Halfway through Stuart Murray’s book Church After Christendom (Paternoster, 2004, 94) I came across this paragraph. To my mind it sums up very well the key rationale for Open Source Theology and the whole project of stripping our theology back down to the foundations and rethinking it from the ground up. The book provides an excellent overview of the challenge that the church in the UK in particular faces in the brave new post-Christendom world.
Inherited churches sometimes express concern about heterodox theology in emerging churches - especially those without theologically trained leaders or accountability to inherited church representatives. Emerging churches, and their advocates, sometimes respond by emphasising their orthodoxy. They may be culturally creative, but they do not want to appear theologically innovative. This is understandable but disappointing. There are encouraging exceptions, but many emerging churches are unadventurous in theology. Some remarkably innovative models on the cutting edge of contemporary culture seem unwilling to extend their ecclesiological creativity to other aspects of theology. Theological timidity may be more dangerous than heterodoxy to emerging churches. Ecclesiological renewal and missiological initiative needs undergirding with theological reflection.
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