1.7 Reflection

1.7 Reflection:

The tendency within the movement to call themselves a ‘conversation’ I have found both confusing and helpful. Confusing because a conversation can only be summarized at a certain point in time, but one will never know when this conversation will end and conclusions can be drawn. Conclusions which then can be confirmed, confronted, rebuked, accepted etc. At present many difficult questions that are asked by critics are being dodged and often the writers within the Emerging movement seem to be reluctant to move beyond the ‘conversation-stage’. This results in contradicting passages in their literature, unclear statements and an overall difficult group of people to respond to (there are always exceptions to the rule).
It’s a helpful term because the experience of studying the Emerging Church is precisely the experience of having a conversation in which different people express their opinions, respond to each other, ask questions etc. The problem is though that there are people participating in this dialogue who don’t consider themselves part of the Emerging Church, such as Carson, Colson and Driscoll. One could say that the conversation is bigger than the movement itself.
Two things about the Emerging Church movement that I have found very honorable are their honesty in doing theology (authenticity as wikipedia calls it) and their passion for mission.
Because of their honesty they are often portrayed as heretics and almost antichrist-like figures. They leave a lot of room for the mystery of faith, in fact so much, that many (modern) evangelical Christians will often feel as if they let go of ‘truth’ altogether. McLaren however says: ‘I am an amateur pastor and a hack theologian, but I care about truth.’[1] At the same time he acknowledges that ‘[w]ords of truth will not be less important, but they will be fewer and simpler and softer if they are to have power. (…) Our words will seek to be servants of mystery, not removers of it as they were in the old world.’[2] At first this seems to refer only to their approach to theology, and therefore doesn’t really apply to this thesis since it tries to deal with the practical ecclesiological rather than with the theological and philosophical side of things. I do think though that these two are firmly intertwined which I will show in chapter three.
Their concern with mission is truly admirable. Many of the emerging writers put their missiology at the core of their identity as a community. ‘The church … is by nature a missional community…the mission itself leads to the creation of an authentic community (aka the kingdom of God), in the Spirit of Jesus Christ.’[3]
Frost and Hirsch show this same passion throughout their entire book, starting with the subtitle ‘innovation and mission for the 21st Century Church’. They say:

We both believe that if we aim at ministry, we seldom get to do much mission. But if we aim at mission, we have to do ministry because ministry is the means by which mission is achieved.[4]

I think this is a very helpful correction to the practical ecclesiology of many churches. Evangelical Christians are sometimes so caught up in their relatively safe and easy church life that they loose every affinity with ‘the world out there’. By (re)introducing and prioritizing concepts like incarnation and ‘interpathy’[5] the emerging, missional church tries to put first things first again.
Something that in my view is of concern is their understanding of their place in church history.
As noted, the majority of Emerging Church leaders come from a traditional, often fundamentalist background and protests against that background.[6] That doesn’t necessarily mean that the result of this protest is wrong (in fact many good movements in history were started out of protest), it does mean that a warning is in place since the pendulum swing of an anti movement tends to swing too far to the other end and cause damage on the way. A predicament that they willingly admit (‘A problem with emphasizing deconstruction is that it can too readily result in deconstruction’[7]) and at the same time seem to accept as being inevitable: ‘Emerging churches are truly pioneering and thus a little messiness is to be expected.’[8] Frost and Hirsch even say that ‘[t]he missional church, by its very nature, will be an anticlone of the existing traditional model.’[9] In my taste this statement is far too general. There is no such things as the existing traditional model (they completely ignore the diversity within that entity) and to me it speaks of a certain arrogance to think that their model will be the exact opposite and therefore the right model. I mainly hear the words that are not being said but are most definitely implied: the ‘existing traditional model’ completely misses the point of worshipping God, of reaching the world and of being church. This arrogance I find throughout nearly all their literature and I would hope that a more balanced, humble view will be expressed in the near future.
Besides that I’ve noticed that they tend to present ideas as if they were new and theirs, whereas in actual fact many of their suggestions sound very familiar to those who read. Two examples:
The point they make against the many dualisms of modernity is nothing new. In fact a very ‘modern’ writer devotes a chapter to this exact same topic. A.W. Tozer in his book ‘the pursuit of God’ writes:
One of the greatest hindrances to internal peace which the Christian encounters is the common habit of dividing our lives into two areas – the sacred and the secular.[10]
And:
The ‘Layman’ need never think of his humbler task as being inferior to that of his minister. Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called and his work will be as sacred as the work of the ministry.[11]

Another example is Frost and Hirsch’s position in matters of leadership. For decennia we have seen groups of people advocating the apostolic ministry and the five-fold ministry. The likes of Terry Virgo in the UK[12] and Dudley Daniel starting in South Africa[13] have been writing and teaching into these areas for years.
The area in which I think the Emerging Church is unique and really stands out from everyone else is their rigorousness in reforming the church.

[1] B.D. McLaren, The Church on the Other Side p.71
[2] B.D. McLaren, The Church on the Other Side p.89
[3] B.D. McLaren, The Church on the Other Side p.36
[4] M. Frost, A. Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come p.149
[5] Interpathy: ‘A form of identification so deep that the guest/missionary has almost become one of the host tribe.’ M. Frost, A. Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come p.64
[6] Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger, in Emerging Churches have included 49 interviews with emerging church leaders and writers. A quick survey shows that 29 of them have grown up in a traditional, fundamentalist church and consider that a very negative experience. P.239-328
[7] Eddie Gibbs, Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches, p.46
[8] Eddie Gibbs, Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches, p.63
[9] M. Frost, A. Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come p.30
[10] A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, (Bletchley: Authentic Media, 2004), first published in 1948. p.85
[11] A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, pp.92-93
[12] T. Virgo, Restoration in the Church (Eastbourne: Kingsway Publications Ltd. 1985)
[13] D. Daniel, Building on Apostolic Foundations (Bryanston, SA: Every Tribe Resources, 2001)