Emergent Church: have we been here before?
I am a newcomer to the ideas of the Emergent Church. When I first encountered references to the Emergent Church I must admit that I was most concerned. This was before I had really encountered the element of dialogue and conversation that informs Emergent discussion.
Since then, I have tried to read up on the subject. I have discovered, for example, that the book of the month at Pretoria East NG Church is "A Generous Orthodoxy". In a sense though, the term "Emergent" is misleading because the Christian Church was born as an Emergent offshoot of Judaism. To practising Jews of that time, particularly devout ones, the Christian sect with its unorthodox theology and praxis must have seemed "Emergent". Likewise, the Protestant reformation must have seemed as radical to the established church of the time. Is it possible that the Christian Church was meant to be in a perpetual state of emergence?
- carlnel's blog
- 695 reads
Stay updated
Who's been visiting?
Comments
pilgrim's progress
We are a pilgrim people. What is it about the terms "emerging" and "emergent" that was unsettling in relation to "church"?
Envoy
Emergent
Dear envoy
I do not find the term "emergent" unsettling at all. I just wanted to point out to anyone who might be unsettled that the church, as I understand it, has always surprised the establishment in one way or another. So when we see people trying to find new ways to make their faith real then we should see in that the hand of God. At the very least, people are trying to do something to make their faith fresh and that in itself is commendable.
At first I think I was shocked by the video clips of alternative liturgies. THereafter, I came across references to "universalism" and reinterpreting the "Cross" by which stage I was thinking to myself that if one takes away the soteriological element from the christian faith then what is really left? I think what I am trying to say is that the questioning of core faith elements and not just faith focus made me think that this was one giant movement of apostasy. Since then, of course, I have discovered that the Emergent Church is a vast loosely defined movment and that not everyone in it is interested in throwing out the core aspects of it in favour of "taming" the church.
new expression in continuity with the past
Hi Carl,
I believe it's important to distinguish between two aspects or kinds of conversation taking place among those being identified as "emerging/emergent" or "post-evangelical".
1) The conversations characterised by doubt and exploration. Evangelicalism is given to pronunciations of or about our faith whereas "emergents" are given to speaking about their process in relation to the who's and what's of our faith. This is akin to exploring the distinction between how a couple speaks about love when making statements about what it means and looks like versus that same couple exploring the felt meaning and working out of love in a counselling environment. These conversations are often related to individuals' exploration and process and hence differ strongly from statements of faith.
2) The conversations characterised by finding a contemporary expressions of faith. Evangelicalism is strongly tied to modernity along with its historical Western and European church roots. Many critics of "emergents" are not maturely distinguishing between conversations that validly seek new expression in a new cultural context (albeit the emergence of a new culture within the West) from those that depart from the faith.
I'm fully with you on seeing the "hand of Godde" in this. For me this is the work of the Spirit.
Envoy
Departing from the faith
Dear Envoy
THank you for your response. Ditto Nic re ABBA. I was greatly encouraged by your hesitance in applauding my devotional efforts. As the pdf text will show, however, the message was orthodox although the vehicle might have been slightly unconventional. I hope liturigical experiments do not constitute a departure from the faith. "Depart from the faith" is such a frightening euphemism for apostasy.
Envoy, have I got the wrong impression about emergents because the weird and wacky always gets more media coverage thatn the quiet emergents who continue to work out their faith in "fear and trembling" - so to speak? What does it mean to depart from the faith when so much of the faith is bound up in Western culture? THere is something about the Christian narrative that is powerful. Hoewever, so much of its symbolism might in fact have had pagan roots. to begin with. What is the difference between using secular music to evangelize and, for example, incorporating pagan fertility symbolism into celebrations of easter?
Regards
Carl
put your wacky foot in first
The lunatic fringe definately gets the best PR. Unfortunately, even the un-wacky elements get sidelined because the West and the Christian faith, the medium and the message, have become synonymous in some streams. Our faith is and has always been a reforming faith, one that continually recenters upon Christ.
I think you raise a really good question at the end there - what's the difference between using secular music versus incorporating pagan fertility symbolism into celebrations of easter? I'd love to hear your response on that one.
I believe that St. Patrick, among others, serves as a good example of being an ambassador of Godde's kingdom. We can indeed make people Christian without franchising our culture and church systems to them. There's certainly a gem in the history of St. Patrick that we may find if we look for it. How can we help people find, explore, grow in, and spread the message of the kingdom and the Christ? Without making them Roman Catholic Christian Patrick enabled the Celts to find and live out faith in Christ with profound implications for Celtic history.
May we do the same for a postmodern and emerging generation.
Envoy
Pagan Symbols Pagan Music
Dear Envoy
THanks for the reply. I don't think that many people are even aware of the pagan roots of some of the symbols that have become part of Christian liturgical practice. I think it is all a matter of perception. SOme people object to using modern music styles in worship bands in church.
If not even food sacrificed to idols - not that such a thing still exists in the Pauline sense of the word, is an obstacle to the believer, then surely music that is put to liturigcal use is more "sanctified" by the believer's faith than symbols rooted in paganism. However, both the symbols and the music have been removed from their original context and have been put to new use. EIther way, secular music cannot be more evil than pagan symbols.
Do I make any sense?
in defense of "the pagan"
Carl
I truly believe in the responsibility of each worshipper to actively, imaginatively and creatively sactify a wide range of things, events and ideas. I reject pre-sanctification or pre-profaning based on someone else's assumptions. And so I reject the perjorative usage of the term "pagan", especially in a self-righteous manner.
I have been discussing this in a recent emergentvilliage blogologue between Tony Jones and Bill Easum, comment 11.
Also see my background thinking if you are still interested: making space for halloween, a pagan conversation, and in search of a calendar.
"Pagan"
Hi there NIc
I believe the term "pagan" (as I've subsequently found you have noted already) was used by the Romans to refer to country dwellers and had no religious connotations initially. Do you know whether or not the Church attached religious meanings to the word because Christianity became a largely urban faith in the late Empire? Was the incorporation of rural religious practice an attempt to bridge the divide?
I think I reject some of the "pagan" practices precisely because the Church has obscured their roots, absorbed them and reinscribed them with its own meaning. However, contemporary Christian culture magazines seem to talk about the need to engage with culture and to infuse it with (Christian) life. I do wonder at the Church's lack of creativity in having to absorb symbols from other faiths and in "Christianizing" culture. Could the new mission field be culture? If so, what does that mean in terms of what we proclaim and how we does so? Wondering aloud. Is the Church, in fact, a cultural parasite - depending as it does on the "world" providing the raw cultural materials that are then refashioned by the Church?
Regards
Carl
cultural parasites
Sorry Carl only saw this now. I do think Urbanisation has something to do with it, yes. But more so it's the rejection of nature which came in via Neoplatonism. It's this that Creation Spirituality is trying to reclaim.
I think engaging the culture creatively, rather that retreating from it, is a step in the right direction. But I wouldn't see the church as needing the culture around for its inspiration, such as putting Christian words to Elton John melodies, because we don't trust ourselves to compose.
Not that I think your use of Abba was a bad idea - it's different using something sacrimentally with integrity to trying to as you put it, be a parasite preying on the ideas of others. But on the third hand, if one is doing a good parody of Elton John, fine again.
I don't see a competition between the church and world. Christians should just be getting down and creating, and doing so in the main market place, not just in the Christian ghetto.
always emerging
I see emergence as built into life. So I agree that we are all pilgrims, continually in a state of becoming, and I also agree that the Church is destined to be in that state constantly, if it is seeking that Life.
It may be a buzzword but it is a good one, and for me has lost none of its power. In the South African context, we have only just begun to "emerge". We are coming out of a multiplicity of old orders, apartheid, colonialism, the "modern" age, patriarchy, consumerism, authoritarianism, and evangelical and other traditions.
As you say, the centrality of conversation is a genuinely new aspect of this movement. The idea that G-d is not just a "commander in chief" passing down orders to an army, but a continual Creator whose highest delight is in the process of shared life and growing intimacy and friendship with all things.
cnel, what did you make of Generous Orthodoxy?
One thing I found memorable was McLarens assertion that emergence built on something, rather than became alternative to it. For example a ring of bark (or rather wood), establishes itself on last years bark/wood, so that the tree constantly regenerates.
A Generous Orthodoxy
Dear nicpaton
I am so new to the movement that I have not even read "A Generous Orthodoxy". I have asked our school librarian to order the books because I think our students would enjoy reading and debating these issues.
I began my journey by listening to some of the podcast interviews with Mclaren. I then read the blogs of his critics and inferred the issues with which he deals. FInally, I began to do some serious web research to find out what the core issues are. I am convinced, at a personal level, that the old ways of expressing one's faith have lost their meaning in the contemporary world. I must be honest and say that I was shocked by some of the youtube clips showing emergent church services. I do think they represent a minority, however, and that the emergent church is anything but frivolous.
In that sense, I think one must guard against throwing out everything that is old. I do not think that is what Mclaren means. I hope not. In one of his interviews, he states that it is not some much that one should not care about abortion, for example, as that one should not care about abortion at the expense of the lives of people suffering in warzones created by the West.
Even I, something of a traditionalist as far as liturgy, for example, is concerned, find current Christian practice disatisfying as some level. I have not yet fully come to understand why but I believe this feeling is driving me to seek a new way of practising my faith. What I like about this website is that it is acceptable to discuss issues that were previously not even up for discussion.
ready, steady, G.O.
cnel
By and large the emergents I have come across are not frivolous nor reactionary, but serious seekers. They look hard at the bible and the unorthodox trajectories are usually caused by an adventurous, pioneer spirit rather than one bent on mere novelty.
We usually emerge from something, implying a certain pedigree, experience or mastery in that thing. I have seen almost zero examples of people with shallow foundations taking full advantage of the liberties afforded by the EC without due discipline. Not denying it has and can happen, though.
I highly recommend A Generous Orthodoxy. It is simply THE most balanced proposal available in all of contemporary christianity. It is pervaded by both the spirit of the generous, and the ecumenism of thought that takes seriously every corner of faith, while being aware of all our limitations.
The "gluons" or "dark matter" (ok you particle physicists I'm just being poetic, don't hold it against me) holding McLarens thesis together is conversation. He does doctrine, sure, but much more than that he elicits a unity of the faith like no other I have seen, because his method is participative, not combative, exclusionary or defensive.
What liturgies did you find shocking?
Where are you based?
Are we going to always call you by a login?
A Generous order
Dear Nic
THank you for recommending Mclaren's books. I have ordered "A Generous Orthodoxy" and "Everything must change".
Regards
Carl
Great to have new people in the conversation
It is wonderful to see that new folk are interested in what 'emerging' is all about and I hope that it will move into more dialogue. It is a time for exploration and journeying together,however, we hopefully all have one thing in common and that is Jesus Christ as one who still brings life,hope healing and the opportunity to question and wrestle thru the real issues of life. We have been at this topic for a while now and I do believe that Africa has lots to offer to the rest of the conversations in the world. Hopefully we will be able to link with them, and heh if your'e out there, come and chat.
Relational Church
Hey Carl,
One of the problems with the modernist mindset is that it likes to put things into categories and, as a result, puts people into categories. The modern mindset likes to be in a 'camp' of sorts, and doesn't have much space for the organic or the relational. Yet, Christianity is at its very core all about relationship - with Christ and with each other.
A great deal of the emerging church critics deal with the emerging church in a way of putting it into a camp and trying to hi-light it's 'leaders' when, in fact, there are no such things as emerging leaders, set doctrines, or anything that represents a smack of organised religion. I don't think a lot of guys know how to deal with this, because most guys like for things to be organised, set and put on paper. It doesn't seem that when we read the Scriptures we have a sense that there was much institution or religion going on. The core of what we see happening in the scriptures is relationship, through and through.
For this reason I feel very comfortable speaking to guys who do consider themselves 'emerging' (only because they see the positive of the buzzword, when I'm seeing the negative) because while we're discussing theology and things we're actually forming relationships with each other and that is the real point of what God continually does with His church - he calls us to love one another, and we love each other more when we get to know each other, and we get to know each other more when we debate with each other in a Christ-like way.
What I'm really getting at is that the modern church isn't very relational at its core and therefore it struggles to understand the emerging church at a most fundamental level. It reacts to the movement in the only way it knows how - intellectually and at a distance, taking an 'us vs. them' approach.
Above all, we can avoid being heretics by simply keeping our relationship with Christ intact, believing in Him, and our relationships with Christians right. I'm confident that there's no heresy here, just stages and journeys in people's lives. For this reason many may see me as 'emerging' simply because I'm not whatever they are. You may find a similar reaction with those you know, but God will lead you into how to deal with that (one thing I learnt - show how committed you are to those relationships, and God works out the details).
www.ryanpeterwrites.com
"The Glory of God is man fully alive" - St Iraneaus
straying back into the fray
Stray
I see you have come down to earth just long enough to stir the emergent pot.
Peter Rollins in his second book "The Fidelity of Betrayal" (so I am told, not having read it yet) puts it like this, and in this order
1) Belonging
2) Behavior
3) Belief
So I read that as : community comes first, works/creativity/morality next, and doctrinal formulations last.
The Modern approach is precisely the opposite.
Communal faith
Dear Stray
Thank you for your comment. There is a very moving line in the Catholic Mass that goes: "Lord, look not upon our sins but the faith of your church". There are some sins that we are all responsible for and these invariably deal with issues of social justice. When we, as a community, fail to speak out against certain evils then our personal salvation surely does not mean much. How can I be "right" with God while I derive benefit from an unjust order. Since I can thus never be right with God, it follows that I should be in a perpertual state of awareness of my failings and therefore open to dialogue and the possibility that I am "wrong" with my fellow man. Does this encapsulate the value of community or am I confusing issues?
Regards
carlnel
Post new comment