ReImagining Denominations like Jews in Hyperspace

Gustavo:
...Since the Protestant Reformation there have been lots of protestant denominations. What course could the denominations take in Latin America?

Anyul: Phylis Tickle has an interesting theory, she says that the denominations that do not engage with the emerging conversation are condemned to the decrease of its membership and later extinction, but I don’t believe this concept applies across the board… not even in North America. What I see is that there is a certain tendency in the denominations to strengthen their structures and to centralize even more. The “apostolic movements” are a recent example of that, which in my understanding are simply another effort to centralize the protestant church even more.
- Interview, Latin-American Emergence

Having witnessed examples of the indigenous Latin American denominations (which most North Americans have no idea they even exist) fall into "parallel universe" versions of the same traps as our North American denominations (especially shoring up and entrenching Protestantism and defining it against Catholicism...which as the very name of the Protestant movement betrays, was largely the point)....one realizes that even "apostolic networks"/new wineskins become new whineskins by default.

Is may be best to refuse to categorize ourselves as "Protestant" (even for legal purposes),
or does that inevitably lead to us starting yet another stream/denomination.
The "statements of faith" of most denominations/networks betray us .

We are afraid of being interpreted as a cult.
Which of course the early church was branded.
Until pastors have been offered drugs (see Seay) a but more, we may not even be pastors;
or even post-denominational....

.............................or even Christian yet.

What the heck are we pastors doing leading churches anyway?

Until 0ur "enlightened" and "emerging" churches morph into a whole new way of being and defining (beyond even good and helpful labels) ourselves, we may not be found fully faithful.

It's high time for each group/network/denomination to find it's redemptive place in the grand "fidelity of betrayal" that God is birthing..

It's past time to not just get out of the box to rethink, reimagine, redream (and be temporarily "closed for reprayers" as the shift happens)... but maybe out of our own dimension (:


Sane madman Cliff Pickover is a huge help for our times in this matter, a multiplex genius.
One of his creative and novel novels relates here-- see interview below.
In redreaming, it's time to pull out all the stops, orbit the giant hairball of our systems..
and reprogram ourselves to think creatively like..uh, Jews in hyperspace:

Finally, can you tell me a little more about your book, Jews in Hyperspace? What is it about, and can readers without any background in science or Judaism understand it?

Jews in Hyperspace is one of my favorites, and I published it directly to the Kindle. I give a free excerpt here -- a website at which I also tell your readers how the book came to be written.

Readers need no special background in science or Judaism to enjoy the wondrous adventure. In the book, I mix higher dimensions and religion, miracles and modern technology, and politics and physics to produce a gripping tale set in a future Jerusalem. It’s a strange blend of scientific thriller and a quest for religious harmony.

April, here’s the premise. Orthodox Jews are disappearing from Jerusalem. One moment they are praying at the Western Wall, and in the blink of an eye, they seem to evaporate, occasionally leaving behind only their fur hats—their shtreimels—that sit like small, soft flying saucers, perched on stone pavement in the dwindling light. In order to build the Third Temple while being respectful of the Islamic structures on the Temple Mount, the Jews have discovered a way to access a fourth spatial dimension. They will build the Third Temple invisibly "above" the Temple Mount and "above" the Mosque in the direction of the fourth dimension. I discuss everything from the future of Israel and Jerusalem to Parallel Universes, the building of Third Temple in Jerusalem, Nephilim, angels, and the fourth dimension.

Without indie publication, this novel would be difficult to publish. Jewish publishers are not accustomed to publishing science fiction. Thus, it would surely be difficult to find a route to publication through Jewish publishers.
Interview

Of course the obvious irony here..though we need a temple tantrum... the invisible building of the New Temple in a new dimension, when translated too directly into doing church ("The 40 Days of Purpose-Driven Building a Temple in Hyperspace...and Beating the Heretics to Heaven") can easily wind up being just another way of topping the other denominations/ common 'enemy') system. We upend, and end up bankrupt..

..and pro-Protest-ant again.

I mean a general seeing things from a fresh perspective...

Bono was right: every decade or so (and especially every 500 years or so), we have got to "go away and dream it all up again,"

At our "church," we even let
people...even, gasp!...women like this (see pic)..

even (mercy!) Hispanic (full circle here) women like Alma here,
read books like this...during the "service."

But that still doesn't necessarily make us post-Protestant.
(i mean, we still have a website and a statement of faith...and a "service")..
Help...I need a 40 day retreat in Hyperspace..