I have had several people ask lately and have been confronted on my/our affiliation with the “Emergent Church Movement”. While my initial reaction is no, I took some time recently to find out exactly what I might be being compared to.
1. The emerging church is about as indefinable as trying to nail Jello to the wall. I have heard this frustration expressed in almost everything I have read or seen about the subject.
2. It is described largely as a post-modern movement. Indicating a departure from devotion to truth and embracing a form of universalism.
3. It seems, based on what is reported, that it embraces a gospel this is primarily, if not exclusively social.
4. It’s regular meetings manifest in very experiential or relevant environments.
5. It makes radical rethinking/departure from traditional doctrines and theologies. This is most regularly illustrated in the departure from the traditional doctrine of hell.
A few of my thoughts of these major points.
1. Indefinable
a. The Emergent Church has stated that it embraces and makes allowance for all traditional denominations and sects. On the surface at least, I think this is great! Based on what I have heard from the EC, and based on my own convictions, I think that is past the day that we should continue to engage in what I would call Christian/church racism.
b. The EC seems to have taken a unique route in not making a clearly defined doctrinal statement. Allowing instead to be flexible, and also being honest enough to say; please allow the scripture/spirit to guide you. The needs of X church in y city may be different than the needs of n church in z city. We can avoid pigeonholing the gospel by allowing it to be flexible for different people groups.
2. Post-Modern
a. Largely, I don’t see anyone establishing new ideas of challenging old ideas or truths simply for the sake of doing so. This is what I see as one of the most ironic parts of this us vs. them scenario. From what I can see the EC is asking to make the Gospel MORE important than simply a big-tent fire insurance message.
3. Social Gospel
a. Continued from 2a. - While this seems to upset people who have subscribed to the more traditional gospel, the thrust of the EC seems to be that what we do and how we act here and now is just as important as what happens to our souls when we die. Choosing to view the gospel as a trigger for worldwide reconciliation, and working towards it in every way possible.
4. Relevancy
a. This one bugs me, and is unique in that it is not limited to the EC. While I think the EC has attached to some pretty good ideas, I think this maybe where we may be having some trouble. It seems to me that while they are prepared to rethink the gospel, doctrines and theologies, we are not prepared to rethink how are churches manifest themselves corporately. I see a lot of churches, not just EC, choosing to go in routes that still resemble traditional 4 wallers, but are simply reformed in that they have couches instead of pews, light votive candles, and have trendy music. My questioning of this route is this; how can we expect to embody a radical Christ-like body of people if we simply reform what the world has created church to be?
5. Doctrines/Theologies
a. This goes back to 1b.
b. The t-ball the media is playing on what EC leaders are teaching about is hell is grossly skewed. The media seems to have discovered that this is an easy subject to bring up, as it is the least convicting thing they can discuss. Here is an example of one teaching I have heard on this subject.
i. The question of where we, as “physical beings”, go when we die is irrelevant. We must separate our thinking on physicality and spirituality so that we might see that our spirits will live on in the presence of G-d, but that His presence is not a clearly defined physical space. Conversely, the ideas that are held about things like “lake of fire” are purely physical representations of what our souls will go through.
To wrap this up. Am I emergent? No. While I am excited that conversations are happening around the world, I am not excited over talk. I think that the time for debating and discovering is over. We must break the binds of this world and allow ourselves to embrace the Gospel of Jesus and live it. As Rob Bell says in his latest book, Jesus came to usher in a new exodus, an exodus from the world in its fallen state. If we would only have the eyes to see and the ears to hear, we would see the Kingdom of G-d all around us.
2 comments:
I appreciated your analysis. I have 2 comments I would like to make.
1) Under section 4: relevancy, you discuss the nature of institutions and physical space. The one thing I would like to push back on is that both denominational leaders and emergent church people are interested in making our worship space more representative of our theology. Though you are taking a (slightly) dualistic approach to this, I might suggest that the way we worship is directly related to what we believe and must mirror these concepts. One of the challenges we have in the Episcopal Church is that our buildings demonstrate a theology completely at odds with our professed one. Reforming our houses of worship is an essential part of embodying our faith.
2. One of the difficulties we have at this time is that we have gotten so label-happy that we don't share our real selves. In many ways, your affinities seem to match up well with what is discussed in emergent circles, but you don't want to identify as such; just as some that identify as emergent probably aren't very. But as Phyllis Tickle suggests, perhaps, in the midst of our current Re-Formation, it is hard to identify where we stand: only the cool lens of history will be able to point back and say "obviously, this is what was going on."
Drew+
Drew, I am shocked that anyone read this, let alone left a coherent comment!
A little background on why I wrote this. We are part of a little group/Church of people here in SW Florida that are working frantically to renew our faith and realign it with the teachings of the Bible (not even a remotely decent summarization). Along with this we have come under significant fire from people around us for, among many other things, being part of the emergent church. I threw this together to guide a discussion our group had a week or so ago to address some of the concerns of those people.
1) I definitely see where your coming from here, and think (although I will need to dwell on it) that I agree. My personal belief is in decentralizing and meeting in homes and public spaces. This belief would obviously guide my opinions on how others choose to gather. Also, I think my point might have been misunderstood (my fault for being a crappy writer). I think that the traditional/evangelical and EC share their quest for relevancy. I was trying to say that this is one area that I don't see as unique to the EC.
2) The point I was trying to wrap up with was this. While I think in many ways our group could be considered emergent, I am not interested in aligning with any one group or label. My surface take on the EC in general is that while I am excited to see lots of conversation happening, at a high-altitude level I see a lot of trendy worship services and reformed doctrine/theology, but I don't see much beyond that (painting with a broad stoke here, sorry). I am far more concerned with what the Church does with it's time when it's not meeting together than when it is.
The bottom line here is read the Bible, do what it says.
I hope this was semi-coherent.
G&P
Michael
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