the great emergence

I am reading Phyllis Tickle's 'the great emergence' and I don't like it. I think she is confusing and writes in circles. She spends half of her book "considering... a few of the major cultural shifts in the twentieth century that have determined the religious and ecclesial perspectives out of which emergents are working" leaving the reader grasping for an understanding or working definition of what the Great Emergence actually is. There is no doubt an emergence is happening but she does no more than to point to 500 year hinge periods that she defines as rummage sales. She seems quite content to leave the reader lost with a bucket of knowledge filled with interconnected historical events.

"The reformation's understanding of scripture as it had been taught by Protestantism for almost five centuries will be dead. That is not to say that Scripture as the base of authority is dead. What the protestant tradition has taught about the nature of the authority will be either dead or in mortal need of reconfiguration. And that kind of summation is agonizing for the surrounding culture in general. In particular, it is agonizing for the individual lives that have been built upon it." Pg. 101

I think there may be some truth in this statement but not in the way she intends it.

The ever true hymn from Edward Mote:

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly trust in Jesus’ Name.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.