Conversation replaces marketing and polemics. There is room again for Spirit, for more revelation, for radical transcendence and radical incarnation at the same time. Many say it is closer to the premodern world. Interest in chant and in Celtic and medieval spirituality is significant. Voices of those left out of the modern conversation are sought for the new international, multicultural, interfaith, postmodern conversation that is emerging.
Epochal change is never tidy.
There is a great deal of sloppy thinking and popular, commercial packaging of partially formed ideas and trends. About three years ago I found myself going back to Ireneaus, the great second century theologian and Bishop of Lyons. Now in retrospect I realize where my intuition was leading me. Ireaneus talks with confidence and enthusiasm of the promise that God doles out revelation only as we are able to receive it and, therefore, God never stops revealing new truth. I feel that same surge of confidence and excitement Ireneaus felt.