Emergent Village

By Jay Voorhees, re-posted from Only Wonder Understands:

The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.

“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

—Genesis 12:1-3 (NIV)

The call of Abram in the book of Genesis has always fascinated me. Here was a man who was firmly established in his world, a gentleman rancher up in the north country, with no special attributes, who is suddenly and without warming yanked from his security into a different way of being. While it is certainly possible that Abram had already been a nomadic herder, the story that we have in scripture presents him as a settler, one of those who had given up being on the move to focus on the acquisition of property. And then, Yahweh comes along and says “Your blessing isn’t in being settled, but rather being on the move.”

In spending some time in the Genesis stories (as well as the rest of the Hebrew Bible) recently, I am becoming more and more convinced that an underlying theme in the story is the tension between those who would settle and those who wander, with the scriptures often seeming to suggest that wandering is the proper way of life in God’s kingdom. It is a story that sometimes pits civilization against the wilderness, and the wilderness is the place where God is most often found.

The interesting part of Abram’s story is that he is told nothing about where he is being sent, or what the future has in store for him. In fact, God seems to take special pains to be as vague as possible, asking Abram to trust in God’s provision. It is this act of trust the willingness to follow God wherever that leads with little knowledge about what is to come that is the source of Abram’s blessing. And it is a good thing, for while God allows Abram to pass through Canaan and suggests that it is the ultimate land for Abram’s tribe, he instead is sent into the desert, the wilderness of the Negev, where much of the story takes place. It is almost as if God is suggesting that one has to spend time in the wilderness before blessing can be achieved.

I think that is exactly what God is saying. I read somewhere recently the suggesting that the 40 years in the wilderness of the Hebrew people was partially about helping the “civilized” Hebrews regain an appreciation and connection with the wilderness, learning to trust again not in the power of humanity but in the power of God. And of course we all know that Jesus spent time in the wilderness prior to the beginning of his active ministry as an act of preparation for what was to come.

In thinking about this for our lives, I find myself wondering if this latest economic crisis might not be a wilderness moment for us … if we will let it be, that is. We have spent far too many years living as “civilized” people, drunk on consumption and slaves to consumerism. We have bowed to the idols of materialism, comfort, security, and control, failing to truly trust in the provision of God. We in the church have often been just as guilty as any with our long-range plans, mission statements, and our willingness to build temples to our success rather than tabernacles for the journey. We (at least in the country that I live in) are settled people who are finding ourselves being driven out of the city toward exile in Babylon, a form of wilderness living that tears at all we have built up over the years. The temples of our financial system are in ruins, and we wonder where we are headed.

Is it possible that people of faith are being called back into the wilderness, back into a way of life that is simple, where we pitch our tents and go from pasture to pasture as God leads without our demographic studies and action plans? Could it be that God wants us to experience the wilderness as a reminder that everything that we have comes from God, and that our attempts to “build wealth” apart from the bounty of creation are always doomed to fail? Do you think that it’s time for us to move away from civilization to sit around the campfire and listen for the voice of God in the gentle breeze and the crackling of the fire?

Abram had no idea where he was headed. If we are honest, neither do we.

It is in the ambiguity of God that blessings come, so that all the world might be blessed.

Photo by bopacasi

Jay Voorhees is the guitar playing pastor of the Antioch United Methodist Church in Nashville, Tennessee.

Andrew Jones is in. Thomas Turner is on board also. Bob Carlton was the first to let us know about it—and he’s organizing some exciting things locally in Austin, Texas. (Great idea, Bob!)

Will you be part of changing the conversation—to focus on poverty? Participate in Blog Action Day and post a link to your contribution (in the comments) so we can compile a list of Blog Action Day synchrobloggers. Thanks!

By Tim Keel, cross-posted from ReclaimingPaul.org:

I am really excited for the Reclaiming Paul conference (Oct. 22-24).

I am excited to interact with theologians who have made it their life’s work to interact with Paul’s writings and share with others the riches they have found there.

I love theology and think we need to have some important conversations about how we have understood the gospel and salvation and what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. I love conferences and the space that is created to meet and interact with people who I might not otherwise have the chance to know and be influenced by. I think Reclaiming Paul is going to be one such space.

But I am not excited about this conference just so I can have more theologically stimulating conversations with a group of smart people. I am not excited for this conference so that I can fill my head with some new or interesting tidbits of Pauline trivia, no matter how creative or surprising they may be.

I am excited for a different reason.

I am excited because I am a pastor and a church planter. As such, I am always on the lookout for people who can inspire me in my calling to serve Christ and his church. In this instance I am not talking about the practitioners that I know I am going to meet at the conference, though I am sure those kinds of people will be there, too. I am talking about sitting at the feet of the Apostle and growing in my understanding of how this extraordinary and yet broken man understood and related to Jesus and how that impacted everything else.

When I read Paul’s letters I am amazed by the man that is revealed there. I marvel at his willingness and passion to abandon anything that might get in the way of his knowing and serving Jesus and his people. I am struck by a person who on one hand is the paradigmatic theological egghead but on the other demonstrates an enormous capacity to incarnate the gospel for communities on the ground. Did I mention tough? Paul survived severe beatings, a stoning, three shipwrecks, and a day and night adrift at sea. Talk about a “Survivor.” And that doesn’t even account for the emotional and relational side of this man. His willingness to get into the trenches and deal with the messy pastoral realities of the people under his care in a tough, yet tender way arrests me. Mostly I am blown away by Paul’s enormous heart and the capacity that he demonstrates to both love and be loved by God and people.

I am excited and hopeful that by talking about Paul and what he believed and what he said we might be infected by the same Spirit that animated and generated such a remarkable life. I am hopeful that the power that flowed from Christ through him and into his world might in some small way empower us in our short time together to go and do likewise.

Paul wrote, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” That is what I want and I am hopeful and excited that “Reclaiming Paul” will be an opportunity to do just that.

Learn more about the Reclaiming Paul event in Kansas City, October 22-24.

Tim Keel is the founding pastor of Jacob’s Well Church in Kansas City, Missouri. Tim also serves on the board of directors for Emergent Village.

By Leon Bloder, re-posted from Presbymergent.org:

A few months ago, I wrote short essay entitled “Living In Two Worlds: Existing/Emerging Leadership.” Somehow the essay got into the hands of Eileen Lindner, an author and Presbyterian minister who offered a presentation at an Ecumenical & Interfaith Network gathering in 2007. She read from my essay (among others) as part of a presentation that she did on “Post-Denominational Identities and Emerging Ecclesiologies.” Her title was better, I must admit. I also have to admit that it was kind of nice to be noticed. Mind you, there are no literary agents pounding down my door to offer me a book deal (Seriously … Anyone know a literary agent? Anyone?), but the realization that someone responded to what I wrote and actually discussed it was gratifying.

That little essay was born out of the struggle that I was going through at the time as I began to identify more with Emergent or Missional theology and ecclesiology and sought to lead the church to which I was called accordingly. At the time, the church I was serving could be defined as containing both “emerging” and “existing” traits. On Sunday mornings the existing aspect of my church met for worship, and on Sunday evenings there was an emergent worship gathering/community that regularly met in the same space. These communities could not have been any different, but they both formed and informed one another in interesting and exciting ways. It was good to reflect on my struggle as an emerging leader in an existing church, though. Because of that time of reflection, I came to understand that in many ways I was embodying the very struggle in which my church had become engaged. My efforts to put my feelings into words was a part of that struggle—an effort to write a story that was far from complete. But there was something unsatisfying in that effort, to be honest. It felt like I (and to some extent my church as well) had come to the end of a chapter, but didn’t know how to finish the last sentence in a way that felt good and right. We had both come a long way, but not far enough.

In the end, neither one of us could put a period at the end of that sentence.

When I wrote that first essay, I knew that my time at my emerging/existing church was going to be cut short. The senior pastor of the church accepted another call, and I became the interim pastor/acting head of staff for over a year. All the while, I was also exploring other opportunities and trying to discern where God might be calling me to serve. I imagined and dreamed about the possibilities of serving a community of faith that was already part of the “emerging conversation,” a place where the word “missional” did not have to be unpacked. I dreamed of a place of diversity—in worship, in mission, in ministry, and in constituency. These dreams carried me through some fairly tough times of doubt and uncertainty, but they were my dreams, and no one else’s.

God’s dreams for the community of faith I was destined to serve were quite different from mine, as it turned out. I was called to serve an historic, traditional, established, corporate, existing congregation in a small town in Central Florida. I was called, and I knew deep in my heart that I would go as soon as I heard the invitation. When I realized that God’s dreams for me did not include any of the things I thought I wanted for myself, I grieved a little, to be honest. Further, shortly after I accepted the call to serve my historic, traditional, established church, I was contacted by three different churches who were extremely interested in calling me as their pastor. They had been the three churches who were at the top of my wish list when I was dreaming of the kind of community of faith I [selfishly] longed to serve.

As I pondered all of this and grieved a bit more over what might have been, a friend of mine told me a story from her own life. She said that her father, a Presbyterian minister, once visited the “perfect” church to determine if he was being called to serve there. Her mother loved it, she remembered. The manse was large, the church was in a beautiful mountain community in North Carolina, there were no financial worries, it was well staffed and the congregation was happy and motivated. But her father declined the church’s offer. My friend remembered him saying, “I don’t want to go somewhere that doesn’t need me, and they don’t need me.”

Then I realized that the period had just been placed at the end of that troublesome sentence.

The first pastor of my church was called 125 years ago. His name was [seriously] The Rev. Dr. James Hair Potter. You can’t make this stuff up. There is a huge Tiffany-style stained glass window in the sanctuary—a sanctuary that was dedicated in 1914. Dr. Potter’s picture is in a glass case in the parlor [complete with huge wingback chairs, coffee tables, and large oil paintings depicting deer, landscapes, etc.]. He was an austere-looking fellow with a beard that reached all the way down to his waist. Potter served my church for 20 years. I think about him sometimes when I stand by myself in the sanctuary preparing for my sermon. You can’t help but think about him, really. The stained glass in his honor is huge, beautiful, and stately. I like looking at it.

A friend of mine, who was part of the emergent worship gathering I used to lead, visited a worship service at my new church recently. As I greeted her before the service, she looked at me all decked out in my robe and colorful stole, peered at the pipe organ and all of the old wooden pews, the Potter stained glass, and said to me, “I cannot picture you in a church like this.” I considered what she said as I made my way up to the somewhat high chancel [six feet above all controversy] to begin the service. She was right. I would have never pictured myself in a church “like this” either, but God did, and I am glad that God has a more active imagination than I do.

I happen to love my new church … a lot. I understand a bit more about what God has called me to do here. You see, I’ve spent a lot of time talking and thinking about what it means to be an emergent church leader. I’ve led what people have come to call “emergent” worship services [which is really a misnomer, if you ask me], and I have had long, passionate discussions and debates with colleagues on what the Church needs to do to become more missional. And God in God’s infinite wisdom and mercy has seen fit to make me put my money where my mouth is.

This thing that has come to be known as the Emergent Church has moved from idea to reality in so many ways, but still is hard for most of us, who care about these things, to define, and even more difficult to put our arms around. I recently read that some of the pioneers of the emergent movement have broken from it because it was too all-encompassing, too ecumenical, too open and affirming of different beliefs, Biblical interpretations, blah, blah, blah [indicates my impatience and frustration]. But I see things a bit differently. I feel so strongly that in order for the Church to be shaken from her sleep she must be missional and relational, embodying what it means to be the Bride of Christ and evidence of the kingdom of God on earth.

But the Church has become fearful and anxious in recent years—fueled in large part by huge declines in membership, conflicts over theology and the interpretation of Scripture and yes, even by the emergence of new ways of understanding what it means to be the Church. Fear and anxiety [as we have seen in our own country over the past 7 years] can result in irrational behavior, acts of radical self-preservation and perhaps even destruction. Edwin Friedman prophetically wrote of these kinds of things in his book, A Failure of Nerve. Friedman stated that when good leaders dare to rise up and take a stand for what is right and healthy, our sick and anxious society does everything that it can to sabotage them. In order to be an effective leader, according to Friedman, one must become a non-anxious, reflective presence—a voice that speaks the truth, and works to help the community, culture, society become healthy enough to fight off the diseases that plague it. A leader like this requires the kind of nerve to remain steadfast where they are called, even though it would be easier to retreat, easier to find a corner of the world where everyone tends to agree, speaks the same language … understands what it means to be missional.

Theologian Wesley Carr once wrote that the Church needs to be formed and informed by the Spirit of God that is calling to it not only from the past, but the future. For me, helping my congregation truly see this is an epistemological task. I know beyond any doubt that I have been called to my historic, traditional, historic church to journey with them as they emerge from their past and move toward a new and uncertain future. I desire so fervently that my church will begin to see itself differently, will understand what it means to be the Church, the very hands and feet of Christ in the world. I pray that this desire, this call, will not be weakened by my own fear and anxiety. I pray that I will have the strength to stand and to speak the truth in love. I pray that this emerging leader will be able to carefully guide this existing church. I pray that I will be a good and loving pastor. I pray.

Photo by Kurt Collins

Leon Bloder is Senior Pastor of The First Presbyterian Church of Eustis in Eustis, FL. He is a self-described “emergent” leader in an “existing” church.

By Chris Keller, re-posted from The Other Journal:

A few years ago my friend and creative director for The Other Journal, in what seemed almost an accident, contacted Human Rights Watch and asked if anyone was hosting their traveling film festival for Seattle. Before we knew it, we had reserved the rights to host the Human Rights Watch Traveling Film Festival in Seattle, a film festival which features award-winning films looking at current issues of human rights and social justice.

Because The Other Journal is a theology and culture publication, we began to wonder about what we could do with the films. What, we asked, connections between these films and theology could be and should be made?

After deliberations with the editors and creative team at The Other Journal, we landed on the concept which is now Film, Faith, and Justice. These films, we hypothesized, would present an excellent opportunity to engage the theology of social justice, through the powerful medium of film and keynote lectures and discussion panels, we hoped this would prove a fertile nexus for debate and education around religion and social justice.

The first year we hosted the event (Spring of 2006), we held it at a local Christian liberal arts school, Seattle Pacific University. At this event we heard from speakers Dan Bell, Steve Long, and Pam Cochran, and dialogued about topics such as Capitalism and Christianity, Womenist Theology and Justice, and what would a Theology of Democracy look like.

Our second year (Spring of 2007) we moved the event to the University of Washington and hosted speakers Shane Claiborne, Dwight Hopkins, William Cavanaugh, and young theologian and activist Rachel McGuire. We discussed issues of Race, Economics, Religion and Violence, Immigration, and what activism looks like for young radicals.

Film, Faith, and Justice 2008

This year we have moved the event to the fall, we have an excellent line-up of speakers and films, and our time calls for deep engagement in issues that we will address such as poverty, patriotism and faith, the myth of redemptive violence, and violent constructions of race. Our excellent speakers for this year are: Chris Heuertz of Word Made Flesh, Eugene McCarraher of Villanova University, Rita Brock who is the Co-Director of Faith Voices for the Common Good, and J. Kameron Carter of Duke Divinity School.

Our venue this year, Mars Hill Graduate School, will be a bit more intimate but should be an excellent place for film buffs, activists, members of Seattle’s faith communities, and those in the academy can gather to witness impactful films and challenging speakers. We shifted a bit more toward a conference setting this year.

All this to say, in my biased and unashamed way, I think FFJ08 will be an excellent conference for the Seattle community. Conferences, I admit, are hit or miss, but where I think FFJ does a good job is to invite attendees to practical engagements with these issues, whether it is signing up to help host a refugee family, committing to better buying practices, or donating time to local efforts to raise money for relief efforts across the globe.

These films and excellent speakers will bring a challenge to move more fully into praxis—faith and theology in action.

To read more about the films and the schedule of the event, go to www.filmfaithandjustice.com.

Chris Keller is the Editor-in-Chief of The Other Journal and the Executive Director of Film, Faith, and Justice. He is a practicum instructor at Mars Hill Graduate School.

By Steve Knight:

Here are links mentioned in this week’s blogcast:

5 Things We Got Right in the Emerging Missional Church by Jonathan Brink

5 Things We Got Wrong in the Emerging Missional Church by Mark Sayers (Australia)

2 More Things We Got Wrong by Andrew Jones

Tony Jones Reports from Australia

Blogologue Part 5: Wrapping Things Up

Point: The Emerging Church – A Book Review by Jonathan Brink

Counterpoint: The Emerging Church – Another Perspective by Tripp Fuller

Emergent Theological Conference: Reclaiming Paul: The Apostle in the Emerging World, Oct. 22-24, in Kansas City

Living Theology: At the Beginning by Daniel Harrell, an exclusive excerpt from his new book Nature’s Witness: How Evolution Can Inspire Faith

Your Feedback Is Requested: Interesting Question … from Brian McLaren

Shameless Plug: Emergent Southeast Regional Gathering, Oct. 31-Nov. 2, in Birmingham, Alabama — join us for a fun, free barcamp-style weekend of friendship-building, dreaming, and conspiring together!

Sorry, I missed this golden opportunity (in Blogcast 007) to do some kind of James Bond theme! Please leave your most ingenious James Bond-inspired thoughts in the comments …

Steve Knight is local organizer for the Charlotte Emergent Cohort and a member of the Coordinating Group for Emergent Village.

By Brian McLaren, cross-posted from BrianMcLaren.net:

I just received this email from a chaplain …

I am a chaplain in a minimum security prison for women, and I am looking for good Bible study materials that would support the “New Kind of Christian.” I have one inmate in particular who was reared by parents who were atheists, and Brian McLaren’s books are having a tremendous influence on her life as she is coming to a new-found faith. Most Bible study material, particularly anything that is free to inmates, is definitely not of a “generous orthodoxy”!

Two things struck me as I thought about this question: First, I’ve been noticing more than ever how many chaplains are “ahead of the curve” in dealing with the “great emergence” we’re part of. Many (not all!) pastors, professors, and denominational officials can stay in their comfortable echo chambers in a way that chaplains can’t — whether they’re serving in hospitals, prisons, universities, retirement centers, or elsewhere.

Second, whether it’s for adult Bible study or kids and youth curriculum, we need some creative people to generate “a new kind of curriculum” to help folks.

A number of questions come to mind — what’s unhelpful about existing curricula? what heuristic changes are needed? and what content innovations are needed so the Bible can be liberated from the modernist, colonialist, chauvinist, individualist, etc. etc. biases under which it is often held captive?

Editor’s Note: Does anyone have any suggestions for resources that are currently available or that may be in the works that would fulfill some of this need for a “new kind of curriculum”? Please share resources/links in the comments!

Or if you have similar concerns/needs for Bible study material, would you be willing to share your hopes with us? Please share thoughts/ideas/questions in the comments!

Brian D. McLaren is an author, speaker, pastor, and networker among innovative Christian leaders, thinkers, and activists.

By Greg Newton:

In an earlier post I asserted that recognizing injustice is often much easier than learning to act justly. However, is all injustice easy to identify? Not necessarily, and one reason is the influence of our own perspective—social, cultural, and experiential.

Certain types of injustice are obvious. Rape is a hideous evil. Such instances of unjust action are obvious to everyone except sociopaths. Even when a specific culture promotes an injustice as culturally acceptable, there are usually some within that society who see the systemic problem.

When a person or group is deliberately and methodically mistreated, I would definitely call that unjust. Where I have to be cautious is in how I understand what constitutes mistreatment.

My view of what is unjust is tied to my worldview, itself the product of my cultural background, social expectations, and personal experiences. For instance, if I hear that a child in my neighborhood dies from the flu, I would feel that an injustice has occurred. Why wasn’t adequate treatment given? Surely some neglect has occurred. Children should not die from the flu.

I would not feel the same if my child dies of leukemia. The difference has to do with expectations that are tied to my society and experience. I understand that children who have leukemia sometimes die, but I do not expect any child to die from the flu in my neighborhood.

However, let’s suppose in another society leukemia is always treatable. Won’t those people look at my circumstances and declare that I am the victim of injustice, when I myself do not think so? They might want to rid my society of the injustice of people dying from leukemia, while we may in fact have much more pressing injustices to address.

As we look at the circumstances of others further from our own cultural and social experience, we need to listen first to what they consider to be the injustices of their situation and be slow to declare on their behalf what is unjust. Paternalism can be itself a type of injustice because it treats others as inherently less capable than ourselves even while claiming to help them.

There is an inverse relationship between cultural distance and our ability to see what is unjust. This cultural distance is increasingly present in our own neighborhoods. As I asserted in my earlier post, humility is so very important, not only in seeking to do what is just, but also in declaring what is unjust. In either case, we may perpetrate the very evil we are trying to root out, unless we seek to work incarnationally, which usually means listening first.

Greg Newton and his wife, Marsha, have two children. They were missionaries in Tanzania among the Sukuma people, and now minister with Disciples’ Fellowship in Birmingham, AL.

By Tony Jones:

Tony Jones is the national coordinator for Emergent Village. He is the author of a number of books, including The New Christians.

By Daniel Harrell, this is the introduction to the new book Nature’s Witness: How Evolution Can Inspire Faith, posted here by permission of Abingdon Press:

Walking across the Boston Common one cold winter’s eve, I was approached by a gentleman, somewhat agitated, who recognized me from church.

“Are you the minister who’s writing the book on evolution?”

This didn’t sound good. “Uh, ... yes?” I replied, bracing myself.

“Do you believe in the word of God? Do you believe that God created the heavens and the earth in six days, like the Bible says?” His articulation was semiautomatic—as was his tone.

I assured him that yes, I believed the Bible says that God created the heavens and the earth in six days. I also believe that rivers clap their hands and that mountains sing (Ps 98:9) because the Bible says that too. But I don’t think that the Bible means six twenty-four-hour days any more than I believe that the Bible means that rivers have literal hands.

He worried that I suffered from delusion (which as far as I am concerned is never outside the realm of possibility). However, I reminded him that there are two types of delusion. There is the delusion that believes something that is not true, and there is the delusion that fails to believe something that is true. If evolution is an accurate description of the emergence of life, as science attests, then believing it alongside the Bible should pose no threat. There’s no need to fear any honest search for truth because in the end, all honest searches for truth inevitably lead back to God.

Historically, religious faith, particularly Christianity, served as the loom onto which the discoveries of science were woven. It was within a Christian theological framework that scientific disclosure found its transcendent meaning. Descartes, Bacon, Galileo, Kepler and Newton, believers all, saw their work not as replacements for faith, but as extensions of it. The idea was that the best of science and the best of theology concerted to give human beings deeper insight into the workings of the universe and, subsequently, into the divine character. Scientific discovery was received with gratitude to the Almighty for the wonder of his creation. Scientists, alongside the psalmist, would proclaim, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Ps 19:1 NIV).

The balance between faith and science (or reason) was established in the Middle Ages by Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas, building on Augustine, established a delicate equilibrium between theology (reasoning down from faith) and philosophy, analogous to science (reasoning up from sensory data). Aquinas, unlike the Reformers who would follow, taught that human senses and rational faculties, as made by God, were competent for understanding reality, albeit from a limited standpoint. The limits were filled in by theology. Aquinas asserted that God acted through “secondary causes,” creating the world according to his laws and then giving nature room to unfold in accordance with God’s laws. Whatever was good science was good as far as God is concerned; science simply described what God had already done.

However, if God operated mostly behind the scenes as the prime cause, then it wasn’t long before people started wondering whether he was there at all. In time, reliance upon divine revelation gave way to human reason in its Enlightenment form, and soon the supernatural was rendered superfluous. As science advanced, Christians reacted by retreating into a sort of Manichean dualism whereby science was demonized and faith grew reliant on a super-supernatural world where any ordinary explanation raised suspicion. With battle lines so starkly drawn, scientists were left to assume that any move toward Christian faith was akin to committing intellectual suicide. Conversely, the faithful relied on science for their medicine or the weather forecast, but much more than that was to attempt spiritual suicide. Let a spark of evolution in the door and you were liable to catch the whole house on fire.

The controversy between Christian faith and evolution is exacerbated by increasing mounds of scientific data that lend weight to evolution. Paleontology, biochemistry, cosmology, physics, genetics—you name the discipline—each regularly puts forth newly discovered evidence in support of Darwin’s simple idea of descent with modification. While some people of faith choose to keep their doors closed, shutting out science is not necessary. Christian faith by definition defies human conceptions of reality (1 Cor 3:19). Its claims are grounded in extraordinary events that defy scientific explanation (most importantly the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus). But God is not only present where science is silent; he remains present even where science speaks loudest. The expansiveness of the universe, the beauty and complexity of organic life and the remarkable makeup of human consciousness—naturally explicable occurrences—are also interpreted by Christians as manifestations of God (Rom 1:20). Christianity consistently asserts that all truth is God’s truth, implying that faith and science, despite differences when it comes to explaining why, nevertheless should agree in regard to what is. Why bother talking about God if God has no relation to observable reality?

An avalanche of books has been devoted to the controversy between Christianity and evolution. Don’t expect a contribution to that debate here. There are plenty of other places where that conversation occurs. Instead, I’d like to look at Christian faith in the face of evolution as essentially true as most scientists assert. Now I know that just because a particular theory makes sense of the way something could have happened, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it actually happened that way. But if evolution truly provides an accurate description of life on earth, and things did happen the way evolution describes, how might we rethink the way we think about what the Bible says? To rethink what we think about the Bible is not to rewrite Scripture, nor is it to capitulate to Christianity’s detractors. Instead, rethinking and reworking our theology in light of accurate data results in a more dependable and resilient theology. To be a serious Christian is to seek truth and find it as revealed by God both in Scripture and in nature. If God is the maker of heaven and earth, as we believe, then the heavens and earth, as science describes them, have something to say about God. Natural selection need not imply godless selection. To be reliable witnesses of creation can’t help but make us more reliable witnesses to the Creator.

Daniel M. Harrell is a pastor at Park Street Church in Boston and holds a PhD in developmental psychology from Boston College.

By Daniel Harrell, this is the introduction to the new book Nature’s Witness: How Evolution Can Inspire Faith, posted here by permission of Abingdon Press:

Walking across the Boston Common one cold winter???s eve, I was approached by a gentleman, somewhat agitated, who recognized me from church.

???Are you the minister who???s writing the book on evolution????

This didn???t sound good. ???Uh, ... yes???? I replied, bracing myself.

???Do you believe in the word of God? Do you believe that God created the heavens and the earth in six days, like the Bible says???? His articulation was semiautomatic???as was his tone.

I assured him that yes, I believed the Bible says that God created the heavens and the earth in six days. I also believe that rivers clap their hands and that mountains sing (Ps 98:9) because the Bible says that too. But I don???t think that the Bible means six twenty-four-hour days any more than I believe that the Bible means that rivers have literal hands.

He worried that I suffered from delusion (which as far as I am concerned is never outside the realm of possibility). However, I reminded him that there are two types of delusion. There is the delusion that believes something that is not true, and there is the delusion that fails to believe something that is true. If evolution is an accurate description of the emergence of life, as science attests, then believing it alongside the Bible should pose no threat. There???s no need to fear any honest search for truth because in the end, all honest searches for truth inevitably lead back to God.

Historically, religious faith, particularly Christianity, served as the loom onto which the discoveries of science were woven. It was within a Christian theological framework that scientific disclosure found its transcendent meaning. Descartes, Bacon, Galileo, Kepler and Newton, believers all, saw their work not as replacements for faith, but as extensions of it. The idea was that the best of science and the best of theology concerted to give human beings deeper insight into the workings of the universe and, subsequently, into the divine character. Scientific discovery was received with gratitude to the Almighty for the wonder of his creation. Scientists, alongside the psalmist, would proclaim, ???The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands??? (Ps 19:1 NIV).

The balance between faith and science (or reason) was established in the Middle Ages by Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas, building on Augustine, established a delicate equilibrium between theology (reasoning down from faith) and philosophy, analogous to science (reasoning up from sensory data). Aquinas, unlike the Reformers who would follow, taught that human senses and rational faculties, as made by God, were competent for understanding reality, albeit from a limited standpoint. The limits were filled in by theology. Aquinas asserted that God acted through ???secondary causes,??? creating the world according to his laws and then giving nature room to unfold in accordance with God???s laws. Whatever was good science was good as far as God is concerned; science simply described what God had already done.

However, if God operated mostly behind the scenes as the prime cause, then it wasn???t long before people started wondering whether he was there at all. In time, reliance upon divine revelation gave way to human reason in its Enlightenment form, and soon the supernatural was rendered superfluous. As science advanced, Christians reacted by retreating into a sort of Manichean dualism whereby science was demonized and faith grew reliant on a super-supernatural world where any ordinary explanation raised suspicion. With battle lines so starkly drawn, scientists were left to assume that any move toward Christian faith was akin to committing intellectual suicide. Conversely, the faithful relied on science for their medicine or the weather forecast, but much more than that was to attempt spiritual suicide. Let a spark of evolution in the door and you were liable to catch the whole house on fire.

The controversy between Christian faith and evolution is exacerbated by increasing mounds of scientific data that lend weight to evolution. Paleontology, biochemistry, cosmology, physics, genetics???you name the discipline???each regularly puts forth newly discovered evidence in support of Darwin???s simple idea of descent with modification. While some people of faith choose to keep their doors closed, shutting out science is not necessary. Christian faith by definition defies human conceptions of reality (1 Cor 3:19). Its claims are grounded in extraordinary events that defy scientific explanation (most importantly the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus). But God is not only present where science is silent; he remains present even where science speaks loudest. The expansiveness of the universe, the beauty and complexity of organic life and the remarkable makeup of human consciousness—naturally explicable occurrences—are also interpreted by Christians as manifestations of God (Rom 1:20). Christianity consistently asserts that all truth is God???s truth, implying that faith and science, despite differences when it comes to explaining why, nevertheless should agree in regard to what is. Why bother talking about God if God has no relation to observable reality?

An avalanche of books has been devoted to the controversy between Christianity and evolution. Don???t expect a contribution to that debate here. There are plenty of other places where that conversation occurs. Instead, I???d like to look at Christian faith in the face of evolution as essentially true as most scientists assert. Now I know that just because a particular theory makes sense of the way something could have happened, it doesn???t necessarily mean that it actually happened that way. But if evolution truly provides an accurate description of life on earth, and things did happen the way evolution describes, how might we rethink the way we think about what the Bible says? To rethink what we think about the Bible is not to rewrite Scripture, nor is it to capitulate to Christianity???s detractors. Instead, rethinking and reworking our theology in light of accurate data results in a more dependable and resilient theology. To be a serious Christian is to seek truth and find it as revealed by God both in Scripture and in nature. If God is the maker of heaven and earth, as we believe, then the heavens and earth, as science describes them, have something to say about God. Natural selection need not imply godless selection. To be reliable witnesses of creation can???t help but make us more reliable witnesses to the Creator.

Daniel M. Harrell is a pastor at Park Street Church in Boston and holds a PhD in developmental psychology from Boston College.

By Tripp Fuller:

Bruce Sanguin’s newest book The Emerging Church: A Model for Change & a Map for Renewal was fun to read. I read a lot of books, but very few ministry books do I actually get all the way through before I quit to read dead German theologians. The other two are Ed Friedman’s Generation to Generation and Tom Long’s The Witness of Preaching. Before I go on to tell you why I dug this book, let me tell what the book is not: It is not a summary of the “Emerging Church Movement” or even written for the post-evangelical majority of the movement. It is also not a handbook for a minister who wants to score Emergent cool-points without putting in much effort. It is also not a book for someone who needs theological congruency in order to learn from a fellow minister about navigating congregational transformation.

That aside let me tell you why I enjoyed this book so much and what you can expect to find should you read it (which I hope you do):

1. Bruce is a minister and open about his experiences. I get irritated with most ministry books because they are either by professors at seminaries who last served in a church before Carter was in the White House or they are currently ministers who make themselves (and more often their churches) sound like a little piece of heaven. Bruce doesn’t do that, and his openness about the difficulties he has gone through made me trust him enough to listen.

2. Bruce takes his theology seriously enough for it to impact how he approaches ministry. Regardless of your assessment of his theology, it is always nice to read about a minister who actually lets his theology shape how the congregation makes decisions, how power is used, how leadership leads, how spiritual formation takes place, and more. Doug Pagitt does this well in Church ReImagined, and Bruce does it here as he invested over a decade facilitating a Spirit-led transformation of a progressive mainline congregation.

3. Bruce actually uses emergence (the scientific theory) and applies it to congregational life. The Emerging Church Movement got its name from a previously developed theory, and Bruce returns to the theory and then moves to discussing the church. If new life emerges in the world through this pattern, then we should look for things to emerge in similar conditions and patterns in our congregations.

4. Bruce effectively introduces spiral dynamics into congregational thinking. If you don’t know about spiral dynamics then you probably haven’t been thinking someone should have done this already, but if you have, I think Bruce does a good job and mentions in the podcast doing more writing in this area. If you are interested, check out Ken Wilber’s A Brief Theory of Everything.

5. Bruce equips the reader for facilitating Spirit-filled community transformation. The second half of the book, after he spells out his theological vision of ministry, is really accessible to any minister who wants to hear how Bruce took the best out there in community development, transformation, and leadership and implemented it in a congregation.

I could think of a number of other reasons to read this book, but most of them I talk to him about in this week’s Homebrewed Christianity podcast, so do yourself a favor and listen to it.

Related: The Emerging Church – A Book Review by Jonathan Brink

Tripp Fuller is a Baptimergent, tag-team minister with his wife Alecia, proud father of Elgin, PhD student at Claremont, and co-host of Homebrewed Christianity.

By Jonathan Brink, re-posted from Missio Dei:

It would be easy to read the title of this book and think I would automatically recommend it. But you would be wrong.

The Emerging Church by Bruce Sanguin was sent to me to review. I picked it up hoping it might provide some fresh insight into the emerging church conversation. It did not. It delves into the nature of “emergence” and applies it to the church.

Sanguin makes it very clear that he is influenced by Dominic Crosson and Marcus Borg. I have nothing against them per se but their approach to Scripture is deeply influenced by a scientific standpoint that does not accept miracles or anything that breaks the laws of science, thus rendering certain parts of the Scripture narrative obsolete. This divide is very clear in Sanguin’s defense of an evolutionary perspective on “emergence” (which is a scientific principle) that only made me more confused.

Sanguin’s desire and focus from what I could tell was good. But I kept feeling he and I came from entirely different paradigms. Sanguin even begins the book by creating a distinction between the “so called Emergent church movement” or earlier paradigm/church, and his, which he calls an “emerging paradigm/church”. What was funny was hearing that the emergent church is considered old school already.

I have to admit I kept thinking I don’t know anyone (which doesn’t mean they don’t exist) who begins with Sanguin’s foundation. Yet I could imagine people reading it and easily assuming that this book is what the emerging church movement represents and immediately disregarding it, which is sad.

If you can get past this concern, Sanguin does offer some keen insights on the nature of emergence, which is a scientific process of organization. He considers that nature of chaos and living in the tension which I appreciated. He also shares some insights on the idea of mission and vision that I resonated with. He also offers some interesting dialog on color-coding the human value systems in history, but at the same time he offers them in an evolutionary framework. Sanguin does reveal his Jesus Seminar influence here.

But then Sanguin offers an interpretation model of the Christ figure based on these color codings. In other words, our view of Christ is deeply influenced by our values. I get this, but kept wondering what his view of Christ was and he did not define it. I also realized that it would be easy to have a green/orange/red view, which would throw a whole new wrench in the works. But more importantly I kept looking for my image of Jesus, and couldn’t find it. There was no color for a Jesus who is the true humanity or a true image of the Father.

Sanguin makes it clear that he embraces and supports multiple worldviews. His centre holds multi-faith experiences. And it is here that his book will confuse a lot of people. He delves fairly deeply into the nature of the universe as an energy field. This is a deeply interesting scientific conversation but will make a lot of people squirm, wondering when they crossed into a new age world.

I have to say this book was one of the more interesting books to read in a long time—not because of the content, but because it felt like a carnival ride. He would say something really interesting and then something that I knew would make people cringe. And maybe I read it to0 closely to the chest, wondering how many people would assume this is what I believed. Oh well.

Jonathan Brink is Managing Director of Thrive Ministries, a missional discipleship agency. He lives in California with his wife and three kids.

By Tripp Fuller:

Bruce Sanguin’s newest book The Emerging Church: A Model for Change & a Map for Renewal was fun to read. I read a lot of books, but very few ministry books do I actually get all the way through before I quit to read dead German theologians. The other two are Ed Friedman’s Generation to Generation and Tom Long’s The Witness of Preaching. Before I go on to tell you why I dug this book, let me tell what the book is not: It is not a summary of the “Emerging Church Movement” or even written for the post-evangelical majority of the movement. It is also not a handbook for a minister who wants to score Emergent cool-points without putting in much effort. It is also not a book for someone who needs theological congruency in order to learn from a fellow minister about navigating congregational transformation.

That aside let me tell you why I enjoyed this book so much and what you can expect to find should you read it (which I hope you do):

1. Bruce is a minister and open about his experiences. I get irritated with most ministry books because they are either by professors at seminaries who last served in a church before Carter was in the White House or they are currently ministers who make themselves (and more often their churches) sound like a little piece of heaven. Bruce doesn’t do that, and his openness about the difficulties he has gone through made me trust him enough to listen.

2. Bruce takes his theology seriously enough for it to impact how he approaches ministry. Regardless of your assessment of his theology, it is always nice to read about a minister who actually lets his theology shape how the congregation makes decisions, how power is used, how leadership leads, how spiritual formation takes place, and more. Doug Pagitt does this well in Church ReImagined, and Bruce does it here as he invested over a decade facilitating a Spirit-led transformation of a progressive mainline congregation.

3. Bruce actually uses emergence (the scientific theory) and applies it to congregational life. The Emerging Church Movement got its name from a previously developed theory, and Bruce returns to the theory and then moves to discussing the church. If new life emerges in the world through this pattern, then we should look for things to emerge in similar conditions and patterns in our congregations.

4. Bruce effectively introduces spiral dynamics into congregational thinking. If you don’t know about spiral dynamics then you probably haven’t been thinking someone should have done this already, but if you have, I think Bruce does a good job and mentions in the podcast doing more writing in this area. If you are interested, check out Ken Wilber’s A Brief Theory of Everything.

5. Bruce equips the reader for facilitating Spirit-filled community transformation. The second half of the book, after he spells out his theological vision of ministry, is really accessible to any minister who wants to hear how Bruce took the best out there in community development, transformation, and leadership and implemented it in a congregation.

I could think of a number of other reasons to read this book, but most of them I talk to him about in this week’s Homebrewed Christianity podcast, so do yourself a favor and listen to it.

Related: The Emerging Church – A Book Review by Jonathan Brink

Tripp Fuller is a Baptimergent, tag-team minister with his wife Alecia, proud father of Elgin, PhD student at Claremont, and co-host of Homebrewed Christianity.

By Mike Gorman, re-posted from ReclaimingPaul.org:

There has been a lot of discussion on this blog about the question, “What are we reclaiming Paul from?” It seems to me that there are several important answers to that query, but for now I want to focus on just one (though I think it has wide-ranging implications)—reclaiming Paul from the private sphere.

In much interpretation of Paul there has been a very strong, and sometimes nearly exclusive, emphasis on Paul’s message as one of individual justification or salvation or union with Christ. This privatization of Paul misses at least three key elements of his theology and spirituality.

First, Paul’s understanding of justification is incredibly communal and relational. I am not primarily referring to the argument of the “new perspective” that justification is fundamentally about the inclusion of Gentiles, as Gentiles, in the people of God. Rather, the very idea of justification or salvation in Paul depends on a notion of sin that means breaking covenant with others, as well as with God. The covenantal dysfunctionality described, for example, in Romans 1:18-3:20, involves the breakdown of human relationships as well as direct rebellion against God per se. If justification does not renew and restore human relationships, it does not address the human condition as Paul perceives it. This project of restoration and renewal includes, for Paul, the cessation of violence toward others—the undoing of the human condition reflected in texts like Romans 3:15-17: “‘Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known.’” Few interpreters of Paul have drawn sufficient attention to this aspect of Paul’s theology.

Second, and in a similar vein, when Paul describes new life in Christ, or the fruit of the Sprit, this too is communal and relational. For example, when Paul in Galatians 5 contrasts the “works of the flesh” with the “fruit if the Spirit,” he makes it clear that Spirit-filled living is not merely a matter of personal piety but an ongoing project of reconciliation.

Finally, Paul’s spirituality is thoroughly political. It is about being a new entity (the body of Christ) taking up public space. Nearly every key item in his theological lexicon is a political word, from justification/justice to peace to Lord to ekklesia to parousia.

In the spirit of Paul, we want above all to move forward, not look backward (Philippians 3:13-14), but to do so faithfully requires some reclaiming, and that includes the de-privatization of the apostle.

Mike Gorman is Professor of Sacred Scripture at the Ecumenical Institute of Theology of St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, Maryland.

By Jonathan Brink, re-posted from Missio Dei:

It would be easy to read the title of this book and think I would automatically recommend it. But you would be wrong.

The Emerging Church by Bruce Sanguin was sent to me to review. I picked it up hoping it might provide some fresh insight into the emerging church conversation. It did not. It delves into the nature of ???emergence??? and applies it to the church.

Sanguin makes it very clear that he is influenced by Dominic Crosson and Marcus Borg. I have nothing against them per se but their approach to Scripture is deeply influenced by a scientific standpoint that does not accept miracles or anything that breaks the laws of science, thus rendering certain parts of the Scripture narrative obsolete. This divide is very clear in Sanguin???s defense of an evolutionary perspective on ???emergence??? (which is a scientific principle) that only made me more confused.

Sanguin???s desire and focus from what I could tell was good. But I kept feeling he and I came from entirely different paradigms. Sanguin even begins the book by creating a distinction between the ???so called Emergent church movement??? or earlier paradigm/church, and his, which he calls an ???emerging paradigm/church???. What was funny was hearing that the emergent church is considered old school already.

I have to admit I kept thinking I don???t know anyone (which doesn???t mean they don???t exist) who begins with Sanguin???s foundation. Yet I could imagine people reading it and easily assuming that this book is what the emerging church movement represents and immediately disregarding it, which is sad.

If you can get past this concern, Sanguin does offer some keen insights on the nature of emergence, which is a scientific process of organization. He considers that nature of chaos and living in the tension which I appreciated. He also shares some insights on the idea of mission and vision that I resonated with. He also offers some interesting dialog on color-coding the human value systems in history, but at the same time he offers them in an evolutionary framework. Sanguin does reveal his Jesus Seminar influence here.

But then Sanguin offers an interpretation model of the Christ figure based on these color codings. In other words, our view of Christ is deeply influenced by our values. I get this, but kept wondering what his view of Christ was and he did not define it. I also realized that it would be easy to have a green/orange/red view, which would throw a whole new wrench in the works. But more importantly I kept looking for my image of Jesus, and couldn???t find it. There was no color for a Jesus who is the true humanity or a true image of the Father.

Sanguin makes it clear that he embraces and supports multiple worldviews. His centre holds multi-faith experiences. And it is here that his book will confuse a lot of people. He delves fairly deeply into the nature of the universe as an energy field. This is a deeply interesting scientific conversation but will make a lot of people squirm, wondering when they crossed into a new age world.

I have to say this book was one of the more interesting books to read in a long time—not because of the content, but because it felt like a carnival ride. He would say something really interesting and then something that I knew would make people cringe. And maybe I read it to0 closely to the chest, wondering how many people would assume this is what I believed. Oh well.

Jonathan Brink is Managing Director of Thrive Ministries, a missional discipleship agency. He lives in California with his wife and three kids.

By Thomas Turner, re-posted from Everyday Liturgy:

New Year, we rejoice, each day.

New Year, New Day, New Creation.

Does not God make the world new
At the dawning of the sun
And the rising of the sun?

Hear O leaves that will soon wither
And die, you will rise again!

Hear O animals of the forest as
You prepare for long winter’s sleep,
You will rise again.

Hear O Man, who lays his head
To sleep at night, and Woman
Who feels the power of procreation:
We create light out of darkness
We are bearers of the Light,
Our purposes are cities on a hill
Flickering hope to the darkness:

A hope that each day is

New Year, New Day, New Creation

Rosh Hashanah is commonly known as the Jewish New Year.

Editor’s Note: Today marks a rare convergence, which will not occur again for about 30 years—the Jewish New Year (5769, on the Jewish calendar) begins with Rosh Hashanah and the Islamic holy month of Ramadan comes to a close, marked by one of the two Eids on the Islamic calendar (Eid ul-Fitr). So I want to say Shana Tova! Eid Mubarak! Blessings and Peace from God to our Jewish and Muslim friends.

Thomas Turner is the cohort leader of EmergentNJ. He is also on the ministry team at The Plant, a community cultivating love, truth, and compassion in Allendale, New Jersey.

By Mike Gorman, re-posted from ReclaimingPaul.org:

There has been a lot of discussion on this blog about the question, ???What are we reclaiming Paul from???? It seems to me that there are several important answers to that query, but for now I want to focus on just one (though I think it has wide-ranging implications)???reclaiming Paul from the private sphere.

In much interpretation of Paul there has been a very strong, and sometimes nearly exclusive, emphasis on Paul???s message as one of individual justification or salvation or union with Christ. This privatization of Paul misses at least three key elements of his theology and spirituality.

First, Paul???s understanding of justification is incredibly communal and relational. I am not primarily referring to the argument of the ???new perspective??? that justification is fundamentally about the inclusion of Gentiles, as Gentiles, in the people of God. Rather, the very idea of justification or salvation in Paul depends on a notion of sin that means breaking covenant with others, as well as with God. The covenantal dysfunctionality described, for example, in Romans 1:18-3:20, involves the breakdown of human relationships as well as direct rebellion against God per se. If justification does not renew and restore human relationships, it does not address the human condition as Paul perceives it. This project of restoration and renewal includes, for Paul, the cessation of violence toward others???the undoing of the human condition reflected in texts like Romans 3:15-17: ??????Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known.?????? Few interpreters of Paul have drawn sufficient attention to this aspect of Paul???s theology.

Second, and in a similar vein, when Paul describes new life in Christ, or the fruit of the Sprit, this too is communal and relational. For example, when Paul in Galatians 5 contrasts the ???works of the flesh??? with the ???fruit if the Spirit,??? he makes it clear that Spirit-filled living is not merely a matter of personal piety but an ongoing project of reconciliation.

Finally, Paul???s spirituality is thoroughly political. It is about being a new entity (the body of Christ) taking up public space. Nearly every key item in his theological lexicon is a political word, from justification/justice to peace to Lord to ekklesia to parousia.

In the spirit of Paul, we want above all to move forward, not look backward (Philippians 3:13-14), but to do so faithfully requires some reclaiming, and that includes the de-privatization of the apostle.

Mike Gorman is Professor of Sacred Scripture at the Ecumenical Institute of Theology of St. Mary???s Seminary and University in Baltimore, Maryland.

By Thomas Turner, re-posted from Everyday Liturgy:

New Year, we rejoice, each day.

New Year, New Day, New Creation.

Does not God make the world new
At the dawning of the sun
And the rising of the sun?

Hear O leaves that will soon wither
And die, you will rise again!

Hear O animals of the forest as
You prepare for long winter’s sleep,
You will rise again.

Hear O Man, who lays his head
To sleep at night, and Woman
Who feels the power of procreation:
We create light out of darkness
We are bearers of the Light,
Our purposes are cities on a hill
Flickering hope to the darkness:

A hope that each day is

New Year, New Day, New Creation

Rosh Hashanah is commonly known as the Jewish New Year.

Editor’s Note: Today marks a rare convergence, which will not occur again for about 30 years—the Jewish New Year (5769, on the Jewish calendar) begins with Rosh Hashanah and the Islamic holy month of Ramadan comes to a close, marked by one of the two Eids on the Islamic calendar (Eid ul-Fitr). So I want to say Shana Tova! Eid Mubarak! Blessings and Peace from God to our Jewish and Muslim friends.

Thomas Turner is the cohort leader of EmergentNJ. He is also on the ministry team at The Plant, a community cultivating love, truth, and compassion in Allendale, New Jersey.

By Steve Knight:

With the end of summer and the month of September, our month-long Emergent Blogologue between Christian futurist Bill Easum and Tony Jones is also now coming to a close. I wanted to wrap things up today with a meta-post looking at some of the bigger statements that were made by Easum and Jones, as well as the insights that came from everyone who posted in the comments and/or wrote their own blog posts in response.

Introducing an Emergent Blogologue
This was just the beginning …

Blogologue Part 1: Bill Easum on the Emergent Conversations
Bill Easum gave his description of “the Emergent movement” and asked several incisive questions, such as “Do you really believe broken people are going to be satisfied with never being eternally certain about anything?” and “Do you really believe you can reach the bulk of the population when you take the conversation as deep as you do? Or are you really only concerned with appealing to philosophers?”

Henry, from Canada, responded to Easum in the comments: “In my view you posit a false tension in the emerging conversation between what the Gospel is and what we can know about the gospel. To say that everything we know about the gospel is qualified by language is not to say that the event of which the gospel speaks is qualified by language. ... There is more to the event of the gospel than our words, but all we can know of the gospel is conditioned by language …”

In response to the question of “reaching the bulk of the population,” Henry wrote, “I fear that to lay it out as a question of adopting a postmodern faith in order to reach the postmodern world is to miss the point. If postmoderns are onto something significant in their criticism of modernity then to posit this choice is to posit an option that is fundamentally ‘unreal’.”

Jonathan Brink responded at length to a number of points raised by Bill Easum over on his blog (1, 1.2).

Chuck Warnock suggested, “The church growth crowd and the emerging crowd will have difficulty with this dialogue because of differing perspectives.”

Ashlie Pertler complimented Easum on his engagement with Emergent, “I think it is good to have some ‘older’ voices probing the emerging movement. We tend to have an overflux of youth (which adds dynamic and vitality), but we could really use some tradition and wisdom too. ... Emergent will become part of church history, whether we want to deal with it or not. I think as long as we stay within the perimeters of the Creeds before us though, I truly believe both our narratives will intertwine, and we can learn deeply from one another. We need the previous generations stories in order to continue the larger one: how Christ compels and affects all of humankind.

Writing from Nigeria, Mike Blyth asked, “Assuming for the moment that modernism is so dead, and so unbiblical, why is post-modernism the best alternative?”

Writing from South Africa, Nic Paton responded, “Postmodernism is not necessarily the best alternative, I just see its liberating potential for a more biblical framework. We will move through this phase, and God’s truth will continue to unfold. Further, postmodernity is for me simply the culture in which I, with my particular history, find myself. ... The question of where is Africa in this is an interesting one; is it pre/post/modern? In my limited experience it is moving both into modernity and into postmodernity/the postcolonial at the same time.”

Tim Thompson wrote, “I believe that the Emergent conversation is very relevant to the faith of believers in general, but it does need to ‘trickle down’ a bit for that to show. ... I remember how unsettling it was for me personally when my Inner Modern felt the ground dissolving under his feet. But the thrill of these things has more than compensated in my faith life for the loss of what used to feel like certainty.”

Bill Easum graciously responded to all of these comments and offered even more insight, with comments like this one: “I am as unhappy with most of modern-day Christianity as are the Emergents. Where we probably differ is I have great hopes for two movements underfoot today—church planting and multiple sites. I see these as reproducible ministries that can grow people and churches. I’m not willing to give up on the established church, not yet anyway.”

There is much more in the comments on this kick-off post. They are all worth reading.

Blogologue Part 2: Tony Jones Response to Bill Easum
In this response, Tony Jones stated, “We’re not, as you and others have wondered, trying to follow culture’s dictates, nor are we trying to impress philosophers. Instead, we’re still interested in creating culture.” And he added, as a result of that, “Theology will be just as innovative as methodology.”

Ben Bush asked, “In coming to view yourself and others as ‘creating culture’ as opposed to ‘preserving culture,’ how do you resist, as the creator of a new culture, the urge to preserve that which you have created? By you own definition, aren’t you to be engaged in constantly creating instead of preserving, which means that the culture you have created or are creating, by your own admission, must not be preserved, but give way to an even newer culture? And if this is the case, you never really have a culture except the culture of change?”

Nic Paton responded, “Cultural creatives, especially in the spiritual sphere, are, as part of their creativity, re-ligionising (‘binding-back’) to rediscover Tradition as a nourishment for the future; so preserving has a role. Likewise I intuit consuming needs to be reclaimed/redefined/subverted by the cultural creative POV, but don’t currently know how to do that in light of the ‘in-fashion enemy’: consumerism.” He closed by asking, “How might cultural creatives and/or emergents reach (speak to/help transform) those who at heart either preserve or consume?”

Blogologue Part 3: Bill Easum Response to Tony Jones
In his follow-up post, Bill Easum explained, “What has concerned is whether or not Emergents have gone too far in innovating the Gospel. I don’t think the issue is innovating the Gospel; I think it is rediscovering the Gospel. ... I’m not willing to say that theology has to be as innovative as methodology. ... I think adaptability of the Gospel is OK but innovation isn’t.”

Easum concluded by saying, “If you are calling us back to rediscover first-century Christianity and contextualize the methods to fit into this weird world, I applaud your efforts and pray for your success. If, however, you are seeking to rewrite the Gospel or innovate it so far as to change it substantively, then I pray for Emergents quick demise.”

But most of the comments came in response to Easum’s statement: “My experience has been if the church is faithful to the Gospel it grows—period. I could say the same thing about a house church or small group. I base this on the Book of Acts—it is about the growth of Christianity and suggests to me that God wants the church to grow and spread.”

Michael Gray responded, “I wonder just how many churches out there are actually seeing growth whether they be mainline, evangelical, charismatic, house churches, emerging, or anything else. In my experience as a United Methodist pastor, I have seen a lot of emphasis on church growth here in New England over the past decade, but I still see decline.”

Jeremy wrote, “I don’t believe that dwindling numbers discouraged Jesus. In fact, I would argue that people think more when they have been offended or challenged not pacified and encouraged. So perhaps true loyalty to the gospel doesn’t always increase church attendance. It could diminish attendance because quite frankly the gospel is uncomfortable, challenging, and demanding.”

In the comments, Bill Easum further clarified his statement about theological innovation, “I’m talking about innovating so far as to altar the fabric of the gospel. There is a big difference. ... And I’m not saying Emergents have done that. Not at all. It is a question in a dialogue, nothing more.”

Geoff Matheson blogged, “I think that Bill hits at the things that both interest me the most, and scare me the most about the Emergent guys. Because I’m deeply passionate about experimenting with methodology … [And] I do get a little bit scared (at times) that we don’t take that beyond what we can find in Scripture. That’s where reading Dan Kimball, and Scot McKnight and this response from Bill Easum has been an important part of working this stuff through for me.”

Again, this post generated a lot of great comments and discussion, including input from Mike Leaptrott, Nic Paton, Theresa Seeber, and others.

Blogologue Part 4: Tony Jones Response to Bill Easum
In this final response, Tony Jones defended the emerging church against the accusation of being “all talk and no action” and, in addition, stated: “I am convinced that the problems with the modern church are, at their core, theological problems. And whether it be the emergents or the radical reformers or those who are converting to Orthodoxy, there is a move among GenXers and Millenials to develop a robust theology.”

Responding directly to Easum’s question about theological innovation, Jones wrote, “To the question of whether emergents are trying to get back to the original gospel or to innovate a new gospel, I say, Neither. ... Instead, I think the emergent movement is calling all followers of Jesus to move into the future with the gospel. That may seem like a nuance or a tricky turn-of-phrase, but let me try to explain. Instead of going backward-in-time (which is impossible) or moving into the future with the intention of pure innovation (which is foolhardy), I say that we step boldly ahead, into the future, being bolstered by the gospel as it has been read, proclaimed, enacted, and lived for millennia.”

Bill Easum responded in the comments, “I think you put your finger on where we have a difference. I am looking for more concrete evangelistic action rather than social justice. ... I do not think social justice is the heart of Christianity; it is just the other side of evangelism, which I would like to see more of from the Emergents. ... In my mind church planting any kind of church, and converting people, is the prime directive of the Gospel. ...

“To me the key theological issue is the nature of the church. In my mind it has one purpose—the transform the world. I just think Emergents spend too much time trying to come up with either a new or better theological position and go too deep for the average person on the street to figure out what you’re saying.”

Easum added, “We have to have a certain confidence in the reality of the original Gospel inorder to move into the future with it. This a good example of why I ask if we are leaving the original Gospel for one we think fits today.”

David Gladson commented, “As a counselor and community missionary, I wonder why can’t there be such a thing as evangelistic listening and even, to use an eastern term, social in-action, in a quest to point to the sovereignty and compassion of a God who is bigger than a Wall Street/Madison Avenue world.”

Greg wrote, “I have found evangelism to be much easier, and I do it much more frequently, having become a part of the emerging conversation. I think we just do it a little differently than traditional evangelicals. I’m not trying to hand out tracts, convince others how utterly evil at the core they are, or get them to say the ‘Sinner’s Prayer,’ but I approach it as simply having a conversation.”

Easum commented again, “One of the primary purposes of the church is to be a witness by how it lives. If this is true, then the vast majority of established churches are truly apostate because they aren’t a witness when most of them are conflicted. The main force of evangelism is when the church is so loving and nurutring that it functions like an incubator of faith.”

Easum also gave a plug for Jimmy Long’s forthcoming book Leadership Jump and mentioned a forthcoming article he’s written for Rev magazine entitled “Down the Rabbit Hole,” in which he writes, “The only way to share the indescribable news that God really can make all things new in the blink of an eye is through vulnerable, humble conversations (this is where our Emergent friends are so on target) with friends. The day of the four spiritual laws and the big revival meetings is over.”

Again many more great comments, too many to mention them all here. Go read that thread and post your further thoughts on the blogologue overall here in the comments.

Also, this blogologue seemed to be quite helpful and well-received. Are there other topics and/or people you’d like to see addressed in future blogologues? Please post your ideas and suggestion in the comments here.

Thanks for reading and engaging!

Steve Knight is local organizer for the Charlotte Emergent Cohort and a member of the Coordinating Group for Emergent Village.