New Blog Site

Due to a whole heap of reasons, I have moved the blog to meyerblog.com
This site will no longer remain active.

Its been fun!

Emergent thinking in Australia . . . Where is it?

Where is emergent in Australia?

Apart from some pretty interesting avenues of thought pursued by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, which I think at its basis isn't really emergentesque but more like new construction on a familiar foundation, I haven't heard of much in the old homeland.

I was pretty shocked to hear Mike Frost speak about the theme of exile remaining a key Biblical thread - and as a major metaphor as to how believers should think of themselves. I agree. I think after working with refugees, the idea of displacement or exile as Frost puts it, is a helpful way of understand the context in which we relate to culture. And BTW, with him, I resonate with the idea that the message IS the medium.

What equally shocked me though was the realisation that Forge appears to be more of a revamping of a pretty conservative ecclesiology than what I was prepared for. I suppose an easier way to restate that is that Forge seems to look back to identify the high point for Christian ecclesiology and that Emergent thinking doesn't believe such an era exists.

Only fools try to define something like a movement or conversation - and being no stranger to that, here goes:

From what I understand of the emergent conversation Christianity will work best wherever it finds itself in the world when it maintains with a loose grip an open, safe, humble, theologically strident, egalitarian, collaborative, questioning and contextualised community of faith. The last term indicating that it cannot and should not have a clonable form.

Using that as a really poor definition - I just don't hear many Australian voices speaking to that?

Part 4: The Medical Fascination

In case you're unaware, I'm trying to document some differences, between US culture and other cultures that I've been part of.
These are totally subjective observations so please excuse my awkwardness if I overstate or generalize.

One area that really stands out for me is the US preoccupation with medicines and health.
Juxtapose this with stats which place the US in the unhealthy basket in areas such as sugar intake, obesity, heart health. Yet, seemingly due to the cultures sensitivity to health issue, life expectancies are still high.

I have never been part of a culture where drug are advertised on mainstream television. Or where citizens are told to ask their doctor about "Valtrex" or "Thermysen" as though they are foods or everyday products. I've had people not visit our home when they heard that one of our children had a 'cold' in case they caught it. That kind of makes sense. But forgive those who, not raised in such a culture, find that it communicates a "I like you, but only when you are well" kind of feeling.

Americans know much more about drugs and procedures and food content than anyone else I know. I think that is great, but probably frustrating if you are a doctor. I imagine that in some spheres, a little information can be dangerous. I'd love to get some input here as to why this is the case. Is it a slight mistrust of those in the medical profession? Or is it more of a sense of entitlement to understand areas of life that many other cultures leave to professionals.

Once again, I am not saying this just a negative thing. Physicians are human and make bad judgment errors that may have been avoided if someone had just had the confidence to question the expert.

Maybe the attitude toward medicine belies a deeper principle at work: that Americans like to believe that their opinions count in any arena no matter how informed/uninformed or relevant/irrelevant they are?

Comments are back!

I just re enabled comments after getting a few like "Hey - love your blog. Come and have a look at me . . naked, §%%&!, *?&%, . . .
You get the picture.