Thank you all who are contributing to the discussion of my article. My main purpose in writing it was to provide information and explanations to people who are either not aware of, do not understand, or actually misunderstand the changes occurring within churches today. I hope it is serving that purpose for you. I’ll try to respond meaningfully to your posts as best I can.

Rational-debate:
<< If you wish to present a reasonable evaluation of modern Christianity, which I am all for hearing, please start from someone who actually believes it! >>
The question to be asked and answered is: “what is modern Christianity?” You seem to be assuming there is one, and only one, answer – i.e. yours. The project on which emergent churches and progressive Christians have embarked is to find the core beliefs, facts, symbols and practices that they can share happily, and then use those as the basis for re-building the Church across the world. More than a modicum of self-examination is needed for this to succeed.

Ho-hum:
<< Both John Shelby Spong and Matthew Fox are either uniformly ignored or loathed in mainstream Christian circles. Protestant and Catholic - conservative or progressive, INCLUDING within the much hyped "emergent-church" phenomenon in the USA. >>
You’re wrong. Many priests and lay-people in my present diocese, and in others to which I have belonged in the past, read and discuss with great respect the ideas and thoughts of these two profoundly learned and spiritual Christians. And the situation is similar in many other communities of various religious denominations across the world.

Jon J:
<< I've had a religion like that for nearly forty years. It's called 'atheism'. >>
Quite a few of the Christians in emergent churches also describe themselves as “atheists”. Maybe it all comes down to what we mean by “theism”. And I’m interested in what you mean by “religion”, since you have one.

To be continued.

Pericles:
Once again it seems I have to assure you that I am quite happy to call myself a Christian. Of course, like anyone attempting to achieve some integrity, I feel the need to question my own beliefs, relationships and behaviour. But in my articles, far from “squeezing Christianity” into a shape to suit myself, I am trying, for the benefit of those not associated with church communities, to present a picture of what is happening on the inside.

I won’t resume the past discussions you refer to, except to say that your description of them is wrong – in my opinion.

I acknowledge that quite often “the external trappings of religions have no bearing whatsoever on the beliefs they purport to uphold”. Perhaps that is a dichotomy innate to any type of institution, but as long as there is frequent, honest dialogue between the exoteric and esoteric components the discrepancies can at least be kept to a comfortable minimum.

rational-debate,
There may not be much inspiration from simply being with out god (a/theism) per se, but there is more inspiration from approaching life without constant reference to a third party or third parties.

crabsy,
Changes within a church or group of churches seem likely to be different or not aligned with changes in other churches or other groups of churches.

Crabsy
Thank you for an interesting piece – religion and spirituality articles have been a bit sparse on OLO lately.

Like you I’m part of a church where discussions on questions of spirituality and formal religion are very much alive. I have read both Spong and Fox and found then interesting. Though Spong’s theology gets a bit stretched sometimes, I think his admonition “any God who can be killed, deserves to be” is a great starting point to explore what you call emerging Christianity. Bonhoeffer’s call for religionless Christianity lived “as if there is no God” in a “world come of age” is, I think, a more articulate and challenging statement of similar ideas, though Bonhoeffer is much more orthodox than, say, Fox.

Christianity has always been a broad church, and each age has to grapple with how to interpret it in ways that make sense to its culture and understanding of the world. It is interesting that atheists are almost as keen as traditionalists to deny the legitimacy of this process.

Perhaps I should have put 'religion' in quotes. But since people have asked me for a defence of atheism, here it is:

My atheism is a by-product of a rationalist, materialist view of the world. How do I justify this view? Ultimately, by the only means by which anyone can justify anything: it WORKS. I'm happy, reasonably well off, I have a nice house in a nice area, I'm not on drugs and I'm not in jail. I have an affectionate spouse and loving, kind, intelligent children with a great potential. My life is about as good as it gets.

Of course, many believers are in the same position: but I maintain that per capita many more theists are prematurely dead, maimed, poor, sick, miserable or in jail than atheists. You can see some of the reasons why at

http://religiousatrocities.wordpress.com .

Perhaps I'm missing out on a blissful afterlife, but so far nobody's given me any reason to think that's the case. If they do, I'll reconsider.

So there it is; a pragmatic justification for a pragmatic view. Respond by all means, but just one thing: if you're going to tell me that religion is 'another way of knowing' then I need you to specify 'knowing WHAT'? Otherwise you're simply spouting hot air.

Not only do you admit that atheism can be a religion JonJ, but it appears you believe in a prosperity gospel as well! I'm sorry, but from any perspective I find the size of your bank balance to be irrelevant to any truth claims of any sort of religion or philosophy of living.