Emergent Church

Much has been said about the growing Emergent Church movement, especially in recent years. A lot of enthusiasm as well as criticism have surrounded the movement and its major proponents. Since the unveiling of Tony Jones’ new book The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier, there has been a significant spike in the amount of dialogue around Emergent Christianity. Although I have had some exposure to the movement through reading books written by some of the more recognizable Emergents such as Brian McLaren, I didn't feel confident that I understood what Emergents or their churches were all about. I decided that I needed to learn more so I read Jones’ book. To my surprise, as I moved through the book, I self-identified with almost all twenty of his descriptions (what he calls "dispatches") of Emergent Christianity. I guess that makes me Emergent, or at least Emerging (I was reminded just recently that we have to be careful to acknowledge the difference between Emerging and Emergent, since the latter is an official organization). How about you? Do the Emergent dispatches resonate with you?

1. Emergents find little importance in the discrete differences between the various flavors of Christianity. Instead, they practice a generous orthodoxy that appreciates the contributions of all Christian movements.
2. Emergents reject the politics and theologies of left versus right. Seeing both sides as a remnant of modernity, they look forward to a more complex reality.
3. The gospel is like lava: no matter how much crust has formed over it, it will always find a weak point and burst through.
4. The emergent phenomenon began in the late 1990s when a group of Christian leaders began a conversation about how postmodernism was affecting the faith.
5. The emergent movement is not exclusively North American; it is growing around the globe.
6. Emergents see God’s activity in all aspects of culture and reject the sacred-secular divide.
7. Emergents believe that an envelope of friendship and reconciliation must surround all debates about doctrine and dogma.
8. Emergents find the biblical call to community more compelling than the democratic call to individual rights. The challenge lies in being faithful to both ideals.
9. The emergent movement is robustly theological; the conviction is that theology and practice are inextricably related, and each invariably informs the other.
10. Emergents believe that theology is local, conversational, and temporary. To be faithful to the theological giants of the past, emergents endeavor to continue their theological dialogue.
11. Emergents believe that awareness of our relative position—to God, to one another, and to history—breeds biblical humility, not relativistic apathy.
12. Emergents embrace the whole Bible, the glory and the pathos.
13. Emergents believe that truth, like god, cannot be definitively articulated by finite human beings.
14. Emergents embrace paradox, especially those that are core components of the Christian story.
15. Emergents hold to a hope-filled eschatology: it was good news when Jesus came the first time, and it will be good news when he returns.
16. Emergents believe that church should function more like an open-source network and less like a hierarchy or a bureaucracy.
17. Emergents start new churches to save their own faith, not necessarily as an outreach strategy.
18. Emergents firmly hold that God’s Spirit—not their own efforts—is responsible for good in the world. The human task is to cooperate with God in what God is already doing.
19. Emergents downplay—or outright reject—the differences between clergy and laity.
20. Emergents believe that church should be just as beautiful and messy as life.