THE COMPLEX CHRIST chapters 1-3

According to Brewin, the journey of emergence involves three movements. Advent consists of realizing where we are—exile. Advent remembers the past, but is not tied to it. Rather, the past enables and prepares us for change because it reminds us that there has always been change. Incarnation is “…the embryonic cooperation of divinity and humanity.” Incarnation lives out the complete presence of both divinity and humanity in the present context. Emergence is the self-organization that takes place in the space between anarchy and rigidity. Emergence allows for real growth and health, while both rigidity and anarchy inhibit both growth and health.

Quotes from The Complex Christ:

p.35
But we must do it, we must stop all the programs, stop the meetings, stop the denials, stop the machinations, dismantle the structures, face our fears and disappointments and weep for the absence, weep for the emptiness, weep for the pretence, weep for the fiction. Weep until we can see our barrenness clearly, for only then will we have made room for newness.

p.48
If we are to become wombs of the divine, then what we give birth to will not only take a great deal of careful nurturing, but will also be very specific to the culture and place where it is born.

p.60
…somewhere between these two poles of anarchy and rigidity—a spectrum with death at each end—there exists a place where a system begins to live, to self-organize, to become more that the sum of its parts, to develop a character, a culture, a soul if you will—as if some breath has entered it and commanded it to live.

NOTE: This is a rumination ("1. The act of pondering; meditation. 2. The act or process of chewing cud." American Heritage Dictionary) in search of synergy ("1. The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.")

Tag(s): ecclesiology kester brewin complex christ

See CC License

“Unless otherwise noted Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.” http://www.esv.org/