RE:Emergent
One of my concerns and a cause for my growing lack of interest in the "Emergent Church" movement is that it seems to be increasinginly about form rather than being the Body. It seems that we are going through cycles of whatever the new ecclesial chic happens to be. I know that there are exceptions, and that many of those who have been pioneering the Emergent "movement" have gone deeper than mere style, but when I survey the conversations going on and the implementation and establishment of "Emergent" and "Post-Modern" branding, I find little more than stylistic changes of the typical church™. Quite honestly, many times it looks like a "happening" youth program that has graduated on into adulthood.

The true danger is that if we let style be our guide, we will be destined to be guided by the world, and I am convinced more than ever that the world cannot set the agenda for the Church.

When I left church™ I was desperate for something different, and the differences are often first approached through outward appearances. A worship service is the perhaps the most obvious item in "need" of apparent change. So we changed the way we did worship....without grasping the deeper issue that perhaps the style of worship isn't as much of a problem as the heart of a worshipper. Taking a deeper look we find that the problem isn't the way we do worship but our way of being worshippers. I remember being in my small hometown church as a teenager, singing hymns at half-speed. I hated it. Now that I'm older, I've realized that I was the problem, not the worship. If I can't worship to those songs, can I worship at all? I'm afraid that much in the Emergent movement doesn't get to that deeper level. We're simply offering another brand of christianity™ without changing the substance. Much like a person who points out the silliness of buying an Abercrombie shirt for $50 only to be satisified in turning around and buying American Eagle for the same price.

We've also forgotten that the orginal idea of post-modern has nothing to do with style, but with a way of approaching the world. In many ways my parents (who are in the 60s) are more post-modern than many who the church™ and Emergent circles would consider post-modern. They are straight laced, country folk...who have a strong belief in the supernatural and strong doubts of the so-called answers that Modern philiosophies and sciences have provided. My dad wears a cowboy hat and they both speak the dialect of "hick" made fun of by TV shows and the media. If I see another representation of post-modernism as nose-pierced or dread-locked I think I will overload. Yes, its true that many pierced and dread-locked persons are post-modern...but those styles themselves are not post-modern. Post-modernism is like the culture described by Kal Lasn in Culture Jam:

"We are a very diverse tribe. Our people range from born-again Lefties to Green entrepreneurs to fundamentalist Christians who don't like what television is doing to their kids; from punk anarchists to communications professors to advertising executives searching for a new role in life."

Post-Modernism is like that...diverse but with a similar approach to the world. But like everything else, post-modern has been co-opted by church™ to be an issue of style rather than substance.

The bottom line for the Body of Christ is who are we called to be....as individuals and as communities. When I left church™ the Emergent movement was just beginning and it offered some hope...and it still does. At the beginning it was easy because it was more about questioning than practicing. Now that people have taken steps, the questioning of church™ is perhaps waning. As the Emergent movement gains momentum and status, it will be important that we question ourselves to keep from repeating the "sins" of those who came before us.
posted by Jimmy at 4:14 PM | |