Thoughts on Convergence

The emergingchurch.info site shows promise; unfortunately it is rarely updated if updated at all. But an Englishman named Geoff Holsclaw has reflected on what convergence looks like for the 3rd millennial church.

After moving beyond a rationalistic faith, which reduced everything to impersonal propositions and a privatized faith, I begin looking for alternative expressions of faith. In this search I find "Celtic" Christianity, with its emphasis on nature, body/spirit holism, its prayers/rituals, etc,...or, as many others do, I go all the way back to the "Fathers" because their cultural situation is (claimed to be) like my own post-Christian culture, and therefore much could learned from them.

But instead of going through history to find conversation partners for a holistic faith, we should go global. The problem with this type of historical approach (although thinking historically is a big step) is it still only moves through "western" faith. (We move to the "Celts" back to the catholic mystics and monks, and then back to the "Fathers.") African and Asian Christians never became disconnected with nature, nor had a dualistic notion of man, and therefore are just as valuable to us as the "Celts" or the "Fathers", and even more so because we can actually dialogue with them. The Third World Church is living, and has lived, in situation similar to the Fathers for a long time now, and are therefore much farther along then us in "living" it. Let's talk with them about it. It is great to overcome our historical amnesia, but we also overcome our myopically localized vision.

Read the complete article