How Did It Come to Be?
The Great Emergence, whatever else it is or may become, is first and foremost the product of a recurrent pattern in Christian affairs. There is considerable benefit to all of us in exposing the presence of that pattern to public view. For one thing, seeing it allows those of us who are living through the current upheaval to more accurately evaluate and more wisely address the changes that seem at times almost to be swamping our ship. For another—and this often feels more important at a personal level—discovering and exposing pattern can greatly diminish our sense, either corporately or individually, that somehow, “This mess must be our/my fault. It must be because of something we/I did somewhere back along the way.” That simply is not true in the grand details, though it may be in some of the more minor, enabling ones. Guilt is neither appropriate, justified, or productive, in other words, when one comes to consider prayerfully and faithfully the Great Emergence. And there is no better way to shed the weight of it than by looking with clear eyes and informed minds at what has got us to this place.
To consider with clear vision and informed minds how the Great Emergence came to be and why it is presenting as it is, we would do well to look first at how some previous re-formation came to be and what general characteristics informed it. By doing so, we will allow ourselves the insights that historical parallels always provide and the comfort, as well, of feeling as if we are less alone, less trapped in some kind of anomaly. For such purposes, a brief overview of the Great Reformation of the sixteenth century is ideal. Not only are we closer in time and culture to the Great Reformation than to any other of the previous hinge times, but also most of us have at least a modicum of knowledge about the history of that era—of the major events and characteristics of its peri-Reformation, Reformation, and post-Reformation periods.