Conversing with the Emerging-part 2

The Emergent Church Movement (ECM) theologically speaking is an amorphous collection of loosely held beliefs that are in general anti-creedal, anti-doctrinal, and anti-historically Christian. Given their disdain for objective truths and concrete statements of faith it is difficult to nail down the ECM with respect to a system of beliefs. I will try to articulate some of these beliefs later. We can characterize them with certain themes such as: prophetic rhetoric which is intentionally provocative, postmodern in that they do not believe absolute truth can be known sufficiently and a collapse of inherited meta narratives, praxis-oriented which places ecclesiology ahead of soteriology, post-evangelical as a protest against current evangelicalism and systematic theology, and political and clearly left leaning placing importance upon care of the poor ahead of moral issues such as abortion and homosexuality.

Perhaps the best description of ECM’s ambiguity comes from Brian McLaren, one of the main leaders of the movement who has said, "Right now Emergent is a conversation, not a movement…We don’t have a program. We don’t have a model. I think we must begin as a conversation, then grow as a friendship, and see if a movement comes of it."1

In spite of McLaren’s insistence that the ECM is not a movement, Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger, in their book, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures define emerging as:
"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."2

According to Justin Taylor "all of this can be boiled down to one sentence: ‘Emerging Churches are communities who practice the way of Jesus within the postmodern culture.’"3

As a movement that is trying to be culturally relevant with the postmodern culture ECM is trying to be all things to all people and in doing so have compromised the message for the sake of diversity, tolerance, ambiguity, and mystery. Scot McKnight, a leader in the ECM stated "Emerging catches into one term the global reshaping of how to ‘do church’ in postmodern culture."4 Its emphasis on the church being culturally relevant has been tried and has failed in modernity and post-modernity.

"Given the emergent conversation’s characteristics (emphasis on community but not on doctrine; a highly ambiguous handling of God’s truth, including non-Christian religions; disdain for Christian tradition; and being highly sympathetic to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy), there appears to be historical precedence for the emphasis on community at the expense of doctrine. In other words, there is nothing new under the sun; this has all been done before in another time and in another place. In the history of the church, various theological methodologies have come and gone"5 In the not-too-distant future the ECM and its theological method will be find its resting place in the theological cemetery as a fade just like those other movements have which went before it.

1Scot McKnight, "Five Streams of the Emerging Church" Christianity Today Magazine (2008); accessed 19 December 2008; available from http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/february/html; Internet.
2Ibid.
3Justin Taylor, "An Emerging Church Primer"; accessed 19 December 2008; available from http://www.9marks.org/CC/article.html; Internet.
4 McKnight, "Five Streams of the Emerging Church,"
5Gary L. W. Johnson and Ronald N. Gleason, Reforming or Conforming (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2008), 178.