The Emergent Church Part 2

The “emergent” metaphor is one of evolution. Are emergent churches a legitimate evolution of the authentic Church of Jesus Christ, or are they illegitimate compromises with their embedded cultural context? Vincent Donovan, Roman Catholic missionary to Africa, argued for a kind of evolution when he wrote, "In working with…people…do not try to call them back to where they were, and do not try to call them to where you are, as beautiful as that place might seem to you. You must have the courage to go with them to a place that neither you nor they have ever been before"

Are emergent church leaders going with their people to an authentically Christian place the Church has never been before? What are the implications of this to the regular practice of biblical exposition in Spiritual formation? Stan Grenz describes an e-mail he received from an acquaintance who is establishing an emergent church in Reno, Nevada. The church leaders have “five values” they will use to guide their new emergent community. These are:

1. Mystery – We’re learning that there can be fewer answers and more questions when it comes to God, life, and life with God. And, we’re OK with that.

2. Beauty – We celebrate artistic responses to a passionate, creative God.

3. Conversations – We value every person’s story because every person’s story is valued by God.

4. Organic – We are real people living in a real world trying to make a real difference with no strings attached.

5. Chicala (sp.?) – a cool Indian word for past, present, and future; a merger of ancient or historical Christian faith and our emerging culture.

This list does not include any clear affirmation of solidarity with the timeless authentic practice of raising Christians to maturity through the regular exposition of the Holy Scriptures. There is a great divide in the western evangelical Church. Two extremes seem to vie for legitimacy in the practice of preaching in the contemporary evangelical Church in the West. On the one extreme are those who would champion what has been known as “biblical (or expository) preaching” as the authentic approach to Christian proclamation, whether people will (or can) listen or not. On the other extreme are those who have rejected what they see as a modernist paradigm, and are attempting to craft a truly postmodern approach to Christian Spiritual formation. This emergent movement emphasizes the need to change the style of public, weekly church proclamation to make it more listener-centered and palatable, sometimes whether the message of God’s Word is heard or not.

Tom Sine asks, “Is it possible the church is in crisis and no one noticed? Is it possible God is raising up a new generation to re-invent the church?” There is a movement of young, postmodern, emergent churches growing in the West, led by 20-30-year-old Christians. These churches are forging new communities with unique expressions of Christian faith. The young leaders of these emergent churches are rejecting the modernist, rationalistic paradigm inherent in contemporary western churches. Meanwhile, they are attempting to craft truly postmodern approaches to Christian Spiritual formation. This is especially true of their attitude towards and practice of preaching. They are emphasizing the need to change the style of public, weekly church proclamation, and to make it more palatable to a postmodern audience. But what will this new approach look like, and will it be an authentically Christian expression?

The Emergent Church Part 1

There is a growing phenomenon in western Christianity sometimes called “The Emergent Church”. This term was first coined by Brian McLaren in his essay “They Say It’s Just a Phase” to describe a loose association of postmodern congregations being led by young neo-evangelical pastors. McLaren is described by Robert Webber as one of the leaders of this phenomenon. Emergent churches are affecting monumental influence upon contemporary Christianity. One of the greatest areas of impact upon church life is the practice of biblical exposition. As these young leaders toss out the proverbial “bathwater” of modernism, they are in danger of also tossing out the “baby” of authentic Spiritual formation through biblical preaching.

         

Brian McLaren is “hailed as the leader of the emergent church.” Time Magazine listed Brian McLaren as one of the 25 most influential evangelical leaders in the United States today. Speaking of preaching in the postmodern context, he writes (quoting Walter Brueggemann), "What is needed, (Bruggemann) says, is a new kind of preaching, preaching that opens “out the good news of the gospel with alternative modes of speech,” that is “dramatic, artistic, capable of inviting persons to join in another conversation, free of the reason of technique, unencumbered by ontologies that grow abstract, unembarrassed about concreteness."

Daryl Johnson responds, "That’s biblical preaching. That’s what we’re trying to do; taking a text, living in that text, inviting other people into that text, and allowing the text to speak its Word to us as unencumbered as possible by our distortions. It would take as many forms as there are personalities, and rhetorical skill sets. On the one hand (McLaren) is saying something new because of homiletics in the last century, but nothing new in terms of what the Church has been trying to do."

Brian McLaren has been a target of criticism, and has been unfairly labeled a “liberal”. McLaren is personally committed to his understanding of orthodox Christianity, expressed in a new way because it is now found in a new cultural setting. His first book challenges the reader to “reinvent the Church.” This, he argues, comes from the necessity of the emergence of this culture into the postmodern mindset. This can make conservative critics very nervous. They may ask: How must the Church “reinvent” itself? The real task for each generation is to guard the true Church from its compromise with culture. The Church is not anti-culture. Yet the Church stands as a prophetic voice of truth into every culture. The Church is God’s covenant community in every time and culture, confirming and engaging God’s presence and truth while correcting and rebuking the lies inherent in every time and culture. Rather than “reinventing” itself, the Church is to be what the Church authentically is in our generation. The Church needs to throw over the cultural baggage of the last generation, but there is always the danger of picking up what could be worse baggage from our own generation. 

            

Brian McLaren’s second book is written in the form of a novel. His fictional characters interact with the hard issues of emergent faith. This gives him the ability to explore these ideas without the burden of having to own them. A church pastor (Dan) meets a Christian high school science teacher (Neo), who has embraced the postmodern worldview. Neo is trying to reconcile this emergent paradigm with his own evangelical beliefs. Pastor Dan represents the Christian mind “emerging” from the prison of modernism. Neo takes Dan on a journey of both friendship and philosophy as he challenges Dan to examine his own belief structure to determine which of his beliefs are truly Christian and which may be purely and only modernist heresies.

In a panel discussion of McLaren’s book, “Generous Orthodoxy”, Stan Grenz (whom Robert Webber called “the theologian of the new Evangelicals”) said, "Like my colleagues, I am a little concerned about Brian (McLaren)’s use of the concept of “emergent.” And I’m concerned about it for two reasons. First, I’m not really sure that what we get in the outworking of the book (A Generous Orthodoxy) is in fact what emergent theory is really saying…There seems to be, at times, a Hegelian dimension, rather than an emergent dimension. So, I question whether he’s true to emergent theory. And secondly, with respect to that, I’m not convinced that “emergent” is in fact the best metaphor to use to speak about the Church’s embeddedness in its culture and the trajectory of the Church. I think more in terms of how each generation must seek to embody the one Church of Jesus Christ in the context of which it finds itself. Which is quite different I think, than the “emergent” metaphor."