Taking Off and Landing

In the next in the series on the future of Emergent, Steve details the history of the evangelical emergence, particularly in terms of the structures that were put in place to help proliferate the thinking and intellectual end of the evangelical movement. Revive Us Again is a good place to start to get a grasp on the historical elements of all of this.

The comparison of the current state of Emergent to the evangelical movement of the 1940s brings up a good point about where the dissenting evangelical thought must go if the valid theological statements it makes are to alter the course of the future. In one sense, I believe that history is a providential thing, and that God will call the church forward to live and be for the next generation, in faithfulness and creativity, and thus, our attempts to answer “what’s next” in terms of establishing structures could be answering the wrong questions. The correlary to that, however, is that the church is forever in need of concrete expression of how this faithfulness and creativity are manifested.

For the past generation, this was accomplished in the proliferation of churches, of seminaries (Fuller), of newsletters and media (Christianity Today). For the most part, in the current scene, the ideas of what lies beyond the individualist evangelicalism are simply that: ideas. And while Christian theology has a rich history of speculation and intellectual achievement, ultimately, the tension that exists within theology is that all speculation ultimately must be incarnated.

For Christians, speculation concerning God rests in a particular incarnation, namely Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. Augustine fleshed this out in terms of the church, saying that the ecclesia is the “body of Christ”, linking the body to the Head, and thus, making the church the incarnated expression of Christ. As such, what cannot be incarnated into the practices of the church (the persons in allegiance to Christ), ultimately falls short of its goal as being fully “Christian”. What cannot be given mysterious incarnational form ultimately finds itself in contrast to a God who found delight in becoming human. Hence, the Eucharist is more than just bread and wine, but a mystical expression of God’s presence, etc.

As such, for speculation concerning the future of evangelical thought to remain simply that–speculation–is to render it ultimately fruitless. It is mistaken, on the other hand, I think, to say that, for that reason, we should marry up doctrine to the best available model for carrying it, as modern evangelicals have done in terms of political parties. This ultimately dilutes the Gospel to contained form which allows for little latitude in terms of how the Gospel might truly be, making God into a Republican, Democrat, white or black. The most recent gathering at a Louisville church for the sheer purpose of opposing Democratic fillibustering is the most glaring example of this crass marriage.

What must happen for these thoughts recieve proper incarnation is for this new thinking to find its way into the expressions of the church, in the practices of the body: not only in their thinking, but in their spending, their commitments, their proclamations. Linking this theologizing up to anything less than the gathering of the saints will lead to either a truncating of the Gospel, as seen in the politicizing of issues, or a disembodied wandering of thought, as seen in some speculative theology. There is always a place for speculation, but it must ultimately land somewhere, if only tenatively. I’ll not argue for an eternally descriptive social form of the Gospel, but if the Gospel does not create its own home, someone will inevitably find a lesser home to shove it into.

Steve makes a good point that the future structures that will house the thought of whatever lies beyond 20th century evangelicalism will not be handed down at no cost. But I would argue that with the continued conglomeration of media, i.e. the creation of a few purveyors of media information, what will be more and more necessary is the church, which is able to operate outside the mass propogation structures of yesterday, and transform people. The future begins with the church, as it always has.

Last night, as I watched Jeff Tweedy and the boys play downtown Houston, I was reminded once again of what makes good music. Both times I’ve seen Wilco, they remind me of a perfect mix of rockstar and musician. On lead guitar, Nels Cline looks almost completely apoplectic as he tries to rip one more last note out of his beaten Stratocaster. The pianist mimics Pete Townshend on his guitar numbers. Meanwhile, Jeff Tweedy, the locus and genius of Wilco, looks almost uncomfortable in the spotlight. He apologizes for griping at a pestering fan in the front row; his sallow cheeks betray his recent attempt at giving up smoking; he barely smiles. His appearance is that of one who plays music for his life, but is never fully at home with giving it to this many people at once.

Wilco: the prototypical band of diverse personalities, that despite their differences in style, manages to harmonize in pure genius.

In many ways, this is the picture of the Emergent church, as Steve has brought it forth. In the next installment, moving from the “what-it-is” section to the “how-to” section”, we move into the pragmatic region of what the church is. What is the relationship between what the church is and what it does? Or, relating it to the question at hand, given that those dissatistfied with the state of the church at large are not particularly sure who they are yet, can they actively form a church?

It begs the chicken/egg question of which comes first: Christians or the church? If you ask some sociologists of religion, you’ll find the answer that people of a certain disposition are drawn to the order of religion, and thus, in a way, the idea of church exists before the people, needing the people to bring it into being. If you ask most theologians, you’ll find a range of answers to the question, boiled down to essentially two options:

The church exists by virtue of Jesus being. Because Jesus is, the body of Christ does, regardless of the existence of actual members present.

Or…

The church exists by virtue of the church being present. Because Jesus has established the church, the body of Christ can exist, but in some cases does not yet.

The first group would locate what is essential about being “church” in the sacraments, that in the bread, wine, and preached Word, the body of Christ exists. People partake of these things and are made a part of the church. The second group, rather, locates the essence of “church” in the relations between people, that people coming together is what makes up the church, which is what Steve proposes.

And to some degree, I agree. I believe that something very real happens in Communion and in the preaching of the Gospel, but apart from its enacting by people, the church does not yet come to pass. But where I differ is in saying that the grouping of people together is not what exclusively makes the church. While what is needed in the Emergent movement, if it is to have a future, is for it to offer a new social alternative vision of the church–new ways of interacting as a group–what I am not sure is possible is the formation of some new identity apart from the identity that already exists in the church.

In other words, no new vision of the church can be given apart from the vision of the church that already exists. Breaking off and forming a “new” church is impossible in that any new forms always borrow their categories and thinking from what already exists. If all the like-minded of this new creature came together apart from the existing body of Christ, they would cut themselves off from the very resources that enable them to be church in the first place: the community of faith in a geographical place, the fellowship of the table, and most importantly, the diversity of the Spirit’s giftings that comes as a result of being grouped not according to common interests, but by a common calling.

My biggest concern with Emergent is that it will be, in the truest sense, a club–formed around something other than the Gospel that cannot be contained–and not recognize that the manifold expressions within its own camp are not a problem, but a testimony to the impossibility of founding a church around a common cause.

Just as I watch the opposite showmanship of Jeff Tweedy and his Townshend-channeling pianist, there is something common there: a desire for good music, and the combining of disparate attributes towards a common calling: to be a part of great rock n’ roll. Similarly, the church cannot survive as a club of like minds, but only like-calling, that of Jesus to those that we would not have chosen for ourselves.

Thus far in this series, the following has been accomplished, Lord willing:

1) Part One talks about the problems of multiple churches with multiple histories, albeit the same Jesus, working together in the context of a shifting culture.

2) Part Two establishes that for a cohesive movement of these different churches to work, certain conceptions of what exactly must be done have to be placed aside in favor of the realization that something must be done, humbly, and together.

3) Part Three shifts more specifically to the relationship between evangelicals and Emergent, specifically the phenomenon of younger believers heading out the back door of the evangelical movement, and finding themselves consequently without a real home. Either they stay in a foreign land, or go to the world of the nomad, without a church to call home.

Today, we sift out those things that for me, are most pressing and most my home. While Emergent proves to be a great resource, not only for interacting with like-minded peoples of all the Christian traditions, it can and will not replace the church, both because of its broad-ranging ideology and the broad spectrum of traditions that it incorporates. It holds great value as an encourager to various traditions, but cannot truly become one of its own as it exists today.

So, as one built within the evangelical tradition, but moving through it, a “progressive evangelical” as Steve terms it, the question remains as to how to build the church towards the future. It’s important to distinguish between Emergent and a church tradition, if for no other reason than our own sanity–Emergent, by nature, tries to be many things, and should be many things, and as such, cannot be one thing in particular.

Church traditions, as all constructions, are built on particularities. They are held together as particular, lived realities, that cannot be deconstructed to a general principle of religion. It’s for this reason, for example, that it’s great, for example, a baptist church to incorporate liturgical tradition, but to do so, it has to realize what it’s importing: a sense of seasons, rhythms of the church, a liturgical calendar. Disembodied practices are meaningless without the community understanding what they are truly bringing on themselves. Otherwise, we’re left with just aesthetics and nothing real underneath.

The only way for any real unity of the church to happen is for each tradition to first be honest about where it is, what its’ history is, and where it needs to go. Simply slathering something on the top will not do. Emergent provides all the resources necessary for interaction with the broader church, but for any church to move forward, it has to recognize first that it belongs to something particular, before it can appreciate the Christ that belongs to the church Universal.

Continuing in the series I’ve been doing with Steve, today brings us to the “so what”: given that the church is changing and that truth is stranger than it used to be, what are those of us sniffing the theological winds to do?

In his next post, Steve notes that the back door to the evangelical tradition is swinging open, and more and more of the young ones disenchanted with either a) the traditional evangelical politics, i.e. Republicanism or b) the traditional evangelical epistemology, i.e. foundationalism and objective knowledge, are heading for the door. Emergent thus far has served as a stopping-off point for predominantely this group. While joined more and more by Christians of other traditions, this group of former evangelicals by far dominates the background of those coming to the Emergent fold.

However, as has been noted, there are few church bodies that would identify themselves as being a part of this next movement. Still, the vast majority of people on this pilgrimage are involved in mainstream churches, leaving them with one of two options: 1) become a voice of dissent within an established church or 2) risk leaving the church altogether and be without a church body. Neither of these are truly acceptable options, it seems.

The voice of dissent option, particularly when exercised within a free church context has never been a particularly effective one. Typically, evangelical churches, while begun as a mode of prophetic witness both to the stagnant fundamentalist movement and to the world around it, have become entrenched in the same problems that befell the fundamentalists: once power is achieved and the voice is heard, what battle is there other than the one inside? With a place at the public table, the culture war has now shifted to an internal one, a closing of the ranks. One need look no further than the assault on the new translations of the NIV Bible, the SBC withdrawal from the Baptist World Alliance, and a half dozen other examples of the closing up of the theological doors, in a way that looks suspiciously like what the fundamentalists did in the 1920s.

But while being a lonely prophet is a quick way out the door, leaving of one’s own accord doesn’t hold much hope either. To go it alone, rather than be a part of an ecclesial body, is to perpetuate exactly what has gone wrong with the American church today: individualism that says we no longer need one another, but only God, when in fact, the call of God calls us to one another. Christian tradition knows nothing of a churchless believer, for the call to Christ is a call to Christ’s body.

I agree with Steve whole-heartedly: the church climate is changing for, as I see it, the better with the recognition of a lot of what Emergent has seen. And yes, the house has to be built again–but given the impossible situation of the dissenters, where does that begin? Do they break off and specifically found new bodies? Do they remain and hope to reform from within?

If history is any indicator, both will happen: you’ll have new churches and reformers. The best example is that of Erasmus and Luther, one who stayed within the Catholic church to help reform within, and one who started a new form of Christianity. Was either totally successful? Not entirely. But to be honest, the church has never been a pristine ship; she has always been a ship on the water trying to keep balance amidst a turbulent world.

But let us not repeat the same mistakes and assume that the lessons for the emerging church can only be found outside the church, or only within the established church. The church universal is on a long journey, one whose destiny is a Person and not an ideal ultimately. So long as the destination is kept correct, the resources for this new world will come, from within and without.

In Part 1, the question was raised specifically of what the future is for the ‘Emergent’ movement as far as it relates to church bodies: none can doubt the impact the movement has had for individuals within different church bodies, and to be sure, there have been a few bodies established as a result. In this post, Steve Bush lists some of the church bodies associated with the movement, but at current, the movement remains mostly individuals within various bodies and associations, like-minds within the vast matrix of church life of all stripes.

In Part 2 of his series, Steve gives a brief history of how we got to this place in the first place, of how ‘evangelicals’ got to be such, and how our situation looks suspiciously like the one of the 1940s. In Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Fear of Falling, the case is made for how a progressive group becomes a conservative group–in her case, as it relates to economic classes, but I’d argue the same is true in theological movements to some degree: once a group loses its prophetic edge socially, it’s a matter of time before the power struggles to retain footing begin.

And so, once again, we find ourselves on the brink of a new cultural shift, with many churches seeing the need to change, but not agreeing what is to be done. Most specifically, the Emergents have looked to the philosphical underpinnings of post-modernism in theology, recognizing the communal attributes of truth-telling and the gradual and mysterious ways in which Christians are formed, as opposed to the propositional ways of truth popular with the evangelicals. Both groups, Emergent and not, see the need for change, to “emerge” as it were, into the new world with the Gospel intact, but what role does a post-modern outlook need to play?

Can two churches, one with a modern understanding of truth and one with a post-modern understanding of truth, survive in the same conversation? If it is true, and I believe that is, that the Gospel is communicated by way of the community of faith as empowered by the Spirit, then it becomes essential that it be church bodies engaged in this question and not simply invididuals, and so it is how church bodies get along in this arrangement that is really at stake here.

**

For the net to be fully cast, for all groups who seek to be the future church, for Emergent to reach its full potential, I’m convinced that it may not be absolutely necessary for being post-modern to necessarily be part of what it might mean to be emergent, primarily because of what the example of my former SBC church says: they are, in some ways, dealing with a public, particularly in the rural regions, of a mindset that is not fully “post-modern”, i.e. foundationalist.

And so, for more conservative, foundationalist churches to be ‘emergent’, it would necessarily mean that they be communal, eschatalogical, etc., without necessarily having to buy into the tenets of non-foundationalist philosophy. I for one buy the non-foundationalism, but not everyone will. And for it to thrive,’Emergent’ should be, I’d say, a way of being that is not necessarily linked to be ‘progressive’ so much as it is linked to being properly ‘eschatalogical’, i.e. “humbly oriented towards the future” in its thinking and living out of Christian faith, with the recognition that emerging is an emergence of Life out of death, Light out of darkness, in many forms and in many ways.

In other words, done right, Emergent has the potential to be the ecumenical movement the church has been waiting for since the World Council of Churches began in 1910.

For the next couple of days, I’ll be blogging in concert with Steve over at Harbinger, concerning the question of what the “emerging church” is, and where it is going. It’s an interesting thing when a loose affiliation, a sense, attempts to become a cohesive force or movement. Church history is rife with examples of what happens when enough people look up, sniff the theological winds, and start moving together as a result, be it called the Reformation, the Catholic Renaesance, or the Southern Baptist Convention.

The “emerging church” exists as a loose confederation, not primarily of church bodies, but individuals throughout church bodies that are seeking to reformulate, in one way or another, how the church should interact with a changing culture. Primary among their questions is how the historic church should interact with a culture that is “post-modern” in its thinking: a culture that no longer looks primarily to propositions, but “lived truths”; a culture that sees facets of reality rather than “plain truth”. The shift taking place in culture is, in one sense, no different than the one that took place in the early 20th century when the world went from a mercantile to a mass-production economy, or when slavery was abolished–a seismic shift is happening, and the church once again has to understand what to do, and how to be.

On the other hand, what is happening in terms of people’s thinking is, in some sense, more of the same: more consumerism, more use of things and people instead of appreciation, more introspection rather than altruism. In other words, more of the same things that have always been around.

As such, the Emerging Church seeks to pioneer into this new cultural shift that is both one we’ve been living with for a while and failed to realize and one that has yet to be encountered. So, just who is the emerging church? Steve suggests three categories, which I’ll let you read here, but to those, I’ll proffer the following: what happens as three very different groups join together with a budding sense of a cultural shift is a very tricky thing. Issues like tradition, pre-concieved habits, theology–all these aspects that form our ideas about church are in no way easily lined up. An example from this weekend:

This weekend, I was in Shreveport for Easter, and went to the church I grew up in, a church that after ten years, has changed dramatically. I looked around the sanctuary and saw a few vaguely familliar faces, and shook a few old hands, but for the most part, the church was unknown to me. I had not had coffee with a staff member; I wasn’t at last month’s prayer meeting; my history of church in the last ten years had little to nothing to do with this particular body. As such, there were a number of things I disagreed with in the sermon, ranging from the fact that it was Easter and resurrection was spoken of not in terms of its effect on history, but its impact on my happiness, to his ridicule of Hindus.

Could this church, this mega-SBC church, be part of God’s future? Absolutely. Is it interested in being a part of the future of Shreveport? Yes. Does it view what that might mean very differently than Emergent? Without a doubt. The question is made clear: How do diverse, even polarized opposites in terms of church work together in the face of a changing culture?