What does Brian McLaren have to do with Bob Webber? I have often wondered just how much an overlap there could actually be between what Robert Webber does with liturgy, postmodernity and the Ancient church and what is going on in the emerging churches of N. America. I always thought Robert Webber’s Ancient-Future Faith from several years ago now was a great accessible look at the postmodern issues we face today and how the ancient church offers resources for this challenge. And we know there is an interest in liturgical forms both from emergent works like Tony Jones’ The Sacred Way and the general renewed interest in more historical church forms from younger evangelicals and younger folk in general. But yet there is still some general confusion among emerging church planters as to what liturgy/ancient church can possibly bring to emerging church sensibilities. It is hardly a good marketing tool right?

This is why I find the title of Brian McLaren’s address at the upcoming conference on the Ancient Evangelical Call to be so interesting: “Does the Emerging Church Have an Ancient-Future?” What will McLaren have to say on this issue? I have no doubt Bob Webber needs McLaren (if Ancient Future is to be made accessible to the practitioner and even more importantly if it is going to make sense to the practitioner) I just don’t know if McLaren needs Bob Webber?

For those of you who don’t know what this conference is all about, Christianity Today recently published “The Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future,” in their September issue along with an interview with Robert Webber. It has already generated blog discussions too numerous to refer to. It is a document written as collaboration across many evangelical lines, devised and organized by Robert Webber of Northern Seminary. It is a Call to the evangelical church to renew its sense of historical integrity in the Narrative of Christ. Its list of signers is impressive and among its editors includes the names of Kevin Vanhoozer, Hans Boersma and Howard Snyder. The Call strikes at a theme near and dear to my own sense of things: that evangelicalism has become so aligned so with modernity, American individualism, consumerism and America’s culture industries that it has lost is vitality to narrate an account of reality that is faithful to our Story in Christ. The Ancient-Evangelical Call calls us back to being faithful to our Story, specifically the Narrative as told in Scripture, enacted in worship, lived out through spiritual formation and embodied in engagement with the world through justice and mission.

Now I admit that some of the ways “the Call” puts things might appear a bit out of step with current philosophical and theological trajectories. “Story” and “Narrative” have been overused and somewhat trivialized in places academic and otherwise. Yet it is the simplicity of this document, using such baseline concepts like Narrative that just might bring evangelicals across the dividing lines, Reformed, Holiness, Baptist, High Church, Mega Church, Missional Church, Emerging Church, to dialogue on how we are to engage culture in these times, get us out of our hyped-up foundationalism, modernism, individualism and consumerism long enough to seek a new missional presence in the world.

The themes of the Call are familiar and getting more attention from within traditional evangelical circles: themes like Discipleship as spiritual formation, worship as less narcissistic and more liturgically driven, and missional embodied engagement with the injustice and impoverishment of our warped society. I wonder if the AEF Call could bring together parties that have resisted the emerging church forums. Perhaps the AEF could bring together a wider and broader participation in the push towards a missional direction for the N. American church. I have hopes, I just don’t know yet.

I know there are blank spots in this document. In large part this document aims squarely at the downfalls of White Suburban Evangelicalism (WSE) because that in the past is what evangelicalism has tragically often been: white and suburban. And so, anytime you use the word “evangelical” (like this AEF Call does) it seems to leave out large participants in vital parts of American Christianity, I am thinking especially of African American and Women Christians who have not been part of the (WSE) evangelical church voice until maybe just recently. Nonetheless, if we would get somewhere with this part of the church, not leave it behind in disgust, perhaps a document aimed directly at it might be necessary.

So having said all of this, I am eager to see what happens here at this meeting coming up at Northern on the Ancient-Evangelical Call. I’ll be interested to hear Brian McLaren’s address, “Does the Emerging Church Have an Ancient-Future?” I am interested in McLaren’s talk and reflection on this. There will be others as well, Lauren Winner, and Aaron Flores who may be able to comment on Emerging Church issues. Martin Marty will have his own take on things. Frederica Mathewes-Green will be rich. I also hope some Emerging church pastors, leaders interested thinking missional people come and get into this discussion. Can anything vibrant come out of this? I don’t know. But I have sincere interest and hopes. And of course I’ll be there as a member of Northern’s faculty.

What do you think of this Call? Is anyone out there thinking about coming to the Conference? If you are let me know, I’d like to connect with as many folk as possible there.

And BTW, even though I am a professor at Northern Seminary, all my comments above represent my own thoughts, not Bob’s or anyone else’s at the seminary.

Peace!

Many of you know that Geoff Holsclaw and I started a group called Up/rooted about 5 years ago with the help of a little money from our church Life on the Vine. It was meant to be a discussion group bringing pastors, leaders, an interested minded Christians of all ilk together around the issues of post modernity, post-Christendom that we were all dealing with at the time. Geoff was active in Emergent and Up/rooted became a cohort of Emergent. The thing grew, Geoff and I got over whelmed with our own church's responsibilities, plus various tasks related to ministry, writing, speaking and teaching (for me at the Seminary). We handed off the reins to Mike Clawson who has down an outstanding job. Up/rooted west has really developed a great conversation due to his and Julie's leadership. Way to go!
As far as Up/rooted meeting again up here in North West Suburbs, I have been asked about that happening from time to time. I am in process of reviving a meeting of Up/rooted here up in the NWest part of the suburbs aimed at some theological discussion on issues of church and culture and modernity/postmodernity. I'm hoping to restart it in January. It will be somewhat informal, but also intentionally theological, built around a 10-20 page reading for each gathering. If you are in the area, and you are interested in connecting like this, would you e-mail me through LifeontheVine's website. I'll put you on the list and we'll make this all happen. Thanks!

Meanwhile, let me put in a plug for Up/rooted's gathering with Doug Pagitt, pastor of Solomon's Porch, author of the books Church Re-Imagined and Preaching Re-Imagined, and the orginal founder of what has become Emergent. Doug is an articulate spokeman for Emergent, knows many of the issues of postmodern thought, and I am sure has new things to say regarding the development of emerging churches, emergent as an organization, and how we must go forward doing church in the contexts we find ourselves in. Though I don't always agree with Doug, I have used his books in my classes, and have found his work insightful, importaht and challenging. It should be a good night! This all happens on Thursday, September 28, 7ish p.m. at the Socall home, 26W325 Torrey Pines Ct., Winfield, IL 60190. We all look forward to engaging him on the issues Emergent is facing these days. Hope to see some of you there!

Blessings, David Fitch

I’d like to say some things about the evangelicals going high church and even the emerging churches rejecting their denominations of birth.

I have been tempted many times to leave evangelicalism for a lot of reasons. At times, I have been tempted to leave for more substantive worship or to avoid the narrow minded cheesy ways of selling Jesus. But I think to just leave one’s inherited church, without being asked to leave, is a strike against the cause of ecumenism. What? Yeah ecumenism, the unity of the church. So I stay put. I hope to explain why at the end of this post.

What I am about to say does not apply to a lot of people. There are good reasons for leaving churches, and also for having no denominational affiliation. Yet the trend seems to be catching steam and maybe we should think about what we’re doing. Especially trendy are evangelicals leaving their church of birth for high-church traditions. Colleen Carroll, in certain parts of her book The New Faithful, records that this is happening. It seems that in my alma mater, Wheaton College, many are “converting,” to either Anglo Catholicism or even Roman Catholicism. A faculty member was asked to leave for converting to RC. I wonder if the Catholics count the converts like we do when it happens in reverse. Generous Orthodoxy blog has some great discussion on the topic. Evangelicals leaving for high church seem to be a phenomenon of our times.

To me this is one more extension of the historical game of musical chairs. At first it was the Roman Catholics leaving for Reformed churches. Those Reformed churches came to the New World and weren’t individualistic enough, so we had Great Awakenings and a whole bunch of folk left to join the revivalist churches. There were also the people that were always leaving for some fresh Anabaptist primitivist vision of the church. These too were ancestors of evangelicals. Now we have people doing the reverse, i.e. leaving evangelicalism back to the high church traditions. They are sick of the thin insubstantial theologies and narcissistic forms of Christianity that have evolved out of evangelicalism’s individualism. Ironically, theologians, many whom critique the consumerist habits of evangelicals and mega churches are folk who move to the high church traditions, “church shopping” for a more substantial vision instead of trying to help us evangelicals out of our quandary. One can only wonder how long the ancestors of these folk will go before they complain about rote liturgy and leave for a primitivist more authentic version of Christianity again and start the whole cycle again.

Over against all this, I propose we give up the musical chairs and stay put. Let us all seek faithfulness and trust the work of the Spirit to take us somewhere out of where God has put us. It is slow but I believe it could be taking us towards a renewed unity of the church.

Alasdair Macintyre said in After Virtue, “the story of my life is always embedded in the story of those communities from which I derive my identity. I was born with a past, and to try to cut myself off from that past, in the individualist mode, is to deform my present relationships.” Later on, on that same page, McIntyre continues “ … I find myself part of a history and that is generally to say, whether I like it or not, whether I recognize it or not, one of the bearers of tradition.” (p. 221). What I believe this means for all of us is that God’s calling starts with us where we are born. And we are to work within that tradition, or the tradition by which we first were brought into the gospel until informed otherwise (i.e. kicked out). We are to work for its reform from within. And just perhaps, if we stay put and keep working long enough, a true ecumenism can happen that brings all traditions together in a grand convergence of the Spirit. Evangelicals, who see the value of the high church liturgical traditions, don’t leave but bring that understanding to bear on their evangelical practices. Catholics, who see the problems of inaccessible and/or dead liturgy in their church, don’t leave, but bring these insights to bear on their church. Same way with other doctrinal issues and other traditions. If we all stayed put and worked for reform on the issues from within instead of leaving, all of the traditions might converge by the Holy Spirit. We’re already seeing it between Catholics and evangelicals as Scot McKnight has blogged about. We’re already seeing it at Wheaton College despite their administration’s work against it. We’re already seeing it as more evangelicals and emerging churches see the value of historical forms of worship. We’re already seeing it as more evangelical traditions working together.

This is where I might really have smoke blowing out my ears, but I think the emerging folks, as diverse, cross denominational as they are, might have an opportunity of a life time, to be a force for a convergence of Christian traditions towards a new kind of unity. In other words, liturgy, mission, justice and community are messages that some traditions need more than others. By staying within our respective traditions we can cross the bridges necessary to bring liturgy to evangelicals, community to Catholics and white evangelicals, justice to the evangelicals, mission to the Catholics and Anglo Catholics. In this way, emerging folk, if we stay in our traditions and denominations, might become a force for ecumenism among the Christian traditions.