Emerging Women
A friend sent me this link and I was simply wondering what others have experienced in this regard? It does not surprise me that emergents are under attack but it does sadden me.
http://www.dankimball.com/vintage_faith/2006/12/saddened_by_joh.html
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Dan Kimball strikes me as a emerging evangelical, whereas there are some who identify with "Emerging" but not with evangelicalism. Perhaps most churches that call themselves, "emerging" are more in line with emerging evangelicalism, whereas the emerging conversation online is more diverse and includes a some deeper questioning of paradigm, doctrine, certainty, black and white morality and the meaning of the gospel.
Perhaps a critical distinction needs to be made between questioning and discarding.
Perhaps too there is a reactive, even "adolescent" element to some aspects of emerging, but rather than see this is something threatening, perhaps it can be seen as developmentally normal. As we (those of us who identify with emerging,) mature, hopefully we will be able to feel confident and cohesive enough in our transformation and growth that we'll be able to integrate the traditions of our "parents," while being authentic to ourselves, our calling and our way of comprehending truth/mystery, God/Jesus and the Christian Story into whose pages we are invited to step and come alive.
Thanks, Jemila. When I posted this, I thought I had put it on the general EW blog site. Oh well...I'm not that sophisticated with blogging as yet. : ) I was about to email you and ask you to post it for me and then thought I should check this spot just in case.... DOH!
Don't worry, you are in the company of a fellow technophobe trying to learn along the way. I thought the post might be intended for EW, but hey, I guess the criticism of being too, "mystical" could relate to this site, right?
LOL! True, Jemila! This accusation of being "too mystical" amazes me. If we define mystical experience as personal interaction with God, why would this be despised so? Are we not called to love God, to know God? And how do you get to know God without spending time with God? I do not minimize the importance of study but I will point out that study helps us to learn ABOUT something. If I study scripture, I can learn about God. But that is subtly different than KNOWING God. And even then, accessing God through prayer, meditation and so forth, does not bring me to full knowledge of God. God reveals what God chooses to reveal of God's self when I make room for it through all spiritual disciplines. So, I will grow in intimacy with God...and it seems that is what God most requires of us. Doesn't God want ALL of us? Not just our heads, not just our hearts...but ALL of us?
Yes, Nancy, I completely agree. If direct contact with God is threatening, it kind of rings of trying to maintain order and control more than seek truth and intimacy with God.
Whoo-weee...there are some folks out there who do some powerful fear-mongering on the subject of Christian mysticism and spiritual formation. It's all strawman, but they portray themselves as experts (one couple who run a website think that because they're ex-"new agers," they're experts on the spiritual "danger" of spiritual formation and mysticism--I kid you not). I've seen the great historic mystics, including Teresa of Avila, Hildegaard, John of the Cross, and many others, portrayed as "new agers" on their site! And the one that made me cry for their blindness was their denigration of Brother Lawrence (whose letters were compiled into the book "Practicing the Presence of God"). Oh, and Richard Foster (of "A Celebration of Discipline") is an anti-christian heretic, too.
(sigh) The fear seems to be centered around the misconception that if any other faith tradition advocates practice of anything remotely similar to classical Christian spiritual disciplines, that makes those disciplines NOT Christian. It's so illogical as to be laughable to me, except that these are Christian brothers and sisters using their own weak spot (distrust of others' spiritual disciplines) as a yardstick for judging the faith of their fellow Christians. Sorry--that's not OK.
No amount of fear-mongering is going to make lectio divina and Christian centering prayers, non-Christian. God knows the heart, and I'm glad we're free to use whatever Christ-honoring spiritual disciplines that help us grow in faith. I simply wish these folks would focus their zeal on things that really do damage Christians' faith and witness.
Ummmm.....like intolerance, judgmentalism and hypocrisy?
What's funny is I was just typing a paper for my world religions class, listening to a CD based on sound/brainwaves research to help with relaxation and clarity, which most conservative Christians would probably write off as, "new age," even though it was not created in tribute to Vishnu or anyone else! Ha. Ironic timing, I just opened the CD this morning - a little Christmas/advent present to myself.
Wow, that is really sad that the beautiful Christian mistakes and even Richard Foster are written off by some in extreme reaction to unhealthy spiritual experiences or non-God centered spiritual practices in the past. If something is good or true in another religion, why does that automatically make it bad? Doesn't it mean they have found or practiced a piece of the truth? All truth is God's truth, right? We would do well to chew the meat and spit out the bones, rather than deprive ourselves of sources of genuine nutrition.
Heheheh...I LOVE the "Christian mistake" deal, Jemila. Yeah, too many people think that mystics are "mistakes."
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