Kruse Kronicle

Emergent (Part 1)

I have been doing a series of post on “klaos” and I will return to that shortly. However, I want to put that on hold for a few days and write about the Emergent Church phenomena. I just returned from the Emergent Village gathering at the Southern Baptist campground in Glorieta, New Mexico, sixteen miles east of Santa Fe. That first sentence alone could serve as metaphor for the experience: A Presbyterian attending an Emergent gathering at a Southern Baptist campground.

Many people have a difficult time understanding Emergent as they look for a charismatic leader or an institutional umbrella to define what is going on. The Emergent Village is not a Church or an umbrella organization for a movement. Emergent folks are connected by informal networks. Just like a computer network, there are nodes but there is no central unit. The Emergent Village is a node.

Some identify Emergent through visible participants like Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, or Spencer Burke, and form their opinions based on what they say. Some people form their impressions by visiting websites like the Ooze, an online discussion forum where many Emergent types hang out. Some identify Emergent with a worship style that features a heavy emphasis on the arts and aesthetics. Others hear the word “postmodern” referenced in positive terms in Emergent circles and brand the participants as relativists who are compromising the witness of the gospel. None of these paint an accurate picture and there is much more beyond what I have mentioned.

According to the Emergent Village website:

Emergent is a growing generative friendship among missional Christian leaders seeking to love our world in the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

Our dream is to join in the activity of God in the world wherever we are able, so that God’s dreams for our world come true. In the process, the world can be healed and changed, and so can we.

In English, the word “emergent” is normally an adjective meaning coming into view, arising from, occurring unexpectedly, requiring immediate action (hence its relation to “emergency”), characterized by evolutionary emergence, or crossing a boundary (as between water and air). All of these meanings resonate with the spirit and vision of emergent. In other languages, names for regional networks will be chosen with similarly evocative meanings.

I have been around the Emergent phenomenon since 1998, shortly after it began to be recognized as a “happening.” I am coming to some conclusions about the social psychology of what is happening that I have not yet seen or heard discussed in a public forum. Over the next few posts, I will write of my experiences at the gathering. From there, I will turn to some of my personal experiences over the years, my understanding of Emergent history, and this social-psychological perspective that is “emerging” in my mind.

I look forward to reading what you think and feel about what I am writing and reading about your take on how you have experienced the Emergent "thing."

The Church That I See

The Church That I See is a post written by Sherman Kuek yestreday. Here are a couple of paragraphs.

The Church that I see is a Church so committed to raising and empowering a leadership generation who will understand that its task is not so much of reaping the harvest merely as a shallow numerical goal, but rather, reaping the harvest by simply being Christ to the world (even if it may mean a longer journey towards the reaping). It is a Church so enlightened by the understanding that the task of evangelisation is a part of her own discipleship journey rather than an imperialistic attempt at gospelising the world with her body of beliefs without first allowing them to witness the person of Christ in her life.

I see a Church whose head is Jesus, whose help is the Holy Spirit and whose focus is the Great Commission. And yet, she herself is so much a part of this Great Commission in that whilst she disciples the world, she herself is being discipled through that experience itself. It is a Church that understands that the task of the Great Commission is not simply about world evangelisation. She is not a naive Church.

Amen!

Off to the Emergent Village

My posts next week my be a bit more erratic. The Emergent Village is holding a get together in New Mexico from Monday evening through Thursday morning. I am leaving Monday noon and returning Thursday evening. I don't know what internet access I will have so I don't know when or how often I will be posting. I will just have to see when I get there.

As I have prepared for this event, it is has dawned on me that I am the member of a mainline denomination's board (PCUSA) attending an Emergent gathering. So I thought I should invest in a new wardrobe that will appropriately convey my status at this event. CLICK HERE to see my new duds and tell me what you think.

"The Church, Embracing Grace, and Racisim" Scot McKnight

I have been catching up on blogs I missed last week and discovered a series on racisim by author Scot McKnight. The first post is:

The Church, Embracing Grace, and Racisim

I love his opening paragraph:

"If you embrace a kingdom vision of the gospel itself, racism is nothing short of disgusting. If you embrace a judicial perception of sin, the Cross, and the gospel, racism is more tolerable. I’m sorry to put in such bold terms, but it all comes down to how you understand the gospel."

Biblical Authority in Emerging Christianity

I have written several times about the foundationalist nature of theology and scripture in modernism. Liberal theology looks for a universal experience common to all humanity as its foundation for theology. The universal experience becomes the interpretative lens for doing theology and usually reduces scripture to a high expression of the universal experience, but it ceases to be truly authoritative.

The conservative method views scripture as a theological erector set. Scripture is a disconnected set of theological truths that must be formed into an all encompassing, bomb proof, systematic theology. This tends to elevate the resulting system as the lens for doing theology and the system takes on an authority over and above the scripture itself.

So what is the alternative? I just finished reading “The Character of Theology: A Postconservative Evangelical Approach,” by John R. Franke. He gives a one paragraph summary of how the authority of the Bible can be understood in a postmodern era:

N. T. Wright suggests a model of biblical authority that moves along similar lines. He uses the analogy of a five act Shakespeare play in which the first four acts are extant but the fifth has been lost. In this model, the performance of the fifth act is facilitated not by the writing of a script that “would freeze the play into one form” but by recruitment of “highly trained, sensitive, and experienced Shakespearean actors” who immerse themselves in the first four acts and then are told “to work out a fifth act for themselves.” The first four acts serve as the “authority” for the play, but not in the sense of demanding that the actors “repeat the earlier parts of the play over and over again.” Instead, the authority of the extant acts functions in the context of an ongoing and unfinished drama that “contained its own impetus, its own forward movement, which demanded to be concluded in the proper manner but which required of the actors a responsible entering in to the story as it stood, in order to first understand how the threads could appropriately be drawn together, and then to put that understanding into effect by speaking and acting with both innovation and consistency.” Wright then suggests that this model closely corresponds to the pattern of the biblical narratives.  (p. 162. Franke is quoting from N. T. Wright, “How Can the Bible Be Authoritative?" Vox Evangelica 21 (1991): 7-32. The quotes are from pages 18-19.)

I gave my own interpretation of this perspective in three posts when I first began to blog in June.

Divine Composition
Missing Pages
The Ultimate Family History

Generous Orthodoxy will begin a discussion of Franke’s book next week. They apparently plan to go through the book a section at a time and I get the impression they expect to be at it for weeks. You still have time to get the book and wade in if you want. I want invite you all to join in.

Postmodern Black Church (or a church where a Negro can feel at home)

More than a month a ago, I posted a link to Anthony Smith’s blog called Musings of a Post-Modern Negro. He was beginning a series called “Postmodern Black Church (or a church where a Negro can feel at home)” Well it took awhile but recently he began posting on this topic. The first three posts are linked here:

Postmodern Black Church (or a church where a Negro can feel at home) Part 1

Postmodern Black Church (or a church where a Negro can feel at home) Part 2

Postmodern Black Church (or a church where a Negro can feel at home) Part 3

He also had a great post on his definition of racism:

What is Racism?

If emergence is ever to go anywhere, this is the kind of conversation that has to happen. I’d invite you to check out what he is saying and to read the comments as well. You may not like some of it but hey… you are reading my blog. How much worse could it be?

Fundamentalists In The Emerging Church?

Fundamentalists In The Emerging Church?

Here is an interesting post by Andrew Jones. Excerpt:

"This is how I see it. Inside the emerging church, which is a vastly complex movement, there are probably 3 distinct responses to secular humanism and our current postmodern age:
1. A fundamentalist rejection and protest (isolationism, exclusivity)
2. An unthinking acceptance (syncretism, accommodation)
3. A prophetic response (contextual, missional)"

A New Kind of Postmodernist

A New Kind of Postmodernist: a book review of A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey by Brian D. McLaren

I wrote a bit about Foundationalism in some of my posts last week. This is a book Review by Douglas Groothuis of Denver Seminary. He writes

"Contrary to McLaren, the Bible is our theological foundation because..."

"There are many other objectionable items in this small but dangerous book, including its flippant advocacy of evolution (155), its unorthodox speculations on heaven and hell as not being separate places (91), its uncritical endorsement of computer technologies to replace libraries and classrooms in seminary education (162), and much more. There is just enough truth mixed in to make the errors seem more attractive; however, the wise reader will note every questionable claim and then examine the arguments given by McLaren to support it. In this way, one is less likely to be swept along by the force of the narrative and more likely to see the deficiencies of this book’s ideas for what they are — harmful to the cause of Christ in the postmodern world."

It is a great critique from a conservative foundationalist perspective.

Emerging Church & Diversity Conversation Heating Up

If you have poked around much in the Emerging church conversation you will notice that most of the people look a lot like me: White and middle class. There are many theories about this. Below is a post by Andre Daley at Mosaic Life in Grand Rapids, MI, where he clipped some quotes about the topic from other discussions.

Emerging Church & Diversity Conversation Heating Up

In Search of the Spiritual

You probably have seen this Newsweek lead article elsewhere but just in case...

In Search of the Spiritual

New Barna Book "Revolutions" and Emergent

Jason Clark got an advanced copy of a new Barna book. He reviewed it at the Emergent Blog, Revolutions - Barna Review. Here is one quote from Jason:

"He [Brana] claims there is a revolution going on in he church universal, outside the organised congregation based church, that we are all going to have to respond to. Of his own admission the book is short, a 'fast' read and not 'theologically dense'. He also expects people to be either 'excited' or 'angered' by his suggestions and research."

Mediahood of All Receivers

I just came across a paper Mediahood of All Receivers: Blogging as an extension of the Reformation Concept of the Priesthood of All Believers by a Ph.D. Student at the University of South Carolina named Bryan Murley.

This paper is great! Those of you who know me know how passionate I am about the priesthood of all believers. I am going to chew on this t-bone a while. Here is the abstract:

ABSTRACT

Much academic attention has been focused on the phenomenon of blogging and politics. Relatively little attention has been paid to the intersection of blogging and religion among laypeople and ministers. This research project will examine blogs that focus on issues of faith through Stuart Hall’s cultural studies theory and the theological framework of the priesthood of all believers.

The paper will begin with an overview of religious blogging and focus specific attention on four blogs that operate through the paradigm of the emerging church movement.

The emerging church movement is of special interest because it is a cross-denominational, cross-national movement of Christian believers that has grown up in the postmodern age and has specifically come into prominence through new media like the Internet. It is still in its beginning stages, with many discussing its outlines but few actually putting the philosophy into practice.

The theological perspective of the priesthood of all believers is particularly apt because of its implication that all Christians have direct access to the throne of God. The relative ease of creating and continuing to publish a weblog provides an opportunity for individual believers to express their views on faith and practice without the screen of the minister. Likewise, ministers can propagate their views on issues of contemporary import to the entire world, much as Martin Luther expressed himself through the 95 theses nailed to the door of the Whittenburg church. There are obvious dangers inherent in this new frontier, but the positives related to increased outlets for communication far outweigh the negatives.

This phenomenon works to short-circuit the organizational tendency to restrict debate on issues, even when those organizations claim to foster debate and constructive discussion.

"The Doctrine of Calling" Doug Groothuis

Presbyweb had a link to a blog entry by Doug Groothuis called "The Doctrine of Calling." I have read some of his wife's work but not his. He wrote a book called Truth Decay which I have, but I have not read (along with about 1,000 others.) I sense he may not be keen on the whole Emergent thing. Nevertheless, I really like what he says in his post. Especially:

"First, Christian calling brooks no separation between the secular and the sacred. All of life is to be lived under the comprehensive Lordship of Christ (Matthew 28:18). One does not don a spiritual self for religious activities and another self for entertainment or one’s profession. All of our actions should be unified in obedience to God and for God’s glory (1 Cor 10:31; Col 3:17). Similarly, neither are church-related work nor missions is more spiritual than other professions such as law, business, education, journalism, or politics. The Kingdom of God bears on every dimension of life, and agents of that Kingdom serve as salt and light wherever the Spirit leads them."

I guess now I will have to move his book up the reading list (from about 500 up to about 50 maybe *grin*).

Postmodern Black Church

One of the common topics in Emergent circles is the reasons why Emergent people are overwhelmingly White. Lots of theories about that but rarely from someone who isn't White.

I recently came across a blog by Anthony Smith a few days ago called "Musings of an Emergent Postmodern Negro." Anthony is Black and writes about his Emergent church experience. In yesterday's post, Anthony said his next few posts will focus on "What kind of church would a postmodernegro feel at home with?" Should be good. Just wanted to invite you to check it out.

An Exploration of The Emerging Church in The United States

I came across a Master's Thesis at the Always Being Reformed site last week. I have seen it linked elsewhere. It was written by Aaron Flores and is titled:

“An Exploration of The Emerging Church in The United States: The Missiological Intent And Potential Implications For The Future”

I have not read the thesis for myself so I can't really comment on it yet. It sounds very interesting and I thought some of you might be interested. Here is the abstract:

"As churches in the United States navigate the culture of the 21st Century they are increasingly inquisitive of their own identity in a postmodern context. Through what is known as the "emerging church," the significance of existing as a new kind of church in a postmodern reality has surfaced. This study focused on an exploration of the features of the emerging church in the United States, particularly its values, characteristics, and mindset, and in order to develop a comprehension of its missiological intent in relation to culture, the related literature concentrated on comprehending the following concerns: Is there a definition for the emerging church; are there similarities and contrasts regarding the values, characteristics, and mindset in the emerging church; how does the emerging church express its ecclesial identity and missiological intent in relation to culture; and what are the conclusions and implications for the future? The research methodology sought to comprehend how the emerging church in the United States exemplified values, mission, and descriptives."

Emergent Church History

I found an article today that gives a short history of the Emergent phenom. Take a look if you want a quick overview.

On Emergent...

PBS on Emergent Church (Part 2)

Last week I posted a link to Part 1 of a PBS story "The Emerging Church." Part 2 is now out.

The Emeging Church, Part 2

An Interview With Stanley Grenz

Rodger Sellers linked an article at his blog called An Interview With Stanley Grenz in Modern Reformation magazine. It is a short piece about the emergence.

I have read several of Grenz books and have been influenced by his work. I really appreciated his Women in the Church: A Biblical Theology of Women in Ministry volume. I consider it, along with the recently released Discovering Biblical Equality: Compelementarity Without Hierarchy, the two best books written on the topic. I also appreciated his work on the trinity.

Sadly, he died of a brain aneurysm last March in his fifties. He was to be at the Emergent Convention in Nashville a couple of months ago. I had looked forward to meeting him there. That meeting has merely been postponed.

Response to Recent Criticisms (of Emergent)

If you don't frequent www.theooze.com you may have missed a interesting article a few weeks ago called Response to Recent Criticisms. It was co-authored by Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Spencer Burke, Brian McLaren, Dan Kimball, Andrew Jones, and Chris Seay. They are among the more prominent emergent leaders.

I think this article shows some of the fault lines that exist between the emergent folks and the broader Evangelical community. One of the things I found interesting in this article is how explicitly these guys do see themselves as an extension of Evangelicalism. My hope is that the whole emergent thing becomes an extension of nothing other than the mission of God in the world.

12 Tension Points in the Emerging Church

Presbyweb had a link to a post at Andrew Jones Blog "Tall Skinny Kiwi." I hear a lot of discussion about what defines emergent churches and I think he pretty much nails it. The link is

12 Tension Points in the Emerging Church

PBS on Emergent Church

For those interested in emergent church I found the following article at Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, a PBS publication. It is evidently the first in a series.

The Emerging Church, Part 1

"Always Being Reformed" Website

Thanks to dogged determination of Rodger Sellers (and I don't know who else) the Always Being Reformed website is operational! I invite you to check it out.

Emergent Presbyterians Sighting

While visiting Rodger Sellers Blog I learned of two emergent Presbyterian congregations, both in the Pittsburgh area: The Open Door and The Hot Metal Bridge. There was an article about them in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in March.

Know of any others out there? It would be great for us to become aware of each other.

The Portico

While at the Nashville Emergent Convention last month, I ran in to many great folks, including at least forty Presbyterians. Among them was Rodger Sellers who heads up a New Church Development in Charlotte, NC, called The Portico. What is unique is that it is an emerging/emergent church (I love spiral stairs to a door image at their homepage). I know that emergent Presbyterian sounds like an oxymoron (not unlike Kansas City Royals baseball) but I met Rodger and heard about it first hand. I call it “Emergyterian.” (Seems somehow better than Presbygent.) Can the Second Coming be far behind?

Furthermore, if you want to learn what a really cool guy I am, you need to visit his Blog RPS. After reading it, I have decided I would really like to meet myself some day. Fact is, some of us talk about the emerging church and others of us write about it. Rodger and The Portico are doing it! Lets pray for the Portico community and look forward to what they will have to teach us about being the Church in this century.

Finally, Rodger is heading up a project to start an emerging Presbyterian (grammar checker keeps telling me I can’t place these two words together) website called AlwaysBeingReformed.org. It is not fully operational yet but I have it listed under my links so you can keep checking on the progress.

Okay, I lied. The final finally. Are there any other Reformed/Presbyterian emergent communities out there? It would be great to get connected so we can all learn from each other.