Off The Map

Up here in Seattle for the Off The Map Conference which I am attending as part of my Dmin degree at Bakke Graduate University.

I heard something particularly interesting and new. In all the talk about the unprecedented age that the Church is in now -- in a culture that is post modern, post Christian, etc., etc., I had never heard the perspective presented by Dianne Butler Bass, author of Christianity for the Rest of Us.

Ms. Butler Bass states that the times that we are in and that the Church is facing is not unprecedented, but rather consistent with 2,000 years of Church history. Specifically she said that in western culture there has been a dramatic change every 500 years -- a significant shift in world views, most recently with the reformation in the 1500’s. She asserted that it is more than just change in technology or taste, but in the ways people think about the universe. She stated that this is where we are on the historical time line, that the Church in our time is like the Church in each one of these transformation periods. And, that some new form of Christianity emerges at each of these transition times.

I had never heard this before and found it fascinating.