In my recent posts I’ve expressed my belief that we are living in the midst of a massive cultural shift that is changing everything about how we experience life. This shift is called A Fourth Great Awakening by author Diana Butler Bass. Author Phyllis Tickle reads similar data and refers to the transition as The Great Emergence. These authors and others describe the deep challenge that we all face as we live in these times of massive transition.
Personally and at an institutional level, this transition is having impact. It is easy to see that government, education, business, law enforcement, and church are institutions that are struggling to know how to serve effectively in this transition. And in the face of the struggle, we all get anxious. The presence of anxiety makes clear-headed thinking more challenging than it normally is. I believe that one evidence of this is all the polarizing public conversations that fill the news and the social media. [Read more…]