2007-06-17T05:43:00.000-07:00

DEEP CHURCH DEFINITION

The concept of Deep Church is already being talked about within context of a statement made by C.S. Lewis seeking to bring high and low church Anglicans together. He went on to use another term, "mere Christianity," which has stood the test of time. Now some in the Emergent Church are using the term as a catch-all for Emergent and more specifically for "generous orthodoxy" taken from a book by that name written by Brian McLaren.

Here is the reference from Lewis:

What is deep church?

The term was first coined by C S Lewis who on Feb 8th 1952 wrote a letter to The Church Times standing-up for the supernatural basis of the Gospel which he felt strongly was being undermined by modernism:

‘To a layman,’ he said, ‘it seems obvious that what unites the Evangelical and the Anglo Catholic against the “Liberal” or “Modernist” is something very clear and momentous, namely, the fact that both are thoroughgoing supernaturalists, who believe in the Creation, the Fall, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Second Coming, and the … Last Things. This unites them not only with one another but also with the Christian religion as understood ubique et ab omnibus.

The point of view from which this agreement seems less important than their divisions … is to me unintelligible. Perhaps the trouble is that as supernaturalists, whether “Low” or “High” Church, thus taken together they lack a name. May I suggest “Deep Church”, or if that fails in humility, Baxter’s “mere Christians”’. (C.S. Lewis, Church Times 1952). For more "deep church" discussion, see Paul Mayers blog.

My use of the term "Deep Church" comes independently (my not even being aware that the term was being used and drawn from Lewis). My use of the term is drawn from Bill McKibben's book, Deep Economy.

From Publishers Weekly:

Challenging the prevailing wisdom that the goal of economies should be unlimited growth, McKibben (The End of Nature) argues that the world doesn't have enough natural resources to sustain endless economic expansion. . . . Drawing the phrase "deep economy" from the expression "deep ecology," a term environmentalists use to signify new ways of thinking about the environment, he suggests we need to explore new economic ideas. . . . We should concentrate on creating localized economies: community-scale power systems instead of huge centralized power plants; cohousing communities instead of sprawling suburbs. He gives examples of promising ventures of this type, such as a community-supported farm in Vermont and a community biosphere reserve, or large national park–like area, in Himalayan India. . . . McKibben's proposals for new, less growth-centered ways of thinking about economics are intriguing, and offer hope that change is possible.