Emerging Integral

I have called this blog Another Integral Explorer, because I have been strongly influenced by the work of Ken Wilber. I have also been more than passively interested in what is happening in the cultural currents of the Christian community, particularly the phenomena of the emerging church. In so many ways I think the evolution of a more integral consciousness is unfolding rapidly in our generation, and what we see happening in the emerging church is only a Christian expression of that evolution. Which is significant as our current North American cultural center of gravity, in terms of depth and span, is predominantly modern yet moving toward postmodern memes (see more on spiral dynamics here.)

I am personally tired of the ‘first tier’ culture wars of competing and contradictory values and feel my need for more patience and energy to nurture the process along. At least on a very basic developmental line from egotistic, to ethnocentric, to world centric I’d like to see more evidence of ‘second tier’ development, transcending and including previous stages, with more DEPTH, even if in the beginning we see less span.

Those of you who are either participants or voyeurs of the emerging church and are familiar with the language and concepts of spiral dynamics integral can detect in Brian McLaren’s recent article, Reflections on the Emerging Summit the call for more depth:

“These emerging priorities don't minimize previous concerns – about worship and liturgy, about evangelism, about new forms and approaches to church, about the need to grapple with issues of modernity and postmodernity. But in many ways - in my opinion at least - they point to a telos beyond ourselves and show why those previous concerns truly matter.”