As my last post raised the knotty question of “Emerging Church” I thought I had better post something indicating my position on this matter. I could think of nothing better to do than reproduce a comment I posted on Monty's blog who was also thinking about the issue at the time. Frankly, I have to admit that I haven’t developed my thoughts on “Emerging Church” since I posted this comment (I really need to do a bit more studying):
On this emerging church business: I haven’t done much work on this matter myself but here are my first impressions, possibly to be corrected and enhanced by further study.
‘Emerging Church’ is one of those expressions that catches an underlying mood - probably a mood of disappointment/disaffection. That same mood might have manifested itself as far back as David Tomlinson - a defector from the quasi-cult restorationist movement - he emerged from that movement a rather disillusioned man and became the de-facto leader of “Post evangelicalism”.
Perhaps as a result of a quick succession of false dawns (involving various gnostic experiences, blessings, healings, prophecies, revivals, church structures, spiritual formulae, big personalities etc etc) crammed into living memory, a feeling of “we’ve tried all that, so where to next” prevails amongst Christians. I have seen quite a few spiritual restarts even in my time: that is, groups who attempt to clear the ground of the spiritual elaborations of their forerunners and remake church as they attempt to get back to a kind of contemporary primitive church – an oxymoron if there ever was one.
It’s not surprising, then, that the emerging church is a new philosophy of church that doesn’t want to look like a new overarching philosophy of church – after all, we’ve seen no end of them before. So the emerging church faces the logical conundrum also faced by postmodernism – how do you present a completely new philosophy without it looking like just another new philosophy? The result is a rather groping exploratory approach where the stress is on the journey rather than the destination, because all destinations, true to the postmodern sentiment, are thought to be end-of-rainbows. Sometimes there can be a downright evasiveness about just what the “new philosophy” stands for.
Emerging church knows what it isn’t, but sometimes I feel that it is not at all sure about what it actually is: Christian dissenters find themselves grasping the term “Emerging church” just as some disaffected evangelicals grasped at the term “Post evangelical” - terms that act as “rafts for the mind” when the mind is in the sea of confusing times. Thus under the umbrella of “emerging church” one can find Christains that make uneasy bedfellows – in short “emerging church” is a pastiche of views and a mixture of Christains that are trying to jump start a new kind of church, although some of them are still looking for the jump leads.
However, having said all that I find myself on balance sympathising with emerging church in as much as it is a reaction against, dowdy, strict, kitschy, plastic, corny, cosmetic, contrived, dated, out-of-touch, domineering, authoritarian, patriarchal, false, artificial, triumphalistic, pseudo, affected, unselfconscious manifestations of Christianity (if you want that in even more emotive terms see Ben). Fair enough we can all be a bit like any of those things at times, but when these tacky Christian styles come with a self confidence born of a conceited spiritual narcissism the product is very ugly phenomenon indeed, and I find myself in common cause with the emerging church people, in spite of being a “Grand Narrative” man myself.
Let me add that I do bulk at some emerging church counter reactions, reactions that may shows signs of the beginnings of a loss of grasp of the grand over arching themes of structured Christianity. Instead these themes have morphed into the shapeless blob of “God consciousness”. And the tremendous irony is that that is precisely where the affected touchy-feely narcissistic manifestations of Christianity, which emerging church is reacting against, was also taking us!
But I shouldn’t unfairly generalize on what seems to be a very variegated trend. On the matter of engaging society emerging church may have something to teach us and someone like Paul is probably the man ask about it. (and Ben!) I was fairly impressed by the authentic feel of the “Nooma” DVD’s (Rob Bell et al) and moreover there seemed to be behind them a gospel message that you and I, as fairly conservative Christains, would recognize and applaud.
4 comments:
EC as `just another revolution`, to me kind of misses the point but I guess irrevocably encapsulates its perseption among Christendom and the wider audience of post-modern culture.
It's plain to see that that mega-church dictator doesn't understand EC in the slightest and, like many other Christians I know personally, just dismisses the liberalism involved and convinces himself that Christ has more of an interest in the church than the `sick who need a doctor.`
I don't think EC is just another revolution though. A suitable parallel with church revolutions/revolations would be that quote about third world state freedom-fighters ``each liberator overthrows the demon in power and after getting into power himself, is as corrupt and tyranic as the bastard he overthrew, paving the way for his sucessor``.
EC, IMO, is so fundimental to the contecpt of church, Christianity and post-modern culture that it is in a very real sense, flawless. It's hamartia however, is that the culture is so textbook that Jesus wasn't about `deconstructing social paradigms`, He was about `re-building the temple in three days`. They're the same thing, but I don't htink EC culture is as engaging as it thinks it is.
Thanks for the comment Ben. I think I'll have to give it a bit of thought!
Yes Ben, I like to feel you are right when you say “EC is not just another revolution”. And perhaps you are right: EC does have that feel about it of standing back and taking stock of the situation, rather than barging forward and foisting upon us yet another rendition of “How it should be done, the NT way”.
Also, I have as much loathing as you of the mega-church dictator whose focus is on the church as a collective identity, a kind of organism whose body is made up of servile believers. Pressing the metaphor of the church as a body too far leads to social pathology: The identity of the cells in our bodies is only of interest to us in as much as it preserves the identity the whole body – impose that organic criterion on any human organization and you have a cult on your hands. Even worse: Human cult identities, in the early days of their formation when they are going through their “charismatic leader” phase, take on the character of being but a bodily extension of the “tyrannical b*st*rd” in control and reflect his personality, foibles, spiritual preferences and bloated ego. One thing, at least, that can be said in favour of EC is that its leaders seem to be repulsed by the Christian Sectarian/Cult vision and this will help keep alive the immune systems of critical appraisal and preserve accountability.
What do you mean by “culture is so textbook”? – I didn’t understand that bit.
Firstly, I'd like to make it clear that I don't `loathe` that bloke. At worst, I am loathed to adopt his thinking, but not only do I love him as a chap, but respect his right to believe what he thinks is right.
Re: textbook thang, I just mean because it's normally quite learned people talking about EC culture in terms of `social paradigms` and `decentralisation of the accepted power dynamic` I don't think that's reflective of God's plan for the church which I believe is ``just get on with it without being distracted``
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