Emergent / Embraced?

There's been some banter back and forth in the blogosphere over the state of the Emergent Church as we enter a new decade. 

One school of thought was expressed by Andrew Jones, a.k.a. Tall Skinny Kiwi, suggesting that 2009 was a real turning point for the Emerging Church.  You can read his entire post here.  Here's a soundbyte:

In my opinion, 2009 marks the year when the emerging church suddenly and decisively ceased to be a radical and controversial movement in global Christianity. In many places around the world, the movement has already been either adopted, adapted, or made redundant through the traditional church catching up or duplicating EC efforts. In some countries there have been strategic partnerships during 2009 or a significant rethinking process that has led to a new level of maturity, a sense of completion, or an re-evaluation of original vision and current practises.

In 2009, the emerging church either grew up, stopped being offensive, switched gear from experimental to normal, became the new mainstream, or a bit of each.

Author and theologian Tony Jones (no relation) replied--seeming to disagree.  You can find his post here, where you'll find these key points:

It seems to me that, yes, there is some radicality left in the ECM, for it seems to me that emergents are and have been among those proclaiming that the “emperor has no clothes” — here the “emperor” being the conventional church. 

And secondly, is the ECM becoming “less offensive”?  If my personal and anecdotal experience is any guide, the ECM is more offensive than ever.  In the States, the Evangelical Intelligentsia has determined that emergent leaders are not true evangelicals, leaving pastors like Dan Kimball and Bob Hyatt to choose between evangelicalism the ECM.  Personally, I have been disinvited from three speaking engagements this year, and one that I’ve got coming up in 2010 was moved off of a college campus and into a nearby hotel because of my presence at the event.

Note: Tall Skinny Kiwi then replied to Tony Jones, here.

All of this back and forth.  I want to weigh in!

My experience with the emergent and emerging church isn't as long or as involved as Messrs Jones.  But I've navigated this conversation in a local expression of the body of Christ, in a local pastoral community, and in partnering relationships around the globe.  I've been where rubber meets the road in this experience for the last decade.

I tend to agree with Andrew Jones that there has been an embracing of conversing and relating to our culture (that has been at the heart of the emergent/emerging ideal).  In many ways, mainstream and evangelical leaders have co-opted the movement.  But I worry, it's seen more as a survival means for this season than a missional identity.   

I'd offer to Tony Jones that practically everyone in church leadership in America agrees that the emperor is naked.  The issue is what they'll attempt as a new wardrobe and how they'll accessorize. 

The church has a thing for adopting of "successful" models of church.  Church leaders are notorious bandwagon jumpers.  Remember the seeker model in the early 1990s?  That was when your church dropped "Baptist" out of the name and became "Community", traded the choir for a worship team, and your pastor traded his coat and tie for a polo shirt.  How about the post-modernity fad of the late 90s?  You remember.  That was when your pastor traded his deck shoes for sandals, grew a goatee and started dropping an occasional cuss word in conversation.  Oh yeah, you bought an expresso machine, too. 

(I promise you--if I could tie an increase in numbers or an increase in tithes and offerings to the purchase of an expresso machine, every pastor in my community would be at Costco before day's end.)

The question I'd ask is whether the emergent steps taken towards conversing and relating are here to stay (and will grow), or if they'll be cast aside when the next model of doing church successfully rises to popularity.

Two interesting thoughts rose for me from Messrs Jones' back and forth: (1) The question of whether second generation leaders of the "emerging church" would choose to associate themselves with that label, as Tony Jones wondered, and Andrew Jones suggested "probably won't."  (2) Is, as Andrew Jones wondered, more of the controversy among American church circles over specific theological positions rather than the kind of churches being planted?

I agree, again, with Tall Skinny Kiwi.  Labels are so... (to quote the prophet Fergie) "two-thousand-and-late."  Things are too liquid anymore.  Labels get blown up or bloated.  The urgent quesion is whether the second generation leaders will embody the ministry approach and philosophy--grow in the identity--be conversant, missional, and incarnational examples as leaders.

And I agree that much of the remaining friction where emergent/emerging controversy is concerned has to do with theological positions--and fear.  Let's be honest.  Guys like Tony Jones and (he mentioned) Brian McLaren sell books.  Nothing sells a non-fiction book like controversy.  If Jones and McLaren don't make some lightning rod statements, who buys their books?  And, if guys like Jones and McLaren don't make lightning rod statements, what do guys like John McArthur have to write books about?  (Sorry... my poor attempt at humor.) Controversy and friction sell. 

TSK's latest post/response ends like this: The controversy you are stirring up seems unrelated to the main emphasis of the emerging church movement. Thus the need for some of us to move on from the label and get on with the job.

I agree, yet again.

Added bonus: For fun, Purgatorio's best - You might be emerging if...

Comments

[aj]

great post, darin. thanks. funny about the "baptist" name getting dropped for "community".