It is fascinating to me that some of the things that have been happening in my discipline (computer science) also seem to be happening to the church. Andrew referenced this in his blog today. My first exposure to some of the background to what was happening (both in software and in the culture at large) first came from ESR’s book The Cathedral and the Bazaar.
Eric first wrote the book “online” before it was later printed and published. This is something that perhaps some of the emergent authors should explore– first putting their thoughts, ideas, and theology online before or while publishing it. This might nurture, for good or bad, some of the decentralized contribution that has benefited software in the opensource movement. Some of this is clearly happening now through blogs and other online media but it would be interesting to see what would happen if it was applied to more formal and typically more lengthy collections of thoughts such as books.
Perhaps those working/assisting/struggling with the emerging church (and the context) could learn something from what has happened with software and the opensource movement. A good place to start would be the The Cathedral and the Bazaar and some of the related writings and critiques that ESR has compiled on the same site. We might learn something about spiritual formation from the hacker culture too.
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Damon,
As a fellow computer scientist I am really glad to see the work of the OSS/Free Software community getting recognized elsewhere. When I go back to the roots of the OSS world, we have to start with Richard Stallman and the GNU project. What I find most compelling about RMS is that he argues from a moral perspective first.
I suspect deeper dialog on these issues needs to start from RMS’s position and not ESRs.
I lay out an introduction to his ideas on my blog at:
http://welikesheep.org/osschurch
Any thoughts you want to share about RMS vrs ESR from the church perspective?
Nate
I just found this post by way of Nate’s link to it.
I’m a fan of ESR and RMS, and I agree that RMS’s position is probably a better place for the world of theology to begin from, although I think ESR’s language and metaphor would be helpful, too.
Your point about the Emerging Church “literature” is very well put forth. I have been very excited by what I’ve read from Brian McLaren, Doug Paggit and others in the emerging church conversation — BUT…
It sometimes seems they have an oligopoly on the conversation. I don’t think this is intentional, but I think it’s because while their ideas are very postmodern, their customs and practices (i.e. publishing paper books and “speaching” at conventions) are very modern.
I’ll ask the same question I asked Nate on his blog:
Where do we go from here, then?
Where is our Free/Open Source / Theology / Wiki / Blog ?
I’ve watched the conversation that is happening over at www.opensourcetheology.net, but they seem to focus almost exclusively on the theology side of things. In this post, and a few of Nate’s, I finally seem to have run into a few voices who are conversant in the Technological side of things — something that the Emerging Church conversation (and the church in general) could greatly benefit from, both in theory AND in practice.
Anyhow, I’m throwing the idea out there. Bite?