Letter to an Emerging Christian

Dec 6, 2006 @ 2:30 By 32 Comments

Dear Matt,
You’ve asked me what is one of the most commonly asked questions about the emerging movement, but the way you ask about it is both funny and typical. You said: “I tell everyone I’m an ‘emerging’ Christian but what (I’m afraid to say I don’t know) are we emerging from? Whenever someone asks me this, I brush it off. But I’d like to know your opinion what we are emerging out of since several of my friends claim you make emerging church stuff an area of study.”
Lots of Baptists, Matt, don’t have the foggiest idea of why they are Baptists; Episcopalians don’t know why they have that name; Presbyterians don’t know what their name stands for — but you can be sure the Pentecostals know why they are called Pentecostals. I could go on about names and that some know what they mean and that others don’t.
Know this: there’s always something very important to names like “emerging,” so if you are going to call yourself an “emerging Christian,” I think it’s a jolly good idea you stop and get this term under your grips.
Let me say what I think “emerging” means from two angles:
First, we are emerging into how we think the Church should be in the future. We use emerging it refers to the direction we are moving. We want to be the kind of Christians that speak the gospel in our world in such a way that it cuts into the fabric of sin and constructs a way of life that is fully consistent with the way Jesus calls us to live. Since we think culture is changing, we want to understand that culture and both connect to it and critique it. So we are seeking to be Christians in our day — and that means in the postmodern era. If you’d like to read a pleasant (and brief) description, I suggest John Caputo, Philosophy and Theology. If you want a little longer book, J. Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?
We believe that there is truth to the claim that we are now in a postmodern era. We think that postmodernity is changing the current generation — in how it understands truth or (the best way of saying this) our articulation of the truth of the gospel, in how we relate to one another in the world, and in the weakening of the grip of the Western culture’s belief that scientific knowledge tells the whole truth.
That’s the into part.
Second, we think “emerging” relates to moving from where we’ve been, and frankly for must of us (though not all) where we’ve been is conservative evangelicalism. It is not that we have all (some have) abandoned that evangelicalism, but we think that shifts and adjustments are necessary to that traditional expression of our faith in order to ltrust, live and speak the truth of the gospel to the current generation. A way of saying this, though I’m not sure our conservative critics like to hear this, is that we want to do for your generation what our fathers and mothers did for our generation.
It is also my hope that we are emerging from the disunity of the Church, the fracturing of the Church into all kinds of splinter groups. Most of these Christians really do believe the same gospel but can’t get along for what is sometimes not all that important of reasons. So I hope we can emerge from the tribal mentality that has too often characterized Christianity
And lots of us think we need to emerge from the power structures of our past. Matt, this is odd to say, but my generation is the hippie generation; we fought hard to democratize church members and perhaps our most notable achievement came through a California preacher named Ray Stedman, who wrote a book called Body Life. The teachings we find in our churches today about spiritual gifts came from Stedman. (It wasn’t even talked about him much until he put it right back in the church.) Now, Stedman got the Church to live like a “body.” The problem is that my generation got tired of the effort to live like a body, and gave all the power back to the leaders. Maybe there’s a social cycle in this, but one thing is for sure: emergence wants to renew the democratization process. It’s fun to see how this is happening all over the place — from house churches and simple churches to smaller missional and emergent gatherings. (Again I could go on.)
All of this means we want to get together on the basics of the gospel, the basics of our creedal faith, and on the basis of a life devoted to following Jesus — and do all these as a community, regardless of “who” we are.
Above all, though, we are working at seeing “what will happen next.” In other words, one can’t predict emergence; one participates in emergence. And we are watching some grassroots shifts in gospel living begin to take shape in all sorts of ways — in how we do church, in how we preach, in how we evangelize, in how we organize our gatherings and “services,” in how we related to the State, in how we participate in capitalism and wealth and possessions … I could go on.
Let me finish with a quotation from a leader in the emerging movement, Andrew Jones — known as Tall Skinny Kiwi. (By the way, if you don’t know of his site, please add him to your daily reads; he’s got his finger on international emergence.)
TSK: Emergent is …the phenomena of how new organizational structures progress from low-level chaos to higher level sophistication without a hierarchical command structure.
Blessings,
Scot

Filed Under: Emerging Movement 32 Comments
About Scot McKnight

Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than thirty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.

  • http://www.communityofjesus.blogspot.com/ Ted Gossard

    Very interesting. And makes me wish I could be young. But in my own simple way, I add an emergent flavor among Chrisians with whom I live and serve. And also do so into the world in which I live. Definitely emergent for me. We must seek God’s will in Christ, anew and afresh for this new day. The old wine used to be alright, and some still like it. I want the new wine. And more of it.

  • http://chasebowers.typepad.com Chase

    Another informative post, Scot! I have a question, prepped with where it is coming from. I get the idea, “Above all, though, we are working at seeing “what will happen next.” In other words, one can’t predict emergence; one participates in emergence.” Indeed, we no one can fully “know” where his or her movement will lead. However, one can look and inquisitively and with come education ask, “where is this headed?” In previous generations, the Asian culture lived life with this in mind, “What will the result of this be in 100 years? How is what I am doing going to affect my grandchildren?” Are things like this being asked by many in the emergent community and do you think these are wise questions? Thanks again Scot.

  • Ivy Gauvin

    Scot, unless I’m missing something here, this sounds very much like what was happening when I first came to the Lord in the 70s. There were home meetings, coffee houses, other ways of doing church. Now, it certainly didn’t hurt that it was also the height of the charismatic movement and change was happening in all kinds of churches. People wanted to get to the gist of what it meant to be a follower of Christ in a radical way that was truly counter to our culture. Most of us, for example, made the assumption (rightly or wrongly) that God had a specific “call” on our lives.
    Much of what I am seeing and hearing resonates with my understading of gospel.

  • http://www.rossroyden.blogspot.com Ross

    Thank you for a brilliant post. It is extremely helpful. I remember someone saying to me once that while we may not like labels at least they help you know what’s in the can.

  • David

    “Very interesting. And makes me wish I could be young.”
    Sort of made me feel sad when Ted posted this. I think one aspect of the “emerging” is that collectively the experience may be more powerful because God is doing different things becasue he has to. The enemy is escalating and therefore God must respond. In the 1950′s the high school students were concerned about not being able to chew gum in high school………the landscape is much different now. It is now far more dangerous growing up now for kids. I do think though that on an individual basis, as Solomon said there is nothing new under the sun. Jesus has the same message for every individual for all time. “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Matt 16
    I sometimes sense in the flavor of the emerging discussion is that this lesson is forgotten or dropped out of the top ten. We are making Jesus fun to appeal to others but is that really the message of Jesus? AW Tozer commented about the Old Cross and the New Cross.
    “We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.”
    I think that the emerging discussion is great but I dont think that we can forget the cross and what it means. I think the purpose of the church is to teach people how to understand and be comfortable with carrying their cross. Although we can change a lot of the packaging to make it more appealing…..in the end that is what following Jesus is about…..carrying your cross.
    http://www.concordtx.org/cpapers/tozer.htm

  • http://www.napervillecovenant.com kent

    I like that fact no one can predict the future of the emerging movement, it means that no one person or group has the extensive perspective necessary to do so. it is organic and unpredictable.
    I will also confess the hardest element to get over for me is the disunity of the church. Splintering make it is easy to label and discern who was in and out and who was naughty or nice. I hate the disuntiy of the church, but even in that antipathy it was an easy net to caught in. Even seemingly benign observations can be divisive. unity is messier and takes moe energy. But results are beter, prayerfully.

  • J-Marie

    David,
    “about making it more comfortable”? Explain.

  • Milton Pope

    Scot,
    You say you hope we can emerge from the tribal mentality that has characterized Christianity. I’ve been considering the notion that people are tribal. Christians should be better than that, but the impulse (or character trait?) is pretty much universal.

  • http://jibstay.blogspot.com Don

    Scot; great post. But what I miss in your description is reference to the Epistles and their organizational struggle. It seems from my vantage point that the emergent community (conversation) really wrestles with the rith and proper use of authority and power, sometimes rebelling against any notion of power under the pretext that it causes disunity. Is the power reaction within the local church gathering or on the denominational level? Does not the local leadership need to “bear rule” in some sort of way to speak truth? And is not the use of power, prinicpally with money and property, the stumbling block?

  • Kate Johnson

    Scot, thanks for this explanation, for which I now better understand emergent thinking. When you say to do away with hierarchy, how does this fit in the current church stucture? Can a Baptist church or a PCA church be an emergent church? Both are very hierachical. I began my walk with the Lord in a congregational church, where I liked the structure because all had a voice. I left because, as I began to study the Bible and Theo in college, I realized the teachings were far from what I believed to be fundamental to our faith… yet attending a Baptist church I get frustrated with the “power” structure (not to mention their view of women in leadership). How does this fit together eith more conservative structures? (Although I must say I like the idea)

  • http://www.getting-free.blogspot.com T

    “but you can be sure the Pentecostals know why they are called Pentecostals” LOL! Amen!

  • http://julieclawson.blogspot.com Julie Clawson

    This is a good post, but really seems to be only part of the story. In the way you paint it, emerging seems only like the new structures the younger generations are bringing to church. That is what attracted me to the conversation in the first place, but I don’t think I would have been forced out of a ministry job and lost friends just because of new ways of doing church. If that is all someone is into, then sure you can have emerging baptist churchs or ultra-traditional emergents who meet in a house and use candles. But to portray it only as that makes it easy for anyone over 40 to dismiss it and for anyone who actually reads its books or attends it churches to be confronted with a bait and switch when they realize that there is more at play here than just a new cultural way of doing church.
    It seems mentioning that many of us are exploring emerging theology – fresh ways of encountering scripture, fresh affirmations that are more ecumenical than denominational, fresh perspectives that appreciate all of church tradition – would have been helpful. This whole thing has been called a fad by critics, and the beginnings of a new reformation by sociologists. But whatever it is, there’s more going on than just new ways of doing church.

  • http://www.JesusCreed.org Scot McKnight

    Julie,
    Maybe I understated this a bit, but here’s what I wrote and I thought I was addressing the ecumenical dimension you are concerned about (and I’ve done that aplenty on this blog):
    It is also my hope that we are emerging from the disunity of the Church, the fracturing of the Church into all kinds of splinter groups. Most of these Christians really do believe the same gospel but can’t get along for what is sometimes not all that important of reasons. So I hope we can emerge from the tribal mentality that has too often characterized Christianity
    All of this means we want to get together on the basics of the gospel, the basics of our creedal faith, and on the basis of a life devoted to following Jesus — and do all these as a community, regardless of “who” we are.

  • http://johnmortensen.com/dregs Linda Mortensen

    Don,
    I don’t know if this is helpful to your theological understanding of power/authority within the churches in question, but practically speaking, I can tell you how my church does it and why.
    We are a small church (75-125 people), and we have no paid staff. We did this for a very specific reason. We have planted ourselves in a neighborhood that is very disadvantaged and have made it the focus of our church to be Christ to this particular neighborhood. All of the money that we give, aside from rent and an occasional missionary, goes directly to the neighborhood or to support the programs that we have begun for the sake of the neighborhood. These include free weekly meals, a thriving kids’ program, a neighborhood women’s group, an adopt-a-block style program, a food pantry, and any other projects that we believe will help the people of our neighborhood connect with Christ.
    Our leadership structure is team-oriented. We have a team leader for each area with others participating in each team’s planning. No one makes unilateral decisions. Granted, this can sometimes lead to lengthy leadership team meetings, but we believe it is worth the effort. There are so many examples of a power monger destroying a church’s ability to be Jesus to those both inside and outside the church. We do not want to be one of them.
    We believe that our church will benefit from the polyphony of our various voices and be richer than if we had a leadership structure more like the ones in place during the modern area. It also provides us with an opportunity to submit ourselves to each other and practice a bit of corporate discernment.
    Certainly we are not perfect, and we stumble along trying to do what is right and good for our body/neighborhood in the face of much uncertainty. This leads to exhaustion at times. But I don’t think there is a single person on our leadership team that would seriously consider going all the way back to that from which we came. As the earliest church morphed (Acts) to include new and helpful forms of leadership, so have we done within the context of our individual church’s mission.

  • http://julieclawson.blogspot.com Julie Clawson

    Scot – thanks for the reply. I did see how you mentioned the merging of traditions in your post. My main point was that many people think the emerging church is only about new ways of doing church and then are surprised to find out the new (and controversial) theological elements. So a discussion about the emerging church should be frank and upfront about the theological side as well, imho.

  • http://www.JesusCreed.org Scot McKnight

    Julie,
    I’ve posted today just a short letter here. I haven’t sketched the whole. But, I think “doing church” is about theology and our theology emerges from our “doing church.” I agree with you that theology figures prominently for many; but defining that is next to impossible because it varies wildly. When you mix postliberals and postconservatives, they may be next to another but their language, interests, and shapings are so different the conversation becomes difficult at times.
    I’m big on emerging being evangelical ecumenism.

  • http://www.nextreformation.com len

    Interesting summary… Fritjof Capra is helpful in spelling out the context of emergence, which must be truly communal (otherwise, leaders are in control again). From biological science he speaks of the necessity of multiple feedback loops. “Emergence requires an active network of conversations with multiple feedback loops. Facilitating emergence means first of all building up and nurturing networks of communication in order to “connect the system to more of itself.” Put another way, Elizabeth Fiorenza wrote that, “If we dream alone, it remains just a dream. When we dream together, our dreams may become a reality.” Similar thoughts in the writings of Senge.

  • RJS

    But Scot, isn’t a lot of what is going on better characterized as a testing and exploring of the limits of theology than simply “doing church”? I realize that this is an excerpt not treatise in your post. But I think that Julie is right, the willingness to rethink form is accompanied by a willingness to rethink substance. The willingness to rethink substance is what scares many. While this rethinking and wrestling is, in general, a good thing, and necessary for real growth and change, both sense and nonsense become intermingled in the conversation.

  • http://www.JesusCreed.org Scot McKnight

    RJS,
    Yes, I think I can agree that there is testing and experimentation, but I see “doing church” as “doing theology” and any “doing theology” that is not “doing church” is not Christian theology.
    It can be said that underlying it all is a theology — however inchoate and inarticulate. I would like to locate that theology in a missional/praxis context. When that happens, form changes. But, I’m not sure the motion is that logical. I find that many enter through friendship and the friendship gives rise to a theology of church rooted in friendship.

  • http://ordinaryeverydaychristian.blogspot.com Bruce Armstrong

    I agree with Scot in that I hope we are emerging from the fracturing of the church into so many interest groups. I would hope that our goal should be to move away from division on the non-essentials (agree to disagree) and back toward unity on the essentials, i.e., the idea of the holy catholic (small c) church.
    Question, though: What do you say to those who criticize the “emergent movement” as just another fracture / interest group?

  • http://www.JesusCreed.org Scot McKnight

    Bruce,
    That can be said of some; I hope it is fracturing for the greater good of finding unity with all Christians.

  • http://www.nextreformation.com len

    RJS, you may recall that someone posted about a year ago a short summary from a talk Brian McLaren gave somewhere. In his talk McLaren tried to describe a continuum of ekklesial emergence. On the left he writes METHODOLOGY, then moving to the center he writes PHILOSOPHY, then moving to the right he writes THEOLOGY/PRAXIS. Under these heads from left to right are 7 items.. actually, I made a diagram based on the talk..
    http://www.nextreformation.com/wp-admin/images/7layers.jpg

  • http://revivifiedhermitess.blogspot.com Joy

    Scot,
    I don’t know if Matt is real or fictional, but I read this much like “Letters to Malcolm” or “Practice of the Presence of God”. I think you should start a “Letters to Matt on Emerging” column! This was very well put.
    It has compelled me to get my thoughts of what is emerging and how I am emerging onto “paper”. This is a goal of mine, but it has slipped to the bottom of the pile. I am going to work on this now.
    I was a little miffed ;-) by your MD stance, but all is forgiven now that you have referenced my very favorite pastor, Ray Stedman, who I feel was extremely prophetic and would be a great resource for us now… I’ve read Body Life and have an extremely tattered and marked up copy that I printed off line. He is in the Keith Green category for me. I’m ‘only’ 40… can I be considered part of the ‘hippie generation’?? LOL

  • David

    J Marie in #8. I think that the context of the Christian life is brokeness. Jesus was broken and all those who follow his path, I think will be conformed to his image and this is done through suffering. Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered. With that in mind if the Christian, new or less new, understands that, then it is like the feeding of the five thousand. Jesus takes two fish and five loaves of bread……..he takes something that is INADEQUATE and he BREAKS it and there is ABUNDANCE left over. I think that whether you are Emerging, Roman Catholic or somewhere in between…….that is the path for many individual believers. Although the way Jesus looks is different today because we look different …… the message of Jesus is still the same…..yesterday,today and forever.
    “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If any one loves the world, love for the Father is not in him.”
    I John 2

  • RJS

    Ok Scot, doing theology without doing church is a meaningless academic exercise. And doing church in accord with Christian theology means following through in a missional/praxis context. I agree with this totally.
    But “doing church” can be “doing theology” that is not in fact Christian theology. Either because the practice isn’t Christian or the doctrine isn’t Christian. It seems that the latter is the oft expressed concern regarding the emerging church, and the former is the oft expressed criticism by emerging Christians toward traditional churches. And all hate being caricatured by sweeping, simplified, descriptions.

  • http://emergingsideways.blogspot.com bobbie

    this is why i am a friend of emergent. thank you scot. the only two things i would add is to give voice to those who the modern church has silenced or sidelined, and to bring together not only the various denominations, but to break down the racial and societal divides the modern church has ensconced for far too long.

  • http://welikesheep.org Nate

    Scot,
    I would also include some mention of Emergent Behavior. Andrew (TSK) is describing Emergent Behavior in the quote you offered from him. Emergent Behavior is complex actions and problem solving arising from lots of small simple interactions.
    As I understand the origins and entomology of the term, it was first used in the context or Emergent Behavior and Emergence and then used as Emerging.
    I think the rush to define what people are coming from and where they are going tries to coalesce this into a movement with a direction … instead of describing something that arises from the varied movements of lots of different actors, going in lots of different directions. So when I am asked the question I try to avoid using the word Emerging it creates a set of expectations that I do not think are descriptive of the current reality.

  • Timothy Wright

    Hi,
    I’m stuck. Really. I am trying to get a handle on Emergent and I found this blog to be the best in helping me to understand some of the questions and the proccess of the Emergent Church.
    I found your insights very helpful Scot. I am wondering if the way I even approach questions or situations in the past is helpful or is it preventing me in understanding Emergent.
    I found lens illurtarion on Brians talk very helpful. Some questions plague me:
    Within emergent is everything we believe about Jesus up for discussion?
    Is there propositional truth or is ever thing relational truth?
    Since there is no “Core of Emergent” who answers any of the questions?
    I have heard people ask Brian McLaren questions which he won’t answer. What if we all did that?
    How do we create a culture where everything is open to question but not to answering questions?
    I really do not see any other way forward except for splintering the body of Christ into more thousands of little tribes saying that these points are my core and they are not open for discussion. Evey one is this dialogue has core from which they will not be moved. Maybe is a relection of my hard heart?
    What do you think?
    Tim

  • http://www.JesusCreed.org Scot McKnight

    Tim,
    That’s too many questions all at once. In short, I would say that emergent is all about a conversation in a safe zone. Individual persons have all kinds of convictions. Not everything is up for grabs; there is propositional truth as long as one respects the problems involved in such a way of articulating truth. No one speaks for all of Emergent; Tony Jones is the national director and speaks for its concerns.

  • Timothy Wright

    Hi,
    Scot wrote:
    Not everything is up for grabs; there is propositional truth as long as one respects the problems involved in such a way of articulating truth.
    I may be a bit thick, can somone help me with problems of saying or thinking things propostionally or point me to a book or a blog that will help me?
    Thanks
    Tim

  • http://www.godhungry.org Jim Martin

    Scot,
    I mentioned this the other day, but I appreciate these concise, brief explanations in these letters. Not only does this help me understand, but I find that my thinking is stimulated.
    Perhaps some of my appreciation for this is due a few experiences in graduate school. On several occasions, I found my self writing a theology paper on some aspect of some theological issue. Yet, after reading various scholars in journal/books etc and trying to understand their arguments, it would occasionally occur to me, “You don’t really the essence of this subject.”
    I think that is why I now seek to grasp the essence first, and then worry about some of the problems, etc.

  • Timothy Wright

    Hi Scott, Tim from comment 34. I was serious in my searching for a book or a blogs on the problems that are inherent in presenting something propositionally. I really want to learn. If you are aware of any resources, I would appreciate a heads up in that area. Thanks
    Tim