The Red Pill or the Blue Pill

''This section originally appeared as part of Why this book? in the Manifesto v0.8. The other sections of that chapter appear below'':


 * The Shake-up
 * The Age of the Spirit
 * New Spiritual Leadership
 * New Reformation
 * Sacrificing the Church's Idols
 * Disciples Answering the Call


 * Expect Conflict
 * The Red Pill or the Blue Pill?
 * Summary of Why this Book?
 * Goals of the Manifesto
 * An emerging Apostolic Picture

Are we willing to be part of this, or would we rather settle for Church-As-We-Know-It (hereinafter CAWKI)?

Remember the film “The Matrix” part one? Neo being offered the red and blue pill by Morpheus? Take the blue pill, wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want. Take the red pill, and discover how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Maybe you say: nobody has ever prepared or called me for something like this; I have stood on the sidelines, watching over the hedge as others played. And, in any case, I am too young, too old, too smart, too dumb, too rich, or too poor. Well, consider this era of self-pity to be history. God is calling you. And you know that. And if it is of any help: As someone who has taken the red pill, I hereby call on you to rise to this challenge and be recognized. Recognizing that you would not have it if God has not given it to you, I call you to put your God-given sword on the table, be it your gift as an artist, teacher, evangelist, or your money and your talents, your hotel, Chalet, restaurant, ship, plane, helicopter, company car, or your ability to cook or wait on tables.

As to the form in which I will attempt to communicate this, I write this mainly for those fellow pilgrims new to the game; for the uninitiated; the young, and the ones who stood at or even beyond the fences of CAWKI: the artists, the business community, or politicians. I would therefore humbly ask my friends (anyone left?) in Academia to please allow me to use an everyday language, to use pictures, graphs, and stories, and, for once, shamelessly forget footnotes, a lot of Greek and Hebrew quotes, and even indexes (we have now search machines…). My message is ultimately quite simple. And, I do not feel sorry or apologetic for the frequent interweaving of supernatural events that transcend our rational understanding as if they were real. They are. If you are in doubt, please visit me at home; my coffee machine is all yours. Someone, recently commenting on the “highly intellectual discussion” on the so-called emerging or emergent churches and the ability of some of the opinion leaders of this discussion to juggle any amount of theological, conceptual, cultural, and methodological balls at the same time, asked a profound question: “Where is the Holy Spirit in all this?”