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kcrouth's review against another edition
5.0
This book is fantastic! It is a must read for anyone at all interested in Western Christianity, from those who are believers in it, to those who are disgusted with it. This book provides a broad yet detailed survey/overview of the significant changes underway in Western and North American Christianity, with just the right amount of depth; not too shallow, and not too detailed. It traces the history of the major turning points for Christianity, and relates them to the changes taking place now. That being said, the author covers much material which i found fascinating and interesting. I found myself not wanting to put it down. This is the best book I've read on this subject. It is excellent, and a must read!
bookishpriest's review
informative
reflective
fast-paced
3.5
This book attracted a huge amount of attention when it was published in 2008. Its comments about the Church’s cycle of “great rummage sales” is still one of the most frequently quoted ideas I hear in conversations about church change. This idea appears in the very first pages of the book and seems to be an earworm of an idea for many readers. (The rummage sale idea actually came from the Rt Revd Mark Dyer, which Tickle is very clear about, but this book gets the credit more often than not.) So, for a book that dominated conversation 15 years ago, how do the ideas hold up?
Tickle does a great job of tracing, with very broad strokes, the development of the Church over the past 2,000 years. She points out the times of greatest turmoil and change, which do seem to come in roughly 500 year cycles. She offers several thoroughly modern models for thinking about this process of change and, in the last third of the book, applies these models to make some guesses at where our current period of Church change might take us.
One of the troubles when painting with broad strokes is that details sometimes get lost. There are several historical references in the book that either need more time or, in 2024, seem like glaring omissions. For example, Tickle refers to the influence of the printing press and the Reformations of the Early Modern era as the cause of the spread of Christianity around the world with unprecedented enthusiasm. No mention is offered of imperialism, colonial projects, and the role that the Church’s addiction to the power of empire played. Also curious is Tickle’s repeated observation that the Church is reshaping itself to contend with a postmodern world, but then using entirely modern forms of analysis and description to try and predict what will happen next. One must use the tools available and I have the benefit of 15 years of hindsight since the book’s publication, but this felt like an awkward approach as I was reading.
Much of the conversation about Emergent and Emerging church movements has fallen by the wayside in 2024. There are other books and articles which cover why and how that has happened. The writing in The Great Emergence is accessible and introduces historical patterns in the Church and several important theological concepts. It’s a short book (about 165 pages) with plenty of questions for thought/discussion at the end and some suggested further reading. I think it could make a good introduction to the historic patterns of change in the Church and some of the broad differences between various groups of Christians. I would definitely recommend further reading on all of the topics introduced here to fill in some of the missing details. Though, I suppose I always recommend further reading on every subject, so that’s nothing new.
The Great Emergence is worth a look but is very much a product of its time and the front-burner ideas about Church in the early 2000s and needs to be read with those grains of salt ready to hand.
adamrshields's review against another edition
2.0
Short review: Phyllis Tickle is a great proponent of spiritual disciplines especially fixed hour prayer. But I just don't think she is in her field talking about this history of Christianity. The thesis is that we are in the midst of the next reformation (something she suggests happens about every 500 years.) It is interesting writing and I learned a few things. But there are too many alternative explanations for what is going on in Christianity for me really to think that Emergent/Emerging church is the next manifestation of the church. I am all for the Emergent/Emerging church. But I do not think that is where the church as a whole is heading.
Full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/great-emergence-the-how-christianity-is-changing-and-why-by-phyllis-tickle/
Full review on my blog at http://bookwi.se/great-emergence-the-how-christianity-is-changing-and-why-by-phyllis-tickle/
dbg108's review against another edition
4.0
It’s easy to point out all kinds of holes or flaws in the bigger argument of this book - that there’s a major shift in Christianity every 500 years. But I have a feeling Phyllis Tickle is nodding and winking and having a lot of fun. Well worth reading if for nothing else than the sweeping sense of history and just how messy everything - including Christianity - is.
jdauer5's review against another edition
5.0
Almost 15 years after it was published, this book has much to offer about what and how Christianity is becoming around the world but especially in North America.
I can see how this book has informed the PCUSA's 1001 New Worshiping Community movement as well as many of the more recent line of thought amongst seminary scholars.
She writes that the emergent church is incarnational and finds authority in "network theory"/crowd-sourcing/no one has all the answers but we find Truth together in conversation and community. In this, truth can only be found through total egalitarianism, denying capitalism and individualism.
In the final pages of her book, Tickle writes, "The Great Emergence... will rewrite Christian theology—and thereby North American culture—into something far more Jewish, more paradoxical, more narrative, and more mystical than anything the Church has had for the last seventeen or eighteen hundred years." Amen.
I can see how this book has informed the PCUSA's 1001 New Worshiping Community movement as well as many of the more recent line of thought amongst seminary scholars.
She writes that the emergent church is incarnational and finds authority in "network theory"/crowd-sourcing/no one has all the answers but we find Truth together in conversation and community. In this, truth can only be found through total egalitarianism, denying capitalism and individualism.
In the final pages of her book, Tickle writes, "The Great Emergence... will rewrite Christian theology—and thereby North American culture—into something far more Jewish, more paradoxical, more narrative, and more mystical than anything the Church has had for the last seventeen or eighteen hundred years." Amen.
davehershey's review against another edition
4.0
Probably more like 4.5 stars.
Every 500 years something huge happens among the people of God: the Reformation in the 1500s, the Great Schism in the 1000s, Gregory the Great/Fall of Rome, Jesus. Many observers say we are living through one of these huge times, which Tickle calls a rummage sale. She then spends the rest of the book illustrating trends in the church throughout the 1900s leading up to today. It is not just that the church is changing, our entire culture is changing. This book is a must read for anyone interesting in how the church is changing and in where it might be going.
Every 500 years something huge happens among the people of God: the Reformation in the 1500s, the Great Schism in the 1000s, Gregory the Great/Fall of Rome, Jesus. Many observers say we are living through one of these huge times, which Tickle calls a rummage sale. She then spends the rest of the book illustrating trends in the church throughout the 1900s leading up to today. It is not just that the church is changing, our entire culture is changing. This book is a must read for anyone interesting in how the church is changing and in where it might be going.
judyward's review against another edition
3.0
Phyllis Tickle, who is the editor of the Religion Department of Publisher's Weekly, has written a thin, but information packed, book dealing with the evolution of religion in America and projecting its future development. Using the thesis that there is a great religious upheaval about every 500 years (we are about 500 years from the Protestant Reformation, 1,000 years from the Great Schism, 1,500 years from Gregory the Great, and 2,000 years from the emergence Christianity), she argues that Christianity is in the midst of another great upheaval and period of growth. Interestingly enough, she also comments that Jewish rabbis have pointed out that within Judiasm there also seems to be a 500 cycle. Five hundred years before the destruction of the Second Temple was the Babylonian Captivity and the Diaspora, and 500 years before that was the end of the Age of Judges and the establishment of the Hewbrew monarchy. This is an interesting examination of the state of Christianity in the United States today and a proposal of where Christians might find themselves in the next 50 to 100 years.
amyfinley829's review against another edition
4.0
A lot of food for thought. What does the next iteration of the Christian church look like? Since religion has changed historically every 500 or so years - it is about time! And so- what comes next?
wordboydave's review against another edition
3.0
Not as interesting or as deeply powerful as I wanted it to be. Tickle—who is a MARVELOUS interview subject if you ever get to hear her speak—lays out the pressures that are transforming the traditional Christian churches, and they're pretty much everything you might have guessed before you picked up the book.