From the church's birth to the reign of St. Gregory the great, to the Great Schism and through the Reformation, Phyllis Tickle notes that every 500...
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Jan 16, 2012
Kyle
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More than a bit ambitius, Tickle tackles not only the history of Christendom (from a Protestant perspective) but the major players in post-renaissance science, politics, psychology, and sociology.
Tickle's thesis is that every 500 years, the Christian faith has a great "rummage sale" in which they re-orient themselves. While this 500 year division is too neat and tidy (she says as much) and it's presumptious to say we're experiencing one now (time will tell on that front), this is an e More...
Tickle's thesis is that every 500 years, the Christian faith has a great "rummage sale" in which they re-orient themselves. While this 500 year division is too neat and tidy (she says as much) and it's presumptious to say we're experiencing one now (time will tell on that front), this is an e More...
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May 05, 2011
Michael
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I think it's pretty obvious to the unbiased reader of "The Great Emergence" that Tickle's arrangement of history, her beliefs about what is most important and why, and her assessment of where we're at and where we are going are all easily called into question. Since she both defines and applies her own terms as they relate to the monumental shift she describes, and then incorporates virtually everything we can possibly observe into it, it becomes apparent early on that if you don't jus
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Aug 18, 2010
Dymphna
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The Great Emergence by Phyllis Tickle is a sociological study on the history and possible future of Christianity.
This text is unusual for its inclusion of and respect for both Catholicism and Orthodoxy in its 163 pages of exploration on how Christianity has changed, from just prior to the Reformation until today.
Its basic thesis is that society, and as a result, the church, changes drastically every 500 years, beginning with the rise of Monasticism about 500 years aft More...
This text is unusual for its inclusion of and respect for both Catholicism and Orthodoxy in its 163 pages of exploration on how Christianity has changed, from just prior to the Reformation until today.
Its basic thesis is that society, and as a result, the church, changes drastically every 500 years, beginning with the rise of Monasticism about 500 years aft More...
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Sep 12, 2009
Judy
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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 Chr
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Jun 06, 2009
Becky
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Impressive book from Phyllis Tickle about the Emergent Church and how history brought us to the changes currently taking place. It is a short book of ~150 pages. The theme being that every 500 years or so the Christian church "evolves" itself with a giant rummage sale of sorts. Great Schism, Great Reformation, etc... and guess what, you may not know it but we're in the latest evolution. The middle hundred pages of this book details church history and are fascinating as she describes ho
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May 19, 2009
Kathy
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Phyllis Tickle is able to summarize two thousand years of history with broad brush strokes so that even history-challenged folks like me can track the sweeps of change. In the context of social, economic, scientific, cultural change…, God’s people (the church) has proven itself a living organism, adapting to the needs of man. Tickle touches upon Luther, Copernicus, Darwin, Faraday, Freud, Mar (to name a few); innovations such as radio, car, internet, birthcontrol (to name a few); groups & rel
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Aug 05, 2011
Jan
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My main gripe during the bulk of this book was that Phyllis Tickle collapsed the distinction between Americans and Christians, with comments such as, "The average American, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic...." She also collapse the distinction between history and Christian history. She was distressed at the history (or future possibility) of Christians harming other Christians, but passed lightly over Christians harming other people while simultaneously starry-eyed at the spread
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Dec 08, 2010
Guy
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Mar 16, 2010
Libby
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When I started reading the "forward" and first section of chapter one, my thoughts were that the author had a flowery writing style and took too long to make her point(s). I was wrong. Phyllis Tickle wrote methodically in a style that built momentum in making her points about where Christians seem to be "today". It is "The Great Emergence": a timeframe in which people align themselves with megachurches that "welcome all" and focus on the wants of the p
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Nov 12, 2009
Chris
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I'm rating this book 3 stars because I thought it had a lot of very useful information, but I'm not sure my paradigm changed as a result of reading it, nor did I find the reading experience overwhelmingly satisfying. That being said, it was a nice book, very informative, probably groundbreaking for those who may not be as familiar with cycles in religious history, or the trajectory of philosophical/theological ideology and practice.
The basic purpose of the book is to trace movements More...
The basic purpose of the book is to trace movements More...
Sep 13, 2011
Tim
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We use Phyllis Tickle's prayers for the daily office regularly in our household and I have enjoyed other of her books. But the Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why is a fairly horrible book. Oh, Tickle has a few winning observations, but they are hidden among over generalization, poorly assembled historical details, useless drawings and charts, and tiresome prose. Her claims are huge, her documentation and footnotes scanty. The idea that today's "Great Emergence"
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Oct 09, 2011
Naftoli
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This is a quite remarkable book in its analysis of how Christianity has and continues to develop. It is written by an Anglican woman who has a gift for making structural analysis. Much of what she addressed I had heard for the first time, or at least the first time in depth and in this format. My complaint is that she did not address the issue of gays in the Christian church and, to compound the frustration, she made a comment that she would not address that issue as it was too controversial.
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Nov 25, 2008
John
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This is a great book. Phyllis Tickle provides us a "long view" of american christian religion and a "cliff notes" version of church history leading up to where we are currently. Trust me, I am the last person to want to ignore details and caveats, but I enjoyed her diagrams and conceptualizations of what she sees the emerging church as being and becoming. So 10, 20, 100 years from now we'll find out she has missed the mark somewhat... so what? What she's brought to the ta
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Jan 13, 2009
Tyler
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The Great Emergence by Phyllis Tickle. Tickle, the godmother of emergent Christianity, can connect dots between Karl Marx, quantum physics and sola scriptura in less than a paragraph. And it will make sense. She is an academician in the highest sense, widely versed, and able to offer more than a few verses of quality literature herself. In this book, which I would describe as scientifically prophetic, she will enroll you in school–a school especially for those who are curious about the historica
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Oct 14, 2010
Kathryn
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Aug 03, 2009
Linda
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when i started this book i hated it but by the time i finished it i was loving it. if possible i'd give it 3 1/2 stars. in the first third i found her writing dry and vague. the second section was like a church history and sociological overview but the last third is where it really took off where she examines the emerging/ent church. i especially liked her discussion of where the authority for truth is situated for the various segments of the church. i'd also recommend stanley grenz' a primer
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Mar 02, 2009
Jim
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Other folks have said it in their own reviews - there sure is a lot of history to chew on in this book. I find that what is said regarding that historical perspective could probably have been said more simply and easily. Simplicity and succinctness might have made this book a little more accessible to the average joe.
While I think something is happening within Christianity I must confess a bit of skeptism to the whole notion that we can "know" or identify that we are in th More...
While I think something is happening within Christianity I must confess a bit of skeptism to the whole notion that we can "know" or identify that we are in th More...
Nov 28, 2009
Dean P.
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Tickle's thesis here is that we are in the midst of a recurring 500-year restructuring of Christianity, reflected historically around the years 500, 1000, and 1500. Using the "rummage sale" analogy, Tickle traces the changes in each of the previous periods and looks ahead to project what this period of restructuring and emergence might bring forth in the church.
There are some things Tickle does well in this book. She shows her strengths while reflecting on 2000 years of chu More...
There are some things Tickle does well in this book. She shows her strengths while reflecting on 2000 years of chu More...
Mar 30, 2010
Larry
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This is the book that I am recommending that all church leaders read. If we are going to lead the church into the future we must take seriously the things Tickles has to say in this book. I'm rereading it because I am leading a discussion of it in my class on New Evangelicals at the Frederick School of Religion.
After reading it a second time, I remember that after the first time I said I needed to read this again regularly. Since it only takes about six hour total, after the secon More...
After reading it a second time, I remember that after the first time I said I needed to read this again regularly. Since it only takes about six hour total, after the secon More...
Sep 24, 2010
Scott
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Amazing not because I learned a lot new here, I did not. The book will be transformative for me in that she brought together various threads of my experience, education, and own thinking and gave them a coherence that they have not had before. In the process I felt that she understood my own biography better than I do, also understood my own journey through ministry better than I do. And opened up for me the ability to sense where my ministry is heading and ought to head.
Jan 31, 2011
Mary Lou
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This is the Minter Lane book club book for February. It's a big-picture, view-from-30,000-feet discussion of how Christianity is changing and the "emergent/emerging church" movement.
The "emergent church" concept has seemed very murky and squishy to me, and I'm not sure I really understand it, but Tickle does as good a job of explaining it as I've seen. The book is written for a general audience, not just for religion scholars, and is a relatively easy read.
The "emergent church" concept has seemed very murky and squishy to me, and I'm not sure I really understand it, but Tickle does as good a job of explaining it as I've seen. The book is written for a general audience, not just for religion scholars, and is a relatively easy read.
Apr 10, 2009
Casey
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I thought this book was fascinating. Tickle attempts to place her finger on what is happening in the church NOW and how that fits in with what has happened in church and cultural history of the last 2000 years. No easy task. It will be interesting to go back in future and see how accurate she was in her analysis and predictions, but I found it extremely helpful as a way of framing the current motion and trajectory of the North American church.
Mar 16, 2009
Isaac
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I think I agree with a lot of what she is saying but...
I don't know if I agree with her diagram for explaining the lay out of different forms of Christianity today. Personally I'm tired of diagrams telling me where I fit into the church even if they are diagrams created by emergent authors.
I also thought the book lacked adequate depth to cover the topic she was attempting to tackle. It was barely 150 pages and filled with empty spaces and diagrams to stretch it that far More...
I don't know if I agree with her diagram for explaining the lay out of different forms of Christianity today. Personally I'm tired of diagrams telling me where I fit into the church even if they are diagrams created by emergent authors.
I also thought the book lacked adequate depth to cover the topic she was attempting to tackle. It was barely 150 pages and filled with empty spaces and diagrams to stretch it that far More...
May 05, 2009
Ben
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Whether you like Emerging/Emergent church stuff this book makes a very clear case exactly where it has come from historically, theologically, and sociologically. It makes a very clear and fairly fact based argument that we shouldn't be surprised by the rise of emerging/Emergent Christianity and shouldn't expect it to just go away. Well worth the read if for no other reason than to see where we've come from as a church, where we are, and where we might be heading to.
Feb 20, 2009
Jon
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Tickle moves fast in this book and for good reason. She covers a whole lot of ground as she helps us see how Christianity has changed, how it is changing now and where things might be headed. I read this with a group and while I enjoyed it, some thought it was a snoozer. If you're interested in history and can handle NOT being spoon fed simplistic conclusions, you might want to check this one out.
Jul 07, 2009
Thomas
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The first part of the book about Christianity having a reformation every 500 years or so is a bit contrived. I don't think history really shows that pattern. But her thoughts on what is happening right now, that we are going through a kind of new Reformation, as she calls it 'The Great Emergence', I think she makes some really good points here. A book worth meditating on.
Nov 28, 2011
Mike
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An incredibly thought provoking book, arguing that we are currently at the precipice of a major religious and social upheaval--along the lines of the Reformation. Tickle offers an outline of why she has come to that conclusion, and what that upheaval might look like, and why she believes that this upheaval would actually be a positive development for the Church.
Apr 03, 2011
Gail
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An interesting look at changes that Christianity is undergoing right now. About every 500 years, Christianity goes through an upheaval. The last time, of course, was the Reformation. Tickle gives a brief history of Christianity and comments on changes of the last century, to hypothesize that we are in the midst of another major change.
I wish that the author had included a bibliography. She touches on historical events that would be interesting to investigate further. A bibliogra More...
I wish that the author had included a bibliography. She touches on historical events that would be interesting to investigate further. A bibliogra More...
Feb 10, 2009
Ramón
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Some great analyses of large scale trends in Christianity. While I am generally skeptical of metahistorical trends, Tickle highlights some interesting parallel movements in Western Christianity in the last two millennia, though some of it feels like a big stretch to me.
Definitely recommended for anyone who finds herself wondering what happened to the Christianity she grew up in and whether or not she cares.
Definitely recommended for anyone who finds herself wondering what happened to the Christianity she grew up in and whether or not she cares.
May 31, 2011
Adam
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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
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