Week 3 – Cultural Studies: Barker; Chp. 6
They’re were a great deal of questions revolving the nature of modernity, industrialization, globalization, etc. As I was thinking about these cultural aspects and transitions, I began wondering about the emerging church and it’s intersection with these things. Some of the New Social Movement descriptions line up pretty accurately with the topography of these communities. If there are some relevant connections, how does this jive with faithful cultural expression? Christendom was a culturally reflective community of modernity in “microwave” or “McDonaldized churches, but we’ve begun deconstructing this entity for its brokeness. Is the emerging church critically engaged with these current cultural aspects in the same way we look in the rear view mirror? Is the aspect of producing, or even communities that sustain themselves with the offering of services or goods co-opting the faith to another narrative, as our institutional model?
