I told Jim West I would dissect the cat of the emergent church so here is a stab at some of the questions. The analysis here is rather light, but I would also implore you to read my article contrasting Baudrillard and Weil to get a sense of where this is coming from. I will offer the questions here, and then I will offer some thoughts in another post as to why I think the intentional "practice" of postmodernism will not work and hence why more a pragmatic ground is needed to frame the work of critique that governs much of the emergent conversation.
I am not sure what the "emergent" or "emerging" church actually is. It is not really political, not really theological, not really revolutionary, not really disruptive. It is a conversation, a friendship, and a not really well formed idea. It seems to be a source of intuitions about ecclesiology that are seeking to cultivate some kind of ground for something, but it is not sure what that actually looks like in the end. It seems to provide a different way of doing things if you want to start a new gathering of people, but does not seem to say much for existing institutions other than offer a set of discussions of why things in some places are not satisfying to some people. It eschews descriptive categories such as "evangelical" or "liberal" or "conservative" or "confessional" yet retains characteristics of all at some point.
All that is fine for something that is emerging. When an intuition in a discussion is forming, being not really sure about what those intuitions look like organizationally is acceptable in the context of a discussion where people are brainstorming and trying new things. But a discussion has to land somewhere – especially when that focuses around ideas of ecclesiology which are the structural means by which Christians are organized around their worship of God. Organizing people around an idea needs structure to work and energy to maintain that structure or that idea will die out. Call it organizational physics – energy is not really lost, just transferred to something else if it is not maintained in the group itself. Which brings me to my main point: the one clear organizing principle for these ideas is the postmodern. The problem with the postmodern is that in itself is fails to land anywhere of much use to pragmatic principles of organizing people. Or, at best, it results in a recapitulation of ideas that have already been around for a while.
Question 1: What kind of postmodernism?
One of the phrases I have heard is the assumption that we are in a postmodern world or culture. But it is never quite clear what this means. Is it an anti-modernism reaction as in the case of DeBord, early Baudrillard and the like who take postmodernism to be a protest against modern ideas and distribution of power? To this end it takes on a neo-Marxist slant which seeks to level power structures in order to remove possible sources of oppression. Is it a notion of postmodernism that we are in a period of time "after" modernity? This is more of less the case of analyses like David Harvey's in terms of the movement of capital in relation to global markets and economies. Fredric Jameson uses the term "late capitalism" to describe the same. It is epistemological in terms of the twilight of grand narratives as we read in Lyotard? Perhaps the disrupted flattening of reality in the late Baudrillard's ideas of simulacra and simulation?
The idea that we should assume we are in some kind of period of time after modernism and that whatever it is that we are living in now is thus postmodern is not a very valid assumption to make since it assumes that one view of postmdoernism is true. The idea behind postmodernism began as an architectural principle and then moved from there to art and literature. These ideas of style and form were then moved into semiotics where neo-Marxism picked up the ideas to comment on what capitalism is doing in and to the world along these lines. This is where things get political in confrontation with four overarching ideas in modernity that these critiques challenge: self-sufficiency, reason, optimism, and progress – in a nutshell.
Perhaps the most interesting pieces that comment on these ideas are dystopian works that discuss the logical outcomes of modernism and the current state of affairs. 1984, Brave New World, The Wanting Seed, Fahrenheit 451, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Neuromancer, The Big God Network and the like all deal with the idea of what the world looks like if we continue on its current path – whatever that might be. All have the same ideas of social control, technical control, and constrained individual freedom of conscience at the hands of collective intelligence which functions as something tyrannical. In many ways postmodern critiques mimic the more sarcastic and pessimistic tone of these thought-provoking views into the near future with the critique of existing structures of psychological, social, political, and epistemological development.
What is clear from this angle is that postmodernism is not something new – a radical departure – or something qualitatively different from modernity, but a logical extension of it. This is clear from Habermas' critique of postmodernism and critiques of non-foundationalism as a theory versus what it looks like in practice. Nonfoundationalism comes out looking like an approach that reflects all the same fideistic features of foundationalism by simply replacing the metaphor of foundation with either an absence of a foundation or multiple foundations.
This is all to say that if emergent is a response to the structures of a "postmodern world", I am not sure what this looks like and so many postmodern theorists do not agree.
Question 2: If I classify my church as emergent, what does it look like?
In the podcast from the session given regarding emergent at the most recent AAR meeting, Tony Jones responded to the claim that some, perhaps many, have made that emergent is merely a conversation and nothing more. He discussed new intentional practices in churches that have done away with pews and pulpits and replaced the environment with couches and physical arrangements that do away with hierarchical structures of people in order to focus on, among other things, the position of Christ among people. To me this sounds like a really comfortable Quaker service, but without those uncomfortable wooden benches, and instrumental music along with the use of the image to convey messages creatively. That is to say, the idea of reducing the hierarchy in the ecclesial and political structure is hardly a postmodern idea at all, but one that has been with the church for a long time.
I also read of a Presbyterian church that is doing away with committees in favor of other structures that do not segment the ministry of the church in the same way. This just sounds to me like the function of the committees needs to be reworked rather than doing away with the committee structure. From an organizational perspective one is not really doing away with a committee that manages different functions of the church organization as much as giving them a new label of "ministries" or "discipleship groups" what have you. So again, this sounds like the same thing with different words to assign meaning.
It is clear that even those who are gung-ho about the emergent concept are not quite sure what this exactly means in terms of what it looks like organizationally. It seems to have far more questions than pragmatic ideas to restructure something that is already there. While this might work well for a new church plant as in the purview of what Brian McLaren has worked with, it is very hard to see how this will revitalize existing congregations with many age groups working with different cultural assumptions.
Question 3: What role does doctrinal theology play? Is this from what emergent is emerging?
Here, coming from a Presbyterian (USA) background, the question has to do with natural conflicts that will exist between the pronouncements in the Book of Order and Book of Confessions as well as other historic doctrines of the church in which traditions are grounded. If we emerge from these statements, what do we then have? How are the boundaries negotiated and then how can we make clear decisions and policies as organizations to implement these ideas? How is all of this stuff assessed in order to support any assertion that it is a good thing or that it is working? It is clear that the idea is not to exclude other perspective for the sake of clarity for one:
We are committed to honor and serve the church in all its forms – Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal, Anabaptist. We practice “deep ecclesiology” – rather than favoring some forms of the church and critiquing or rejecting others, we see that every form of the church has both weaknesses and strengths, both liabilities and potential.
So what does this "generous orthodoxy", to use McLaren's term, look like when integrated into traditional statements of the faith? These are not just cognitive ideas, but ideas around which people organize themselves.
In spite of the ambiguity that comes with a term like "emergent" by necessity, in order to say with any confidence that it is working, one needs data that reflects clear outcomes. Schools have to do this, churches need to do this all the same. But it is the clarity of the outcomes that is not happening and I think the assumed marriage to a very vague and perhaps misleading to "postmodernism" is a key player in this problem – McLaren's books notwithstanding. Even conversations that surround ideas about God and the structure of the church need direction and guidance. I just do not see enough of this direction, clarity, and guidance around solid outcomes that would suggest my espousal of the label "Friend of Emergent" anywhere just yet. At least give a clue to what the outcomes are. Even a grounded theory approach to research needs clear outcomes, even if the data and processes are not delineated in a model from the beginning in all cases. I have no clue what I am befriending as a group even though I might very well befriend many people within that group.
It is not even the ambiguity that seems problematic (since this is something that is emerging); it is the intentional ambiguity in the emergent discussion that reinforces the clarity problem. Because ambiguity is reinforced this way, it is hard to know what kinds of goals and outcomes will work for a church that already has a community – even if that community needs help to stay floating in the marketplace of religion in the US. Why this is so is something on which I will reflect next time.
No related posts.
Just to disclose first, I am part of the Emerging conversation. But my read on it is not to see it something altogether seperate from the rest of the Church, but to see it as the edges of the Church experimenting and adapting in new ways to the pressures of the culture. This is in no way a new phenomenon, in fact I would say most of our movements are in some way a response to the confrontation of gospel and culture. I'm also cautious about the term postmodernity because I'm not seeing the epistemoligical shift yet. I would lean more to an adaptation of modernity, but I'm tend to follow the more constructive theories of Postmodernity (for example David Griffen). But there is something quite distinct about the Emerging conversation, and I am convinced this is where Generous Orthodoxy is leading us. (I have a funny relationship with McLaren, I wish he was more careful in his writing). There is less of a committment to the existing coherence of the tradition in which these congregations are emerging. So I'm a Vineyard pastor and I love the Vineyard values, but I also feel specifically called to a particular people – which is where he clash arises.
I'd love to engage more but I've got to get my kids to skating.
This article is helpful, because I have been trying to grasp what the Emergent movement is.
One thing that I have found helpful is the notion that most movements form as reactions to other movements, but the reaction is constrained by the cultural values of the time. Hence, we have a reformation, counter-reformation, European enlightenment, fundamentalism and modernism as various reactions that are flavored by their cultural time frame. Intermingled with this were a number of lesser reactions as various groups developed, such as the Amish and Mormons.
I can remember some Emergent elements in the '70s as the youth tried to do away with the traditional forms of the parents, but the result was uniquely American. Perhaps the Emergent church identity is more just in this reaction against traditional forms? It is different from fundamentalism and modernism in that our current age sees no value to philosophical pretense or systematic thought, which is the cultural framework that this reaction is developing in. Another part of our cultural framework is that everything is about "me". Summing these elements up provides a movement that is subjective, aesthetic and amorphous, which is why it is so hard to characterize. Also, a reaction without any unifying entity is necessarily going to take many trajectories.
From my viewpoint, the question really isn't what it is emerging too, but rather what reactions will there be to the Emergent church as the dissatisfaction inevitably builds. One would be to simply pick a historical orthodox worship form at random and follow the forms, but per our current culture of mental slackers, we would ignore the intellectual framework of that orthodoxy.
Does that make any sense? Or am I too much of an engineer to comprehend these people movement things?
Just to disclose first, I am part of the Emerging conversation. But my read on it is not to see it something altogether seperate from the rest of the Church, but to see it as the edges of the Church experimenting and adapting in new ways to the pressures of the culture. This is in no way a new phenomenon, in fact I would say most of our movements are in some way a response to the confrontation of gospel and culture. I'm also cautious about the term postmodernity because I'm not seeing the epistemoligical shift yet. I would lean more to an adaptation of modernity, but I'm tend to follow the more constructive theories of Postmodernity (for example David Griffen). But there is something quite distinct about the Emerging conversation, and I am convinced this is where Generous Orthodoxy is leading us. (I have a funny relationship with McLaren, I wish he was more careful in his writing). There is less of a committment to the existing coherence of the tradition in which these congregations are emerging. So I'm a Vineyard pastor and I love the Vineyard values, but I also feel specifically called to a particular people – which is where he clash arises.
I'd love to engage more but I've got to get my kids to skating.
This article is helpful, because I have been trying to grasp what the Emergent movement is.
One thing that I have found helpful is the notion that most movements form as reactions to other movements, but the reaction is constrained by the cultural values of the time. Hence, we have a reformation, counter-reformation, European enlightenment, fundamentalism and modernism as various reactions that are flavored by their cultural time frame. Intermingled with this were a number of lesser reactions as various groups developed, such as the Amish and Mormons.
I can remember some Emergent elements in the '70s as the youth tried to do away with the traditional forms of the parents, but the result was uniquely American. Perhaps the Emergent church identity is more just in this reaction against traditional forms? It is different from fundamentalism and modernism in that our current age sees no value to philosophical pretense or systematic thought, which is the cultural framework that this reaction is developing in. Another part of our cultural framework is that everything is about "me". Summing these elements up provides a movement that is subjective, aesthetic and amorphous, which is why it is so hard to characterize. Also, a reaction without any unifying entity is necessarily going to take many trajectories.
From my viewpoint, the question really isn't what it is emerging too, but rather what reactions will there be to the Emergent church as the dissatisfaction inevitably builds. One would be to simply pick a historical orthodox worship form at random and follow the forms, but per our current culture of mental slackers, we would ignore the intellectual framework of that orthodoxy.
Does that make any sense? Or am I too much of an engineer to comprehend these people movement things?
Frank,
"But there is something quite distinct about the Emerging conversation, and I am convinced this is where Generous Orthodoxy is leading us." And this is precisely what I am not sure about. I have not seen anything all that distinct when taking Looney's comments into consideration. I see a reaction, but it still seems to me like an intellectually infused attempt to be "culturally relevant". There is a degree where this is needed, but the emergent conversation seems to be mired in so much ambiguity it is not clear what this relevance means. It is couced in something "postmodern" but that is the primary theoretical issue that I have with the conversation itself. It seems to be an intellectual basis made of straw to be quite blunt. I could be misreading it, but that is basically all I have been able to find…
And specifically to Looney, I really like your analytical views on things here so the mind of the engineer is helpful
There is also clearly a reactionary synthesis going on in the entire conversation as well. It's hard to see it otherwise especially if we read any sociology of religion.
Frank,
"But there is something quite distinct about the Emerging conversation, and I am convinced this is where Generous Orthodoxy is leading us." And this is precisely what I am not sure about. I have not seen anything all that distinct when taking Looney's comments into consideration. I see a reaction, but it still seems to me like an intellectually infused attempt to be "culturally relevant". There is a degree where this is needed, but the emergent conversation seems to be mired in so much ambiguity it is not clear what this relevance means. It is couced in something "postmodern" but that is the primary theoretical issue that I have with the conversation itself. It seems to be an intellectual basis made of straw to be quite blunt. I could be misreading it, but that is basically all I have been able to find…
And specifically to Looney, I really like your analytical views on things here so the mind of the engineer is helpful
There is also clearly a reactionary synthesis going on in the entire conversation as well. It's hard to see it otherwise especially if we read any sociology of religion.
Where I think we need to avoid being coy with "postmodern" thought and it's nexus with faith is in the absence of a viable teleology. "Intentionally ambiguous" conversations are well and good, but at some point we need to be willing to affirm that those conversations serve a purpose. If emergence is to be an expression of faith, and not just an expression of the doubt that faith incorporates but transcends, then it's gotta be up front about it's normative nature.
Where I think we need to avoid being coy with "postmodern" thought and it's nexus with faith is in the absence of a viable teleology. "Intentionally ambiguous" conversations are well and good, but at some point we need to be willing to affirm that those conversations serve a purpose. If emergence is to be an expression of faith, and not just an expression of the doubt that faith incorporates but transcends, then it's gotta be up front about it's normative nature.
[...] persuasion as well since the term is often overused in my judgment; an argument you can find here and [...]