Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Sunday, February 11, 2024

Wikipedia - The Emerging Church


Bruce Sanguin
Wood Lake Publishing Inc. - 224 pages

Realizing the importance of creating a practical guide for both ministers and congregations seeking to shift their congregational culture towards a progressive form of Christianity, Bruce Sanguin grounds The Emerging Church in the experience of his own congregation, Canadian Memorial United, as way to establish context and to share real-life examples. At the same time, he peppers the book with insights from leading edge science, including the science of emergence, chaos theory, quantum physics, field theory, spiral dynamics, and evolutionary science.

Download the spiral dynamics charts Spiral Dynamics Chart and Spiral Dynamics by Don Beck.

Written in language lay people can understand, The Emerging Church is filled with no-nonsense, realistic advice on the pitfalls and possibilities of following the vision of the emerging Christian way.

Nudged by an evolutionary Spirit and drawn by the love of Christ into an emerging future, the church of the loving and living Christ may be the "best kept secret of our day." In The Emerging Church, Bruce Sanguin shares "the secret" with anyone and everyone willing to listen.


* * * * * * * *


[all brackets are mine - re slater]


Emerging church


The emerging church, sometimes [rightly or] wrongly equated with the "emergent movement" or "emergent conversation",[further explanation needed] is a Christian movement of the late 20th and early 21st century. Emerging churches can be found around the globe, predominantly in North America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa. Members come from a number of Christian traditions.
Some [emergent evangelicals] attend local independent churches or house churches[1][2][3] while others worship in traditional Christian denominations. The emerging church favors the use of simple story and narrative.
Members of the movement often place a high value on good works or social activism, including missional living [and social justice].[4] Proponents of the movement believe it transcends labels such as "conservative" and "liberal"; it is sometimes called a "conversation" to emphasize its developing and decentralized nature, its range of standpoints, and commitment to dialogue.
Participants seek to live their faith in what they believe to be a "postmodern" society. Disillusionment with the organized and institutional church has led participants to support the deconstruction of modern Christian worship and evangelism, and the nature of modern Christian community.

Definitions and terminology

Participants in the movement may be Protestant, post-Protestant, Catholic, or evangelical,[5] post-evangelical, liberal Christianpost-liberalconservative, and post-conservative, anabaptistadventist,[6] reformedcharismaticneocharismatic, and post-charismatic.

Proponents, however, believe the 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 [i] their disillusionment with the organized and institutional church and [ii] their support for the deconstruction of modern Christian worship, modern evangelism, and the nature of modern Christian community.[7]

Some have noted a difference between the terms emerging and Emergent. While emerging is a wider, informal, church-based, global movement, Emergent refers to a specific, structured organization, the Emergent Village, associated with Brian McLaren, and has also been called the "Emergent stream".[8]

[my own opinion is there is no difference between emerged, emerging, emergent, etc. - re slater]

Key themes of the emerging church are couched in the language of reform, Christian praxis-oriented lifestyles, post-evangelical thought, and incorporation or acknowledgment of Christian political and postmodern Christian elements.[9] Many of the movement's participants use terminology that originates from postmodern literary theorysocial network theory, narrative theology, and other related fields.


Stuart Murray states:[10][11]

Emerging churches are so disparate there are exceptions to any generalisations. Most are too new and too fluid to clarify, let alone assess their significance. There is no consensus yet about what language to use: 'new ways of being church'; 'emerging church'; 'fresh expressions of church'; 'future church'; 'church next'; or 'the coming church'. The terminology used here contrasts 'inherited' and 'emerging' churches.

— Murray (2004), p. 73

 

Ian Mobsby observes:[12]

The use of the phrase 'emerging church' appears to have been used by Larson & Osborne in 1970 in the context of reframing the meaning 'church' in the latter part of the twentieth century.[13] This book, contains a short vision of the 'emerging church' which has a profoundly contemporary feel in the early twenty-first century ... Larson & Osborne note the following themes:

- Rediscovering contextual and experimental mission in the western church.

- Forms of church that are not restrained by institutional expectations.

- Open to change and God wanting to do a new thing.

- Use of the key word ..."and". Whereas the heady polarities of our day seek to divide us into an either-or camp, the mark of the emerging Church will be its emphasis on both-and.

- For generations we have divided ourselves into camps: Protestants and Catholics, high church and low, clergy and laity, social activists and personal piety, liberals and conservatives, sacred and secular, instructional and underground.

- It will bring together the most helpful of the old and best of the new, blending the dynamic of a personal Gospel with the compassion of social concern.

- It will find its ministry being expressed by a whole people, wherein the distinction between clergy and laity will be that of function, not of status or hierarchical division.

- In the emerging Church, due emphasis will be placed on both theological rootage and contemporary experience, on celebration in worship and involvement in social concerns, on faith and feeling, reason and prayer, conversion and continuity, the personal and the conceptual.

— Mobsby (2007), pp. 20–21

Similar labels

Although some emergent thinkers such as Brian McLaren and other Christian scholars such as D. A. Carson use emerging and emergent as synonyms, a large number of participants in the emerging church movement maintain a distinction between them. The term emergent church was coined in 1981 by Catholic political theologian, Johann Baptist Metz for use in a different context.[14] Emergent is sometimes more closely associated with Emergent Village. Those participants in the movement who assert this distinction believe "emergents" and "emergent village" to be a part of the emerging church movement but prefer to use the term emerging church to refer to the movement as a whole while using the term emergent in a more limited way, referring to Brian McLaren and Emergent Village.

Many of those within the emerging church movement who do not closely identify with emergent village tend to avoid that organization's interest in radical theological reformulation and focus more on new ways of "doing church" and expressing their spirituality. Mark Driscoll and Scot McKnight have now voiced concerns over Brian McLaren and the "emergent thread."[15] Other evangelical leaders such as Shane Claiborne have also come to distance himself from the emerging church movement, its labels and the "emergent brand".[16]

Some observers consider the "emergent stream" to be one major part within the larger emerging church movement. This may be attributed to the stronger voice of the 'emergent' stream found in the US which contrasts the more subtle and diverse development of the movement in the UK, Australia and New Zealand over a longer period of time. In the US, some Roman Catholics have also begun to describe themselves as being part of the emergent conversation.[5] As a result of the above factors, the use of correct vocabulary to describe a given participant in this movement can occasionally be awkward, confusing, or controversial. Key voices in the movement have been identified with Emergent Village, thus the rise of the nomenclature emergent to describe participants in the movement.

Marcus Borg defines the term "emerging paradigm" in his 2003 book The Heart of Christianity. He writes

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.

Borg provides a compact summary of this "emerging paradigm" as:[17]

...a way of seeing the Bible (and the Christian tradition as a whole) as historicalmetaphorical, and sacramental, [and] a way of seeing the Christian life as relational and transformational.

History

Although the history is little known in the US, there was a strong current of emerging churches in the UK and elsewhere that preceded the US Emergent organization. This 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.[18] The influence of the Nine O'Clock Service has is generally unacknowledged—perhaps owing to the abuse by its leader which led to the group's demise—yet much that was practised there was influential on early proponents of alternative worship.[19] The US organization emerged in the late 1990s.

What is common to the identity of many of these emerging church projects that began in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, is that they developed with very little central planning on behalf of the established denominations.[20] 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[21] and that many became churches as a development from their initial more modest beginnings.[22][23]

Values and characteristics

Trinitarian-based values

Gibbs and Bolger[24] 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; emphasise 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.[25]

Mobsby also suggests that the emerging church is centred 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

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.[30] Today, churches may still attempt to use this power in mission and evangelism.[31] [31] The emerging church considers this to be unhelpful.

Murray summarizes [conservative evangelicalism = traditional] 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 at 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.[31]

---

[One of many reasons evangelical Christians left evangelicalism for a better expression of Christianity... - re slater]

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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. 

+ While some Evangelicals emphasize eternal salvation, many in the emerging church emphasize the here-and-now.[32] 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 gospel 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 structuressystematic 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 ("Christianese").[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

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]

Centered set

The movement appropriates 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.[39]

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. A Christian is then defined by their focus and movement toward Christ rather than a limited set of shared beliefs and values.[39]

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.[40]

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.[41]

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.[42] Story and narrative replaces the dogmatic:[43]

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.

— Percy (2002), p. 165

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.[44]

Missional living

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.[45] Missional living leads to a focus on temporal and social issues, in contrast with a perceived evangelical overemphasis on salvation.[32]

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[46] (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.[47] The emerging church has charged many conservative evangelical churches with withdrawal from involvement in contextual mission and seeking the contextualization of the gospel.[27]

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

— Harvey (1999), p. 14[48]

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."[49] 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.[50][51]

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", and: "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."[52] 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.[53]

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.

— Mobsby (2009), pp. 30–31

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.[54]

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'.[55]

  • Not an institution but a sorority [or, family. - re slater]
  • Church as interpersonal community.
  • Church as a sisterhood of individual congregations (unified bride of Christ), and as a fellowship of people in family with God and with one another (brothers and sisters) 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.[56]

Dulles sees the strength in this approach being acceptable to both Protestant and Catholic:[57]

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 ...

— Dulles (1991), p. 46

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.

— Dulles (1991), pp. 50–51

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 CatholicAnglican and Eastern Orthodox Churches, and Celtic Christianity. From these and other religious traditions emerging church groups take, adapt and blend various historic church practices including liturgyprayer beadsiconsspiritual direction, the labyrinth, and lectio divina. The emerging church is also sometimes called the "Ancient-Future" church.[58]

One of the key social drives in Western post-industrialised countries, is the rise in new-"old" forms of mysticism.[59][60] This rise in spirituality appears to be driven by the effects of consumerism, globalisation and advances in information technology.[61] 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.[62]

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.[63] 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'.[64]

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.[original research?]

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.[65]

Under this movement, traditional Christians' emphasis on either individual salvation, end-times theology or the prosperity gospel have been challenged.[66][67] 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.[68]

See also

References

Sources

  • Bevans, Stephen B. (2002). Models of contextual theology. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books. ISBN 978-1-57075-438-8.
  • Dulles, Avery (1991). Models of the Church (Expanded ed.). Image Books. ISBN 978-0-385-13368-5.
    • Link to 1974 edition: Models of the church. Garden City, New York: Image Books. 1978 – via Internet Archive.
  • Gibbs, Eddie; Bolger, Ryan K. (2006). Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures. London: SPCK. ISBN 978-0-8010-2715-4.
  • Mobsby, Ian J. (2007). Emerging and fresh expressions of church: How are they authentically Church and Anglican?. London: Moot Community Publishing. ISBN 978-0955980008.
  • Mobsby, Ian (2008). The Becoming of G-d: What the Trinitarian nature of God has to do with Church and a deep spirituality for the Twenty-First Century. Oxford: YTC Press UK Ltd. ISBN 978-1-4092-0078-9.
  • Murray, Stuart (2004). Post-Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World (After Christendom). Carlisle: Paternoster Press. ISBN 978-1-84227-261-9.
  • Taylor, Barry (2008). Entertainment Theology: Exploring Spirituality in a Digital Democracy. Grand Rapids, US: Baker Academic; Baker Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8010-3237-0.

Citations

  1. ^ Kreider, Larry (2001). "1: There's a New Church Emerging!"House church networks: A church for a new generation. Ephrata, Pennsylvania, US: House to House Publications. pp. 1–9. ISBN 978-1-886973-48-0.
  2. ^ Pam Hogeweide (April 2005). "The 'emerging church' comes into view"Christian News Northwest. Archived from the original on 18 July 2011. Retrieved 28 August 2011.
  3. ^ McLaren, Brian (2007). Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices. Nashville, US: Thomas Nelson. Dedication page. ISBN 978-0-8499-0114-0.
  4. ^ 
    Jump up to:
    a b Lillian Kwon (14 March 2009). "Catholics join Emerging Church conversation"Christian Today. Retrieved 27 August 2011.
  5. ^ "MB524: Christian Anthropology from the Margins: Johnny Ramirez-Johnson"Fuller Online. Fuller Theological Seminary. Spring 2019.
  6. ^ Carey, Jesse (12 October 2022), "The Emerging Church Explained"CBN: The Christian Broadcasting Network, Inc
  7. ^ Kowalski, David (28 September 2007). "Surrender is not an Option: An Evaluation of Emergent Epistemology"Apologetics Index. Retrieved 28 August 2011.
  8. ^ McKnight, S. (February 2007). "Five Streams of the Emerging Church." Christianity Today51(2). Retrieved 11 July 2009.
  9. ^ Mobsby 2007, p. 20.
  10. ^ Murray 2004, p. 73.
  11. ^ Mobsby 2007, pp. 20–21.
  12. ^ B. Larson, R. Osbourne (1970). The Emerging Church. London: Word Books. pp. 9–11.
  13. ^ Johannes Baptist Metz (1981). The Emergent Church. New York: Crossroad.
  14. ^ McKnight, Scot (26 February 2010). "Review: Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christianity"Christianity Today. Retrieved 4 April 2010.
  15. ^ 
  16. ^ Borg, Marcus J. (2003). The Heart of Christianity. San Francisco: Harper. pp. 6, 13. ISBN 0-06-073068-4.
  17. ^ Collins, Steve (May 2002). "Small Fires: Alternative worship is not about youth"Ship of Fools. See article written by Steve Collins at: http://www.alternativeworship.org/definitions_awec.html
  18. ^ Jones, Tony (2009). The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier (1st ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-470-45539-5.
  19. ^ Mobsby 2007, pp. 23–24.
  20. ^ Murray 2004, pp. 69–70.
  21. ^ Murray 2004, p. 74.
  22. ^ Mobsby 2007, p. 24.
  23. ^ Gibbs & Bolger 2006, pp. 44–45.
  24. ^ Mobsby 2008, pp. 65–82.
  25. ^ Mobsby 2007, pp. 54–60.
  26. ^ 
    Jump up to:
    a b Mobsby 2007, pp. 28–29.
  27. ^ Mobsby 2008, pp. 98–101.
  28. ^ Mobsby 2008, pp. 15–18, 32–35, 37–62.
  29. ^ Murray 2004, pp. 83–88.
  30. ^ 
    Jump up to:
    a b c Murray 2004, pp. 83–88, 200–202.
  31. ^ 
    Jump up to:
    a b Kimball, Dan (2007). "The Emerging Church and Missional Theology". In Robert Webber (ed.). Listening to the beliefs of emerging churches: Five perspectives. With responses from: John Burke; Doug Pagitt; Karen M. Ward; Mark Driscoll. Grand Rapids, Mich, US: Zondervan. pp. 81–105. ISBN 978-0-310-27135-2. p. 102: Approaching the afterlife with awe and wonder
  32. ^ Theology Emerging Church[dead link]
  33. ^ Mobsby 2007.
  34. ^ Perry, Simon. "Emerging Worship".
  35. ^ Perry, Simon (2003). What is So Holy About Scripture. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock.
  36. ^ Sudworth, Richard (2007). Distinctly Welcoming. Oxford: Scripture Union Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84427-317-1.
  37. ^ Gibbs & Bolger 2006, p. 300.
  38. ^ 
    Jump up to:
    a b Paul Hiebert (1994). Anthropological Reflections on Missiological Issues, Grand Rapids, MI US: Baker Books
  39. ^ Phyllis Tickle (2008). The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why. Grand Rapids, MI, US: Baker Books.
  40. ^ Frost, Michael (14 September 2007). "Michael Frost Wrap-Up at PGF 2007"YouTube. Retrieved 5 April 2008Founding Director of Centre for Evangelism & Global Mission at Morling Theological College in Sydney, speaks to authenticity as bringing a 'living among them' type of Christianity rather than cross-cultural absolutes regarding salvation and conduct Intriguing Michael Frost video
  41. ^ Mobsby 2008, pp. 97–111.
  42. ^ M. Percy (2002). The Salt of the Earth: Religious resilience in a Secular Age. London: Continuum. p. 165.
  43. ^ Mobsby 2008, pp. 113–132.
  44. ^ Griffiths, Steve (30 January 2007). "An Incarnational Missiology for the Emerging Church"Rev Dr. Steve Griffiths speaks about the Emerging Church and how they view and approach missions. Retrieved 5 April 2008.
  45. ^ Bevans 2002, pp. 3–46.
  46. ^ Bevans 2002, pp. 81–96.
  47. ^ B. A. Harvey (1999). Another City. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International. p. 14.
  48. ^ Bevans 2002, p. 1.
  49. ^ Mobsby 2008, pp. 67–82.
  50. ^ Mobsby 2007, p. 28–32.
  51. ^ "Notes of John Franke at the Emerging Church Forum". 2006. Retrieved 5 April 2008.
  52. ^ Mobsby 2008, pp. 30–31, 65–82.
  53. ^ and a significant number of emerging church proponents remain in denominationally identified communities. There is also a significant presence within the movement that remains within traditional denominational structures. (Missional) "Emergent Village: Values and Practices". Retrieved 9 August 2006.
  54. ^ Dulles 1991.
  55. ^ Mobsby 2007, pp. 54–55.
  56. ^ Dulles 1991, p. 46, 50–51.
  57. ^ Webber, Robert (2007). "Appendix 2: What is the Ancient-Future Vision?". In Robert Webber (ed.). Listening to the beliefs of emerging churches: Five perspectives. Grand Rapids, Mich, US: Zondervan. pp. 213–215. ISBN 978-0-310-27135-2.
  58. ^ E. Davis (2004). Techgnosis. London: Serpents Tail.
  59. ^ J. Caputo (2001). On Religion, London: Routledge.
  60. ^ Mobsby 2007, Chapters Two and Three.
  61. ^ Taylor 2008, pp. 14–15.
  62. ^ Mobsby 2008, pp. 83–96.
  63. ^ Taylor 2008, pp. 96–102.
  64. ^ 
  65. ^ "Brian McLaren in Africa". Retrieved 26 July 2023.
  66. ^ McLaren, Brian (2007). Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope. Thomas Nelson Publishers. ISBN 978-0849901836.
  67. ^ Brian McLaren (2007). "Church Emerging: Or, Why I Still Use the Word 'Postmodern', But with Mixed Feelings". In Doug Pagitt; Tony Jones (eds.) An Emergent Manifesto of Hope. Grand Rapids, Michigan, US: Baker Books. pp. 141ff. ISBN 0801071569

External links