Christianity in Transition (Pt. 2)
Two-Month Process Focused on the Question of Christianity Today, Continued...
The Portal is currently within a two-month process focused on exploring “Christianity in Transition”. In April we will be hosting
, , Luke Thompson, and Rob Zahn to continue the exploration. To learn more or to get involved, see:You can also join by becoming a member of The Portal, which also gives you a paid-tier subscription to this Substack, see:
I recently reflected (chewed some cud) on the first month of Christianity in Transition with the
Daniel Coughlan. In this reflection we focused on the metaphor of Christianity as food that can either be kept at a distance from the body (due to either “food poisoning” or the belief that the food is imaginary, i.e. does not exist) or digested by the body (being processed internally by all the organs, producing/changing the being, for better or worse, in the process).This metaphor was useful for reflecting Christianity in Transition for two reasons:
the first month was structured by perspectives that were either explicitly deconstructive or pointing towards a beyond of Christianity (creating a distance);
while the second month will likely be structured by perspectives more focused on allowing Christianity to move and change one from within (internal digestion)
Warning: digestion may have the following side effects:
Here I should state explicitly that the “Christian Atheist” position is open to and able to work with both distance and digestion, and in fact, both may be necessary features of any Christian life conceived in the fullness of a person’s spiritual and metaphysical tarrying.1 Since the first month was structured by more of a “distance” to Christianity, let us first offer an overview of what content this distance implies, as well as the way it points in a way back around to the problem and question of “digestion”.
First, the structure of the month was as follows:
(Emerging) Church as Contradiction
De/Re-Construction
God in Metamodernity
Church/Religion as Question
(Emerging) Church as Contradiction
The point of starting the first month of Christianity in Transition with the topic of the “Emerging Church movement” as a contradiction was to situate Christianity in its historical, geographical and generational context. For me, situating Christianity in its historicity, as opposed to reifying a non-historical Christianity, is an absolute key to a deeper understanding of it. Of course, this specific topic of analysing the Emerging Church movement included a funny irony in regards to Peter Rollins’ concept of the “Church of Contradiction”:
whereas the “Church of Contradiction” is a pyrotheological notion designed to positivise the role contradiction plays in the becoming of our spiritual and religious identities;2
analysing the Emerging Church movement as a contradiction was designed to work through a certain historical, geographical and generational form of Christianity, to see both what it produced as a result, and how we may move in the future.
When we think about the Emerging Church movement historically, geographically, and generationally, we are thinking about a form of Christianity that is responding to the Seeker movement led by the Boomer generation in America.3 I have started to think that when most Western non-identifying Christians or atheists think about Christianity, they have a stereotype of an evangelical individual in the Seeker movement (I certainly did). The Seeker movement in the 1970s/80s, in contrast to the more radical dreams of the 1960s counter-culture, tried to adapt Christianity to the political-economy of neoliberal America. This resulted in many Boomers turning themselves into a “professional managerial” “swarm” through applying business marketing, as well as academic psychology and sociology, to the Gospel in order to build Megachurch structures reflecting a commercial shopping mall culture.4
In contrast, the Emerging Church movement was Gen X’s angsty and gritty response to this culture in the late 90s and early 00s.5 The Emerging Church movement, broadly speaking, thought that the Seeker movement was too pragmatic and propositional, too large-scale and suburban, allowing Christianity to become dominated by the surrounding culture as opposed to shaping the culture from its own first principles. In contrast, Emerging Church attempted to act from the position of a transformed heart, becoming more theological and existential, small-scale and inner city; pointing towards the need to embrace negative affects like doubt and angst, as well as wrestling with actual contemporary social issues and tensions (e.g. racial reconciliation, poverty and inequality).6
However, the contradiction for the Emerging Church was that it ended up lost in a culture war battle, between progressive Woke politics with critical theory as its theology and the counter-cultural revolution of the 1960s as its mythology, or conservative reactionary politics with a strict “Trad-Cath” or “Ortho-bro” closure from the politics of secular society, and a romanticisation of pre-modern aesthetics and thought.7 Consequently, the progressive position replaced theological truth with social justice culture, and the conservative position became too theologically militant for a secular pluralistic society. To state the contradiction simply: the Emerging Church either became consumed by a new secular theology, or lost itself in the deadlock of traditional theology at odds with dominant culture.
Contemporary pastor Paul VanderKlay claims that the “heirs” to the Emerging Church movement can be found in the works of Jordan B. Peterson and Jonathan Pageau.8 Both thinkers, for VanderKlay, can be understood to “sublate” (in Hegelese) the previous political splits of the Emerging Church movement, in that they are both:
“Woke proof” (using Christian metaphysics to combat progressive social justice ideology), as well as capable of including within their Christianity
a multiplicity of its forms (Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox), similar to the way Evangelical Boomer culture attempted to sublate various forms of Protestantism
VanderKlay suggests that this double tendency represents a “Metagelical” turn in Christian circles that may open for a new movement beyond the Emerging Church. To be clear, what differentiates this movement from the previous contradiction of the Emerging Church is a rejection of a secularised social justice theology and a willingness to wrestle with the inner theological difference which traditionally hold Christians in different positions (Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant). This “Meta” form of Christianity is certainly something that reflects a Christianity that is rethinking itself in the context of online/digital as well as global dynamics.
However, I might suggest, that from the Christian Atheist point of view, the tension between Christianity and secular culture, as well as the theopolitics of political-economy, still remains a major obstacle that requires deeper thinking, which is why we will turn to this topic for deeper analysis in the second month of Christianity in Transition.
De/Re-Construction, Metamodernity, and Christianity as a Living Question
The three remaining events for the first part of the Christianity in Transition series features the works of “deconstructionologist” Jim Palmer, cultural theorist Brendan Graham Dempsey, and two active practitioners of the Emerging Church movement, Rob Zahn and Kevin Crouse.
First,
introduced us to aspects of both deconstructive and reconstructive theology as a part of Christianity itself.9 The core of deconstruction, inspired of course by postmodern philosophy, aims to locate and take apart key/core axioms and ultimate signifying rules for building systems of thought. In the context of the aforementioned American forms of Christianity, there is a claim that religion and theology became, on the one hand:“too theistic” = dependent on specific belief claims about the existence or non-existence of God
“too logocentric” = overly-focused on the structural use of spoken-written words or systems of thought
“too Biblical” = centring truth claims on the Bible (sola scriptura) as opposed to lived experience
And on the other hand:
“not philosophical enough” = avoidant/anxious about its relation to modern and postmodern philosophy
“not radical enough” = traditionalist forms unable to come to terms with alterity and difference
“not diverse enough” = aspects of the culture implicitly or explicitly misogynist or segregationist
However, in looking for “indestructible” grounds capable of withstanding a reconstruction, specifically from the point of view of Christianity, Palmer offers some core starting points that may include:
Religious criticism of religion = Christianity, through the figure of Christ, is itself already a criticism of religion (it is capable of immanent internal critique)
Trinity of body, place and time = Christianity locates universality in singularity of a spatiotemporal body (articulates relation between individual-collective)
Religious revolution as both sacred/profane = Christianity transgresses traditional sacred (ancient world) while opening processes of profanation (modern world)
Death and resurrection of God = Christianity introduces a higher-order dialectics of life and death (it is constantly dying and being reborn)
Context-bound plot with context-transcending message = Christianity both embeds in a specific historical location and points to universal future
In this de/reconstructive context,
led a reflection on the notion of “God in Metamodernity”. For Dempsey, this work seeks to overcome the potential for a religious revival to lead to the reconstruction of more regressive traditional forms of Christianity (whether Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox). His starting point for a “Metamodern God Concept” is the need for a “reconstructive materialism” that overcomes the way in which grand narratives have been undermined in post-modernity, especially after the failures of Hegelo-Marxism (tyrannical communist states, universalisation of global capitalism). In short: progressive modernist telos has become unbelievable after the failures of Hegelo-Marxism, and a traditional Christian revival is not only unable to withstand the pressures of a postmodern secular plurality, but may actually represent a real danger.Dempsey locates the proof of the dead end of Hegelo-Marxism in the thought of the Frankfurt School (Adorno, Horkheimer), which he claims offers us only a bleak/pessimistic view of rational processes. Consequently, we have lost faith in the powers of rational cognition to confront the actual tensions and problems of our day, and to work with them towards a better world. He cites philosopher Jürgen Habermas as the location for a potential post-Frankfurt School reconstruction of materialism, which moves beyond a Marxist emphasis on dialectical modes of production, and towards an emphasis on communicative structures contextualised in cognitive and developmental psychology. This point towards the need to think about each individual cognition, as well as our social cognition as a whole, as recapitulating different stages of historical of identification with God. The “meta” dimension of this idea proposes that the entire stage process is itself God as evolving consciousness.10
Thus, for Dempsey, if we are thinking about a God beyond postmodern nihilism, we can use both cognitive and developmental psychology to develop a religious or theological stage theory that can be defined in the following way:
Animistic = spirits/totems
Imperial = the gods
Traditional = moral god
Modern = universal faith
Postmodern = contextual truth
Metamodern = evolving consciousness
In this system, and as suggested above, Dempsey claims that we can think about the entire process as “moments of God” and that God is this very process of God learning about itself through human beings. Here he would suggest that a regressive reconstruction would include, but be unable to fully transcend (in Wilberian terms), the animistic, imperial, traditional, modern, and postmodern conditions for the metamodern condition of God as “evolving consciousness” itself. Thus, Dempsey may suggest that the turn to traditional Christianity is unable to fully universalise faith, contextualise truth, and thus, become a truly evolving consciousness, or an evolving consciousness in truth.
Finally, Rob Zahn and Kevin Crouse, two long-term Christian practitioners in the age of the Emerging Church, led us into the concrete question of both religion and the church in Christianity today. Broadly speaking, Zahn and Crouse suggest that religion is a binding mechanism for our species-being (births, marriage, death, weekly/annual rituals), and church is a ritual community space for social gatherings.
However, in the context of the previous threads of this month — the contradiction of the Emerging Church, De/Reconstruction, Metamodern God — Zahn and Crouse situate both religion and the church within a framework proposed by American author Phyllis Tickle, suggesting that Christianity undergoes fundamental reformations every 500 years:11
Birth of Christianity (~2000 years ago)
Fall of Roman Empire (~1500 years ago)
The Great Schism (~1000 years ago)
The Protestant Reformation (~500 years ago)
The Great Emergence (Now?)
Zahn and Crouse situate the aforementioned Emerging Church movement as an unfinished reformation that may point towards the (im)possible challenge of adopting Christianity to the digital technological age, while at the same time re-grounding it in the physical and analog spaces. This challenge is one that needs to be situated in the aforementioned contradiction of the Emerging Church movement, as well as situated in the active work that is being done in various Christian and Christian-adjacent spaces today. Indeed, one of the most valuable aspects of the Christianity in Transition series, is that it is attempting to build online spaces that will be directly translated to physical spaces at this years Wake Festival with Peter Rollins.12
Metagelicalism in a Global Secular World
You will recall that the contradiction of the Emerging Church manifests in the culture war conflict between progressive/Woke forms of Christianity which become dominated by a social justice theology, and the more conservative/Orthodox forms of Christianity which becomes isolated/closed in relation to secular pluralistic society. In this context, if we consider the idea that the potential “heirs” to the Emerging Church movement both defend themselves from Woke social justice driven theology and strive to include a Metagelical orientation (building a pluralism between Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Protestantism), then the question, as mentioned above, is how Christian theology can interface with a secular pluralistic world without:
Either becoming consumed by/reduced to the dominant culture
Or without imposing itself as the dominant hegemonic norm
Metagelicalism is a potentially useful term to approach both in the sense that:
Christianity can become more robust by intellectually self-processing its own theological differences and historicity in a higher-order trinitarian unity
Reconciling itself with global secular pluralistic society as its own offspring, an otherness challenging us to political struggle for the heart of humanity as a whole
For those that have been following my work, I would suggest that this requires two elements that have inspired Philosophy Portal for the past two years:
Christian Atheism
Church of Contradiction
Christian Atheism allows for us to think a unity between a genuinely reconstructed Christianity as a necessary transcendental illusion immanent to human development, and global pluralistic society that struggles with the lack/incompleteness internal to the religious project itself. I have suggested in the Christian Atheism course itself that the counter-cultural revolution of the 1960s failed to adequately approach this problem, which has led to a potential “regression” where traditionalist forms are now representative of a new counter-culture. What is at stake, for me, in this tension is the possibility of a theopolitical project that is able to bring us precisely to the contradictions of capitalist society and undead dreams of a real socialism. If VanderKlay is right that Peterson and Pageau represent “heirs” to the Emerging Church movement, the contradiction I see in whatever is happening within their spiritual orbit, is the inability to really address the need for a global socialist politics.
This is the “Christian cud” that I chew.
The work of Peter Rollins’ and the Church of Contradiction, for me, allows us to hold a space to process the impossibility of community within the contradiction of liberal technocapitalist politics today, which manifests between the evaporation of local physical gatherings, and the ubiquity or inescapability of the digital. Consequently, the major contradictions that for me need to be processed in such spaces, include the contemporary global tensions between the physical/analog and the online/digital, as well as the growing impasses of technocapitalist or technofeudalist socio-political conditions.
This is also the “Christian cud” that I chew.
Whether this framing is adequate to the question of and the challenge for Christianity today, is something we may find out in the second month of Christianity in Transition. Throughout the month we will be hosting thinkers who are actively digesting a “Metagelical” Christian form, including Christian Baxter, Luke Thompson, and Ross Byrd. Baxter is the host of the YoursTruly podcast, which has become a conversational hub for those actively participating in VanderKlay’s This Little Corner (TLC), and Thompson a.k.a “White Stone Name”, embodies the Orthodox roots of Christianity as a pluralism in actively interfacing on the level of the personal. Byrd is loosely associated with TLC but is primarily motivated by the “heirs” of the Emerging Church, Jonathan Pageau and Jordan B. Peterson, and struggling with the challenge of Christian communitarianism, local churches, and physical grounding, in the context of a sociopolitical climate, market economy, and technological landscape that makes this extremely difficult. We will also invite back Rob Zahn to contextualise his vision of Christian history in the context of the 1960s counter-culture, as well as its implications for both theology and our society today.
If you are interested in how Christianity may express itself as Metagelical, and if you are interested in how Christianity grounds itself today, you will be interested in getting involved for the second month of Christianity in Transition. You can find the schedule as well as access details below:
Monday March 31st / Session 5: Metagelicalism
Sunday April 6th / Session 6: A Parish Manifesto with
Ross Byrd
Monday April 14th / Session 7: Christianity and Counter-Culture with Rob Zahn
Sunday April 20th / Session 8: TLC as Metagelical? with
Christian Baxter YT, Luke Thompson
This April 12th and 13th, Philosophy Portal will also be hosting the Rosy Cross 2 conference, inspired by the Christian Atheism course. For more information on the conference, or to register, see the link below:
Also, at the end of the month, Philosophy Portal will be physically participating at Peter Rollins’ Wake Festival. From April 27th to May 1st we will be exploring radical theology through philosophical dialogues, music and art. You can find out more, or get involved, at the link below:
See: VanderKlay, P. 2025. A (Seeker) Managerial Swarm vs (Metagelical) Every Member a Mystic (Protestantish). Paul VanderKlay. (link)
Ibid.
See: VanderKlay, P. 2025. Why the Emergent Movement Failed, and Where It Went. Paul VanderKlay. (link)
Ibid.
Ibid.
See: Palmer’s series on “The Great Reconstruction” at
Dempsey outlines his view of a universal learning process here, see: Dempsey, B.G. 2024. A Universal Learning Process (The Evolution of Meaning Book 1). Sky Meadow Press.
Tickle, P. 2008. The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing And Why. Baker Books.
See: Wake Program 2025.
Excited to be a part of this!
I’m curious why so much emphasis is given to Pageau and Peterson and if you’re referring to something specific when you reference Woke Christianity? I don’t see a connection between them and emergent, but a kind of reinvented regressive religiosity as a response to perceived culture wars using the persecution framework found within conservative Christianities. Great series so far.