I normally enjoy Darryl’s writings on dashhouse.com, whether I agree all the time or not. This recent post kind of got under my skin a little:
How to Emerge Without Being Emerging: “Here, then, are some ideas on how to adopt the best of the emerging movement without actually becoming emerging.
Challenge the status quo – The Gospel Coalition Foundational Documents state, ‘We are troubled by the idolatry of personal consumerism and the politicization of faith; on the other hand, we are distressed by the unchallenged acceptance of theological and moral relativism.’ Like many within the emerging church, The Gospel Coalition identifies some key problems within the North American church. Most of us recognize that we are not as counter-cultural or as vibrant as we had hoped. Pretending will not help. We should raise the alarm and look at the causes of our current crisis.
Engage the issues – Many of our doctrinal statements were written to address issues of half a century ago or more. The Gospel Coalition addresses current issues like the cultural crisis of truth (epistemology), how to read the Bible both propositionally and as narrative (hermeneutics), and how to relate to the culture around us (contextualization). We can learn from the issues of the past, but we must also wrestle with the new issues facing the church today.
Think theologically – Many in the emerging church express frustration with the pragmatism of North American Christianity. They argue that we must engage with the issues we face at the level of theology, and reject pragmatic solutions that are not rooted in theological reflection. The Gospel Coalition does the same, outlining a confessional statement and a vision for ministry rooted in that theology.
Get past our subculture – Many see the evangelical church as self-righteous, tribal, and more concerned with personal morality than social justice. The Gospel Coalition argues that the gospel ‘removes self-righteousness and selfishness and turns its members to serve others.’ It is not only concerned with personal morality but with ‘the relief of poverty, hunger, and injustice.’ It leads churches to not only reach cultural conservatives but ‘highly secular and postmodern people’ as well.
Get past religion – Many see religion as detrimental to society. In a sense, this is true. ‘Religion and morality in general tend to make people tribal and self-righteous toward other groups,’ The Gospel Coalition says. ‘But the gospel of grace, centered on a man dying for us while we were enemies, removes self-righteousness and selfishness and turns its members to serve others.’ As in the emerging church, the church ceases to exist for its own advancement and benefit and instead turns toward service for the good of the community. It gets past the trappings of religion to true gospel.
Engage culture – ‘Christians glorify God not only through the ministry of the Word,’ says the Coalition’s Foundational Statements, ‘but also through their vocations of agriculture, art, business, government, scholarship – all for God’s glory and the furtherance of the public good.’ Therefore, churches should envision ministry that includes ‘cultural engagement with art, business, scholarship, and government.’”
(Via DashHouse.com.)
At this point, you might be thinking, “What would Alan be upset about in that post? It seems some pretty good things were said about the emerging church movement…”
And you’d probably be right, but…
Discussing the issues I quoted above and then trying to say you’re not a part of the emerging church movement is kind of like not eating any carbs and then saying you’re on a diet which is not anything like the Atkins diet.
By narrowly defining the emerging church movement in a way that excludes the people discussing the above issues hinders the conversation surrounding ecclesiology for today.
How someone can “Get past our subculture,” “Get past religion,” and “Challenge the status quo” while being determined to not be even loosely associated with the people already doing so is beyond me.
Being part of the emerging church movement does not mean you ascribe to any one else’s theological bents. Being part of the emerging church movement does not mean you are forced to approve of any particular lifestyle or hold to a certain epistemology. Being part of the emerging church movement does mean you are actively participating in the life of Christ’s body on earth in such a way that change occurs through your conversations, your relationships, and your ministries.
It would be extremely difficult to put into effect the types of churches which do the things cited in Darryl’s post and still try to distance yourself from a growing group of people who share common goals. And it would be very much like the foot doing something without working in conjunction with the hand. We are one body, Christ’s. One Church. With One God.
I guess I’m just tired of the division. I’ve seen it tame down a lot from the self-identified emerging churchers (though we still have a ways to go, I’m sure), but I still consistently see rhetoric from people who are participating in the very things most self-identified emerging churchers value which reminds me of the pharisee who was thanking God he wasn’t like the lowly sinner.
I honestly see a concentrated effort to engage the traditional church, the establishment, whatever you want to call it, by many emerging church pastors and leaders. We need more of it. But we also need those who criticize us, when they start realizing we had a lot of things right all along, to journey with us and see what the body looks like when it walks together in unity. Maybe those relationships would help in the areas which – and I can’t stress enough that I’m not thinking of any particular issues – the emerging church has gone too far to one extreme. God has always meant the diversity in the church to be one method of helping right our wrongs. The division in the evangelical world causes us to just start our own faction when we have disagreements. There’s no balance.
I guess that’s why I get overly sensitive (and I’m sure I’m taking Darryl’s words too far) when I read about how people want to emerge without being emerging. I badly want to see the Church work together to tackle such important issues as outlined in Darryl’s post. But that won’t happen if both sides are bound and determined to not be associated with the other. It won’t happen as long as we as we see ourselves being on opposing “sides” at all.
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