What To Do With the Conversation of the Emergent Church and It's Passing?

Homebrew Emerged Series: Pictured Doug Pagitt of Solomon's Porch

The History of the Emergent Church

... For a decade, at the beginning of the 21st century a group of Christian leaders launched a  movement meant to change the church in America:

• "I feel like we are representing a beautiful expression of our life with God;

• "It's an invitation into a kind of creativity and a set of conversations and questions...

• "They were young... in their 20s and 30s in disillusion with the way that Christianity was being taught and practiced on the website...

• "It said no need to check your culture at the door... so sport your tats, wear your jeans, carry your Java and join us at liturgy." And I think I read that like 10 times...

• "It was becoming increasingly nonsensical to me when I found out that there was a group of people having the same conversation I was having with my mother...

• "Oh, Wow! There's more people who planted churches and hosted conferences... they wrote worship songs and they published books; they met in cohorts and bars and they met online in the blogosphere... above all else they called each other friends...

• "To some degree the path that we were on required courage because if you had Integrity it was going to change the game...

• "Is there any hope for the traditional church? This was the emerging church movement and for a time it was considered by some to be the future of Christianity in America...

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What To Do With the Conversation of

the Emergent Church and It's Passing?

by R.E. Slater

A Personal Testimony

Tripp Fuller and Tony Jones are beginning a year-long conversation about the Emergent Church. My own history places me and my family directly into this conversation when moving from Pastor Ed Dobson's (Jerry Falwell's No.1 politico rep) Calvary Church of Grand Rapids (GRR) to our pastoral intern's church plant a month after it began. His name was Rob Bell. The church, Mars Hill Bible Church of Grandville, Micigan. (*Aside: Ed Dobson worked with Jerry Farwell and was the Ralph Reed of his time in establishing Republican Identity politics. When leaving the Moral Majority Ed determined to preach Jesus only and politics never again).

I had grown up in a progressive fundamentalist baptist church, Calvary Baptist of GRR, which became one of two very early megachurches in the area in the 1970s. When marrying after college, my wife joined me for five years at CBC until I finished the Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary's School of Theology, for an intensive 4 year M.Div. graduate degree We then were offered a half dozen volunteer/lay ministry assignments at her former church, Calvary (Undenominational) Church of Third Reformed roots birthed under M.R. DeHaan of Radio Bible Class fame.

We chose to pastor and teach the college and career class which blossomed from 16 Sunday School members to 200+. After six years, the youth members asked for a single adult class to which we complied and began a new Sunday School class of six members which quickly bloomed to 125+. We pastored this fellowship for another five years until my work and family life required leaving the ministry.

When doing so, Calvary Church quickly placed me on several adult ministry teams, a strategic planning group, and their deacon board which eventually saw me putting together with a small committee their first Seder/Passover Observance. All-inall another six years until we left at Padtor Dobson's encouraging for it's newest church plant, Mars Hill, under Rob Bell.

After 27 years at Calvary Baptist and 20 years (40 for my wife) at Calvary Church (no longer referred to as "Undenom" to be later pastored by one of my Sunday School college kids, Jim Samra) Pastor Dobson was urging his church to join with Rob Bell's church as a way of supporting its local ministry plant. We did and quickly found ourselves moving from a megachurch to a mega-mega-church overnight.

Mars grew from several hundred of Calvary's Sunday evening ministries to 12,000 attendees across its first three years of birth. The church was new. It's Pastor and Teacher, Rob Bell, was young. And in true Emergent fashion it was flying by the "seat of it's pants." What staff there was could not keep up with the growth... all the staff had an urgency of heart with very little bible training; and the Spirit of the Lord was heavy upon GRR's newest fellowship.

In this small story was my own story of growing up from a pious fundamentalist tradition of the best sort then moving into an evangelical congregation which wasn't yet conservative until after Pastor Dobson's passing. In fact, dear Ed joined us at Mars in his remaining years of Parkinson's. He had left Farwell's political movement to raise up Jesus-followers. It was a huge reversal in his spirit life which was quite the "controversy" at the time to those Christians who couldn't understand Ed's change of direction.

Even as Calvary was growing and discipling it's evangelical Reformed flock to minister to it's community via local outreach programs the nation around Grand Rapids was rapidly changing. From the end of WW2 to Vietnam, through the Civil Rights movement under MLK, and the acknowledgment of evolution in the 1970s, to Women's Rights in a maturing work force, multiple recessions, corporate restructuring and layoffs, an up-and-down economy, and then the pervasive environmental revolution, churches and church schools we caught between yesteryear and the present. Some responded. Many did not.

Held in a post-Enlightenment, modernity movement for the past 500 years, the church was witnessing a deeply radical change caused by the twelve year Vietnam War (1962 to 1974... basically all of my youth brought nightly to our livingroom in B&W horror via the miracle of television) which later came to be described as postmodernity (PM).

With PM's comin it ended ended the 1950s Americana era after WW2 and was accompanied by Martin Luther King's Civil Rights marches across war torn America's civil institutional collapses, student sit-ins, the hippie movement with its drugs, rock n roll, and peace signs. Throught this time the modernal American church also had to face its own discriminations and dogmatic fears of leaving what it knew through its 500 year traditions if it were to minister to blending, agnostic, and economically ruined rural and urban populations. Churches either succeeded in listening to its communities or they didn't. What result was another eruption in the American church.

As fundamentalism's outreach of the gospel quieted down after the Chicago-based Billy Sunday days of the Depresdion era; and subsequent church reforms under Billy Graham's evangelical crusades through the 60s, 70s, and 80s; there now arose a new Christian movement alongside mainline progressives. This one was birthed under then unknown names like Mark Driscoll, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Brian Maclaren, Dallas Willard, John Burke, Rachel Held Evans, and our own homegrown Rob Bell.

Working Definitions

Evangelicalism and fundamentalism are both Protestant movements within Christianity, but there are some important differences between the two.

Evangelicalism is a broad movement within Protestant Christianity that emphasizes the importance of personal faith in Jesus Christ and the authority of the Bible. Evangelicals believe in the need for personal conversion and a personal relationship with God, and they often emphasize evangelism and missionary work. Evangelicals also tend to place a high value on social and moral issues, such as the sanctity of human life, traditional marriage, and religious freedom.

Fundamentalism, on the other hand, is a more rigid and conservative form of Protestantism that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a response to what its adherents saw as a liberalizing trend in Protestant theology.

Fundamentalists believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, the literal interpretation of Scripture, and the importance of separating from the world and its influences. They tend to reject modern cultural and intellectual trends and often have a more confrontational approach to evangelism.

So, while both evangelicalism and fundamentalism share some beliefs and values, such as the importance of personal faith and the authority of the Bible, fundamentalism tends to be more rigid and conservative in its approach, while evangelicalism is more diverse and adaptable to cultural changes.

In general, the two movements are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but there can be some tension between them due to their different approaches and emphases. Some evangelicals may see fundamentalists as too rigid and confrontational, while some fundamentalists may see evangelicals as too accommodating to secular culture.

Ultimately, whether someone identifies as evangelical or fundamentalist (or both) depends on their individual beliefs and practices, and there is room for diversity within Christianity as a whole.

- Gregory Dill, Quora

The emerging, or emergent, church movement takes its name from the idea that as culture changes, a new church should emerge in response. In this case, it is a response by various church leaders to the current era of post-modernism. Although post-modernism began in the 1950s, the church didn’t really seek to conform to its tenets until the 1990s. Post-modernism can be thought of as a dissolution of "cold, hard fact" in favor of "warm, fuzzy subjectivity." The emerging / emergent church movement can be thought of the same way.

The emerging / emergent church movement falls into line with basic postmodernist thinking—it is about experience over reason, subjectivity over objectivity, spirituality over religion, images over words, outward over inward, feelings over truth. These are reactions to modernism and are thought to be necessary in order to actively engage contemporary culture. This movement is still fairly new so there is not yet a standard method of "doing" church amongst the groups choosing to take a post-modern mindset. In fact, the emerging church rejects any standard methodology for doing anything. Therefore, there is a huge range of how far groups take a post-modernist approach to Christianity. Some groups go only a little way in order to impact their community for Christ, and remain biblically sound. Most groups, however, embrace postmodernist thinking, which eventually leads to a very liberal, loose translation of the Bible. This, in turn, lends to liberal doctrine and theology.

- by evangelical "Got Questions"

 

[Emergent Church] participants in the movement may be Protestant, post-Protestant, Catholic, or evangelical, post-evangelical, liberal Christian, post-liberal, conservative, and post-conservative, anabaptist, adventist, reformed, charismatic, neocharismatic, and post-charismatic.

Proponents, however, believe the [emergent] movement transcends such "modernist" labels of "conservative" and "liberal," calling the movement a "conversation" to emphasize its developing and decentralized nature, its vast range of standpoints, and its commitment to dialogue.

Participants seek to live their faith in what they believe to be a "postmodern" society. What those involved in the conversation mostly agree on is their disillusionment with the organized and institutional church and their support for the deconstruction of modern Christian worship, modern evangelism, and the nature of modern Christian community.

Values and characteristics of the Emergent Church

• Trinitarian
• Post-Christendom mission and evangelism
• Postmodern worldview and hermeneutics
• A Generous Orthodoxy
• Center Set on Christ and People
• Authenticity in Conversation
• Missional Living
• Communitarian or egalitarian ecclesiology
• Creative and rediscovered spirituality
• Use of new technologies
• Morality and justice

- Wikipedia

Where Next?

A quick Internet search of the Emergent Church will find a number of articles and images hating on the mere mention of its name. The conservative evangelical church was forming apace with its break-out progressive sister group and the older brother resented the loss of dollars, congregants and the mo-jo to its own movement.

Eventually, the emergent church movement died as did the conservative church from which it was birthed. With the loss of its more progressive members, hyper-conservativism hallmarked the remaining evangelical church even as the emergent evangelical church folded into the mainline churches progressive faith aspects while keeping its independence and without becoming denominational. Though its conversation was relevant, revealing the evangelical church, warts and all, in its apostasy from a Jesus-faith to a dogmatic faith.

Currently, a gospel of hate and division now seems to pervade evangelicalism's Trumpian side of its movement contrary to Jesus' gospel in the New Testament speaking to God's love and beauty. Essentially provoking the larger body of today's evangelics to rethink their witness, ministry and mission, even as it's Christian nemesis, the emergent church, fades out of the American Christian landscape to either be enfolded within the Nones-and Dones or back into it's sister-ship and angry brother.

Where emergentism goes from here is up to those followers of Jesus who "get" Him and His gospel. And for those like myself, who apparently broke from evangelicalism to find myself within a larger epistemic breakout of the the Jesus movement, it has taken years of reflection in absorbing this experience and knowing what to do with it, if anything.

For myself, I have produced this site here, Relevancy22, as I have methodically moved through my past faith traditions to today's post-evangelical contemporary faith. In fact, I went further. At first thinking I needed a more integral hermeneutic of the bible than the one I had learned and developed through my seminary years, I have now come to discover the very roots of Christianity must change in its philosophical foundation.

My church and seminary faith never taught this approach... similarly it ignored evolution and such like. And if it seems new to you it was a earth-moving discovery to me as well. But logically, Jesus and Paul lived in Greek Hellenism; Moses lived in Egyptian philosophical beliefs; and before Moses was a whole host of philosophical approaches to life and nature even as there has been through the church age. So the question as to the church's philosophical foundation is not unnatural, but deeply important, and should never be ignored by the church once fraught in the Enlightenment era, or a Platonic Stoicism, or a Modernistic Mechanistic era as versus an organic creation which is not like any of these past approaches. Approaches which have affected our idea of God, the bible, and faith.

WHAT NOW?

Hence, back in 2011, my first six years found me driving towards a new organic center as I deconstructed and reconstructed my Westernized/American/Modernity-bound Christian faith. And ince completed, my more recent years have found me working through a broader, more expansive theological language based upon a more rigorous composite of previously derived, holistic, non-Platonic philosophies. One with a long historical legacy... back to ancient times... and brought forward organically by a Victorian British philosopher by the name of Alfred North Whitehead regardless of human era, even that of post-modernism (which I very much like compared to the modernism I grew up in).

Whitehead's process philosophy has become the philosophic foundation upon which I and others, like Tripp Fuller, are working through as we adapt it into the Christian conversation of "Who and What it is in God and God language." There are three things I've take from process philosophy and have adapted it into a working Christian-based processual theological conversation:

• One, it is definitely contemporary with any cultural or religious conversation in that it aptly describes the creation of the universe we live in; it is organic, panrelational, panexperiential, and panpsychic. I call this form of process universe as a pancessual cosmic metaphysic.

• Two, I have intentionally re-centered the church's bible-centered focus to a purposeful focus on the author of the bible, Jesus Christ. That is, as Jesus spoke against Phariseeism's religious system by urging them to center their faith in a loving God rather than the interpreted words of God's Torah tradition, so too have I placed process theology around a loving God as versus a God who is unlovingly holy.

• Three, I have been trying to read the bible for its sources of information in what it's narrator's cultures, customs, and beliefs meant to them and how those same traits might mean to the Jewish and Christian faithful through our cultural, socio-economic eras. This meant acquiring a more expansive idea of Holy Spirit communication between God and mankind, rather than a one-time series of inspired narrations never to be repeated again as found in the bible. In fact, God being God has never ceased speaking to us. But it is up to us to hear our past... such as found in the bible... and rethink our beliefs and ideas of God to be more God-centered in God's love and life rather than as merely sin and death subjects (which are not denied but also not made central to the Christian faith in process Christian theology). That is, Process theology is about love and life.

I will end here. Reread this as you must and learn to use what I have written over the years as guide and example to forming an integral Christian tradition based upon process foundations rather than on Westernized, Americanized, Platonic, or Hellenized traditions as the bible was and the church's traditions have been. Those external, quasi-descriptive terms for creation are based upon inorganic philosophical foundations which were, and still are, unhelpful to a vibrant Christ-filled life and faith.

If we are to have a complexly meaningful faith we will need an expansively meaningful context in which to apprehend the God of all grace, knowledge, and beauty.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

January 2, 2024

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Doug Pagitt: the Emerging Church

& the End of Solomon's Porch

Homebrewed Christianity w/ Dr. Tripp Fuller

Dec 18, 2023  |  2:02:52

A long-time friend of the podcast, Doug Pagitt, returns to the podcast! He's been a regular guest since episode 2... 15 years ago. In this episode, Tony Jones joins me as Doug reflects on the end of the church he planted Solomon's Porch and the ongoing legacy of the Emerging Church Movement.

Doug Pagitt is an American author, pastor, social activist and executive director of Vote Common Good. A leading voice for progressive Christianity, Doug makes frequent national media and speaking appearances.

A proud, concerned and hopeful American, Doug Pagitt is a social activist. He is Co-founder and Executive Director of Vote Common Good, a national political non-profit dedicated to inspiring, energizing, and mobilizing people of faith to engage in civic life.

Follow Tripp & Tony's new podcast, EMERGED: an Oral History of the Emerging Church Movement. It's gonna be a blast! http://emergedpodcast.com

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Emerged: An Oral History

of the Emergent Church

Homebrewed: Emerged Series

by Tripp Fuller and Tony Jones

In this multi-part series launching January 2024, Tony Jones and Tripp Fuller will journey through the electrifying, tumultuous, ever-evolving years of the ECM through interviews, stories, and opinions from some of the movement’s pivotal figures.

We’ll tackle questions like:

• What were the precursors to the ECM?
• What catalyzed the movement?
• How cohesive was it, really?
• When and why did interest switch from the evangelical church to the mainline?
• Did it become too political?
• Did the movement ultimately fail, or did it infiltrate and change the church?

Emerged Podcast - Official Trailer

Homebrewed Christianity w/ Dr. Tripp Fuller

Dec 26, 2023On January 1st we are launching a brand new podcast, Emerged: an Oral History of the Emerging Church Movement. Emerged is a highly-produced podcast that brings together hundreds of hours of fresh interviews, archived recordings, and some amazing music. I can’t wait for everyone to hear it. If you want to get the show in your podcast feed, see some of what’s in store, & even be a part of the story we are telling, head over to www.EmergedPodcast.com

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MEET THE HOSTS

TONY JONES is an author, theologian, and former pastor. He was involved in the ECM for most of its run. He served as the National Coordinator for Emergent Village from 2005-2008 and authored several books on the movement, including The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier.

TRIPP FULLER is a theologian, author and the founder and host of Homebrewed Christianity. He started one of the first ECM podcasts, organized multiple ECM events, and was an Emergent Village cohort organizer.

FEATURED CONTRIBUTORS

Brian McLaren is a former pastor and church planter and the author of many bestselling books. He’s consulted with most denominations, preached around the world, and been a friend and guide to untold numbers of pastors and seekers. 

Nadia Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran pastor and theologian and a New York Times bestselling author. She founded House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver. 

Rachel Held Evans was an American Christian columnist, blogger, and NYT best-selling author.

Doug Pagitt worked at Leadership Network from 1997-1999, launching the Young Leaders Network. Then he, along with his wife, Shelley, planted Solomon’s Porch, a holistic, missional, Christian community in Minneapolis. He wrote several ECM books, and he’s now the executive director of Vote Common Good. 

Brad Cecil was the founder and pastor of Axxess, an early ECM church in Dallas. He is now the owner of Cecil and Associates, a firm that specializes in fundraising for non-profit organizations. 

Mark Oestreicher (Marko) was the president of Youth Specialities and pivotal in launching the Emergent Convention and emersion books. He currently leads the Youth Cartel, training and mentoring youth workers around North America. 

Jason Clark is the Principal and Head of Waverley Abbey College. Until 2022, Jason served as a full-time pastor of Sutton Vineyard Church in London (UK), which he and his wife planted in 1997 while he was an investment broker in London. 

Jonny Baker is a mission director for the Church Mission Society in Great Britain and a founding member of grace, a Christian alternative worship community in London. He’s been blogging for over 20 years. 

Tim Conder planted Emmaus Way in Durham, NC, and authored Free for All: Rediscovering the Bible in Community and The Church in Transition: The Journey of Existing Churches into the Emerging Culture. He is currently a community organizer and professor at the Black Mountain School of Theology and Community. 

Gerardo Marti is a professor of sociology at Davidson College and the president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. He’s the co-author of The Deconstructed Church: Understanding Emerging Christianity. 

Danielle Shroyer pastored Journey, an ECM congregation in Dallas, for nearly a decade, and authored several books during that time. Currently she is a spiritual director and the founder of Soul Ninja. 

Anthony Smith is a pastor and activist in Salisbury, North Carolina. He’s a core team member at Liberating Church and a member of the Salisbury City Council. 

Diana Butler Bass, Ph.D., is an award-winning author, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and one of America’s most trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality.

You can share how you were involved or impacted by the Emerging Church Movement. Click the button to sign up, and we'll send you an email with instructions on where to submit your five minute or less audio story to be included in the ECM Library and for possible inclusion in one of the podcast episodes.

BECOME A MEMBER

Brian McLaren: Trumpism, Church & Culture and Faith After Doubt

Brian McLaren was part of my emergent church culture when I first became involved in it in 1999 through the ministries of Rob Bell. Basically it was a breakout progressive Christian movement away from conservative evangelicalism. What I didn't know was that it began around 1988 and fizzled out in the 2010s as it merged with mainstream Christianity (the "liberal" denominational sort which emphasized God's love over evangelical legalism). It was through the emerging Reformed and Catholic Church wherein I and others could breakout of our authoritarian Christian backgrounds to develop a new theology built upon a God of Love vs a God of wrath and judgment. Jesus was it's center and the Bible placed to the side. Meaning, whatever the Bible taught which was unloving was not of God but of those religious cultures which added itself into their God culture. Along the way Brian and I came across process theology. He, more recently; myself, years earlier. For a number of reasons it has expanded evngelicalism's limited theology of God away from it's legalisms and towards a far better world embracing love and loving kindness in all things.

R.E. Slater

November 22, 2022

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Brian McLaren (Part 1):

Trumpism, Church & Culture and Faith After Doubt

Interview with the Podcast, "UNenlightenment"

March 11, 2021

A conversation with Brian McLaren about Trumpism, Church and Culture, and Brian's new book Faith after Doubt. To purchase a copy of Brian McLaren's book see link below:

Faith After Doubt: https://www.amazon.com/Faith-After-Do...

Brian McLaren (Part 2):

Trumpism, Church & Culture and Faith After Doubt

Interview with the Podcast, "UNenlightenment"

March 11, 2021

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Emerging church

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The emerging church is a Christian Protestant movement of the late 20th and early 21st centuries that crosses a number of theological boundaries: participants are variously described as Protestant, post-Protestant, evangelical,^[1] post-evangelical, liberal, post-liberal, progressive, socially liberal, anabaptist, Reformed, charismatic, neocharismatic, and post-charismatic. Emerging churches can be found throughout the globe, predominantly in North America, Brazil, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa.^[2][3][4]

Proponents believe the movement transcends the "modernist" labels of "conservative" and "liberal," calling the movement a "conversation" to emphasize its developing and decentralized nature, its vast range of standpoints, and its commitment to dialogue. Participants seek to live their faith in what they believe to be a "postmodern" society. What those involved in the conversation mostly agree on is their disillusionment with the organized and institutional church and their support for the deconstruction of modern Christian worship, modern evangelism, and the nature of modern Christian community. A departure of this movement is the development of progressive Christianity.

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Definitions

Terminology

Emerging churches are fluid, hard to define, and varied; they contrast themselves with what has gone before in referring to the latter as the "inherited church."^[5][6] Key themes of the emerging church are couched in the language of reform, praxis-oriented lifestyles, post-evangelical thought, and incorporation or acknowledgment of political and postmodern elements.^[7] Terminological confusion has occurred because of the use of words with similar etymology. When used as descriptors, "emerging" and "emergent" can be interchangeable. However, when used as names, they are different. In this case "Emerging" refers to the whole informal, church-based, global movement, while "Emergent" to a formal, organisational subset associated with Tony Jones, Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, and others: the "Emergent stream."^[8]

Variety and debate

Mark Driscoll and Ed Stetzer described three categories within the movement: Relevants, Reconstructionists, and Revisionists.^[9]: 89

Relevants are theological conservatives who are interested in updating to current culture.^[9]: 89 They look to people like Dan Kimball and Donald Miller.^{[9]: 89–90}

Reconstructionists are generally theologically evangelical, and speak of new forms of church that result in transformed lives.^[9]: 90 They look to Neil Cole, Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch.^[9]: 90

Revisionists are theologically liberal, and openly question whether evangelical doctrine is appropriate for the postmodern world.^[9] They look to leaders such as Brian McLaren, Rob Bell and Doug Pagitt.^[9]: 90

Driscoll has subsequently identified a fourth stream, the house church movement, which he previously included under the Reconstructionist label.^[9][10] Driscoll and Scot McKnight have now voiced concerns over Brian McLaren and the "emergent thread."^[11] Some evangelical leaders such as Shane Claiborne have also sought to distance themselves from the emerging church movement, its labels and the "emergent brand."^[12]

History

According to Mobsby^{[citation needed]} the term "emerging church" was first used in 1970, when Larson and Osborne predicted a movement characterised by: contextual and experimental mission; new forms of church; the removal of barriers and division; a blend of evangelism and social action; attention to both experience and tradition; the breakdown of clergy/laity distinctions.^[13][14] The Catholic political theologian, Johann Baptist Metz, used the term emergent church in 1981 in a different^[which?] context.^[15] Marcus Borg says: "The emerging paradigm has been visible for well over a hundred years. In the last twenty to thirty years, it has become a major grassroots movement among both laity and clergy in 'mainline' or 'old mainline' Protestant denominations." He describes it as: "a way of seeing the Bible (and the Christian tradition as a whole) as historical, metaphorical, and sacramental, [and] a way of seeing the Christian life as relational and transformational."^[16]

The history of the emerging church that preceded the US Emergent organization began with Mike Riddell and Mark Pierson in New Zealand from 1989, and with a number of practitioners in the UK including Jonny Baker, Ian Mobsby, Kevin, Ana and Brian Draper, and Sue Wallace amongst others, from around 1992.^[17] The influence of the Nine O'Clock Service has been ignored^{[by whom?]} also, owing to its notoriety, yet much that was practised there was influential on early proponents of alternative worship.^[18]

Common to the identity of many of these emerging-church projects that began in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, is their development with very little central planning on behalf of the established denominations.^[19] They occurred as the initiative of particular groups wanting to start new contextual church experiments, and are therefore very "bottom up." Murray says that these churches began in a spontaneous way, with informal relationships formed between otherwise independent groups^[20] and that many became churches as a development from their initial more modest beginnings.^[21][22]

Values and characteristics

Trinitarian based values

Gibbs and Bolger^[23] interviewed a number of people involved in leading emerging churches and from this research have identified some core values in the emerging church, including desires to imitate the life of Jesus; transform secular society; emphasize communal living; welcome outsiders; be generous and creative; and lead without control. Ian Mobsby suggests Trinitarian Ecclesiology is the basis of these shared international values.^[24][25]

Mobsby also suggests that the Emerging Church is centered on a combination of models of Church and of Contextual Theology that draw on this Trinitarian base: the Mystical Communion and Sacramental models of Church,^[26] and the Synthetic and Transcendent models of Contextual Theology.^[27][28]

According to Mobsby, the Emerging Church has reacted to the missional needs of postmodern culture and re-acquired a Trinitarian basis to its understanding of Church as Worship, Mission and Community. He argues this movement is over and against some forms of conservative evangelicalism and other reformed ecclesiologies since the enlightenment that have neglected the Trinity, which has caused problems with certainty, judgementalism and fundamentalism and the increasing gap between the Church and contemporary culture.^[29]

Post-Christendom mission and evangelism

Members of the movement often place a high value on good works or social activism, including missional living.^[30] According to Stuart Murray, Christendom is the creation and maintenance of a Christian nation by ensuring a close relationship of power between the Christian Church and its host culture.^[31] Today, churches may still attempt to use this power in mission and evangelism.^[32] The emerging church considers this to be unhelpful. Murray summarizes Christendom values as: a commitment to hierarchy and the status quo; the loss of lay involvement; institutional values rather than community focus; church at the centre of society rather than the margins; the use of political power to bring in the Kingdom; religious compulsion; punitive rather than restorative justice; marginalisation of women, the poor, and dissident movements; inattentiveness to the criticisms of those outraged by the historic association of Christianity with patriarchy, warfare, injustice and patronage; partiality for respectability and top-down mission; attractional evangelism; assuming the Christian story is known; and a preoccupation with the rich and powerful.^[32]

The emerging church seeks a post-Christendom approach to being church and mission through: renouncing imperialistic approaches to language and cultural imposition; making 'truth claims' with humility and respect; overcoming the public/private dichotomy; moving church from the center to the margins; moving from a place of privilege in society to one voice amongst many; a transition from control to witness, maintenance to mission and institution to movement.^{[citation needed]}

In the face of criticism, some in the emerging church respond that it is important to attempt a "both and" approach to redemptive and incarnational theologies. Some Evangelicals and Fundamentalists are perceived as "overly redemptive" and therefore in danger of condemning people by communicating the Good News in aggressive and angry ways.^[33] A more loving and affirming approach is proposed in the context of post-modernity where distrust may occur in response to power claims. It is suggested that this can form the basis of a constructive engagement with 21st-century post-industrial western cultures. According to Ian Mobsby, the suggestion that the emerging church is mainly focused on deconstruction and the rejection of current forms of church should itself be rejected.^[34]

Postmodern worldview and hermeneutics

The emerging church is a response to the perceived influence of modernism in Western Christianity. As some sociologists commented on a cultural shift that they believed to correspond to postmodern ways of perceiving reality in the late 20th century, some Christians began to advocate changes within the church in response. These Christians saw the contemporary church as being culturally bound to modernism. They changed their practices to relate to the new cultural situation. Emerging Christians began to challenge the modern church on issues such as: institutional structures, systematic theology, propositional teaching methods, a perceived preoccupation with buildings, an attractional understanding of mission, professional clergy, and a perceived preoccupation with the political process and unhelpful jargon ("Christian-ese").^[35]

As a result, some in the emerging church believe it is necessary to deconstruct modern Christian dogma. One way this happens is by engaging in dialogue, rather than proclaiming a predigested message, believing that this leads people to Jesus through the Holy Spirit on their own terms. Many in the movement embrace the missiology that drives the movement in an effort to be like Christ and make disciples by being a good example. The emerging church movement contains a great diversity in beliefs and practices, although some have adopted a preoccupation with sacred rituals, good works, and political and social activism. Much of the Emerging Church movement has also adopted the approach to evangelism which stressed peer-to-peer dialogue rather than dogmatic proclamation and proselytizing.^[36]

A plurality of Scriptural interpretations is acknowledged in the emerging church movement. Participants in the movement exhibit a particular concern for the effect of the modern reader's cultural context on the act of interpretation echoing the ideas of postmodern thinkers such as Jacques Derrida and Stanley Fish. Therefore a narrative approach to Scripture, and history are emphasized in some emerging churches over exegetical and dogmatic approaches (such as that found in systematic theology and systematic exegesis), which are often viewed as reductionist. Others embrace a multiplicity of approaches.

Generous orthodoxy

Spearheaded by Brian McLaren, some emerging church leaders see interfaith dialogue as a means to share their narratives as they learn from the narratives of others.^[37] Some Emerging Church Christians believe there are radically diverse perspectives within Christianity that are valuable for humanity to progress toward truth and a better resulting relationship with God, and that these different perspectives deserve Christian charity rather than condemnation.^[38] Reformed and evangelical opponents, like John MacArthur, do not believe that such generosity is appropriate, citing the movement's shift away from traditional evangelical beliefs such as eternal punishment and penal substitution towards a reintroduction of, for example, elements of ancient mysticism.^[39]

Centered set

Movement leaders such as Rob Bell appropriate set theory as a means of understanding a basic change in the way the Christian church thinks about itself as a group. Set theory is a concept in mathematics that allows an understanding of what numbers belong to a group, or set. A bounded set would describe a group with clear "in" and "out" definitions of membership. The Christian church has largely organized itself as a bounded set, those who share the same beliefs and values are in the set and those who disagree are outside.^[40]

The centered set does not limit membership to pre-conceived boundaries. Instead a centered set is conditioned on a centered point. Membership is contingent on those who are moving toward that point. Elements moving toward a particular point are part of the set, but elements moving away from that point are not. As a centered-set Christian membership would be dependent on moving toward the central point of Jesus. Christians are then defined by their focus and movement toward Christ rather than a limited set of shared beliefs and values.^[40]

John Wimber utilized the centered set understanding of membership in his Vineyard Churches. The centered set theory of Christian Churches came largely from missional anthropologist Paul Hiebert. The centered set understanding of membership allows for a clear vision of the focal point, the ability to move toward that point without being tied down to smaller diversions, a sense of total egalitarianism with respect for differing opinions, and an authority moved from individual members to the existing center.^[41]

Authenticity and conversation

The movement favors the sharing of experiences via testimonies, prayer, group recitation, sharing meals and other communal practices, which they believe are more personal and sincere than propositional presentations of the Gospel. Teachers in the emerging church tend to view the Bible and its stories through a lens which they believe finds significance and meaning for their community's social and personal stories rather than for the purpose of finding cross-cultural, propositional absolutes regarding salvation and conduct.^[42]

The emerging church claims they are creating a safe environment for those with opinions ordinarily rejected within modern conservative evangelicalism and fundamentalism. Non-critical, interfaith dialog is preferred over dogmatically-driven evangelism in the movement.^[43] Story and narrative replaces the dogmatic:

The relationship between words and images has changed in contemporary culture. In a post-foundational world, it is the power of the image that takes us to the text. The bible is no longer a principal source of morality, functioning as a rulebook. The gradualism of postmodernity has transformed the text into a guide, a source of spirituality, in which the power of the story as a moral reference point has superseded the didactic. Thus the meaning of the Good Samaritan is more important than the Ten Commandments – even assuming that the latter could be remembered in any detail by anyone. Into this milieu the image speaks with power.^[44]

Those in the movement do not engage in aggressive apologetics or confrontational evangelism in the traditional sense, preferring to encourage the freedom to discover truth through conversation and relationships with the Christian community.^[45]

The limits of interreligious conversation were tested in 2006 Emergent Village coordinator Tony Jones co-convened the first encounter of Emergent church and "Jewish emergent" leaders in a meeting co-hosted by Synagogue 3000, a Jewish nonprofit group.^{[46][47][48][49][50]} Emergent church scholar Ryan Bolger documented the meeting in a scholarly article co-authored with one of the organizers,^[51] while Jones recounted the episode, which had drawn criticism from conservative Christians, in his book The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier.^[52][53]

Missional living

While some Evangelicals emphasize eternal salvation, many in the emerging church emphasize the here and now.^[54] Participants in this movement assert that the incarnation of Christ informs their theology. They believe that as God entered the world in human form, adherents enter (individually and communally) into the context around them and aim to transform that culture through local involvement. This holistic involvement may take many forms, including social activism, hospitality and acts of kindness. This beneficent involvement in culture is part of what is called missional living.^[55] Missional living leads to a focus on temporal and social issues, in contrast with a perceived evangelical overemphasis on salvation. Drawing on research and models of contextual theology, Mobsby asserts that the emerging church is using different models of contextual theology than conservative evangelicals, who tend to use a "translation" model of contextual theology^[56] (which has been criticized for being colonialist and condescending toward other cultures); the emerging church tends to use a "synthetic" or "transcendent" model of contextual theology.^[57] The emerging church has charged many conservative evangelical churches with withdrawal from involvement in contextual mission and seeking the contextualization of the gospel.^[58]

Christian communities must learn to deal with the problems and possibilities posed by life in the "outside" world. But of more importance, any attempt on the part of the church to withdraw from the world would be in effect a denial of its mission.^[59]

Many emerging churches have put a strong emphasis on contextualization and, therefore, contextual theology. Contextual theology has been defined as "A way of doing theology in which one takes into account: the spirit and message of the gospel; the tradition of the Christian people; the culture in which one is theologising; and social change in that culture."^[60] Emerging churches, drawing on this synthetic (or transcendent) model of contextual theology, seek to have a high view towards the Bible, the Christian people, culture, humanity and justice. It is this "both...and" approach that distinguishes contextual theology.^[61][62]

Emerging communities participate in social action, community involvement, global justice and sacrificial hospitality in an effort to know and share God's grace. At a conference entitled "The Emerging Church Forum" in 2006, John Franke said “The Church of Jesus Christ is not the goal of the Gospel, just the instrument of the extension of God’s mission.” “The Church has been slow to recognize that missions isn’t (sic) a program the Church administers, it is the very core of the Church’s reason for being.”^[63] This focus on missional living and practicing radical hospitality has led many emerging churches to deepen what they are doing by developing a rhythm of life, and a vision of missional loving engagement with the world.^[64]

A mixture of emerging Churches, Fresh Expressions of Church and mission initiatives arising out of the charismatic traditions, have begun describing themselves as new monastic communities. They again draw on a combination of the Mystical Communion Model and Sacramental Models, with a core concern to engage with the question of how we should live. The most successful of these have experimented with a combination of churches centred on place and network, with intentional communities, cafes and centres to practice hospitality. Many also have a rhythm, or rule of life to express what it means to be Christian in a postmodern context.^[65]

Communitarian or egalitarian ecclesiology

Proponents of the movement communicate and interact through fluid and open networks because the movement is decentralized with little institutional coordination. Because of the participation values named earlier, being community through participation affects the governance of most Emerging Churches. Participants avoid power relationships, attempting to gather in ways specific to their local context. In this way some in the movement share with the house church movements a willingness to challenge traditional church structures/organizations though they also respect the different expressions of traditional Christian denominations.^[66]

International research suggests that some Emerging Churches are utilizing a Trinitarian basis to being church through what Avery Dulles calls 'The Mystical Communion Model of Church'.^[67]

• Not an institution but a fraternity (or sorority).
• Church as interpersonal community.
• Church as a fellowship of persons – a fellowship of people with God and with one another in Christ.
• Connects strongly with the mystical 'body of Christ' as a communion of the spiritual life of faith, hope and charity.
• Resonates with Aquinas' notion of the Church as the principle of unity that dwells in Christ and in us, binding us together and in him.
• All the external means of grace, (sacraments, scripture, laws etc.) are secondary and subordinate; their role is simply to dispose people for an interior union with God effected by grace.^[68]

Dulles sees the strength in this approach being acceptable to both Protestant and Catholic:

In stressing the continual mercy of God and the continual need of the Church for repentance, the model picks up Protestant theology... [and] in Roman Catholicism... when it speaks of the church as both holy and sinful, as needing repentance and reform...^[69]

The biblical notion of Koinonia, ... that God has fashioned for himself a people by freely communicating his Spirit and his gifts ... this is congenial to most Protestants and Orthodox ... [and] has an excellent foundation in the Catholic tradition.^[70]

Creative and rediscovered spirituality

This can involve everything from expressive, neocharismatic style of worship and the use of contemporary music and films to more ancient liturgical customs and eclectic expressions of spirituality, with the goal of making the church gathering reflect the local community's tastes.

Emerging church practitioners are happy to take elements of worship from a wide variety of historic traditions, including traditions of the Catholic Church, the Anglican churches, the Eastern Orthodox churches, and Celtic Christianity. From these and other religious traditions emerging church groups take, adapt and blend various historic church practices including liturgy, prayer beads, icons, spiritual direction, the labyrinth, and lectio divina. The Emerging Church is also sometimes called the "Ancient-Future" church.^[71]

One of the key social drives in Western Post-industrialised countries, is the rise in new/old forms of mysticism.^[72][73] This rise in spirituality appears to be driven by the effects of consumerism, globalisation and advances in information technology.^[74] Therefore, the Emerging Church is operating in a new context of postmodern spirituality, as a new form of mysticism. This capitalizes on the social shift in starting assumptions from the situation that most are regarded as materialist/atheist (the modern position), to the fact that many people now believe in and are searching for something more spiritual (postmodern view). This has been characterised as a major shift from religion to spirituality.^[75]

So, in the new world of 'spiritual tourism', the Emerging Church Movement is seeking to missionally assist people to shift from being spiritual tourists to Christian pilgrims. Many are drawing on ancient Christian resources recontextualised into the contemporary such as contemplation and contemplative forms of prayer, symbolic multi-sensory worship, story telling and many others.^[76] This again has required a change in focus as the majority of unchurched and dechurched people are seeking 'something that works' rather than something that is 'true'.^[77]

Use of new technologies

Emerging-church groups use the Internet as a medium of decentralized communication. Church websites are used as announcement boards for community activity, and they are generally a hub for more participation based new technologies such as blogs, Facebook groups, Twitter accounts, etc. The use of the blog is an especially popular and appropriate means of communication within the Emerging church. Through blogs, members converse about theology, philosophy, art, culture, politics, and social justice, both among their local congregations and across the broader Emerging community. These blogs can be seen to embrace both sacred and secular culture side-by-side as an excellent example of the church's focus on contextual theology.

Morality and justice

Drawing on a more 'Missional Morality' that again turns to the synoptic gospels of Christ, many emerging-church groups draw on an understanding of God seeking to restore all things back into restored relationship. This emphasises God's graceful love approach to discipleship, in following Christ who identified with the socially excluded and ill, in opposition to the Pharisees and Sadducees and their purity rules.^[78]

Under this movement, traditional Christians' emphasis on either individual salvation, end-times theology or the prosperity gospel have been challenged.^[79][80] Many people in the movement express concern for what they consider to be the practical manifestation of God's kingdom on earth, by which they mean social justice. This concern manifests itself in a variety of ways depending on the local community and in ways they believe transcend "modernist" labels of "conservative" and "liberal." This concern for justice is expressed in such things as feeding the poor, visiting the sick and prisoners, stopping contemporary slavery, critiquing systemic and coercive power structures with "postcolonial hermeneutics," and working for environmental causes.^[81]

Parallels in other religions

Drawing on the success of Christian emerging church movements, a 'Jewish Emergent' movement has come into being, often conducting dialogue with evangelical Christian emergent movements. Synagogue 3000 describes its mission as "challenging and promising alternatives to traditional synagogue structures"—participants in the movement conduct worship outside of a traditional synagogue environment and attempt to engage with non-practising Jews.^[82][83][84]

See also

• Christianity portal

• Alternative worship
• Christian contemplation
• Christian revival
• Ecumenism
• Inculturation
• Missio Dei
• Postmodern Christianity
• Progressive Christianity
• Pub church

References

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External links

• Postmodernity and the Emerging Church Movement: Reading Room: Extensive online resources on the Emerging Church Movement, Tyndale University College and Seminary
• The Emerging Church, Part One July 8, 2005, PBS Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. Retrieved July 29, 2005.
• The Emerging Church, Part Two July 15, 2005, PBS Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. Retrieved July 29, 2005.
• What is the Emerging Church? – 2006 guest lecture by Dr. Scot McKnight at Westminster Theological Seminary
• Five Streams of the Emerging Church – Christianity Today article by Scot McKnight
• The Emergent Mystique – Christianity Today feature by Andy Crouch
• What Should We Think of the Emerging Church? Part One – Christian Post column by Albert Mohler
• What Should We Think of the Emerging Church? Part Two – Christian Post column by Albert Mohler
• An Interview with Tony Jones, National Coordinator of Emergent Village
• "Will the Real Emerger Please Stand Up?" by C. Michael Patton, President of Credo House Ministries