Something new is happening in the American church, but describing it is not a matter of saying “who’s in or who’s out,” or even “who gets it and who doesn’t”. It’s a matter of affirming that God’s grace is creating a new reality in all churches and in all Christians, in ways that are wonderful and mysterious. We need not divide ourselves in the process. My one beef with much of the emergent theory I have read is that it has an unspoken attitude of “we get it, and they don’t,” or “we’re the future of the church, and they’re not.”
Please don’t misunderstand the nuance of this argument. There are many harsh critics of the emergent movement who accuse them of being everything from rebellious teenagers to heretics. I am not at all one of those critics. I applaud the emergents for their efforts. They are fulfilling a vitally important role in this transitional period. They are kicking down a lot of doors into the new reality, and they are reaching a young urban population that more traditional churches could never reach.
The nuance, therefore, is not that the emergents are misguided or irrelevant. It is a very necessary movement, but it is an incomplete one. The nuance is that they are one expression of the many ways God is calling forth something new - not the only one or the definitive one.
In fact, the entire spectrum of the American church is being transformed. Tony Jones, a popular emergent author, has offered the image of a tiny lifeboat casting itself away from a giant cruise ship as a metaphor for the emergent movement. But I suggest a different and less divisive image. Let us consider a river that is in floodstage, that is overflowing its traditional banks, and that is carving forth a new reality from an old landscape. Picture a scene where water (The Holy Spirit) is freely flowing across places in the church that haven’t seen water in eons, and it is washing away all of the accumulated dirt and rocks that have been desposited by three centuries of modern institutionalism.
In some ways, this flooding river is uncovering traditions that have been buried for centuries – such as ancient liturgies, mysticism, icons, labryinths, and contemplative prayer (to mention just a few). These practices are being rediscovered across the spectrum of church styles, not just in emergent congregations. For example, my very traditional Session has begun to use lectio divina (an ancient method of guided meditation on Scripture) as part of its monthly routine – a very significant break from the all-business approach of the modern era.
In other ways, the river that is carving away all the sand and mud of modernity is digging up some brand new practices. One emergent church I read about recently has a “tattoo night,” where members invite friends to receive a spiritually-themed tattoo, enjoy fellowship, and participate in a brief worship service. Such an event would horrify my church members, but it makes perfect sense for in a youthful urban setting.
The same river can look quite different as it flows across different landscapes, and the same is true of the Holy Spirit. It’s the same Spirit that inspires my Session to do lectio divina, and that urban congregation to do “tattoo night.” In both places, the sands of the old are being washed away, and the new reality is coming forth.
Which brings me to my central point in this series on the emergent church, a point which will reveal both the traditional and postmodern nature of my convictions. Being transformational, being led by the Spirit, and being an agent of the new thing that God is doing in the American church – it’s a very contextualized experience. In fact, it is happening in every context across the spectrum of our practices and beliefs in ways that are impossible to categorize or even recognize.
In Part 4, which will be the final installment in this series, I will propose some new terms and different ways of describing the new reality that are more inclusive of the entirety of the transformation that is occurring.
No comments:
Post a Comment