Briefing on: The Emerging Church Movement
The emerging church or emerging church movement is not easily defined. As affirmed by D.A. Carson in his Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church (Zondervan, 2005): "...The diversity of the movement, as well as its porous borders, ensure that I have not found it easy to portray it fairly...Even so, I must underscore the fact that when I am forced (for the sake of avoiding endless qualifications) to resort to generalization in order to move the discussion along, one can almost always find some people in the movement for whom the generalization is not true, and others who do not think of themselves as belonging to the emerging church movement who nevertheless share most of its values and priorities."
In their attempt to define the emerging church , Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger, who support the movement, offer this statement in their book Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Baker Academic, 2005):
Emerging churches are communities that practice the way of Jesus within postmodern cultures. This definition encompasses nine practices: Emerging churches (1) identify with the life of Jesus, (2) transform the secular realm, and (3) live highly communal lives. Because of these three activities, they (4) welcome the stranger, (5) serve with generosity, (6) participate as producers, (7) create as created beings, (8) lead as a body, and (9) take part in spiritual activities.
"To prevent confusion, a distinction needs to be made between 'emerging' and 'Emergent.' Emerging is the wider, informal, global, ecclesial (church-centered) focus of the movement, while Emergent is an official organization in the U.S. and the U.K... Emerging catches into one term the global reshaping of how to 'do church' in postmodern culture. It has no central offices, and it is as varied as evangelicalism itself." [Scot McKnight, "Five Streams of the Emerging Church" Christianity Today, (February, 2007), 37.]
A primary goal of the emerging church is to engage the postmodern culture and its philosophy of relativism with the Christian faith. Although a difficult term to pin down, "Postmodernism...insists that objective knowledge is neither attainable nor desirable." It also asserts, "All truth claims are merely true for some people, even if not for all people at all times and places." [D. A. Carson, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church]. This philosophy has been described as "nailing Jell-O to the wall."
Though not every leader in the emerging church movement embraces postmodern philosophy, those who do would have difficulty seeing the Bible as an absolute source of authority. This is a significant problem to those who base their Christian faith on the inerrant Scriptures.
"The emerging movement's connection to postmodernity may grab attention and garner criticism, but what most characterizes emerging is the (theme) best called praxis - how the faith is lived out...A notable emphasis of the emerging movement is orthopraxy, that is, right living. The contention is that how a person lives is more important than what he or she believes." [Scot McKnight, "Five Streams of the Emerging Church" Christianity Today, (February, 2007), 37.] In balance to his previous statement, Mr. McKnight states later in the article, "...I know of no one in the emerging movement who believes that one's relationship with God is established by how one lives. Nor do I know anyone who thinks that it doesn't matter what one believes about Jesus Christ. But the focus is shifted."
Understandably, there is no "Statement of Faith" for the emerging church. Doug Pagitt, a contributing author to the book, Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches, discusses this in his chapter entitled "The Emerging Church and Embodied Theology." Following is an excerpt from the section called, "Theology is meant to be profession."
Theology that serves to make faith alive for the faithful is certainly prepared to do so for the faithless.
There are far too many people inside Christian faith who feel the need to "give a nod" to the theology of their church or tribe, but it really has nothing to do with their lives. I hear comments like, "well I know such and such but..." Because theology has so often been seen as permanent inarguable statements of truth that could never change "because God never changes," it has also lost its function to be a profession of faith from the community that is bound by it. In my view, this kind of disconnected theology is not useful nor should it be encouraged.
A far different perspective is found in the June 2006 issue of Christianity Today in a quote from Charles Colson in "Emerging Confusion: Jesus is the truth whether we experience Him or not."
The arguments of some emerging church leaders, I fear, draw us perilously close to the trap set by postmodern deconstructionist, Stanley Fish. Defending himself after his sympathetic statements about the 9/11 terrorists boomeranged, Fish claimed that post-modernists don't really deny the existence of truth. He said there is simply no "independent standard of objectivity." So truth can't be proved to others; therefore, it can't be known - a verbal slight of hand.
For evangelicalism (let alone emerging churches) to buy into that would undermine the very foundation of our faith. Theologian Donald A. Carson puts his finger precisely on the epistemological problem: Of course, truth is relational, Carson writes. But before it can be relational, it has to be understood as objective. Truth is truth. It is, in short, ultimately reality...
Since there is no definitive body of theology or practice that totally characterizes the emerging church, one cannot say that everything associated with this movement is outside mainstream evangelical Christian thought, just as everything that is "emerging" is not also necessarily part of "Emergent." However, when authors appear to embrace postmodern philosophy with its denial of absolute truth, theological concerns can follow.
Finally, for additional detailed commentary on the subject of the emerging church, feel free to go to http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/february/11.35.html.
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