These notes were presented at the UPCI General Board Meeting March 3-5. They give a brief overview of the Emergent Church movement, mostly in the language of its proponents. I supply these notes to familiarize the Ohio District ministers with this relatively new movement and to provide a basic guide to its resources. I strongly urge our ministers to educate themselves on the emergent church. A strange hybrid of philosophy and orthopraxy, it presents a growing threat to Apostolic faith and doctrine.
“The Emerging Church movement seeks to revitalize the Christian church beyond what it sees as the confines of modernity, so that it can effectively engage people in a postmodern age. Critics allege, however, that this movement’s relativizing of faith has led many of its adherents outside of the bounds of orthodoxy. 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.”
(Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger, in their book, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Baker Academic, 2005))
“This thing is radically Jesus-oriented. It is definitely communal; it’s post-denominational; it’s post-Protestant; and it is largely based in virtual reality as opposed to bricks and mortar and organizes itself on the Net. It is deeply concerned with theologies of religion that get rid of Christian particularity or exclusivism. Wherever it’s going, there’s every reason right now to rejoice that God is doing a new thing amongst us, and it’s called emergent Christianity.” Michael Freeman freemanm@reporternews.com; Saturday, February 14, 2009; Abilene Online ReporterNews.
Primary Developers/Unofficial Leaders
Rob Bell Rob Bell is the Founding Pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church. He graduated from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, and Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He and his wife Kristen have two boys and live in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He is the author of Velvet Elvis and Sex God, and is a coauthor of Jesus Wants to Save Christians. He is also featured in the first series of spiritual short films called NOOMA.
Brian McClaren McLaren is an author, speaker, pastor, and networker among innovative Christian leaders, thinkers, and activists. Born in 1956, he graduated from University of Maryland with degrees in English (BA, summa cum laude, 1978, and MA, in 1981). In 2004, he was awarded a Doctor of Divinity Degree (honoris causa) from Carey Theological Seminary in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Brian has been active in networking and mentoring church planters and pastors since the mid 1980’s, and has assisted in the development of several new churches. He is a popular conference speaker and a frequent guest lecturer at seminaries and denominational gatherings, nationally and internationally. His public speaking covers a broad range of topics including postmodern thought and culture, Biblical studies, Christian leadership, global mission, evangelism and spiritual formation, worship, inter-religious dialogue, and the relation of faith to ecology, public policy, social justice, and global crises.
Doug Pagitt Pagitt is an author in the Emerging Church movement and head pastor of Solomon’s Porch in South Minneapolis. He was born and raised in the Minneapolis area and is a graduate of Bethel College (1988 - Anthropology), and Bethel Seminary (1992 - MA in Theology). He has been the pastor of Solomon’s Porch, a holistic, missional Christian community in Minneapolis, since its inception in January 2000.
Pagitt is also a Senior Fellow with Emergent Village: a generative friendship of missional church leaders around the world and a leading architect of the emergent church discussion. Brian McLaren told author Robert Lanham that Pagitt coined the term Emerging Church at a leadership retreat in the late 1990s. However, one should remain skeptical of that claim, for the term “Emergent Church” has been around since at least 1981, and the term emergence, popular in philosophy, systems theory and science, has been around for decades.
Dan Kimball Kimball is a pastor, author and leading voice in the Emerging Church movement. Kimball has made popular phrases such as “Vintage Faith” and “Vintage Christianity” which are used to express the desire to be returning to the historical, spiritual, and “raw” missional values of the original Christian Church and teachings of Jesus.
In addition to being one of the earliest members of the Emerging Church Movement, Kimball is one of its more conservative members. Much of Kimball’s writings question the existing forms of church and their effectiveness in an increasingly post-Christian culture. However, he stresses that while change in the church is needed, the historical doctrines of the Christian faith do not need to change. Much of his writings focus on ways that methods of worship, preaching, church structure, evangelism and leadership need to change in order to be missional in a post-Christian or postmodern culture.
Leonard Sweet Currently the E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Drew University, Madison, NJ and a Visiting Distinguished Professor at George Fox University, Portland, Oregon, Len has been Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of the Theological School at Drew University for five years,
Author of more than one hundred articles, over six hundred published sermons, and dozens of books, Len is the primary contributor (along with his wife Karen Elizabeth Rennie) to the web-based preaching resource, www.preachingplus.com. For nine years he and his wife wrote Homiletics, which became under their watch the premier preaching resource in North America. His best-selling book FaithQuakes (1994), selected as one of the “10 best religion books” and “10 must-read books” of 1994 has been succeeded by a new best-seller SoulTsunami: Sink or Swim in New Millennium Culture (1999).
Mike Yaconelli (1942-2003) - writer, theologian, and satirist. Co-Founder of Youth Specialties, a training organization for Christian youth leaders; and The Wittenburg Door (sometimes just The Door), a satirical magazine. Quote: “Jump first; Fear later.” Yaconelli was also pastor of a small church in Yreka, CA - “the slowest growing church in America” as he called it. He and wife Karla used to share their time between Yreka and the Youth Specialties offices in El Cajon, CA. He wrote a number of books for youth leaders; and was a well-received Christian conference speaker. He was a regular at the Greenbelt Christian festival in the UK. Mike was killed in an automobile accident in 2003.
Erwin McManus. McManus is an author, lecturer, pastor and leader in the emerging church movement. McManus is the lead pastor of Mosaic Church, a Christian community in Los Angeles, California. He made his name first by speaking on Post-modernism (postmodernity, Postmodern Christianity), but also communicates on culture, change, creativity, and leadership. McManus was named by Church Report in January 2007 as one of the “50 Most Influential Christians in America.”
Tony Jones. Tony is the author of The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier and is theologian-in-residence at Solomon’s Porch in Minneapolis. A doctoral fellow in practical theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, he is the author of many books on Christian ministry and spirituality, and he is a sought after speaker and consultant in the areas of emerging church, postmodernism, and Christian spirituality. Tony has three children and lives in Edina, Minnesota
Andy Stanley Senior pastor of North Point Community Church, Buckhead Church, Browns Bridge Community Church. He also founded North Point Ministries, which is a worldwide Christian organization.
Related Influencers
- Richard Foster
- Mark Driscoll
- Rick Warren
- Dallas Willard
- Eckhart Tolle
Critics of the Emergent Church Movement
D. A. Carson Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He has been at Trinity since 1978. Dr. Carson received the Bachelor of Science in chemistry from McGill University, the Master of Divinity from Central Baptist Seminary in Toronto, and the Doctor of Philosophy in New Testament from Cambridge University. Dr. Carson’s areas of expertise include biblical theology, the historical Jesus, postmodernism, pluralism, Greek grammar, Johannine theology, Pauline theology, and questions of suffering and evil. He is a member of the Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical Research, the Society of Biblical Literature, the Evangelical Theological Society, the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies, and the Institute for Biblical Research.
Kevin DeYoung, Ted Kluck Co-Authors of “Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be). An critical and insightful analysis of the emergent church movement.
Significant Books and Literature on the Emergent Church Movement
- Brian McLaren; A Generous Orthodoxy; Everything Must Change; Reinventing Your Church (re-published as The Church on the Other Side).
- Rob Bell; Velvet Elvis
- Donald Miller; Blue Like Jazz
- George Barna; Revolution
- Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger. Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures.
- Dan Kimball. The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations
- Andy Crouch. “The Emergent Mystique,” Christianity Today, Nov. 1, 2004
- Peter Rollins. How (Not) to Speak of God.
- Ray S. Anderson. An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches
- D. A. Carson. Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications.
- Spencer Burke & Colleen Pepper; Making Sense of Church: Eavesdropping on Emergent Conversations about God, Community, and Culture
- Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears; Death By Love.
- William Young The Shack Part Two.
More Books on The Emergent Church
- The New Conspirators, Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time, by Tom Sine.
- The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier, by Tony Jones
- The Irresistible Revolution, by Shane Claibourne.
- The Great Emergence; by Phyllis Tickle:
- The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community: Hugh Halter and Matt Smay
- Rising From the Ashes: Rethinking Church, by Becky Garrison.
- The Emerging Church by Bruce Larson and Ralph Osborne (1970)
- The Shaping of Things to Come, Alan Hirsh co-written with Mike Frost
Key Concepts
Postmodern Philosophy
“This new era has been characterized by a rejection of absolute truths and grand narratives explaining the progressive evolution of society. At the same time it has brought to the surface a multitude of different perspectives on society and an appreciation of different cultures. It has highlighted globalization on the one hand and localization on the other, the celebration of difference and the search for commonality.” Theopedia
“Postmodernism is post because it is denies the existence of any ultimate principles, and it lacks the optimism of there being a scientific, philosophical, or religious truth which will explain everything for everybody - a characteristic of the so-called modern mind. The paradox of the postmodern position is that, in placing all principles under the scrutiny of its skepticism, it must realize that even its own principles are not beyond questioning.” www.pbs.org
Holistic
Emerging church proponents emphasize a holistic emphasis of redeeming society and creation too. This emphasis translates into something quite similar to the social gospel (which fundamentally alters the gospel from personal redemption to merely social reformation) and, for some, environmentalism. McKnight, who considers himself part of the emerging church movement, explains that leaders in the movement are left-leaning in their politics for social justice. While he does not want to deny the need for personal redemption, he praises Walter Rauschenbusch’s original vision for the social gospel.
Deconstructive
First, deconstruction not only accepts but embraces the category of difference. In part this is attractive to ET because they (we) are embedded within a late modern generation that is open to difference in ways that (so it appears to us) our evangelical “parent” churches were not. Many of these traditional churches focused on sameness: we must all behave according to the same rules, sing the same songs, look at the world the same way, and affirm precisely the same propositions. The deconstructive embrace of the significance of differentiation (differance, deference, etc.) gives ET a language for what they have already experienced: liberation from a constricting obsession with sameness.
Second, deconstructive epistemology (or hermeneutics) calls for humility within the search for knowledge. Now, my point is not that all deconstructive philosophers are humble and (say) analytic philosophers are not. My point is that the “method” of deconstruction is self-reflective in a way that promotes an ongoing interrogation of the way in which one is holding on to one’s knowledge. It challenges arrogant claims to have grasped final, neutral, universal truth. Many ET were raised in churches within the American evangelical sub-culture, wherein theological reflection was anything but humble. In fact, it wasn’t even reflection; it was declaration. Insofar as Derrida (and others) share epistemic qualities such as humility with the Christian apophatic tradition, the former can inspire ET to retrieve the latter. As we continue longing to know and be known by God, deconstruction can alleviate some of our modernist anxiety by helping us accept our finitude; we are not God, but this is OK and we can all take a deep breath and humbly follow in the way of Jesus without pretending like we know everything. After all, even he didn’t know everything!)
Structure
The style and structure of emerging congregations are unique. Iron railings, candles, dim lighting, and prayer stations were so ubiquitous early in the movement that today they’ve almost become clichés. Most emerging congregations have a relatively flat leadership style. Pastors are not usually called pastors (if there is a pastor at all), and many groups, such as Tribe in Los Angeles, prefer to meet “in the round” when they gather for worship—a physical representation of their flat leadership structure and egalitarian values
The house church movement, which has been partly influenced by the Jesus Movement of the 1960s and 70s, is considered to be a “cousin” of the emerging church movement because of its lack of structure.
Sample Church Names of Emergent Churches: Solomon’s Porch, House of Mercy, The Rock, Jacob’s Ladder, Circle of Hope, Ikon, Vintage Faith, New Beginnings, Mosaic, Scum of the Earth, The Journey Church
Terminology used by the Emergent Church
- Authentic- Real, not hypocritical, unpretentious. Non-secretive, unguarded.
- Becoming - the transformation from the modern to the post modern, emerging view of knowing truth.
- Christian conversation, the - the Christian based series of stories, myths, experiences, etc. that are offered for acceptance or rejection.
- Conversation - a flowing, non-precise communication made possible by linguistic commonalities. Give and take based on people’s opinions, experiences, and feelings. It is an internalized, non-objective feeling that is often discussed or the focal point of meaning. A non-ending process.
- Coherantism - belief system that adheres to itself, making sense of the whole when its many parts are interrelated.
- Contextual - sensitive to the cultural and historical context
- Deconstruction - removing the stale, modernistic, absolutism that has permeated interpretation of scripture, God, and truth
- Emergent Village - an organization headed by Tony Jones, Ph.D.
- Emerging - intellectual and/or spiritual movement away from traditionalist, rational, truths.
- Growing - development of the individual in concert with God in the working of God’s plans for the world.
- Missional - making the emerging conversation part of the social culture as it relates to temporal needs: housing, clothing, environment, etc.
- Myth - The stories believed by people that may or may not be factual.
- Narrative - Non systematic, non linear approach to knowing, a rejection of the absolute codification of spiritual truths.
- Orthopraxy – correct practice as opposed to correct beliefs.
- Reimagine - to reinterpret a long-standing truth.
- Story - myth, procession of myths strung together by conversation. A lesson with a value statement. If one story doesn’t work for you, try another. The Christian resurrection is a story.
- Story of God, the - The procession of myths and narratives dealing with God as found in the Bible or other religious works.
- Story of Jesus, the - The procession of myths and narratives dealing with Jesus as found in the Bible.
- Tribe - a localized culture with inherent morals, myths, stories, and customs that differ from one another. Therefore, which tribe’s position is true?