Butler Bass, author of six books on American religious practice, including Christianity for the Rest of Us and The Practicing Congregation: Imagining a New Old Church, will head the slate of preachers and teachers at this year’s “Reclaiming the Text” conference, May 26-30, at Montreat Conference Center.
The conference theme for 2008, “New Life Emerging from Ancient Texts: Breathing New Life Into the Lectionary,” will focus on connections between ancient texts and emerging contexts.
“An emergent church is a congregation that is trying to speak to a new set of cultural conditions,” Bass said. “It’s not any longer assuming that American culture is a Christian culture or a protestant culture. Instead it’s trying to speak the old truths of the Gospel in new ways that respond to a post-Christian setting.”
Bass says “a quiet revival” is happening in American religion today among moderate and liberal mainstream Christian congregations. “These Christians practice their faith with renewed enthusiasm, are experimenting with new forms of worship and service, and are, by their insistence on friendship, justice, and diversity, reforming the structures and traditions in which they find themselves.”
Aligned with neither the religious right nor the religious left, Bass calls the emergent church “a new, generous, practicing sort of postmodern Christianity, a kind of Christianity that is embracing and redefining tradition while enacting justice in the world.”
Other conference speakers are the Rev. Brian Blount, president of Union Theological Seminary-Presbyterian School of Christian Education (UTS-PSCE) in Richmond, VA; the Rev. Robert Brawley from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago; the Rev. Thomas Currie, dean of UTS-PSCE’s campus in Charlotte, NC; Jaqueline Lapsley from Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ; the Rev. Jaqui Lewis, a pastor at Middle Collegiate Church, New York, NY; Ched Myers, co-founder and program director of Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries, Oak View, CA; the Rev. Agnes Norfleet, pastor of Shandon Presbyterian Church in Columbia, SC; the Rev. Nora Tubbs Tisdale from Yale Divinity School in New Haven, CT; the Rev. Edna Banes from UTS-PSCE; and Barry Oliver, director of music ministries at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church, Asheville, NC.
For more information about the conference, visit the Montreat Web site or call 800.572.2257 or 828.669.2911, x339.
See Diana here
http://www.dianabutlerbass.com/
I travel a lot these days. When sitting on an airplane, a seatmate will inevitably ask me what I do. “I’m a writer,” I usually reply. “Oh, that’s interesting. What do you write about?”
I hesitate. Do I really want to answer? Finally, I blurt it out: “Religion. I write about religion.”
My seat companion looks askance—almost as if he is sitting next to some sort of fanatic. He obviously worries that I will spend our cross-country flight trying to convince him to accept Jesus in his heart, join an evangelical megachurch, vote for a local religious right candidate, or that the world was created in six 24-hour days. I quickly add, “Not that sort of religion. I don’t write about narrow, right-wing religion.” He looks relieved. “I write about mainstream and progressive Christianity—churches that base their message on God’s love for all people and God’s vision of peace and justice for the world.”
I see Diana has a Content-Free Sentence Generator. I'll bet the conference would be a fun place to take a nap, but all the nibble will be vegetarian.
The emergent church movement generally is very much aligned to the left. Yet another means to create God in man’s image.
(emerging church/PCUSA)
I almost don't care anymore. The PCUSA will do what it's going to do, and continue to stray from the gospel and historic Christianity, and continue to hemorrhage members until a tiny lefty pagan core is left. Emergent/emerging ain't gonna save them.
Well said — the PCUSA along with a host of other “mainstream” Protestant denominations. I just hope the biblical Presbyterian churches will hold fast and not allow this corruption to occur.
Hoss
INTREP
I had been going to a PCUSA church. Then one day I was in the church bookstore and on the wall each of the ministers had their “recommended books”. One of the ministers recommended the Brian McLauren book who is a bigwig in this Emergent Church movement. That was pretty much the final straw for me.
good for you!! :-)
That's for sure! It'll have the effect of bloodletting a sick-unto-death patient!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.