A little late to be posting, but if you see this, thanks for your time if you read it.

I am a recovering Catholic who recently stumbled on the network of emerging church and leaders in the US. While I have to acknowledge your observations about the emerging church being young, white and somewhere in the middle class, I don’t believe you when you write that you are not standing in judgement of “living below the poverty line”.

You say the movement remains “stubbornly” middle class. Perhaps, have you considered, that this is because the US economic system remains “Stubbornly” divided as well?

Is it better not to engage with people who are living in poverty simply because one isn’t poor themselves?

How would you suggest fixing the “observations” you raise? It is to “not criticize” but there are some movement that truly engage with people of all diverse works of life in a true spiritual equality.

Should people in a certain class only worship and minister with those of the same classes?
Do people born in higher classes reject the gospel message so as not to offend the poor??

I’m sorry, but I finished reading your article feeling a bit like eating sour grapes.

Certainly here in South Africa, from what I have seen, most of the emerging/missional movement is white, and I think possibly for some of the reasons that you have listed, and an additional one is that that people in this movement seem to network largely through the blogosphere, and the proportion of black to white bloggers in South Africa is way out of proportion to the ratio in the population.

That suggests to me that the emerging/missional movement, as propagated in the blogosphere, is rather tied to a particular technology. In Africa, African independent churchs have been missional for years, but they have different networks and different means of networking. Many of those tend to be pre-modern, or at least were in earlier periods, but they seem to have adopted different technology, the cell phone rather than the blog or Twitter, for example.

Let me start out by saying that I appreciate that you are looking into this topic, and I think it’s an important one. I am very grateful it is on your heart to look into the relationship between the emerging church and ethnicity.

I have read your blog and the comments (a couple of times), and I didn’t think they addressed what I was getting at. I hope the directness of my comments didn’t make you feel blindsided. My writing has a tendency to sound more severe than I am in person.

Let me take a step back and say what I understood from your post, and then maybe you can correct what I got wrong. It was the second paragraph after “2nd story” that most alarmed me. I understood you argument to be the following: many whites have gone through modernity and have realized its deficits and abandoned it, and the white church’s response to this has been to “emerge.” African-American and Latino church goers, on the other hand, have been mostly poor and aspire to modernity-related success, have not realized the deficits of modernity, and thus do not see the incentive to “emerge.”

I think that this might sound condescending to some people (perhaps especially people of color from those traditions?). If this is your argument, it sounds like you are putting progress on a line with white people at the head in postmodernity and poor Latinos and African Americans lagging economically and culturally in the modernity phase.

When I talk about the two-thirds world, I am not talking about minority ethnic group churches in the US, I am talking about what might be called “premodern” contexts. I am pointing out that in a linear model of progress of modern to postmodern, you have left out a large population of people, and arguably the spiritual center of Christendom at the moment.

With regard to the “prosperity gospel”: I’m not a fan. But I am saying that there is a very real cultural context for that message, and there are a variety of forms of it, and one should probably look into those things before deciding whether it is an unfortunate blemish on the progress of the two-thirds world church (you use the word “ironically”), or whether it is something interesting and worth looking into. (”Why is it so popular?”) But I probably share your hesitancy about that “gospel.”

Lastly, I would say that it is important for people in the two-thirds world and people of color in the United States to share some about why they don’t go for emerging before emerging folks decide why they aren’t going for emerging. Like you observed, there are other contextual elements, so I am hesitant when one of these elements is named in the absence of other elements. It makes the discussed element sound more important.

Now, I could be wrong in how I am interpreting you, and if so, then I apologize. Again, I really appreciate your thoughts and willingness to share. Thanks for the dialogue!

On your comment ..”You ignore the fact that church populations are exploding in the two-thirds world. Maybe you should rethink distinctive Western theology (for example, postmodern theology) if the church in the West is dying and churches in these places supposedly “aspiring to modernity” are growing explosively. It can’t hurt to look into it.”…

Did you see what I wrote in the post talking about McLaren’s assessment of the third world … I said ” Here the gospel is doing well. Ironically much of this church movement is charismatic and driven by prosperity gospel (Peter Berger outlines this in an article in Books and Culture …) “…
Rachel .. did you even read my piece? sorry, but I think dialogue could be improved by more careful interactions …

1. While the average level of economic success may be a contributing factor in a disparity of interest in the emergent community between whites and people of color, I think an economic motivation for this disparity is a grave oversimplification. There are many cultural reasons, economic ones aside.

2. Each of our ethnic Christian communities must face the failings of our respective cultures, and you are correct that there are some immaturities in various ethnic Christian communities. However, it is tragic that you fail to realize any immaturity in your own community, more specifically that you seem to see the white church’s immaturities as less immature. (White individualism, lack of respect for ancestors, and refusal to give power to people of color, anyone?)

3. The historic church is fundamentally inter-generational and multi-ethnic. When any population purposefully removes itself from that dialogue, the danger of ethnocentric theology is great. An example of ethnocentric theology would be “we get it because we’ve been through that cultural phase, but you’re behind, so you don’t get it yet. our theology is more advanced. let’s dialogue so we can teach you things.”

4. It is often observed in emerging church dialogue that God is present with “the poor.” That’s true. Have you ever thought that maybe the poor are intelligent enough to come up with a coherent theology of money, and that maybe you could try to learn from what they are doing, rather than assuming that they don’t know what they are talking about? Maybe God is with the poor more than in a comforting presence but also in a powerful blessing? It is objectifying to use the “poor” lifestyle as a means of spiritual growth for ourselves without considering the outlook and culture produced by that lifestyle as at least a viable option.

5. You ignore the fact that church populations are exploding in the two-thirds world. Maybe you should rethink distinctive Western theology (for example, postmodern theology) if the church in the West is dying and churches in these places supposedly “aspiring to modernity” are growing explosively. It can’t hurt to look into it. Also, I don’t think it is true that many people are “enamored with the American dream.” I’m sure a lot of people don’t want to live in crippling poverty, but I doubt that most people in the world want to trade in their own cultural heritage for middle-class white (post)modernity.

I know a lot of people who would consider some of your points passively racist. You should reconsider your wording at least, and I would suggest, some of your ideas as well.

Even though you may have limited cross-cultural experience, your sentiments ring true. The emptyness and vanity of our consuming search for wealth, status or possession is universal, even though its not universally accepted or understood. It may present itself differently among different cultural and geographic groups but the symptoms are similar.

Its my hope though, that the missional/emerging church banks on the fact that there already exists modes of resistance within ethnic minority communities and focus its efforts on linking up with those pockets of resistance, learning and embracing some of their ways and inviting them into their worship and mission.

I have seed that some of the causes of entrenched poverty are exactly the same things that result in an isolated, empty “prosperity.” I have seen people with limited means spend on cell phones, large televisions, and new car accessories, often with absurdly costly credit-schemes. The desire is the same that keeps the suburban family anesthetized to real life and isolated from one another: it is the desire to attain happiness through property, wealth, status. The result may be different: the wealthy suburban family lives in an empty, isolated, meaningless stupor while the poor family falls deeper into poverty. But the spiritual problem is the same.

This says nothing about the systems of oppression that keep people in poverty and exclude them from opportunity. Certainly, misio Dei should propel us to set the captives free, to bring opportunity and dignity to the poor and oppressed.

But the call must still extend to those at the margins: The desire for personal fulfillment in wealth, status, or possesions is futile. Desire freedom, that you may in turn join the liberating mission of God.

Yes, I apologize for the verbosity. I agree that the issues aren’t exclusive to the Native North American community, though, like other voices on the margins, they don’t appear to be at the table nor a part of the missional & emergent conversations; although, they are asking extremely similar questions regarding community and the gospel.

In regards to Richard’s quotes, I’ll ask him his permission. I’ll let you know when he replies.

Peace.
Dan