Last week I posted a quick statement on the blog entitled “What’s become of the emerging church? The problem of a never ending conversation.” It was based upon a review of Kevin Corcoran’s edited volume Church in the Present tense: A Candid Look at What’s Emerging. It referred to a blog post/book review (I wrote) over at the church-and-pomo blog about the current state of the emerging church. This week Tony Jones responds to that post also on the church-and-pomo blog here, to which I respond “thank goodness for Tony Jones.” Tony always writes clearly, concisely and in entertaining fashion. And he essentially articulates for me (sort of) what I was trying to say in my previous post, yet in such a better way when he says:
“The very openness to conversation that has been engendered by the ECM is also our downfall. We’ve taken a pastiche approach to church and theology — we take a little bit from here and a little bit from there. The benefit of that is a great deal more freedom than many leaders in the church feel. The other side of that coin, however, is that we inevitably disappoint anyone who comes from a particular camp, because we’re never really enough of anything.”
Make sure to read the entire post HERE (it’ll be on church-and-pomo blog shortly – I had to post this before Tony’s post actually appeared because I’m about to lose internet on and off for a week in France)
So, after these two posts, and the many comments engendered from them, I have come to the following conclusions …
a.) “Emerging church” is a conversation and that’s it. It’s logic was never meant to provide theological direction for the gathered life of a people with God and His Mission. I guess I should be fine with that.
b.) “Emerging church” should not be expected to generate churches. It is not attached to any ecclesiological practice not does it aspire to work out any of these issues through ecclesiological practice. It instead is a provocateur to already existing churches. And I guess I should be fine with that.
c.) Since I am committed to the church’s work of bringing/witnessing to on-the-ground salvation in Christ to actual contexts and places and people amid seismic cultural shifts, “emerging church” will frustrate me. And I should be fine with that.
My question is: SHOULD I BE FINE WITH ALL THAT?
Many emergent’s say I should? Right? My question (just asking eh?): Does this not then lead to emerging church coalescing a group of malcontents? People upset about past church abuses all the while NOT moving toward getting in the middle of working out the messy life stuff details of living Christ on the ground? Just provoke – provoke – provoke? Is this not why many young churches don’t want to associate with the word “emerging” any more? (we’re not about critique critique!). Does not then the “emerging church” lead to a lot of talk “about justice” (and perhaps raising some money for some good causes) but little on-the-ground justice taking shape in communities within neighborhoods? Of course we have great examples within emerging church movement of people leading good ministries ( to name a few, I think of Doug Pagitt’s and Tony’s own Solomon’s Porch, and Mark Scandrette’s Jesus Dojo campaign). But are these not exceptions? Is not the bulk of the emerging church movement contained within “the cohorts framework” where 2 – 10-15 people meet primarily for conversation? “Not that there is anything wrong with that” (full disclosure: Geoff Holsclaw and I started the first emerging cohort 10 years ago in Chicago). Should I just relax , shut-up and be fine with all that? You tell me! just asking? eh?
When we get back from France, I hope to write a post reflecting more carefully on the logic of local church formation , context and how the gospel takes shape in relation to place. Specifically I want to address the role of “disputable matters” in the way formation of a community requires on the ground resolution i.e. It can’t be a “never-ending conversation.” In the meantime, if you have comments, I welcome them, need them! My comments will unfortunately be be intermittent till I return from France (where I’m leading a forum for the next week with no internet).
Au revoir
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[...] This is What Emerging Church Is! Tony Jones Responds! Should I Be Fine With This? [...]
I have come to a similar conclusion. EC was (is) needed by individuals and communities to shake up the old thinking that had scarred over Christian religion. EC was necessary deconstruction. But the same conversation isn’t going to both tear down and build up. Eventually, deconstruction leads to reconstruction. Some of us find entirely new ways to do/be church. Others among us find fresh breath within our liturgical traditions. As we move forward, the need for deconstruction and deconstruction language passes away.
Emergent church isn’t the butterfly; it is the cocoon.
My first exposure to the emerging church movement was in practice, and that was my interest. My understanding was that it was very much concerned with ecclesiology, a rethinking of how to do church.
Then a bunch of people like Tony Jones and Brian McLaren started blogging and writing a bit more about theology and bit less about practice, they started taking iconoclastic positions on theological issues, folks like D.A. Carson and Kevin DeYoung started challenging them, and now ECM is a boogeyman for most conservative evangelicals. I’m pretty cynical about both sides of the argument. Rob Bell is in that mix somewhere, too.
Lost in this process has been the people who continue to try to do church differently for a digital-age generation. People like Leonard Sweet, the late Robert Webber, and Dan Kimball had (and have) much more to add to the American church.
I’ve given up trying to identify with the label “emerging” because it just sets off a very unproductive, in-grown bickering among Christians. But I still see a great need for rethinking and re-doing our worship practices. We need our worship proclaim the gospel in the vernacular, not in the structures and language of Christendom. We need this to welcome visitors, but we ourselves also need to practice telling the gospel in relevant (non-obsolete) ways. In other words, our worship practices have stagnated and they extract us from our culture, and leave us unprepared to incarnate the gospel in our day to day lives.
This is where I still see great overlap between the early “emerging church” practitioners and the missional movement. I hope that is a partnership that can still bear fruit.
When i first encountered “emerging church” stuff nearly a decade ago, it was a breath of fresh air. It validated (or at least highlighted my non-uniqueness in) my dissatisfaction with the constant contemporary-vs-traditional worship wars. People like Robert Webber and Dallas Willard – plus a bunch of Episcopalian friends – had helped me pursue spiritual formation and rediscover many of the forgotten (in my tribe) spiritual practices of the church. Whether we sang songs written 1850, 1950 or 1999 was a boring fight.
Emergent (for me) became synonymous with authentic experiences of faith and worship, located in the present, grounded in the (often ancient) past and hopeful for the future…over time though Emergent/emerging church became synonymous with candles in the worship space – and I began to lose interest. Again we seemed to be arguing over silly details that failed to address the actual life of faith beyond a weekly gathering (with some notable exceptions).
I’ve tried to distance myself from the whole “conversation” simply because it seems like a new version of the same surface level fights of the past. I still find the writings of many “Emergent” folks helpful, but I’m way more interested in the “missional conversation” because it requires an embodied response.
I think this is less true today then 5 years ago. I think there are lots of emerging churches/services/communities that are under the radar because we haven’t written books or enjoy blogging (though we’re thankful to those who do)
As I had previously stated, I really do think the ECM is simply a discussion… an ongoing conversation. Nothing much more. In some sense it’s a theology, a better way we as a church can better understand God in the context of a post-modern society. It’s also a way to better understand people and their culture. However, as I have also stated, I have seen the ideologies of the ECM put into action. I am currently with a missions organization called Pioneers. During some of our church-planting training sessions, some of the principles and values of the ECM were drawn upon (i.e. cultural relevancy, diversity, deciding what is really essential and what is not, doing missions with people of different theological persuasions and denominations, etc.). It brought forth a lot of fruitful discussion about global missions for the 21st century. There were of course some naysayers. And, even the instructor made a disclaimer that some of the things the ECM espouses are “really out there”. But, overall the ECM was painted in a positive light.
In my humble opinion, I think Evangelicals are reluctant to grab hold of ECM theology, because there are so many different variations of the ECM (extreme liberal, liberal, and conservative) and because there is really no clearly defined principles espoused by the ECM.
You can’t create an ECM Creed or Confession. You can’t become dogmatic or institutionalized. You can’t become a denomination of churches. Why? Because this goes against the very fiber of what the ECM stands against. Therefore, the ECM is stuck between a rock and hard place. So, how do you further strengthen and broadcast the views of the ECM without becoming too dogmatic and institutionalized? Should it remain a discussion? Or, should the ECM change course and become more proactive?
I don’t know the answer. Is more discussion required? Perhaps. Maybe the ECM should seek more common ground with Evangelicals without compromising too much of its ideologies. Or, perhaps some compromise may be required. Only time will tell. The ECM will either be wholly accepted by the Evangelical community, or it will be tossed into the trashbin of one-hit wonders. Time will tell.
I like some of the other commenters found the emerging church literature and thought to be freeing and validating. many of my friends who came out of a literalistic, fundamentalist, dispensationalist, foundationalist, churchy, christian subculturalist, (looks like I’m making a subtitle list in the likes of McClaren), etc…. existence as a Christian liked the Emerging conversation because of a word that I have used often to describe my position – resonation. It resonated and made me and other not feel so alone. I wasn’t looking for a new ecclesiology as much as I was looking for a validation of hidden questions and a nascent theological trajectory that was going to take me away from my ecclesial roots – which was going to happen anyway, but the Emerging conversation was my “cocoon” out of what I was moving away from and for that I am so thankful. In fact Dave, it was “Generous Orthodoxy” by McClaren that led me to Life on the Vine.
I still meet young people my a decade younger than me going through the same exact thing who want out but don’t want to leave and have very few options. For younger generations, the options tend to look more concrete, more ecclesial, but for me, having read EMC literature and interacting with the ideas and people for about a decade, I have come to realize that the conversation wasn’t concrete and that it was more of a deconstructive effort, i.e. the removal of the concrete. I have found that my growth required some deconstruction but that my faith tradition didn’t even know what that meant, nor could they help me articulate the process of deconstruction that became increasingly necessary. EMC ferried me across to the other side and I couldn’t be more thankful for that. My ecclesiology has changed drastically (though I’ve found that I cannot escape my evangelical/baptist roots as much as I though) but that is more because my internal transformation required a deconstructive space that would not allow me to at the same time stay there. EMC discipled me through that and gave voice to development.
There is much more to say in how I understand the significance of it but now that EMC is a good whipping boy for a lot of, especially evangelicals, I am saddened that there isn’t as wide of a space for the next generation of christians who still need a deconstructive space to grow in. At one point, Brian McLaren suggested that churches create this space within their own walls because if they don’t, those who need it will leave their walls to find it – it’s necessary for growth. I would hope that the EMC could have helped to create that space within certain traditions without being intrusive, but when has that happened in history? I recently read Roger Olson’s “How to be Evangelical without being Conservative” -this book best describes where I’m at and where many influenced by the EMC seemed to have found themselves. His other book, “Reformed and Always Reforming” is one that I’m working through.
After recently speaking to an intelligent young man about Rob Bell’s new book and the books written to respond to his, he stated that he can’t land in either camp and feels like he just can’t be an evangelical anymore. I’ve met many more like him who are still in college and looking for a way out and a concrete environment to express their need for deconstruction. If we don’t validate that environment, create that space and understand it’s place in our spiritual formation trajectory then we have been unfaithful to an aspect of the spiritual formation/discipleship command of Christ (whoa heavy). For me, that was the EMC and it was resonation, not hero worship or the desire to be a provocateur that led me to it, it was the sheer need to know that I wasn’t along in my desire to grow through deconstruction (Richard Rohr has a great understanding of this) and that there was a path through it that was responsible, mature and had been trod upon by others who had gone before. Thanks Dave for posting this and for creating one of the communities where this took place for me.
Nathan Smith
Two observations. First, I think Tony is right, that the Emergent conversation is just that – a conversation. And, yes, the conversation is more geared towards deconstruction than anything else. It’s a place where folks that don’t quite buy the party line in their various ecclesiological and theological traditions can go and not feel alone in their questions and lack of answers.
Second, this is the very reason why there are lots of questions and few answers. When you start to move from questions to answers, and from theology to praxis, what you find is a church community that looks an awful lot like those villainous institutions of the modern era. Things like orthodoxy, which is necessary to hold a community together. Things like church membership, which are necessary to ensure any semblance of accountability to the way of Jesus. Things like moral boundaries, which are necessary for any social cohesive group. Despite all the conversation, the reality is that when the deconstruction is over and we start to rebuild, we end up concluding that that which we deconstructed wasn’t all bad after all. Some of what many of us were running from, we come to find out, is a necessary part of building any kind of cohesive community – religious or otherwise.
This isn’t a defense of institutionalism or modern/enlightenment theological and ecclesiological paradigms. It’s just that in all the deconstruction inherent in the emerging conversation, the baby got tossed out with the bath water.
[...] came out in a weblog discussion a friend commended. The item described the “emerging church” as a conversation and not [...]
As a Christian whose search led her to Eastern Orthodoxy, out of a mainline Protestant tradition that seemed lifeless and ungrounded, I read this discussion with interest. I know very little about the Emerging Church, so please forgive me if my observations are inaccurate or offensive. I don’t want to offend, and I will gratefully receive correction. Having said that, I confess that the EC movement strikes me as being about white middle class young people who are bored with the churches that raised them and are looking for something more exciting — especially if it frees them from having to oppose the mainstream culture on sexual issues. Hey, I understand being bored and spiritually stifled by the church you grew up in! It happened to me too. I would be the last one to put down seekers. What I find troubling about the EC movement is the sense that the thing people are seeking is not the Truth but some form of Christianity that “works” for them. I am older than many of the EC leading lights, which might be why I read some of their words and hear their yearning, and believe it to be genuine … but I think, “Didn’t young middle-class Americans do this already in the Sixties and Seventies?” That didn’t work out too well. Nothing dates more badly than what’s on the cutting-edge today.
I, of course, came to believe that Orthodox Christianity is the most authoritative, truest form of Christianity, even as I recognize that God cannot be contained within a set of propositions, or even within the boundaries of a single church. I came to believe that the Orthodox Church is the most reliable and authoritative of all the Christian churches. Having reached that conclusion, I try hard (and pray hard) to understand all that the Orthodox Church teaches, but even when I can’t, I accept the mysteries and recognize its authority. I don’t see any binding authority at work in the EC movement … which is its attraction for many, I guess, but how does something like that stand the test of time?
My comments will probably sound harsh. Forgive me if so. I’m genuinely curious about these things. I came to your blog through First Things’ link. God bless you all.
I resonate with your comments and have just posted something to my own blog with similar though not identical sentiments.
Not sure what I said that warranted being deleted
I think Jason above is right on. These things are happening, but we don’t hear about them. The academics and pundits dominate the conversation. And I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing.
Anyway, moving on… I’m hoping to get some conversation (married to action) happening up here in rural Alberta. We live an hour west of Edmonton and will be starting something of a cohort/missional outpost/conversation (heavens, no!) to ask the question, “what does it mean to be missional in rural alberta?”
We will meet roughly once a month to eat together and converse, and meet more than once a month to practice and experiment in following the way of Jesus.
If anyone is interested in joining us or offering help/advice please contact me!
Trying to make these nexuses of practice and conversation into something that can’t be referred to as the exception!
Hey David,
I’d be happy to share my experiences in leading a Cohort and an Emerging(ish) church plant with you. I’m nervous about putting my email here, but you can go the website and look under staff to find my email.
J
I really enjoyed reading through this write-up! I most certainly will be coming back to read some more intriguing ideas!! Thank you.