AEF-Martin Marty

Friday night's keynote speaker was Martin Marty. This was easily the most difficult of the sessions for me to follow. Marty went line-by-line and talked about how The Call is facing the future of evangelicalism. The structure was good and the presentation was deep and very academic. It was a stretch for my mind to follow Dr. Marty.
Marty's lecture was entitled "The Call and the Future of Evangelicalism". I didn't take any notes becuase Marty had a very detailed outline. So anything that stood out to me is now dependent on my memory, which is usually not good when it comes to lectures.
The first part of his speech was dedicated to the point that we cannot predict the future but we can project the future. We can form a plan as to what we think could happen but there is no way of knowing what will occur. One of the most interesting things that he talked about was the idea of "billions of particulars" leading to a specific reaction. He used the example of asking some of his students why and how the felt a call to ministry. Some gave clear answers but most couldn't give a specific instance when the "knew". He explained to them that it were possibly billions of particular events that lead to their decision.
In the next section Marty discussed how we could begin to project the future as North American evangelicals. Probably the most discussed topic over the weekend was this idea of narratives and specifically a meta-narrative. The Call states that, "The pressing issue is: who gets to narrate the world?" If I was following I believe Marty said that North Americans would not be in control of the meta-narrative much longer. The global south and especially China will hold this distinction. As far as Christianity is concerned Pentecostalism would be a smart bet to take over the position as most influential and largest segment of Christianity.

Much of the rest of the presentation was very good but not reproducible by me. Marty did share an experiment to take back to congregations. I will take the liberty of shortening the story. He said at separate times take the American flag and the most visible cross in your sanctuary out while leaving the other in. He said then attempt to gauge the kind of response to both and see which one you get the most heat over and which one's absence is easier to explain. It's not hard to guess which one would cause more of and uproar in most evangelical congregations.
The following panel discussion was lively and very interesting. There was much more talk about the narrative issue and I will devote one post on that (narrative, meta-narrative, mega-narrative, redeeming-narrative) later.
The evening session was followed by a compline service. I don't know if I have mentioned it yet but the worship during the weekend was beautiful and this service was the highlight of the weekend for me. We chanted several songs and various other scripture reading, prayed, confessed and sang together. It was so focused and intentional and pure, beautiful.