Phyllis Tickle is a provocative speaker and insightful commentator on the changes we see all around us on the American religious scene today, especially in the church. Founding editor of the Religion Department of Publishers Weekly, Tickle is also an involved Episcopalian who serves as a eucharistic minister and is senior fellow of Cathedral College at the National Cathedral in Washington. She takes readers on a journey into history after citing Anglican bishop Mark Dyer’s contention that “the only way to understand what is currently happening to us as twenty-frst-century Christians in North America is first to understand that about every five hundred years the Church feels compelled to hold a giant rummage sale.” This is necessitated by the incrustation of institutionalized Christianity that becomes sufficiently intolerable that major upheaval becomes inevitable, and leads to three things: (1) new forms of Christianity; (2) revitalization of the existing Church; (3) an explosion of Christianity into new geographic and demographic regions. This book is a good read, and helps make sense of the unrest and fermentation churches are experiencing. (Baker Books)
