Archives For Emergent

3

Eulogizing the Emergent Church and Defining a Missional Movement

Chris —  February 21, 2013

Yesterday, Tony Jones reacted to this video, basically saying that so many people claim to be “missional” that it has no meaning.  Tony, whose Patheos blog seems the loudest remaining voice of the Emergent Church movement, seems miffed that people he has worked with in the past are now trying to differentiate themselves from (among other things) Emergent.  So what’s the big deal about all these labels?

I came across the emergent church when I was living as Colorado transplant in the BIble belt during my college days in the early 2000s.  It was an unexpected culture shock, this parallel universe where everyone smiled all the time, went to church every Sunday and seemed proud to have zero relationships with non-Christians.  Christianity was their culture, not their purpose. Continue Reading…

In Church, Mission , , , , , ,
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McLaren Thinks We’ve Lost Our Way

Chris —  August 8, 2009

Finding Our Way Again isn’t Brian McLaren’s best or most important read, but I find myself chewing on what he brought up.

The book introduces a series on 7 ancient spiritual disciplines.  The basic thesis is that Christianity’s diminishing role and potency is due to becoming just a system of belief rather than a way of life.  He shows how these 7 spiritual practices have roots in ancient traditions, in some ways reaching back to Abraham.

A few take aways:

  • There’s a great diagram on how change happens within the church.  Rebels leave the established bodies, but eventually it affects even the institutions they left.  His point is that God is at work, both within the rebels and the institutions, helping them find common ground in the middle.
  • The 3-fold path of ancient spirituality- Via Purgativa/Katharsis, Via Illuminativa/Fotosis, Via Unitiva/Theosis.  We purge ourselves of embedded sin, bask in the light of God, and join him in his work.  He has a cute parable to help communicate this.

Downsides:

  • The book seems rush and disconnected.  Pearls on a string.
  • The second is a hobby horse that he won’t get off of.  McLaren opens the book discussing the common ancestry of Judiasm, Christianity and Islam, and how we suffer from the same problems.  Though he has some interesting points, he keeps coming back on it, making you think that he’s more interested in tinkering with Universalism than teaching us how to find our way again.

Despite these downsides, it has enough pearls that it’s worth the short read.  I’m wrestling with how to make katharsis a regular part of my life.  If you’re really interested in spiritual disciplines, go read Foster or Williard or Brother Lawerence.

In God , , , , , , ,
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Greatly Emerging

Chris —  March 26, 2009

Phyllis Tickle’s The Great Emergence is a deceptively short and easy-to-read breakdown of the current state of North American Christianity.  Tickle’s senior citizenship and long time experience as religion editor for Publisher’s Weekly, allows her to levitate above the fray of the modern-hyper-calvinists vs. the pomo-emergents.  Her thesis is that every 500 years, Christianity has a garage sale, and we’re in the middle of one right now.

The bulk of the book shows how the basis of American Protestantism, primarily concepts like sola scriptura and the nuclear family, have been broken down a “century of emergence.” 

The most valuable material comes at the end, where she creates a visual respresentation of American Christianity, divided into four quadrants: Liturgicals, Social Justice Christians, Conservatives and Renewalists.  “The Great Emergence” is what’s happening in the center, where divisions are breaking down.  She includes the explosion of charismatic movements and the vanilla-evangelical megachurches as the forerunners of a newly emerging Christianity.  Now Pentecostals are using liturgy, Social Justice people are rediscovering personal morality, evangelicals are passionate about clean water in Africa, etc. 

Emergence left me with the following question: If post-modernism, globalism and technology have redefined what it means to be human how must we redefine what it means to be the church?

In Church, Culture , , , , , , , ,
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