As criticism of the emerging church flourishes now more than ever before, a common claim is that the emerging church sells out to culture. Everything we do, according to some critics, is to please culture. While the claim merits consideration, I feel it is off base for most of the emerging church.
Churches most susceptible to this claim are those who do nothing to change structurally whatsoever but just add style elements to their existing church structure. While I don’t want to be exclusive and start a debate on who is in or who is out of the emerging church, I will say that these churches are the least emerging among emerging churches. Maybe what they are doing is just selling out to culture in order to make people like their church.
The vast majority of emerging churches I am familiar with, however, are not selling out to culture. Rather, they are trying to find the right way to be the Church in their culture. There is a huge difference. The selling out view treats culture as something to take on in the church, while the view I’ll call incarnational treats culture as something we exist within. Not necessarily opposed to, but not necessarily something to be embraced wholeheartedly either.
What the critics fail to realize is that the church has always existed within culture, even when creating gargantuan subcultures. Because the church consists of people, the church takes on the traits of its times.
When some critics start bellowing about how we’re not staying true to the Gospel because we’re selling out to culture, they are often saying, albeit without realizing it, “The way we do church in the culture is the right way.”
Unfortunately, the world is changing. While the established church should not go away just yet, many no longer live in the world today’s church structure was formed out of. So rather than being the body of Christ to the world, the establishment is quickly becoming the body of Christ to the past.
Now, there are many, many persons both Christians and non who still do live in a more modern mindset. It is for this reason I say the established church should not yet go away. In fact, the rigidity of modernism makes it unlikely that it will completely go away in any of our lifetimes (yeah, I really just said that). But the work of some who seek to find a way to be the Church in this changing world is important and vital for the body of Christ today.
We do need to take heed of these criticisms and see what truth they merit. I do believe there are areas where we have swung too far in the other direction, and these areas are worthy of discussion. Much discussion goes on at Emergent What? on some of these issues (though the quality of criticism lately is sadly very poor). Of course, the old bastion of the emerging church, THEOOZE is another great place to discuss all things emerging. The message boards on THEOOZE are by far the most voluminous in the movement.
So take the criticisms and deal with them, even when they seem ridiculous or unfounded. You may find a kernel of truth embedded within.
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