By Brandon Rhodes -- OrganicJesus.org
As we've been talking about, the era of affordable automobile use and all its amenities is about to end -- including the Commuter Church and Ringtone Christianity. The era of cheap oil, it seems, is rapidly coming to a close, and we're now entering an age of Less.
Everything will relocalize as our easy-motoring way of life persistently constricts after Peak Oil, including how we do church. Just as motorization fundamentally altered how we get to work, get our food, and get our entertainment, it has also changed church. As outlined in my last post, I believe this has done more bad than good. Whether my criticisms are correct is of little importance, though. The bigger question for the faithful is, how will a church thus conformed respond to Peak Oil? What will the Post-Carbon Church look like?
The transition be will nothing if not fascinating. I doubt many people, particularly families, will tolerate walking or bicycling more than two miles to church. Thus, we will have to start attending churches closer to where we live, even if those churches is pretty different from the ones we’re used to. The closest churches to me, for example, are an old Presbyterian church and a Lutheran church. Being neither Presbyterian nor Lutheran, I’m not sure what I’d do (probably the Episcopals, as my favorite theologian is an Anglican).
But this is precisely where I’m excited for the emergent/missional church -- God is raising up people who can look past differences in style and theology and dogma, and rally around Christ as the head of their faith community. To boot, living in community seems to be increasingly common in the church. Indeed, emergent Christians could do quite well in this transition.
But it’s the more hardline, conservative branches of American Christianity that I worry about. As we all know, there are a lot of people out there that in the name of God seem more interested in being right than in being Christ-like. The persistence of the health-n-wealth or “prosperity gospel,” a dangerous overuse of war metaphor, belligerent allegiance to militant political conservatism, and a general social-theological Pharisaism indicates that much of American Christianity could react very poorly to Peak Oil. It’s all the more reason to get the messages of emergent writers out of our emergent churches, and into the less progressive Christian circles. Emergents have got to be missional and apostolic to those brothers and sisters most ardently practicing the very kinds of faith that emergents are getting out of.
I anticipate that home churches will increase with the gas prices. Lay leaders will become informal pastors. As every institution downsizes and localizes, churches will break down into countless cells of believers. Your local Post-Carbon Church may rarely exceed 50 to 100 people. Adherents may organize themselves by neighborhood, apartment complex, or suburban development. The luxury of even choosing a denomination could be lost for a time. The anonymity granted in today’s bigger Commuter Congregations will evaporate as intimacy and relationship are pushed to the fore; authentic and deep community has the potential to be reinvigorated in the American church. It may be just the enema we need!
more
{mos_sb_discuss:2}