Here I am again trying to get into the swing of making regular posts. Today was an interesting day. I was at an Emerging Church Conference at the ICC in Glasgow. I found it interesting and frustrating. The term "Emerging Church" is being used today in the Christian Community to describe worshipping communities that are seeking to engage with people who lost interest in what we might call traditional understandings of church. Or who may never have been there in the first place. There has been a whole host of books written on the subject. Indeed the term itself seems to be defined by so many in different ways.

I was surprised to discover that the Rupert Murdoch owns Zondervan one of the big Christian publishing Houses. I was further intrigued to discover that Zondervan have taken out the copyright on the term Emerging Church. I started to google this tonight and her is what I discovered" Media magnate Rupert Murdoch bought Zondervan for $56.7 million or $13.50 per share a few years ago. Zondervan's stock jumped $4.25 per share on the announcement.Murdoch, an international world citizen who started in Australia, was building a media empire via his company, News Corp. The following month, the tycoon Murdoch gobbled up the nation's largest circulation magazine, TV Guide, also Seventeen, and Good Food magazines plus the Daily Racing Form on a $3 billion cash binge which was the second largest media deal ever. The seller was Walter Annenberg, 80-year-old Jewish publishing partriarch, who privately owned Triangle Publications whose lucrative national magazine distribution business takes not only their magazines to newsstands but also many others including Reader's Digest."In recent years Murdoch has built a media empire worldwide with revenues over $10 billion (64 percent in U.S.A., 19 percent in United Kingdom and 17 percent in Australia and the Pacific Basin). Holdings include Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., Fox Broadcasting Co., Fox Television Stations, Inc., Harper-Collins, TV Guide, and FSI (multi-page free standing inserts each week in 390 local Sunday newspapers). Also owned in the United Kingdom are The Times, The Sunday Times, Today, Sun and News of the World. These account for one-third of all national newspapers sold in the U.K. market with the latter two having the largest daily and Sunday circulations respectively in the English-speaking world. Also 50 percent owned is British Sky Broadcasting Ltd., the leading U.K. direct-to-home satellite television broadcasting service. News Corp. is also the largest newspaper publisher in Australia.

The final piece of information which I found even more disturbing is the company that publishes so much soft porn also publishes the NIV Bible. So what is this Emerging Church all about is it no more than publicity brand name made up by a publisher to sell books. Have a look at Urban Expressions web page in Possilpark Glasgow. There is little doubt that those involved in this movement are are seriously committed to Christ. Nonetheless the other side of it via the Murdoch empire leaves me with serious questions.

I was sharing my frustration with Peter Neilson tonight on the phone, and he made an interesting comment. Suggesting that maybe we should be talking about the church that is seeking to engage with the emerging culture. I realise that is what I've been trying to do all my life. Hence in the 60s we had a rock band and a cafe style outreach church. I suppose the difference is that we saw this as outreach not church. When perhaps all along it was authentic church.

I like what John Drane was saying today about the importance of theology being rooted in the practice of daily life rather than being kept to the seclusion of the the ivory tower inhabited by the academic. In reality I'm not sure if real dynamic theology has ever been ivory tower bound. I remember my Professor of Systematic Theology John Zizziulas telling us that unless our doctrine was rooted in our every day practical acts of living and behaviour it wasn't worth believing.

Well tomorrow I'll be sharing my doctrine of the Kingdom with the MSP at the Scottish Parliament. I'm going to be centering my reflection around the idea of the lost child that is in all of us. Depending how it goes I might even post it on the blog tomorrow. One thing I'm sure of Murdoch will hold the copyright on the gospel or does he? Now there's something you might like to comment on.