July 2 - Author Phyllis Tickle brings emergent church discussion to Menucha lectures

Phyllis Tickle, a lively authority on the future of the Christian church, will present the 2013 Wright Lectures on Oct. 13-15 at Menucha Retreat and Conference Center in Corbett. Attendance is limited to 60 people, and registration is open.

Tickle will speak on two of her books, "The Great Emergence" and "Emergence Christianity: What It Is, Where It Is Going and Why It Matters." She will offer extended question and answer periods and encourage small group conversations on the implications of what participants are hearing.

Tickle is an Episcopal lay minister and founding editor of the religion department at Publishers Weekly. She says the Christian church is entering a post-denominational period against a backdrop of sociological and cultural shifts that have created a distrust of all institutions. Mainline churches are becoming less hierarchical and more communal, she says, allowing Protestantism to renew and redefine itself.

"Wherever it's going, there's every reason right now to rejoice," she says. "God is doing a new thing amongst us and it's call emerging or emergent Christianity."