How Did It Come to Be?
Tickle offers in part 2 a brief history lesson (or refresher, as the case may be) of the Great Reformation in order to help us understand how the Great Emergence came into being. She suggests that guilt is unproductive as well as unjustified when we realize we are caught up in a pattern that reaches far beyond the tips of our own proverbial noses. This is, however, much easier said than done.
“Where now is the authority?” This question drives every reformation. Our societal cable of meaning is constructed in such a way as to keep this daunting question at bay, for the most part. However, every so often shifts in culture pock both the casing and the mesh sleeve simultaneously, and the question is unavoidable. Before discussing our responses to the chapter, let’s look briefly at how the question of authority during the Great Reformation led to the institution of sola scriptura, denominationalism, and cultural Renaissance.
During the time leading up to the Reformation, societal stressors began to beg the question of authority from all sides. It did not happen overnight, but looking back one can see how it could only mean the coming of a rummage sale. Much of the cohesion of the Middle Ages relied upon the concept of “corpus Christianum,” the ideal of a unified society derived from biblical images of the body of Christ. To our ears, the phrase “body of Christ” quite readily means “the church” in some form or fashion, but to medieval ears that phrase incorporated the whole of society. In many ways, this was a necessary concept as it provided a means of unification in the face of foreign invasion. It also benefited the role of the pope, who stood atop the corpus Christianum, if not as the head, then certainly as the neck. The corpus Christianum relied upon the classification of people into three orders, or roles. There were workers, there were fighters, and there were prayers, and each fulfilled their role in order to produce stability and harmony for the larger society.
The orders allowed for relative peace and societal growth, but with growth came massive changes. First, the appearance of merchants created a dilemma, as they defied classification by not “fitting” into any of the existing orders. These merchants then began congregating in geographically advantageous areas for both protection and greater commerce, which led to the development of cities. Competition replaced cooperation, and the three orders of the corpus Christianum were eventually abandoned in favor of more specialized vocations. The economy began to shift from an exchange economy to a monetary one, and the significance and far-reaching effects of this shift cannot be overstated. Latin, once the universal language, was supplanted by local vernacular. People began to affiliate themselves with certain cities rather than the societal whole, and the rise of universities encouraged independent and individualized thinking. All of these changes began unraveling the ideal of corpus Christianum. Christianity as a religion was unprepared to handle such mobility, for it had based the past few hundred years almost exclusively on the premise of stability. What does a monotonous religion of stability have to offer a society so full of motion? Religion, in its current form, offered no meaningful way to engage or understand the vast societal shifts people were experiencing.
Issues troubling the papacy did not help matters. Papal abuses too numerous to mention became common knowledge, and the newly independent city dwellers were quick to criticize in ways their parents would not have dared. Although the role of the pope had always been distinguished from the person holding said office, the now public offenses introduced an air of subjectivism to the papacy for the first time. When Boniface VIII issued the decree in 1302 called Unam Sanctum, declaring there was no salvation outside of the one true Catholic Church, he inadvertently created a far-reaching existential crisis. As Tickle describes, the year 1378 began a forty-year span of multiple popes and mutual excommunications. If there was no salvation outside of the Church, and being a member in good standing required allegiance to the pope, the question of which pope quite literally became a question of eternal life and death. “Where now is the authority?” was not only a question for the religious. It was a question facing every facet of medieval society, shaking its foundations to the core. The demise of corpus Christianum prefigured a rummage sale then just as the demise of Western individualism predicts one now.
As Christianity splintered from one cohesive whole into multiple denominations, a new center of authority was needed. Denominational authorities wrote statements of orthodox doctrinal belief as a means of clarifying their positions, educating their members, and distinguishing themselves from other denominations. These confessions were then recognized by the state, providing political and social stability to the burgeoning groups. They provided the flesh, so to speak, on the bones of sola scriptura. In this way, confessions provided much needed normative expressions of authority.
The boundaries between denominational confessions and socio-political power were blurred at best. Many princes, dukes, and city councilmen signed confessions not only to clarify their religious beliefs but also to define, more importantly, their political allegiances. It is not difficult to see, then, how such statements coincided with the development of the modern state in its earliest form. Where unified allegiances once held during corpus Christianum, localized allegiances were now being formed. Historically, at least, states and denominations share more than we often recognize.
These confessions or statements of doctrine also influenced the emergence of “professional” clergy as denominations began to require formal training, examinations, and processes aimed at legitimizing those in the pulpit. These clergy, in turn, aided in solidifying the social influence of religion by providing social discipline through religious education, pastoral care and visitation, and the overall development of what has been deemed the “Protestant work ethic”: individual, responsible citizenship. A burgeoning market economy needed nothing less.
Protestant scholasticism blossomed during this era. With so many competing confessions, robust scholarship provided a means of defending and justifying one’s particular viewpoint. Systematic theology was an inevitable outcome as denominational leaders asked, “What is the Methodist view of the sacraments?” or “How do Anglicans view the Godhead?” The risky, questioning ways of the reformers would soon be ossified into completed doctrinal works on a shelf, and systematic theology would provide the foundation of stability and authority quite handily in an era of Enlightenment objectivity and rationalism.
Developing theories of human consciousness and the scientific discoveries of Darwin, Faraday, and others showed a growing fissure between religion and science and, in even broader terms, between realms of sacred and secular, which were in the process of quietly divorcing with secular science getting the lion’s share of the assets. Pietism further relegated religious experience to an internal, personal realm, while objective science pounded its chest and claimed the human mind as its sole territory. However, such a relationship would not last long without the question of authority beginning to rustle impatiently in the corner. The arena of Christian apologetics staged protest and set up camp squarely across the aisle from theories of human consciousness that did not require an explanation of God or supernatural beings. (Problematically, they did so using the same rules as science, a move that guaranteed difficulties down the road.) Joseph Campbell’s stories of myth were bombarded by a unified fundamentalist voice arguing the Bible was literally and factually true, from beginning to end. These and other visceral reactions proved the foundations of authority were again beginning to shift and crack. People were once more asking questions of re-formation.
During the peri-Emergence, we can see an almost thread-by-thread unraveling of those answers that worked so well during the time of the Reformation. The modern state and denominationalism in the Great Reformation gave way to the global village and generous orthodoxy in the Great Emergence. Professional clergy lent credibility and stability to a burgeoning society after the Reformation, while professional clergy face loss of credibility and authenticity during this one.
So now we find ourselves at the five-hundred-year questions once again, and we must create new answers to fit our emerging context. Tickle defines three overarching questions of the Great Emergence, each of which we will consider here.
First, where is the authority? While the Reformation answer to the question of authority was Scripture, it is Scripture that brings the question of authority to the fore during the Century of Emergence. As Tickle noted in chapter 4, Darwin’s theories of evolution began to poke at our consensual illusion, and it is quite possible the question of biblical interpretation bled first, and most severely. The field of biblical historical criticism undermined certainties about the reliability of Scripture, questioning everything from authors and dates to the believability of particular events. This opened the door for an honest discussion of clashing interpretations of Scripture on issues such as the role of women and homosexuality. It also opened the door for the creation of fundamentalism, inerrancy, and literalism. In addition, Pentecostalism strained the question of allegiance between the written Word and the experienced Spirit. Due to all of these shifts, Scripture is no longer monolithic enough to provide a general answer to the question of authority. And after the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (which claims one can measure position or measure speed, but one cannot measure both with accuracy), one can trace the eventual evolution of biblical interpretation from a modern, objective, rationalist framework to one that is forced to concede that the very act of observation (technically, in this case, reading) changes the reality of what is being observed (or read). Combine this paradigmatic shift with an increasingly diverse and connected world, and a massive fault line in sola scriptura erupts underfoot.
Second, what is human consciousness and/or the humanness of the human? Although the early modern period trumpeted the superiority of humanity, the events of World War I and World War II were devastating to Enlightenment optimism about humanity as crowning glory and savior of the world. You cannot experience Hiroshima or Auschwitz and continue to toot the horn of humanity too loudly. The question of humanity was not, therefore, only a psychologically individual one. It was, perhaps more substantially, a collective one. What is humanity, that it is capable of such evil? To ponder the depths of evil, particularly evil induced at the hands of humanity, continues to be the point of greatest despair in the time of the Great Emergence. Theodicy, as Tickle asserts, is one of urgency in our post-Auschwitz, post-Hiroshima, post-September 11 world.[32] And it is one to which Christianity must respond if it is to be found worthwhile in a society where we know all too quickly about suffering in our cities, in our country, and in every part of our world. In addition, however, developments in psychology began to show the complexity of the human mind, and, increasingly, its interdependence upon the body. Questions regarding where the mind ends and the body begins became much more problematic in light of studies on human consciousness. Is humanity simply a brain? What constitutes life? Where does humanity begin and end? These and other questions will continue to pester us during the Great Emergence.
And third, what now is society’s basic or foundational unit? With immense shifts in family life over the past century, Western society has stood inside a structural gap that has yet to be filled effectively. The dwindling number of traditional families has left a generation, and now possibly a second, without a consistent place to call home. Robert Putnam’s bestselling book Bowling Alone chronicled the loss not only of the American family but of the American community. Saddled by dual careers as well as domestic responsibilities, Americans do not have the time to join bowling teams or church committees or PTAs. They do not want to spend their Sunday—often the only day they are afforded an opportunity to sleep in—waking up and getting dressed up for church. And yet, there continues to be a need for community, and the loss of community is burdensome on the soul of the nation. The rise of technology, despite its benefits, has created a very particular kind of loneliness. It is a strange world when one can be fully isolated from her surroundings by listening to a song on her iPod from a band halfway across the globe.
The creation of adolescence as a life stage, and extended adolescence, can find its roots in the collapse of the (once) traditional family. Children and teenagers and, yes, even college and post-college students became latchkey kids with previously unheard-of amounts of free time. Relationships to family were replaced by peer relationships as more time was spent with classmates in and after school than with working parents. Ethan Watters’ book Urban Tribes describes the phenomenon of collegiate and post-collegiate peers who function, for all intents and purposes, as family for one another. These adults choose to remain single or delay marriage (as well as starting a family) and focus intently on their careers and their social relationships with their urban tribe. Watters, both through research and his own personal experience, describes the urban tribe overall as loyal, supportive, and generative. From teenagers to young professionals, the Great Emergence has seen a trend toward allegiance to peers and away from allegiance to family.