Registration is open for the 2013 Wright Lectures at Menucha presenting Phyllis Tickle, one of the most highly respected authorities and popular speakers on religion in America today. Tickle will speak on her books The Great Emergence and Emergence Christianity: What It Is, Where It Is Going, and Why It Matters. The event will run October 13-15 at Menucha Retreat and Conference Center in Corbett, Ore., and is limited to 60 participants. Over the two-day period at Menucha, Tickle will lecture, offer extended question and answer periods, and encourage small group conversations in which participants can discuss the implications of what they’re hearing.
In The Great Emergence Phyllis Tickle argues that currently Christianity is undergoing a massive upheaval as part of a regular pattern that occurs every 500 years, in which old ideas are rejected and new ones emerge. Her follow-up book Emergence Christianity: What It Is, Where It Is Going and Why It Matters further describes and defines the progress of this multi-faceted, “radically Jesus-oriented, communal, post-Protestant” movement. She also describes it as “largely based in virtual reality as opposed to bricks and mortar,” and “deeply concerned with theologies of religion that get rid of Christian particularity or exclusivism.”
Tickle, a speaker, author, Episcopal lay Eucharistic priest and the founding editor of the religion department at Publishers Weekly, says this Great Emergence means that the Christian church has entered a post-denominational mode. This sociological and cultural shift involves a distrust of all institutions and is forcing mainline Protestant Christianity to become less hierarchal and more communal. It has implications for evangelical Christianity as well. At the same time, she says, it offers an opportunity for Protestantism to renew and refine itself. “Wherever it’s going, there’s every reason right now to rejoice. God is doing a new thing amongst us and it’s called emerging or emergent Christianity.”
For more information or to register, please go to http://menucha.org/programs/wright-lecture-series or contact Scott Crane, Program Director (scott@menucha.org, 503-695-2243).
About Menucha Retreat and Conference Center: Menucha (pronounced Men-oo-ka, a Hebrew word meaning “renewing stillness”) was purchased from Governor Julius Meier’s heirs by the First Presbyterian Church of Portland in 1950. Since then, Menucha has served as a nonprofit, ecumenical retreat center. Its mission is to provide opportunities for reflection, renewal, education, enrichment and spiritual discovery for individuals, families and communities. It is located 22 miles east of downtown Portland in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. http://menucha.org