Knowing Just a Tiny Bit About Emergent, Here I Go...
The following is a blog I posted yesterday; I want to add a couple things at the beginning, a prequel, like George Lucas. I want to say that if St. Paul can be glad the gospel was being preached with poor intentions just as long as the gospel was being preached, I certainly can be glad the gospel is being preached regardless of the flavor. Emergent does not have to be a divisive movement, nor a proud we're-better-than-you movement; for Pastor Dave it certainly isn't. Think of the Jesus people of the 60's, 'looking past the hair and into the eyes;' the Christian coffeeshop movement not long after that, the whole non-denominational explosion, the guitar masses of the 70's and 80's. These all led people to Christ and gave them a place to grow where they felt their generation could be understood; a place to worship and pray on their own cultural terms. I do not want to come across like some bigot who is opposing the next generation's vision of what church should be. Nor do I want to discourage anyone from exploring new vistas.
And Dave told me when I saw him that lots of church plantings happen because someone is frustrated with the status quo at the home church. Fair enough. I would like to see the positive work being done at the 'modern' church still honored, but perhaps this is because I turn 40 next month and have lost my edge. I want this blog to be about discussion, but also unity and love. I need it to be. That's why I call this 'my blog family.' It is. Peace to all.
I've read the posts at Dave's site about emergent, and Mike M.'s excellent response, and I thought I'd throw in my two cents here; the other name for my blog: the shiny lincolns.
The first thing I'll say is I'm trying so hard right now to act like a Christian and marginally succeeding/half-failing I don't have much time to worry about emergent, postmodern, post-colonial anything. I'm also teaching the Genesis account in my myth class and thinking hard about Christianity in a post-literalist Eve ate the apple six thousand years ago culture; this problem is quite challenging for me. But I'm stuck in my office hour with nothing else I really want to do...blog's away! Hey, this is the first time I've been paid to blog.
Admittedly, I know very little about this amorphous movement. But from what I can see this is coming out of the western evangelical ('modern') churches. It must be noted, of course, that Christianity is widespread in places such as Africa and the Phillipines and has been for some time, and that it exists in many denominations of various hue; I'm not sure those churches fit the assumptions emergent seems to want to emerge from. So I'll assume this is an offshoot/reaction to the evangelical, fundamental church of the last thirty five years or so, which of course built itself out of the Christian culture previous to itself. If the big evangelical churches look dated and constrained to the emergent culture now...oh man, try attending church in my mother's day, or my grandmother's. I'd wager it wouldn't feel like the same religion.
Some complaints should be levelled against American evangelicalism, in my admittedly not humble enough opinion, but these issues precede emergent. Doctrinal conformity, even rigidity, seems a hallmark of these 'belief statement' churches (who say they respect only scripture and not the historical creeds as authoritative, then write/copy their own, and quite detailed, belief statements). I've said before I think there are things we cannot know with surety. And things the denominations disagree on which are secondary to the message and mission of Christ. So what? There is, as Mike notes, a true need for orthodoxy, but I'm going to ask for a flexible and tolerant orthodoxy; an open-minded and rational orthodoxy. Emergent seems (stress seems) to want more flexibility in pondering the mysteries of the faith; good for them. Presbyterians have been doing that for 100 years, as have Methodists and Episcopalians and others. In fact someone in Christianity has always been doing it.
I will say that Clark's statement about the 'modern' growth churches being overly focused on getting people to pray the prayer so they can go to heaven is not accurate in my experience. I was in Crusade, the bastion of cold turkey e, during the 'modern' era and watched that culture develop in a large evangelical church, more than one really, and generally I found just as much emphasis, more, on discipleship materials, on continued study and communion with God, on genuine pastoring, as I did 'pray this prayer' evangelism. Should we abandon calls to the faith? And in those groups I heard faith in Christ described in specific terms: it ain't just praying the prayer to get to heaven. Clark declares the 'modern' churches as having a myopic vision, and it would be, but it wasn't what I remember.
The silly 20th-century American prohibitions against alcohol and tobacco and movies and cards and dancing and washing one's wee-wee seem to be taking a hit in emergent, and there I have to agree. I also think those things have been de-criminalized in many of the 'modern' churches for some time. Since the mid-80's. At least those old prohibitions have been under vigorous attack. Of course C.S. Lewis and Tolkien and many other European believers were drinking (sometimes too much) and smoking tobacco (at times addicted) in the 1930's. I don't know if most American evangelicals, and those who rail against them, realize how their Christian life-vision is just one of many. As the saying goes, where there's four Episcopalians, there's a fifth.
Clark does note that part of emergent is redisovering liturgy and other traditions; cool. The reformers, some of them, threw out anything which even smelled Catholic and much beauty was lost in the process. But of course, that liturgy and those traditions have been active all over the world for centuries since and remain so.
Am I really saying anything new about emergent? Probably not. But I have fifteen more minutes of office time to go....
Michael says he wants to hear more about Jesus in the emergent, and that I must echo.
The true needs of the church have really never changed; how we meet them shifts a little from generation to generation, but mostly it's been a comedy, or tragedy, of errors. So many denominations tell you they are first-century, from Church of Christ to the Pentecostals to the Emergents. But what is special about first-century? We don't really know enough about those churches to describe them, though I have read Galatians and Corinithians, and those were first-century churches. There was no Golden Era of Christianity when everything was great and then the pagans or the Romans or Constantine or the gnostics or whoever came in and mucked it up. When Jesus was here, it was mucked up. It surely was when the apostles were struggling with the truly serious issues of their day, like circumcision and the Jewish code. There is evidence of in-fighting and doctrinal divisions and what Paul describes as personal abandonment in his letters from the 50's. What the church needs now is what it needed then: reliance on Christ, personal responsibility, and active charity regarding need and doctrinal differences.
One thing I don't like is anyone criticizing other Christians over stupid things, uh, like worship style, church music preference, or dress. In many ways emergent may be simply depeche mode, the new fashion. Cool. Rock on. Sick. Misplaced teenage rage is one thing, but reality is what reality is; respect that others grow in Christ in their own way. Half the shit people blast away at the church about is actually unresolved conflict inside themselves. I should know. The other, much less important thing I don't like is the way I keep seeing the terms modern and postmodern used; these are of course used in literary studies and in philosophy, and what emergent is saying about postmodern is not what the postmodern philsophers are saying. But this is my own confusion and is really not an issue; words deserve to be used all sorts of ways.
And I'll offer my brief church vision to close; Dave tells me I am more post-this/that/the other than I know, so perhaps this will end up being one more emergent suggestion. I toss this out from the throes of my own sin-nature (and I really am not kidding): the church needs educated leaders, but it also needs tolerant leaders who understand the limits of human awareness in the presence of the vastness of God and who encourage individual theological speculation; the church needs to draw on the soul-bared lessons of the recovery community, where honest sharing and simple reliance on God have healed millions of lives with budgets of nearly zero and no publicity of any kind; the church needs to remember Jesus' compassion when he saw the weak and the sick and the sinful, and become active in programs in the community that may not grow the church, but will feed the hungry and assist those who are suffering; the church needs to be focused on the people present and not just those it wants to attract so that those who attend may grow in Christ throughout their lives. Quite simply, Christians need to strive to be more like Jesus. That is no new message. There is nothing fresh about it. It's 2000 years old and has been repeated by saints and sages for centuries. Really it's not my vision at all.
And as much as emergent wants to do that, great. The 'modern' church wanted the same thing. Awesome. We should be open-minded enough that we can all work together. Otherwise we waste precious, irreplacable time.
And Dave told me when I saw him that lots of church plantings happen because someone is frustrated with the status quo at the home church. Fair enough. I would like to see the positive work being done at the 'modern' church still honored, but perhaps this is because I turn 40 next month and have lost my edge. I want this blog to be about discussion, but also unity and love. I need it to be. That's why I call this 'my blog family.' It is. Peace to all.
I've read the posts at Dave's site about emergent, and Mike M.'s excellent response, and I thought I'd throw in my two cents here; the other name for my blog: the shiny lincolns.
The first thing I'll say is I'm trying so hard right now to act like a Christian and marginally succeeding/half-failing I don't have much time to worry about emergent, postmodern, post-colonial anything. I'm also teaching the Genesis account in my myth class and thinking hard about Christianity in a post-literalist Eve ate the apple six thousand years ago culture; this problem is quite challenging for me. But I'm stuck in my office hour with nothing else I really want to do...blog's away! Hey, this is the first time I've been paid to blog.
Admittedly, I know very little about this amorphous movement. But from what I can see this is coming out of the western evangelical ('modern') churches. It must be noted, of course, that Christianity is widespread in places such as Africa and the Phillipines and has been for some time, and that it exists in many denominations of various hue; I'm not sure those churches fit the assumptions emergent seems to want to emerge from. So I'll assume this is an offshoot/reaction to the evangelical, fundamental church of the last thirty five years or so, which of course built itself out of the Christian culture previous to itself. If the big evangelical churches look dated and constrained to the emergent culture now...oh man, try attending church in my mother's day, or my grandmother's. I'd wager it wouldn't feel like the same religion.
Some complaints should be levelled against American evangelicalism, in my admittedly not humble enough opinion, but these issues precede emergent. Doctrinal conformity, even rigidity, seems a hallmark of these 'belief statement' churches (who say they respect only scripture and not the historical creeds as authoritative, then write/copy their own, and quite detailed, belief statements). I've said before I think there are things we cannot know with surety. And things the denominations disagree on which are secondary to the message and mission of Christ. So what? There is, as Mike notes, a true need for orthodoxy, but I'm going to ask for a flexible and tolerant orthodoxy; an open-minded and rational orthodoxy. Emergent seems (stress seems) to want more flexibility in pondering the mysteries of the faith; good for them. Presbyterians have been doing that for 100 years, as have Methodists and Episcopalians and others. In fact someone in Christianity has always been doing it.
I will say that Clark's statement about the 'modern' growth churches being overly focused on getting people to pray the prayer so they can go to heaven is not accurate in my experience. I was in Crusade, the bastion of cold turkey e, during the 'modern' era and watched that culture develop in a large evangelical church, more than one really, and generally I found just as much emphasis, more, on discipleship materials, on continued study and communion with God, on genuine pastoring, as I did 'pray this prayer' evangelism. Should we abandon calls to the faith? And in those groups I heard faith in Christ described in specific terms: it ain't just praying the prayer to get to heaven. Clark declares the 'modern' churches as having a myopic vision, and it would be, but it wasn't what I remember.
The silly 20th-century American prohibitions against alcohol and tobacco and movies and cards and dancing and washing one's wee-wee seem to be taking a hit in emergent, and there I have to agree. I also think those things have been de-criminalized in many of the 'modern' churches for some time. Since the mid-80's. At least those old prohibitions have been under vigorous attack. Of course C.S. Lewis and Tolkien and many other European believers were drinking (sometimes too much) and smoking tobacco (at times addicted) in the 1930's. I don't know if most American evangelicals, and those who rail against them, realize how their Christian life-vision is just one of many. As the saying goes, where there's four Episcopalians, there's a fifth.
Clark does note that part of emergent is redisovering liturgy and other traditions; cool. The reformers, some of them, threw out anything which even smelled Catholic and much beauty was lost in the process. But of course, that liturgy and those traditions have been active all over the world for centuries since and remain so.
Am I really saying anything new about emergent? Probably not. But I have fifteen more minutes of office time to go....
Michael says he wants to hear more about Jesus in the emergent, and that I must echo.
The true needs of the church have really never changed; how we meet them shifts a little from generation to generation, but mostly it's been a comedy, or tragedy, of errors. So many denominations tell you they are first-century, from Church of Christ to the Pentecostals to the Emergents. But what is special about first-century? We don't really know enough about those churches to describe them, though I have read Galatians and Corinithians, and those were first-century churches. There was no Golden Era of Christianity when everything was great and then the pagans or the Romans or Constantine or the gnostics or whoever came in and mucked it up. When Jesus was here, it was mucked up. It surely was when the apostles were struggling with the truly serious issues of their day, like circumcision and the Jewish code. There is evidence of in-fighting and doctrinal divisions and what Paul describes as personal abandonment in his letters from the 50's. What the church needs now is what it needed then: reliance on Christ, personal responsibility, and active charity regarding need and doctrinal differences.
One thing I don't like is anyone criticizing other Christians over stupid things, uh, like worship style, church music preference, or dress. In many ways emergent may be simply depeche mode, the new fashion. Cool. Rock on. Sick. Misplaced teenage rage is one thing, but reality is what reality is; respect that others grow in Christ in their own way. Half the shit people blast away at the church about is actually unresolved conflict inside themselves. I should know. The other, much less important thing I don't like is the way I keep seeing the terms modern and postmodern used; these are of course used in literary studies and in philosophy, and what emergent is saying about postmodern is not what the postmodern philsophers are saying. But this is my own confusion and is really not an issue; words deserve to be used all sorts of ways.
And I'll offer my brief church vision to close; Dave tells me I am more post-this/that/the other than I know, so perhaps this will end up being one more emergent suggestion. I toss this out from the throes of my own sin-nature (and I really am not kidding): the church needs educated leaders, but it also needs tolerant leaders who understand the limits of human awareness in the presence of the vastness of God and who encourage individual theological speculation; the church needs to draw on the soul-bared lessons of the recovery community, where honest sharing and simple reliance on God have healed millions of lives with budgets of nearly zero and no publicity of any kind; the church needs to remember Jesus' compassion when he saw the weak and the sick and the sinful, and become active in programs in the community that may not grow the church, but will feed the hungry and assist those who are suffering; the church needs to be focused on the people present and not just those it wants to attract so that those who attend may grow in Christ throughout their lives. Quite simply, Christians need to strive to be more like Jesus. That is no new message. There is nothing fresh about it. It's 2000 years old and has been repeated by saints and sages for centuries. Really it's not my vision at all.
And as much as emergent wants to do that, great. The 'modern' church wanted the same thing. Awesome. We should be open-minded enough that we can all work together. Otherwise we waste precious, irreplacable time.
Comments
David continues to provide examples that help me catch glimpses of what the emergent movement is/does/strives to produce. (In this respect, I am totally linear - I need certain solid examples of what this movement is to understand what it is supposed to be.) The examples that resonate with me are the ones, like you mention Troy, that focus on reliance on Christ, personal responsibility and active charity.
The rest of it - the style of the thing - modern church / postmodern church / emergent church - can be whatever it wants to be.
Change is/has always been constant...and it seems as much an example of humanity's proneness to boredom as it is to our desire/need/thirst to be creative and renew. But again, the style of the thing doesn't seem as critical, as long as the thing itself (Christ) is the same.
If you can't reach youth with poodle-skirts and saddle shoes, and you can't make inroads with 20/30-somethings with traditional church - then pierce and tat away, meet in churches, houses, the street, pubs, whatever - as long as it is done with focus on Jesus and helping others (and as a result, yourself) know and worship Him in spirit and truth.
If it is, then I'm groovy with whatever kind of polyester pantsuit or crinoline skirt or denim hip-huggers or cotton muu-muu you want to dress it up in.
It's ultimately all the same to me.
Brothers like Dave are talking about the things that I believe emergent wants to be. So long as the focus is on Jesus, let it be. And as far as Christians becoming more like Jesus, you nailed it. Thanks man, and keep writing.
I've been having some troubles with blogger; hopefully this will actually work!
Thanks for the positive comments from both of you. I think the two of you comment on my blog more than anyone, and I appreciate it. I would like to see what you were working on Mike; there are a lot of things you know more about than me and you're a good writer, but your call of course.
Anyway, before something goes wrong I'll toss this up.
t
http://www.solomonsporch.com/
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