Imagine Pat Robertson, champion of the Christian right, and retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, bad boy of the Christian left, coming together for a hug.
That unlikely scenario is exactly what Philip Clayton, a theologian at Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, Calif., called for in a video clip posted to YouTube recently. Clayton is among a group of theologians eager to move beyond the culture wars that have pitted the Christian right and left for so long. His challenge to the two aging leaders - part stunt, part provocation - was a way of calling attention to the way Christianity has become bitterly polarized.
That polarization is turn-off to a younger generation not as invested in the old battles.
"Generation X and the Millennials are fed up with the disputes that define American church today," Clayton said. "They want to talk about the Gospels; what Jesus taught and did."
At a conference Wednesday and Thursday in Raleigh, Clayton and an impressive group of contemporary Christian thinkers will consider whether the gulf between the two Christian worlds can be bridged. Called "Big Tent Christianity," the conference is an attempt to rethink what it means to be a Christian in the 21st century.
Funded with a Ford Foundation grant, the two-day event will bring popular speakers such as Brian McLaren and Shane Claiborne to talk to ministers, scholars, students and lay leaders. The two dozen speakers will also be gathering for a private session at a conference center in Durham.
The genesis of the conference is a new movement in American Christianity called "emergent" or "emergence." Its followers consist of people in their 20s, 30s and early 40s who are far more willing to ask respectful questions of their faith and grapple with new interpretations.
Erasing battle lines
These Christians want to live out their faith in a more authentic way. For them, the old battle lines - whether the Bible is error-free, or whether gays and lesbians can be a part of the church - no longer matter.
"My hope is that we'll have this conversation where the Pentecostal can talk to the Anglican, and the Anglican can talk to the emergent guy with the goatee who's upset," said the Rev. Tripp Fuller, a minister in a United Church of Christ congregation in California.
Fuller grew up in Raleigh and volunteered his father's congregation - New Community Church on Six Forks Road - as the venue for the conference.
So far 200 people have signed up.
Among this group of Christians, denominations don't matter much. Nor do the traditional divisions among evangelicals, mainstream Protestants and Roman Catholics. They reject the idea that liberals are focused on social justice, while conservatives are more interested in personal morality.
This younger generation has grown up in a more urban environment filled with people from across the globe.
"You can't know Muslims and Buddhists up close and think God saves people in one tradition but not the next," Clayton said. "It's a lot harder to be exclusive and provincial in the way it was."
Still, that doesn't mean that the new "emergent" Christianity is necessarily liberal.
Go ahead and disagree
"If the old liberal ecumenism was about minimizing your faith commitment in order to avoid controversy and division, these conversations are deeply theological," said Brian McLaren, a popular evangelical speaker who is among the leaders of the new movement.
In this group, confronting thorny issues is not call for disfellowship, McLaren said.
That approach appeals to younger people such as Luke Bergemann, 31, a member of New Community Church.
"A lot of people take their faith at face value," said Bergemann of Raleigh. "Events like this can help shed light on issues people haven't thought of."
