{"id":18508,"date":"2020-01-01T09:56:54","date_gmt":"2020-01-01T14:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18508"},"modified":"2020-01-01T09:56:54","modified_gmt":"2020-01-01T14:56:54","slug":"moving-forward-by-looking-back-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18508","title":{"rendered":"Moving Forward by Looking Back"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Summary: An Evolving Faith<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cac.org\/moving-forward-by-looking-back-2020-01-01\/\"><strong>Moving Forward by Looking Back<\/strong><\/a><br>\n<strong>Wednesday, January 1, 2020<\/strong><br>\n<strong><em>News Year\u2019s Day<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/G2XtRuPfaAU\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>It seems appropriate to begin the new year by sharing new visions for the future of Christianity. For our faith to evolve, we need to look at the old and original in order to build something new and novel. My friend Shane Claiborne is a young Evangelical leading this kind of hopeful and faith-filled renewal that builds on the past. Shane and many others are nurturing a \u201cnew monastic\u201d movement, learning from the best of Christianity\u2019s history and traditions in order to find modern and relevant ways to follow Jesus and embody the Reign of God on earth today.&nbsp;In Shane\u2019s words:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There was a time in the 1980s and 90s, when the response to the hypocrisies in the church was to start new, creative expressions of church\u2014what many came to call \u201cthe emerging church movement.\u201d My community in Philly, The Simple Way, was one of the fruits of that era. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many new movements have been born amid the remnants of the past. Fresh life can come from the compost of Christendom. I think we are poised for another great awakening. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>God is restoring all things. Institutions like the church are broken, just like people, and they too are being healed and redeemed. My friend Chris Haw put it this way. It\u2019s the difference between being in a canoe and a rowboat. In a canoe, you look forward as you row, but in a rowboat, you look back as you move forward. Our way forward is behind us. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rather than throw out the traditions, I want to know and study them, find the treasures and spit out the bones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The church needs discontentment. It is a gift to the Reign of God, but we have to use our discontentment to engage rather than to disengage. We need to be a part of repairing what\u2019s broken rather than jumping ship. One of the pastors in my neighborhood said, \u201cI like to think about the church like Noah\u2019s Ark. That old boat must have stunk bad inside, but if you tried to get out, you\u2019d drown.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just as we critique the worst of the church, we should also celebrate her at her best. We need to mine the fields of church history and find the treasures, the gems. We need to celebrate the best that each tradition can bring\u2014I want the fire of the Pentecostals, the love of Scripture of the Lutherans, the political imagination of the Anabaptists, the roots of the Orthodox, the mystery of the Catholics, and the zeal of the Evangelicals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the most promising things that has come out of the emerging church has been folks looking back and reclaiming the best of their traditions, seeing that it is not an either\/or but a both\/and\u2014God is doing something ancient and something new. Phyllis Tickle [1934\u20132015] called it \u201chyphenated denominations\u201d\u2014Presby-mergence, Bapti-mergence, Luther-mergence\u2014because what they are doing is renewing and building on what was.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Summary: An Evolving Faith Moving Forward by Looking Back Wednesday, January 1, 2020 News Year\u2019s Day It seems appropriate to begin the new year by sharing new visions for the future of Christianity. For our faith to evolve, we need to look at the old and original in order to build something new and novel. 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