I know many of you will have no interest in this matter. But I ask that you take some time to consider my thoughts.
Today, I went to the TED website (which is pretty amazing) and listened to Yochai Benkler talk about how markets and central power structures are losing their grip on the economy by open-source structures: Microsoft vs. Linux, Encyclopedia Britannica vs. Wikipedia, RIAA vs. p2p networks, telecomms vs. Skype. This was most apparent in the choice of servers most e-commerce websites used. The open-source Apache server completely overtook Microsoft as the choice for a lot websites. The Ubuntu OS is growing slowly but surely as Linux strives to be more user-friendly. Record companies are desperately fighting off the masses in gaining control of profits. So on and so forth.
And this is the direction Christianity may be (or is already) headed.
After the early church sprang out of the miracle of Pentacost, The Way was a radical movement that seemed to threaten and undermine the Roman empire. Fast forward several hundred years and the Roman Empire has made Christianity its state religion. In the midst, the Great Schism occurs between the Eastern and the Western churches. Throughout this transitional period you have the historical councils dictating what texts and theologies are orthodox and heterodox. But these councils, joined by the government, were symbols of power, much like the Microsofts of today. And for hundreds of years after, these power structures held till other power structures rose (i.e. Protestanism) to compete in the Christian worldview.
In contrast, what we see in the early 21st century is the waning of such monolithic theological centers. In its stead, with new manifestations like the Emergent conversation, New Monasticism, and young evangelical movements, new standards of faith are arising. Communities are affirming local and contextual theologies that hold place within the local body’s environment. The likes of John Calvin, Karl Barth, and Dom Crossan are just voices (albeit important) in a myriad of many to be studied. Communities are learning what it means to put their faith to their feet in new and innovative ways as the Spirit leads. And this is a threat to theological powers. It is a threat to the Vatican and the Reformed institutions. And it is even a threat to the structures of our own understanding of faith communities.
Spencer Burke mentioned that the way we share sermons with one another may change. Instead of the same voice every week, people may opt to share voices with one another via mp3s, live video, or a re-imagining of itinerant preaching. Future communities may be more fluid and city-centric. Does this sound scary or exciting to you?
The two biggest questions that may arise are: What about heresy? How do we know what is of the Spirit and what is not?
If you notice in these open-source communities, the bad bugs in programming, or bad data in articles are found and sifted out. Open-source communities are actively engaging with others in the community about ideas and often tweaking the software or information to give the user the best product possible. The same could happen with theology in the future. Heresy, of course, is a concern. However, communities can communicate knowledge and information much more quickly and more critically than ever before such that faulty logic and information will be… ahem… buried (to use a Digg reference). Although monolithic structures may dissolve, faith that the true voice of the Spirit will carry through will be in play.
So we see already a tension between centralized structures versus decentralized structures. Traverse throughout the Christian blogosphere and you can see it. Hear about the different conferences held to defend one thing or to deconstruct another. Christianity as we know it may shift completely into a whole new paradigm of decentralized networks of faith.
Or Google could come along.
[As a post-script, here are some questions I've been thinking about that are by-products of this topic: Why are some things orthodox (as defined by the historical councils) and other things not? Weren't the Powers of the time involved in forming those central doctrines? What then of the "purity" of those doctrines? Is it the Holy Spirit's role to deem one thing "orthodox" and the other thing "heterodox"? Will this idea of open-source Christianity merely be a Western phenomenon? Moreso a phenomenon of the educated?]
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