The Great Emergence 0

Everybody seems to be talking about the emerging church lately. I think I've only heard the term in the last couple years, and right from the beginning it seemed pretty confusing to me. My friend Ben introduced me and a few of my friends to Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell in fall of 2005, and I remember how much we all loved it. It wasn't a completely revolutionary approach to Christianity for any of us, it just seemed like it was a clearer picture of what we already were about and where we deep-down wanted to go (and I think that is true, but not the way we thought). I guess we thought of it as a new paint job on the same car, or maybe a tune-up or new tires as well.

Since then I've read it several times and I've realized just how much there is underneath the surface that I didn't get the first time. I think we'd all agree that to follow Jesus, you can't just stick his teaching onto your previous life like an extra arm or new set of clothes. You have to be willing to let everything else go and sometimes start over completely. I think one of the underlying themes of Velvet Elvis is that sometimes Christianity itself has to start over and clear out a lot of the extra baggage it's picked up over the many years. That, of course, is a terrifying idea, because we tend to think of Christianity as the way of following Jesus. But what if the religion that carries Jesus' name becomes one of the biggest hindrances to following Jesus?

I first heard about the emerging (or emergent, but that's kind of different- more later) church through reading and listening to Rob Bell. He always has lots of notes about other books to read and often had guest speakers at his church. And lots of people on the internet had interesting things to say about him and those other authors and speakers. A lot of them were angry about this thing called the emerging church, and said Rob and some of the other people who he was influenced by or was friends with presenting heretical ideas. I think that is a pretty serious accusation to make, so I decided to research this myself. I began studying the Bible more and church history and theology- things that never really interested me much before. This eventually is what lead me to Fuller to study theology.

But one thing I noticed right away is how nobody could agree on what the emerging church was. Some people said it was a Christian reaction to post-modernism, or nothing more than a more relevant wrapping on evangelicalism, or an emphasis on simple living and serving the poor. Some said emergents didn't believe in absolute truth, or the Bible, or Jesus, and had very "liberal" views on homosexuality and abortion. Others said that it was a desire to return just to taking seriously the teachings of Jesus on loving your neighbor and being peacemakers. Is it a new denomination? Is it a movement? Is it a new religion? Is it some kind of new age spirituality that takes some of Jesus and some of Buddha and some of whatever else and mixes it together? Is there a difference between emergent and emerging? And nobody could even agree on who was part of the emerging church. Lots of people called Rob Bell emergent, but he always said he wasn't and that he didn't want anything to do with new labels that further divide Christians into smaller and smaller pieces. Some people said that was enough proof that he was emergent...

This last summer I have been reading a lot of books on the subject. What the so-called emergents say and believe and hope for, and what critics say about them. I've taken little online quizzes that that ask theology questions, and then tell you what percentage Charismatic, Wesleyan, Reformed, Liturgical, Evangelical, Catholic, Orthodox, or emergent you are. I've read lots and lots of blogs! And I've continually been struck by how consistently the things I've read from many emerging leaders have resonated with my heart. They seem to put words to the things I've believed deep down, the things that I had questions about or often blurry dreams that God has given me. That's been really exciting, but also very unsettling? I've been frustrated with many things about modern American Christianity for a while, and much of what I have learned has given words and form and even theology to this frustration. Is that me wanting to rebel and do things my way, or is it God leading me to trust him more and religion less?

The pieces of this puzzle finally began coming together, and one of the biggest pieces was a book by Phyllis Tickle called The Great Emergence. She is a grandmother, Anglican lay minister, and has worked as a teacher and head of Publisher Weekly's religion department. In this book, she looks at the current events of our world through a much wider view than most usually do and gains a lot of insight into what's really going on. She discusses the earth-shaking changes we've seen over the last 150 years in science, transportation, communication, war, society, medicine, government, and religion. It becomes pretty clear that we are in the middle of something huge. I've heard others say that the current shifts we are experiencing are comparable to the changes of the Great Reformation, but I thought it was a pretty big exaggeration. After reading this book, I wonder if it might be an understatement.

Since this book has been so useful for giving me a bigger and fuller idea of our times, I wanted to walk through it on here so a lot of you who don't have time to read can still get some of the benefit. All the time I talk to friends who feel unsettled and frustrated. The dreams God has given them seem incompatible with the current life they see every day, and they don't know where to go next or why this is happening. I'm realizing it is not an isolated few that are going through this. I hope this series will help explain why they are feeling this way, and where we might be headed, so they can begin to see their circumstances through eyes opened up a little wider.