Emergent/Emerging Introduction – Sept 8
I will be discussing the emergent/emerging church in some blogs to come. Ecclesiology these days is all over the map. There are traditional churches, churches within churches, seeker churches, blended churches, and the emergent church. I want to discuss the emergent movement because it is seriously trying to deal with the culture as it is and raise important issues about the church as it is. Of course, with such a variety in the church, it is hard to discuss what the church is these days. We actually have an array of church styles out there. And the emergent movement itself is also quite diverse. So I will work hard not to generalize. As you will see there are some things I’d admire about the effort and I also have serious questions. But the goal of these blogs will not be to be "for" or "against" it, but to discuss the movement and the important questions the movement raises for all of those who seek to honor Jesus in the way we live in a needy world. Hopefully the reflections will benefit us all. I invite any "emergents" out there to respond and interact as we are all part of the same church God has put together. Even more, we all can benefit from asking if the church is being all it can be in an era when many question the usefulness of the Christian faith.
I will be discussing the emergent/emerging church in some blogs to come. Ecclesiology these days is all over the map. There are traditional churches, churches within churches, seeker churches, blended churches, and the emergent church. I want to discuss the emergent movement because it is seriously trying to deal with the culture as it is and raise important issues about the church as it is. Of course, with such a variety in the church, it is hard to discuss what the church is these days. We actually have an array of church styles out there. And the emergent movement itself is also quite diverse. So I will work hard not to generalize. As you will see there are some things I’d admire about the effort and I also have serious questions. But the goal of these blogs will not be to be "for" or "against" it, but to discuss the movement and the important questions the movement raises for all of those who seek to honor Jesus in the way we live in a needy world. Hopefully the reflections will benefit us all. I invite any "emergents" out there to respond and interact as we are all part of the same church God has put together. Even more, we all can benefit from asking if the church is being all it can be in an era when many question the usefulness of the Christian faith.
Just an updated note on my use of terminology. I am not working in a way that distinguishes the terms emergent and emerging as some wish to do. I am interested in wrestling with how the church addresses a post-modern culture and the various proposals tied to that goal and associated with the terms that focus on such efforts.
9 Comments
lmathew2
thank you
Dr. Bock, thank you for discussing this and providing information for us. It is so awesome to see a scholar discussing it and not dogmatically being against it. I go to a Southern Baptist church and my pastor told me and teaches that it is “heresy”…how sad. I guess anything but Baptist is heresy! I need to be educated more on what the movement is and from what I’ve heard I would tend to agree that it has pros and cons. I believe we can learn from all people, especially people in the body of Christ, regardless of denomination or whatever. I have read Donald Miller’s and Rob Bell’s books that are considered “emergent”, and learned immensely from them and thought they had great things to say, though I didn’t agree with everything. So, Dr. Bock, thank you for discussing the issue and not bashing it like most conservative scholars and pastors do and are doing. A pastor/scholar who starts off with “it is heresy” will not hold my attention very long. I guess they’re just afraid of losing their sheep to different flocks or something and afraid other styles are from Satan…whatever.
Luke
bock
dlb – Emergent/Emerging
Nuance in discussing theology is something the church is losing these days. Give me a thumbs up or down in a sound bite. Let me know if something is good or bad – no details, please. My hope is that my discussion will not be that, but be a reflective discussion of pros, cons, concerns, and hopes. It is a discussion we need to have with each other. So thanks for your kind words and keep your thinking cap on, as well as your heart.
djchuang
more versions of churches
With over 3,000 denominations and sects (cf. Frank Mead’s Handbook of Denominations) in the USA, I find it a bit surprising at all the alarm and caution over emergent/emerging church conversations, when Christians have had ecclesiastical and theological differences for many centuries now. It’d be good to see a civil dialogue about some of the changes (and similarities) in theological categories and discourse being introduced in the 21st century.
probt777
E/E Questions
Thumbs up, Dr. Bock on the E/E blogs. I was wondering if you could briefly explain some of E/E features that make it distinct from traditional and seeker churches. When it comes to taking postmodernism seriously, does this mean that E/E embraces key postmodern assumptions? Also, do E/E advocates hold firmly to core Christian doctrines, or are they up for negotiation?
blessings
bock
dlb – Emergent/Emerging Questions
The key difference between E/E and seeker or traditional churches is the E/E argument that postmodernism requires a different presentation and style of engagement in mission because postmoderns think and respond to things differently than “moderns” do. The church needs to adjust to the changing times is the emphasis. Virtually any work on E/E walks through the differences in the approaches of the two cultural forms. So the argument is that the cultural reality means we must be prepared to contextualize the gospel appropriately for the new era. They do generally claim that neither seeker churches (which are mostly “modern” in approach, especially in size and worship style) nor traditional churches (which are also rooted in different “modern” assumptions than seeker churches) do what is necessary for the new era. There is too much concession to Western culture in the “modern” approaches that exalt passive (receiving) worship, size and efficiency.
Your question about whether postmodern assumptions are embraced is not really the key point (though many in the E/E movment do). The point is that postmodernism is where the audience is and the church needs to be sensitive to that. Thus, it is no critique of the E/E movement simply to try to tie it to postmodernism. Questions include how does that relationship work and is the cultural analysis on target. Again each element of the articulation of cultural differecne and what it means needs to be discussed, one point at a time.
The answer to your final question also depends on who in the E/E movement is in view. Some hold to core doctrines, while the position of some others is less than clear. One of the problems here is the frequent contrastive rhetoric many in the E/E use. So one hears things like “postmoderns like narrative or story, not doctrine and so we offer story and narrative.” It can sound more harsh than it is, although in some cases it appears to mean exactly what it implies. Some who speak and write seem to like to express themselves ambiguously on such points or with such exaggeration, so that clarity is lacking on such questions. This is yet another reason to be careful in discussing the movement as a whole. There is a spectrum here, not a tight box. It often takes looking at the whole of what is said, not a few sentences or sound bites, to tell what is believed.
Matt Stone
“Just an updated note on my
“Just an updated note on my use of terminology. I am not working in a way that distinguishes the terms emergent and emerging as some wish to do.”
That’s like refusing to distinguish between the terms Baptist and Protestant in a conversation that involves Protestants of many stripes. The differences between the Emergent crew and the broader Emerging Church may seem inconsequential in America where Emergent Village dominates the Emerging Church conversation, but it is very significant when you look beyond America to Emerging Church voices in countries like Australia where a more missional ethos holds sway. To define a world movement by what happens in America is typically American … but academically unconscionable.
Greg Baxter
New Perspective on Paul
Dr. bock,
would you comment on whether the new perspective on Paul as advocated by NT Wright and others is a valid one?
bock
New Perspective Reviewed Again by Request dlb
Greg:
I have blogged on this earlier. Here is how I stated it then. Two extracts follow:
From August, 2006:
The New Perspective (NP) goes back to work by E. P. Sanders in the late 1970’s. The key idea is called covenantal nomism. This says that Judaism is not a religion of legalism but of grace because Jews believed they got into salvation by the grace of election through the covenant (covenantal), by stayed in through the keeping of the law (nomism). The strength of the new discussion is to go back to ancient Jewish texts to discuss what Judaism was in the first century and to let those texts speak.
NP has its strengths and weaknesses. The strengths are its desire to allow Judaism to speak directly for itself through its own texts. There are many Jewish texts that do express an appreciation for God’s grace and that seek to motivate people out of a call to be responsive to a gracious God. It also reminds us that means for obtaining forgiveness through the sacrificial system did allow Judaism to deal with the issue of sin. The problems are that in stressing the covenantal side as the key to grace, certain things are missed. If the key to staying in is the necessity of keeping the Law in one’s own strength, then the charge of legalism still applies. There also is the problem of portraying all Judaism as if it held to this view, something that is questionable from the texts. The key, in my view to this, is that the discussion over justification has missed a key point, something even those who defend the older view often miss. The key for Paul is that justification not only declares us righteous before God (which is the stress of the reformation), it clears the way for the Spirit to enable us to respond to God and do His will. In other words, it is the idea that grace is at work in the new era of Jesus through and through in a way that Judaism never claimed or taught. Thus, Paul’s charge of legalism could stand.
There is a nice little booklet of 28 pages pages put out by Grove Books Ltd. and Michael B. Thompson that is a nice overview of all of this. The title is The New Perspective on Paul.
I hope this quick overview is helpful.
DLB
From August, 2006:
I just made a series of comments on the New Perspective on Paul because of queries in the recent comments window. Check it out. Here I will note some bibliography. The key work that launched the NP is by E. P. Sanders, called Paul and Palestinian Judaism. The bibliography tied to support and responses is huge. Key supporters include work by James Dunn, Tom Wright, and Don Garlington. Key critics include Tom Schreiner, Mark Seifrid, and Seyoon Kim. Commentaries written from this perspective include Dunn on Romans, while those by Moo and Schreiner challenge this view. 2 Volumes edited by Carson and Siefrid entitled Justification and Variegated Nomism look at the key Jewish texts and the exegesis of key texts respectively. Once you get started with these works, you will know where to go.
dlb
security systems
reply
The Catholics have a very old saying which supports the thinking of this article – “The Church must always change to remain the same.”