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Philip Clayton, philosopher and theologian at Claremont School of Theology, joins ThinkFwd host, Spencer Burke, at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Gardens north of Los Angeles where they talk about faith, science, and the parallels between ecosystems and the Church. Clayton describes how the scientific community had the idea that when they figured out the human genome, everything else would be deduced outward from that starting point. We would discover a gene for x, y and z, and could figure out if people had a gene for becoming a teacher or a gene for a radio talk show host.

What scientists found instead is that life is unpredictable, and dependent on the individual’s environment. A variety of top-down influences determine what we become, and so life unfolds in an unpredictable, unimaginable way. Just like plants in an ecosystem are dependent on each other, people are dependent on each other and bond together in an interdependent web.

This knowledge of science and the way living things and their environments are connected influences Philip’s perspective about God and they way God interacts with people. He believes a biblical view of God is not a God who sits at the top, determining every outcome. But rather, the God of Philippians who—while He had all power—emptied himself of that power. God is not afraid to become vulnerable and enter into a system He doesn’t control or micromanage.

God doesn’t sit outside the process of unfolding life, but is co-creator with individual “agencies,” working in, with, and through those agencies in ways that are not so neat and clean. God’s love and power are pervasive, as the not-so-smooth lines of life interact with each other, as our networks and systems intertwine with each other.

Just like ecological systems are in crisis, Philip and Spencer talk about the Church in crisis. Our attitude of “managing” nature in a top-down structure has resulted in problems and we are losing and going to lose more species. It is likely that similar vertical, top-down structures in the Church are going to crumble, and we may lose “species” in the Church (the mega-church, the dynamic top-down head pastor). But what will grow in their place are networks of networks and systems of systems—unpredictable and not neat and clean, but interdependent and guided by God.

Personal Reflections:

1. How has nature, life, death and rhythms enhanced your understanding of God?
2. How do you see God with, in and through us as co-creators of life?

Small Group or Staff Questions:

1. The top-down approach to management has served us in the past. But now we have networks of networks growing in unpredictable ways. How can we use this new metaphor for growing our faith?
2. If Kingdom-building is going to be more unpredictable, vulnerable, and collaborative, how can we embrace that interconnectedness—the flowing together and even the breaking apart into more parts than before?

One Response to “Philip Clayton – Emergence Taking on a Life of its Own”

1. Chris Says:
   September 2nd, 2009 at 11:52 am

   Thank God! I was beginning to think that I was the only one (within my own lived experience) who lives out of a real sense of interconnectedness. It’s just the way I experience almost everything (including theology), as if it was something that happened to me, not something that I set out to create for myself.

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