We had a fascinating staff meeting this past Tuesday with a church growth professor/consultant who has a great deal of experience working with “Postmoderns” or what some are calling the “Emergent Church” (still an elusive term). While I disagreed with some of what I heard, I was interested in everything that was said. In fact, the conversation was provoking – and it is the kind of conversation we need to have.
In my estimation, the “Postmodern/Emerging Church” calls us to look carefully at the culture – particularly Western culture – and helps us realize that it is has changed and is changing. (Outside of the Western church, particularly in the global South where Christianity is exploding in growth, our conversation on Tuesday would have sounded like nonsense. Perhaps some of it was!) It is very important that we have some understanding of changes taking place in our culture if we are to be effective – if the culture no longer speaks Koine Greek, we need to translate the gospel into Latin! Our call to go to the nations requires that we engage our culture – and that we “speak their language(s).”
However, while we are “conversing” with the culture, the church must remain in constant conversation with both Scripture and Tradition. (Tradition helps us accurately interpret Scripture and safeguards against novelty.) Being “rooted” in both Scripture and Tradition while we converse with the culture helps us avoid the tragic error of becoming just like the culture – or to use Paul, becoming “conformed to this world” (Romans 12:1-2). I firmly believe that one of the problems with the “Emerging Church” is that they are so enamored with postmodern culture (they themselves are “products” of the culture), that they are unwittingly reinventing the church in their own image. A classic example is the continued advice offered by their gurus that we should use strategies like the Barna/niche-marketing approach to starting a church/service – go out and take a survey of your market and plan your church service around what unbelievers in your community want. Is this really the starting point? (I don’t deny that their motives are often, if not usually, very good.)
I love the conversation. Let’s keep talking. But if Christianity is losing ground in the West (a much disputed claim as Philip Jenkins has pointed out), I’m just not convinced yet that the solution is becoming even more like our culture.
I would love to know what you think . . .
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I have to say that as a "post-modernist" (generationally), I tend to think that some of the "major issues" the Western church has been focusing on are irrelevant (for example: the clash of the GARB & Cedarville). Could it be possible that some of these emergent voices are modern day Luthers? We're tired of the culturally irrelevant issues (drinking, dancing, perfection and other legalistic soap boxes) and more interested in authenticity and honest worship--all walls down, heart exposed. if i may generalize, our culture (especially seen in the lives of our teens) don't want to "play church" anymore, we want REAL people, with REAL flaws that are on a REAL journey toward a relationship with God (see yaconelli's book Messy Spirituality).
Ash, I would agree with you that many of the issues debated by a small segment of North American Protestants (i.e., your allusion American fundamentalists) are completely irrelevant. I also agree that “Messy Spirituality” take seriously the reality of living in this fallen world – and probably best describes the early church ethos. (These churches were mess.) However, the “Emergent Church” would not have liked Luther. With is doctorate in theology, his love for the early church, and his concerns over corruption, Dr. Lutehr was the one who put the pulpit “front and center” (literally) and called for a return to Biblical authority. (They may have like his style.) In fact, it is Luther (the “evangelical tradition”) that the Emergent Church is rejecting - which is why they are catching so much heat from people like Mark Driscoll. (A year ago Driscoll did a nice little overview on the movement he once helped to lead in CTR.) On the authenticity point I couldn’t agree more. We need more of it – and when leaders suspect the church is simply going through the motions, they MUST ask the question, “How can our worship be more authentic?” I don’t think teens are the only ones who want authentic worship. But maybe they should be members of our worship planning team! Let’s keep “conversing.”
I know my previous comment is full of mistakes - but I was trying to be authentic.
Post a Comment