Emerging Church Thoughts

Just found this quote. It gives a hint at why the Emerging Church phenomenon still seems mainly a Western, Northern Hemisphere, "rich" country, non-Third World movement. Still mulling its implications, but here it is:

"If we look beyond the liberal West . . . , largely still without the saving grace of technology, we find . . . [a] very different Christianity from that one called for in affluent suburbs and upscale urban parishes. We find a church that is highly supernatural, ultraorthodox and inclined to see Jesus as the embodiment of divine power who overcomes the evil forces that inflict calamity and sickness on the human race. In the global South--the part we used to call the Third World--there are huge and growing Christian populations--more than 500 million in Latin America, nearly 400 million in Africa and nearly 325 million in Asia, compared with a rapidly declining 215 million in North America. Some scholars are beginning to call it the Third Church, a form of Christianity far more distinct than Roman Catholicism is from Protestantism or Orthodox. The revolution . . . taking place in Africa, Asia and Latin America is far more sweeping than any current liberal shifts in North America, be they Catholic, Anglican or Protestant. No matter what the terminology, however, an enormous rift seems inevitable, far greater than the first reformation which changed forever the face of Europe in the sixteenth century."

"The changes that liberal reformers are trying to inspire today in North America and Europe," McCullum said-changes they see as "essential if Christianity is to be preserved as a modern relevant force"--such changes "run utterly contrary to the dominant cultural movements in the rest of the Christian world."

Food for thought, especially for someone living in Africa....

::thoughts::

Does this reformation run contrary to the reformation happening in the emerging church host-countries? Is it going to split us right down the middle and create an ever-widening gap? Is the Emerging Church ever going to be the culturally relevant movement it strives to be when it's not actually within these cultures? Will it's use of the internet, high-cost technologies, costly practices and gatherings (as seen by those who struggle to just survive daily elsewhere) seperate it from those it's trying to reach?

Or is there more in common with the emerging church, in spite of it's technological supremacy? Is the emerging church returning to the same orthodox and mythical roots that is underpinning the Third World revolution? Will this actually bring North and South together as a united Christianity?

What will it take to keep us together?