Recently Phyllis Tickle visited St. Paul's for a couple of lectures. Tickle is a noted analyst and interpreter of religion in America. For many years she led the religion department for Publishers Weekly, tracking the themes and interests of contemporary religious books.

She agrees with a number of scholars who see our time as a period of religious change not unlike the Great Reformation of the 16th century and other pivotal points in western religious history. She quoted Bishop Mark Dwyer who has said that it seems that every 500 years the church feels compelled to have a giant rummage sale. Scholar Tom Cahill calls these movements "hinges of history."

Tickle traced these 500 year epochs as crises of authority. It seems that it is in the nature of western religious tradition that it takes about 500 years to institutionalize our faith to the point that we can no longer bear the weight of its institutionalization. So we tend to throw out the old authorities and institutions and replace them with something that feels more authentic.

The first 500 years of church history was dominated by the Church Fathers, parish bishops who established the orthodoxy and practice of the church. With the fall of Roman civilization, authority shifted. Benedict led a monastic movement that preserved Christian practice and became the source for energy and authority for the next half millennium. Eventually, monastic Christianity was eclipsed by the growing concentration of authority in the papal office and appointed magisterium. The Great Schism of 1054 marks a turning point in that history.

When Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the church door in Wittenberg in 1517, he was challenging the authority of the Pope and the institution of the Roman Catholic Church. It had become obvious to Luther, no human being or institution is infallible. The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century raised up the authority of "scripture alone."

What Tickle and other religious observers are saying is that we are now in the middle of another 500-year Reformation. The authority of "scripture alone" is failing. She traces that failure along a 150-year path beginning in 1859 with Darwin's publication of "The Origin of the Species." Darwin hoped that if he could find a common human ancestor it would lead to peace and unity as humanity discovered its singular kinship. That was not what others heard him saying. Many perceived his writing to be an attack on the biblical stories of creation.

The Bible, particularly when interpreted literally, has been taking significant hits ever sense. The issue of slavery may have been the first reinterpretation of a biblical norm. The existence of slavery is taken for granted in most of the biblical record. Abolitionists challenged that presumption by raising higher values, values which also have roots in the scripture. It is clear in much of the biblical record that women do not occupy an equal role with men. The women's suffrage movement and other equal opportunity causes have changed the way we think about women. Divorce and remarriage which are prohibited in scripture have largely been destigmatized. And the growing recognition of the full humanity of gay people is completing a 150-year journey that has chipped away the institutionalized authority of "scripture alone." It has become obvious to most people that no book is infallible.

Each of these religious reformations has been exquisitely painful and conflictive. Yet it is a testimony to the resilience and creativity of western religion that each era returns to its roots and there finds new life. We also continue to benefit from the wisdom and experience of the past. Christian theology remains grounded in the Church Fathers, the spirituality of monasticism continues to enrich us, the papacy is a respected symbol of Christian leadership, and the Bible inspires with unique authority. Some have begun to call this contemporary period the Emergent Reformation. It remains to be seen what kind of church will emerge.

I believe it is exciting to be alive during one of these "hinges of history." Within the apparent chaos and conflict, God is working with renewed purpose and creativity. For those of us drawn to the western church, is the opportunity of our lifetime to witness and contribute to the spiritual rebirth that God will accomplish.