emerging church - is it new?

I posted in a conversation today that raised the question whether there is anything new about the Emerging Church. There are people who see it as a completely new phenomenon, there are others that see it (perhaps with feelings of cynicism) as just another re-invention of Church, the same as the last one and the one before that...

I think neither of these descriptions quite hits the nail on the head. I think it's true in one sense that there is nothing new about it, but that doesn't have to be a cynical response necessarily, just an honest recognition that all the elements of Church, however they are  rediscovered or rearranged, have been explored somewhere sometime before. But at the same time, there has never been a time, a culture, a community, a family, a Church, precisely like yours, ever. Anywhere. Christianity is not just an off-the-shelf system that you buy into, but a relationship between people and god, people and people, people and themselves. Just as human beings are both completely unique and same-old, same-old, so their Churches (emerging or whatever) will be too.

I don't think there has to be an opposition of whether it's new/not new, and neither do I think it matters particularly. I think it does matter that we hold togehter both the history we've inherited (and the graciousness and humility to acknowledge it) and the freedom to live thoroughly in the present. I don't think Church works unless you hold both those two things together in some lively way.

I also am interested to see Bishop Mike musing on how much new things can emerge within existing Institutions. That's a related question to old/new, although not precisely the same. He is beginning to blog his thoughts on the subject - worth watching.

Comments

[JoC]

Hi Maggi,

Thanks for asking this question - although it would be helpful to know where this conversation is happening.

I am intrigued by the notion that the emerging could be new. I am currently listening to lectures with Brian McLAren and Steve Chalke (actually, they have just started, so I need to keep this post quite short - sorry) but their gist over the last few days has been that what is described as the emerging church is inherently part of the tradition out of which it springs.

I, I suspect like you, am unsure if the 'newness' of a movement is important - ironically, perhaps the question is 'is it true.'

I would love to know your thoughts.

[Neale]

Very helpful post, Maggi. We're trying to figure out what the emerging Church is, and this helps a lot.

[David Williamson]

Yes!

There are many Christians movements which at the time of their birth would have shared characteristics of the emerging church today, such as the Anabaptists, Quakers, Methodists and (gasp!) Plymouth Brethren.

While we can linguistically categorise different subgroups among the people of God, my hunch is that there has been a ling, changing, corrective force at work within Christianity from day one. Anything which challenges assumptions and forces the entire church to test received doctrine can only be a good thing.

Scot McKnight hit the nail on the head when he recently said that emergers are post-evangelical to the extent that post-war evangelicals were post-fundamentalist.

If I can make a shameless plug, I've been looking at this question from a Northern Irish perspective at http://davidwilliamson.blogspot.com/2007/01/six-observations-about-emerging.html.

Best wishes,

David

[Caroline]

For me the gift of the Emerging Church 'conversations' has been that it has offered me a safe space to explore the tensions between my postmodern sense of knowing being an emergent activity and my evangelical belief in a revealed truth.

I long ago handled that paradox myself but in the last few years I have found that Christians identifying themselves as Emergent, have provided me with generative, life promoting conversations.

I am grateful for that.

[Mark Bennet]

A really helpful and insightful post.

I would simply add to all the relationships, based on Jesus' commands to love, the relationship between person and enemy ...