Postmodernism and Emerging Christianity Part 3

In this third part I juxtapose the two articles on Emerging church in the April issue of “Christianity” with one final article that appears in the same issue. This article tells a story that has now become an almost dated cliché in EPC circles: That of the solid bible based traditional evangelical church which undergoes a “charismatic” revival/renewal….. except that it doesn’t actually have a revival at all, but rather a sudden membership turn over – non-charismatics out, charismatics in. Or at least that’s the admission of the article where it claims that the church concerned (which is in America) only retained around 25% of its original “conservative” membership.

The story is a classic: a restless pastor or group within the church, bored with what otherwise appears to be a successful if rather dry, stuffy and stolid church is looking for “more”. After the aforementioned congregational replacement the church is labeled “charismatic” and with the new temperamental cross section a new speak enters the church. We hear of healings, prophecies and even angelic visitations. The new members think in gnosto-dualist terms and the philosophy of the church becomes a de facto dualist philosophy which emphasizes the differences between the spiritual and physical worlds. It adopts a power vs. word paradigm of spiritual life, which is ironic given that so much of church life is now explained and reinterpreted by the “new speak”. The leadership is apt to become authoritarian, despising accountability for the simple reason that in the face of a catastrophic loss of support the leadership can no longer function with a consensus. The 75% majority of Church members who don’t go for the new speak have to be ditched. The new speak provides a ready explanation (or spin) for this situation; hemorrhaging membership is clearly down to fear and spirit quenching. The previous work of the church is evaluated negatively as at best “lacking in power” and at worse not being “in the Spirit”. Finally, the leaders of the latest blessing try to make inroads into the UK which they see as a plum ripe for the plucking. To this end these prophets of blessing may get a recommendation from some well known EPC figure in the UK.

I’m the very last person that should be labeled as “anti-charismatic” – I have no quarrel with those who believe they have had a sublime Christian epiphany which they may call, rightly or wrongly “Baptism of the Spirit”. But unfortunately the charismatic is often conflated with the gnostic, and my argument is with the elitism, dualism and fideism of the latter. Christian gnosticism thrives on those bored with their lives and who are looking for a “shake up” or the next big thing. They can make little sense of stark cosmic realities and by way of escape and compensation need a constant supply of rumors about the miraculous. These rumors do the rounds uncritically and their authenticity is utterly impossible to disentangle from spiritual spin, gullibility logic, spiritual bullying and authoritarianism. The lauded renewals are less revivals than a case of replacing a congregation with those who are sympathetic and/or susceptible to the new interpreting spin.

Significantly such moves make little headway amongst many traditional Christians who are, needless to say, regarded as Spirit quenchers. The failure of such “moves of power” to work other than by the self selection of a minority not only challenges the authenticity of such “moves” but, moreover, the very authenticity of Christianity itself. For if Christianity in the absence of one these vaunted “renewals” is regarded as just so much powerless marking of time, then that entails that a very large percentage of Christian work is lacking in spiritual vitality. This is a short step away from conjecturing that perhaps Christianity as whole is vacuous.

The final twist to this story brings me back to the theme of postmodernism in the church. Other authoritarian gnostic groups (like say Potter’s House) may well rubbish the latest revival because it has not happened amongst them and they, of course, regard themselves as being where it is at. Thus gnostic Christian groups form an inconsistent mass of believing partisans. No attempt is made to resolve the contradictions amongst them and such mutually inconsistent groupings may be regarded as being in the power of God simply because their conviction, vehemency, and spin are taken as self authenticating. If this insensitivity to inconsistency isn’t postmodern enough consider also the fact that April’s edition of Christianity magazine makes no attempt to resolve the apparent incommensurability between Emerging church and the revivalist churches, two Christian groupings who seem to be working with very different paradigms, spiritual weltanschauungs and agendas. Moreover, many “Emergers” in their search for Christian authenticity seem to be reacting against the hype and spin of the revivalists. But revivalist churches are apt to take the view that unless a church undergoes a gnostic revival, spiritual life is at best a preparatory period prior to full conversion or else a powerless marking of time. Thus, as far as the revivalists are concerned all the angst and hard thinking of the Emerging church is effectively down time between renewals. This is a serious charge and yet Christianity magazine doesn’t attempt to resolve the issue – it leaves the two community weltanschauungs as incommensurables. This, above all, is a very postmodern reaction – not postmodern in the soft sense of a humbled epistemology, but in the absolute sense that life doesn’t make sense, so don’t bother with any grand explanations that attempt to give it sense.