Steve Knight has an interesting perspective on how the emergent folks and participatory church are connected.

In an op-ed piece in this Sunday’s New York Times, former NPR correspondent Eric Weiner describes his feelings as he faces the holiday season as a religious “none,” as in “none of the above.” Weiner is currently “unaffiliated,” but he writes, “We Nones may not believe in God, but we hope to one day. We have a dog in this hunt.”

That hopeful note is followed by a description of the kind of religion Weiner would like to see in the world (and particularly the United States):

“We need a Steve Jobs of religion. Someone (or ones) who can invent not a new religion but, rather, a new way of being religious. Like Mr. Jobs’s creations, this new way would be straightforward and unencumbered and absolutely intuitive. Most important, it would be highly interactive. I imagine a religious space that celebrates doubt, encourages experimentation and allows one to utter the word God without embarrassment. A religious operating system for the Nones among us. And for all of us.”

I would like to suggest to Weiner — were we sitting together at Starbucks or Caribou having a conversation over a cup of joe — that for more than a decade, the emerging missional church movement has been seeking to agitate for and begin to construct such a path. My friends and colleagues who have been the architects and thought leaders of this movement may not be so bold as to claim that title or status as “the Steve Jobs of religion,” but I’d like to be bold enough to say that Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, Rob Bell, Shane Claiborne, and Peter Rollins (among others) have each, in their own way, played this role to some extent.^*

And I’d like to suggest that faith leaders — from across denominations and traditions — need to begin reflecting deeply on this idea of participation. What Weiner calls “highly interactive” and “experimental.” It’s essentially the same message that Landon Whitsitt wrote about earlier this year in his bookOpen Source Church, and it’s an idea that Dr. Ryan Bolger, from Fuller Theological Seminary, has been playing with recently, as well (see video below).

In an interview with Luther Seminary, Bolger suggests^** that we are now living in a post-postmodern era that is characterized primarily by the participatory nature of the Internet and technology culture that has shaped it:

Bolger says, “The shift from postmodernity to participatory culture means people find their identity through what they create as opposed to maybe what they consume. … Our churches are still structured in such a way that we do it to them, not inviting them to create worship with us. So, if that’s the case, there’s really no space for people who’ve been formed by our participatory culture in our churches.”

Bolger’s provocative comments, coupled with Whitsitt’s book and Weiner’s op-ed in the Times, beg the question: Who will create the religious communities of the future that will engage participatory people?

This post, by John Bohannon, is a response to the review of Tony Jones of Bohannon’s book on preaching in the emerging church. (Tony’s site here.)

The Secret of the Toe Tap: A Response to Tony Jones’s Critique of Preaching and the Emerging Church

Imagine, if you will, that you are given an assignment to write a book about the hitting practices of four of the best left-handed hitters in major league baseball—Joe Mauer, Ichiro Suzuki, David Ortiz, and Josh Hamilton. Your aim is to capture each player’s method of batting in addition to representing their core beliefs and philosophy about the role of the hitter within the game itself. But here is the catch; you may not get the chance to interview these sluggers in person or see them pound out a hit or homer in their home stadium.

What should you do? Does the possibility of no home field interview or edge of your seat ball park experience remove all hope of accurately capturing and assessing the hitting beliefs, philosophies, and practices of these players? Would it be a fatal flaw to even attempt such a task?

The above hypothetical opening resembles the argument raised by Tony Jones in his review of my book, Preaching & The Emerging Church: An Examination of Four Founding Leaders: Mark Driscoll, Dan Kimball, Brian McLaren, and Doug Pagitt. His response to the questions above is a definitive yes as he applies it to my work. While I will respond to this concern, I want to first reply to three others raised in his review. [Read more...]

Some of you have seen this review of mine at Christianity Today. I’m happy to hear your responses at this site, but I’ll only clip the opening two paragraphs from the CT piece. I like Brian, and I think Brian is a good man, and I think he said important things that we evangelicals need to hear, but what I think of Brian as a person is not the same as what I think of his latest book: A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith
. So, I’d appreciate it if this review does not turn into a “I like Brian” or “I dislike Brian” contest. The issue is what he has written. Here are the first paragraphs of my review…

There are a number of approaches to talking about the emergent church or, as I have preferred to talk — emerging movement and emergent village/church, and the two favorite approaches are to say: it’s dead or it’s undefinable. About four years ago I was asked the “Whither Emergent?” question: Where was emerging headed? 

Which leads me to my point: Philip Clayton’s new book, Transforming Christian Theology: For Church and Society
, is nothing if it is not the fully skinny on progressive, mainline-shaped emergent theology. If Brian McLaren’s A Generous Orthodoxy
mapped the frustration and ambivalences of many emergent thinkers and wonderers, Clayton’s book maps the terrain and the direction of the same.

[Read more...]