Religion is a strange thing. It moves and changes as cultures shift and the people within them start to think differently. Throughout history, Christianity has undergone multiple modifications in both theology and practical application. During The Reformation, the entirety of the Christian church was in uproar over the new ideas and new principals presented by the, at that time, forward thinkers. It was a period of new discovery and a chance to repair some of the damage Christianity had inadvertently inflicted upon society.
A similar occurrence is taking place in the church today. The modern world is slowly melting away, and in its place are left questions and new thoughts. This is the postmodern world. It is a world full of questions and searching, love and new revelations. In this postmodern world, a new understanding of Christianity is blossoming into something beautiful. The Emergent Church interprets the words and actions of Jesus through the lens of postmodernism and is redefining what following him really means for today’s world.
As the world evolves and enters a new stage of life, the Church also is growing to embrace revolutionary ambitions and ideas. As a plant matures and begins to stretch to new heights and places never before explored, it continues to look to its roots as a source of strength and guidance. It does not, however, remain at the root level. Instead, it looks to experience new things and to nurture the young (and sometimes inexperienced) branches. The Emergent Church, too, looks to its history as a source of wisdom and strength, but also recognizes the importance of new growth and the excitement of going where no one has gone before. It is learning from mistakes while embracing new challenges. Author and public speaker, Brian McLaren, elaborates on this, “When our churches are schools of practice, they make – and change – history. Otherwise, they simply write history and argue about it, and of course, in so doing they tend to repeat it” (Finding Our Way Again 145). This new postmodern generation of Christians wants to write history, while trying to avoid the mistakes made by previous generations of Christians. Phyllis Tickle comments in her book The Great Emergence, “One does not have to be particularly gifted as a seer these days, however, to perceive the Great Emergence already swirling like a balm across that wound, bandaging it with genuinely egalitarian conversation and with an undergirding assumption of shared brotherhood and sisterhood in a world being redeemed” (29). This is a church-wide revolution. It does not have specific requirements as far as age, theology, or maturity, but rather, it looks to the heart of the individual and tries to meet the needs found there, whatever they may be.
The term “Emergent” often carries with it a red flag, as many individuals feel threatened by the thought that Christianity could change. This term however, carries some very special meanings and symbols that inspire the movement behind the term. McLaren explains where the name “Emergent” comes from in his book A Generous Orthodoxy, “Emergents – small saplings that grow up in the in the shadow of the mature forest canopy. In a sense, they may seem dwarfed, stunted, restrained by the shade of the mature trees but in truth they are waiting. Whenever one of the mature trees dies, the emergents are there, ready to soar up and fill the gap and thrive in the light now available to them” (275). This is what is happening. Parts of the church are no longer alive (or relevant) to the world today, and the Emergent Church has seen this death and has risen to learn how to thrive in the sunlight left behind. They are trying to find solutions to the problems that caused death in previous generations of Christianity. McLaren explains another definition of Emergent, “ Emergent Wetlands – wetlands in which semiaquatic plants grow, plants whose roots are in the soil underwater but whose shoots grow up through the surface of the water to take in the full, unfiltered sun. In this sense, emergents are plants that live in different worlds simultaneously” (A Generous Orthodoxy 276). In the same way, the Emergent Church is attempting to live in two separate worlds and bring them closer together. The spiritual world and the physical world are meeting within the body of the Emergent Church as it tries to live out the Kingdom of God here on earth.
So what exactly does the Kingdom of God look like? According to many members of the Emergent Church, it may not measure up to traditional expectations. Perhaps the message of Jesus and the Kingdom he represented are in fact in opposition to the message that the Christian faith has been preaching for many years. This is one of the foundational postmodern thoughts that the Emergent Church professes. McLaren describes it this way, “What if he didn’t come to start a new religion – but rather came to start a political, social, religious, artistic, economic, intellectual, and spiritual revolution that would give birth to a new world…What if the message of Jesus was good news – not just for Christians but also for Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, New Agers, agnostics, and atheists?” (The Secret Message of Jesus 4). In light of these new thoughts, maybe the Gospel is not about the system of beliefs that Modern Christianity has claimed, but rather about a group of values and a way of life that promotes the nurturing of these values.
What are some of these values? In a nutshell, they are they same ones that Jesus preached; love, justice, individuality and community. The postmodern Christian looks for something more than inflexible rules and absolute truths. The goal is to search out the truths that apply to them, truths that transform their lives personally, and that inspire them to live for something more. Peter Rollins, a prominent leader in the United Kingdom’s Emergent Church, simply says, “It’s not a worldview that opposes other worldviews. It’s something that brings life, that brings transformation. I think that this understanding of faith resonates with people who are tired of a religion in which believing the right thing is what it is all about” (qtd. in “Seeds of Doubt”). Rather than seeing Jesus as a “law giver” or “judge,” the Emergent Church looks to Jesus for an example of a new way of life. In this life what is valued is the creativity in the world, the subjectivity of humans and the vibrancy of diversity in all things. Through this way of thinking, these four core values take on new meaning and life.
Love is the most basic and influential of all emotions, yet it is also one of the most complex. At the center of Jesus’ ministry was love. Love the little children, love the adulteress, and love your enemies. In fact, the very reason Jesus’ came to earth was to demonstrate love. The Bible illustrates the reason for Jesus’ ministry in this way, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (English Standard Version, John 3:16-17). From the beginning it was about love, and the Emergent Church seeks to continue to apply the concept of love to all aspects of life and in all relationships in the midst of the postmodern world.
The next value identified in both Jesus and in what the Emergent Church seeks to become is justice. This does not mean pointing the finger at sin or carrying out punishments, whether they be deserved or undeserved. Instead it means seeing and acknowledging when unjust situations are occurring around the world and figuring out how to both put an end to them and preventing them in the future. This applies in both private and public situations. The Emergent Church does not see itself as the Judge. It continues to look to Jesus’ words for guidance, “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive and you will be forgiven… Can a blind man lead a blind man?” (Luke 6:37,39). In the postmodern world, absolutes are almost nonexistent and the Emergent Church recognizes that it cannot provide permanent solutions to all problems. They do not claim to be God.
This movement does, however, believe that it can provide help and solutions to many of the social, emotional, and spiritual problems that the world faces. They see hope in the hopelessness that is the modern world, and seek to bring it into the light of day. Author and speaker Tony Jones describes it in this way, “Contrary to many American evangelicals, emergent Christians don’t tend to think that the world is getting worse and worse until it gets so bad that Jesus has to come back. Instead, emergents think that God’s spirit is moving in the world, and our job as Christians is to cooperate with what God is up to. So you’re less likely to hear emergents arguing about the hot topics of the day, and more likely to find them hard at work, trying to participate with God, so that it might be ‘on earth as it is in heaven.’ Answers have been the order of the day in modern Christianity. But for emergents, it’s the questions that count” (11). This movement sees justice as a form of love more than anything else. According to Dr. Cornel West, “Justice is what love looks like in public” (qtd. in Call + Response). The emergents couldn’t agree more.
While the final two values previously mentioned (individuality and community) seem to be contradictory, they are in fact inseparable and incredibly important in today’s changing world. Recently, individuality has not been nurtured in the ways it should have been. Women have been oppressed simply for being women, gays have been oppressed for being sexually different, and minorities and children are abused and oppressed simply because it is easy to take advantage of them. In this environment, becoming the same as everyone else is essential for survival. In contrast to modernism, postmodernism celebrates the very differences that used to be taboo. The Emergent Church reflects this in their quest for both equality and uniqueness. Each person finds meaning in something, whether it is art, music, poetry, service or parenting. One helpful analogy of this is in the simple statement, “The Kingdom of God is like an arts colony…” (The Secret Message of Jesus 148).
We are each unique and to the Emergent Church, this is because we are designed in the image of God. We each embody certain parts of him and can learn to be in harmony with him through our talents and interests. As The Shack reveals, “A bird’s not defined by being grounded but by his ability to fly. Remember this, humans are not defined by their limitations, but by the intentions I have for them; not by what they seem to be, but by everything it means to be created in my image” (Young 100). Providing an environment that nurtures many different kinds of interests and talents is essential to preserving individuality in the church. This part of the Emergent Church is still a relatively new growth and it will take time to see exactly what a community of independent, and yet connected, individuals really looks like.
The final value mentioned previously is community. This belongs at the end of the list for several reasons. To begin with, community cannot exist successfully without the above-mentioned values. It also is the glue that holds everything within this new movement together. The community of the Emergent Church includes both the roots and the branches of the movement. It encompasses the history of the Church and the possibilities for future generations of Christianity. Community in this context does not stifle people but strives to empower them and build them up in a supportive and encouraging environment. McLaren states that, “in that new reality, the poor and rejected will be embraced and valued and brought back into the community” (The Secret Message of Jesus 23). Author Steven Johnson traces the word “emergence” to this very concept, “Emergence is what happens when the whole is smarter than the sum of its parts. It’s what happens when you have a system of relatively simple-minded component parts – often there are thousands or millions of them – and they interact in relatively simply ways. And yet somehow out of all this interaction some higher-level structure or intelligence appears, usually without any master planner calling the shots. These kinds of systems tend to evolve from the ground up” (qtd. in A Generous Orthodoxy 276). Again we are back to the growth analogy.
This analogy of growth seems to be the best way to describe the current change that is taking place in the world today. This plant of postmodernism is growing from the ground up and is beginning to reach new heights of unexplored territory in the world. The Emergent Church is changing the landscape of religious philosophy in the world today. This can be intimidating to some, as it is just that: a change. A key thing to remember in the midst of all these blowing winds is this, “Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known into the unknown” (Young 115). This describes in one sentence what the “Great Emergence” is all about; growth in order to be a part of something bigger. McLaren describes this growth through the metaphor of tree rings; “Each ring represents not a replacement of the previous rings, not a rejection of them, but an embracing of them, a comprising of them and inclusion of them in something bigger” (A Generous Orthodoxy 277). As the modern world begins to slip away, the Emergent Church is attempting to blossom into something relevant and important in the world. It seeks to bring the Kingdom of God to earth. McLaren adds, “If you’re part of this kingdom, you begin to live in a way that some will say is stupid or naïve. (Turning the other cheek? Walking the second mile? Defeating violence with forgiveness, sacrifice, and love? Come on! Get Real!) But others might see in your way of life the courageous and wild hope that could heal and transform the world” (The Secret Message of Jesus 18). This way of life is different and strange, as is everything postmodern, and yet it is nothing new at all. This is the Emergent Church: small saplings attempting to bring two worlds together.
Works Cited
Call + Response. Justin Dillon. Fair Trade Pictures, 2008. DVD.
English Standard Version. Wheaton, Illinois: Good News Publishers, 2005. Print.
Jones, Tony. “The Emergent Church: Christianity in America is Changing.” Tikkun 23.3 (2008): 10-11. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 28 April 2010.
McLaren, Brian. A Generous Orthodoxy. Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, 2004. Print.
---. Finding Our Way Again. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2008. Print.
---. The Secret Message of Jesus. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Inc, 2006. Print.
“Seeds of Doubt.” Christian Century 126.11 (2009): 20-22 Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 28 April 2010.
Tickle, Phyllis. The Great Emergence. Grand Rapids MI: Baker Books, 2008. Print.
Young, Wm. Paul. The Shack. Newbury Park CA: Windblown Media, 2007. Print.
