I’m enjoying the discussion about the Emerging Church Movement (ECM) here. It has waxed and waned here several times since my blog began. Every time the discussion takes off it seems to suffer from a distinct lack of clarity about what exactly counts as “emerging.” Some have even questioned whether there is an ECM. Of course, no one questions the existence of the Emergent Village, but nobody thinks that is the whole of the phenomenon. So, it is one thing to describe EV and its affiliates and something else (perhaps not entirely) to describe an ECM–if such a thing actually exists.
One commenter here asked me to define or describe the concept “movement,” which I attempted to do in my brief response to him. I regard any affinity group that networks with each other for mutual support and change a movement. If there’s no networking, then it’s not a movement but a phenomenon. If there’s a headquarters and boundaries, then it’s not a movement but an organization. I grew up in a denomination that preferred to call itself a movement, but it clearly was not; it was an organization because it had a headquarters and clear boundaries. People were either in or out. I may be wrong, but I’m not sure the “Cowboy Church” phenomenon is really a movement because I’m not aware of much networking going on except in relatively enclosed geographical areas. (I’m open to correction, but I haven’t heard of cowboy churches in South Dakota networking with cowboy churches in Texas.)
A movement has a center without boundaries. The center is a set of common interests and ideals. People who make up the movement are more or less committed to those ideals, but all share the interests. When a movement develops boundaries it is no longer a movement but an organization. (Of course most movements spin off organizations that are then part of the movement but rarely become all of it.)
Movements are notoriously difficult to pin down and describe–except by their common interests, ideals and commitments (although it must be remembered that within any movement, insofar as it is truly a movement and not an organization, levels of commitment to the ideals varies.) That’s what makes them so interesting and what gives rise to so much discussion and debate about them. But that debate can become confusing when people forget the nature of movements.
Let’s look at some examples of religious movements. The charismatic movement began in the late 1950s and early 1960s when members of Catholic and so-called mainline Protestant churches began speaking in tongues. It really took off in the late 1960s with conferences and conventions like the Lutheran Conference on the Holy Spirit held annually in Minneapolis. By all accounts thousands of Catholic and mainline Protestant churches jumped on the charismatic bandwagon as did some classical Pentecostal churches that shook off their Pentecostal ethos to become more ecumenical and inclusive (of, for example, people who smoked and drank wine and danced!). (I was part of a Pentecostal church that shifted to charismatic.) Throughout the 1960s and 1970s people debated the nature of the charismatic movement and its boundaries. Much of that discussion was misguided and misleading because there never was a headquarters or magisterium or universal spokesperson or group for the whole movement. But a cottage industry arose around attempts to define it and describe it and gain influence over it. Some organizations tried hard to harness the movement’s energy and control it for their own purposes. During the 1970s and 1980s Oral Roberts tried desperately to do that with little success. Eventually the movement died out as charismatics stopped networking with each other and settled into competing organizations. The charismatic ethos (it’s center) gradually blended into the religious mainstream as demonstrated in, for example, “praise and worship” chorus singing during Sunday morning worship services (something virtually unheard of before the charismatic movement).
What was the (relatively) unifying center of the charismatic movement? It was, of course, interest in and practice of the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit and especially speaking in tongues (but also prophecy and healing). The ideal for change was to renew the mainline churches with these gifts and their modern recovery. Charismatics all over the world networked with each other through conferences, publications and projects. Looking back on it, nobody would claim the movement had boundaries. What would they have been? It was about as diverse as a religious movement can be! And yet nobody doubted it existed–as a movement. What made it more than a phenomenon was the networking; what made it not an organization was the lack of a unifying structure.
I could mention other religious movements like that–the so-called new age movement, the Jesus people Movement, the fundamentalist movement and, of course, the (neo-)evangelical movement.
I think a lot more light and less heat could be generated in the discussions and debates about the ECM if people recognized and acknowledged its nature as a movement. Like all movements it didn’t must pop up out of nowhere; it has antecedents and older roots. The charismatic movement was influenced by the Pentecostal movement. (Assemblies of God minister David du Plessis is usually credited with being the catalyst of the charismatic movement.) The new age movement was influenced by the various theosophical groups that preceded it. The Jesus people movement was influenced by both fundamentalism and Pentecostalism. (Foursquare minister Chuck Smith is usually credited with being the catalyst of the Jesus people movement.) The ECM seems to be influenced by Mike Yaconelli and Youth Specialties.
Every movement takes up the old in a new way and adds to it as well as subtracts from it. Every movement includes some diversity and is dynamic–flexible and changing. Every movement has its founders and its “Johnny-come-latelies” and its exploiters. And every movement has its would-be popes, its prophets and its critics (both internal and external). AND, every movement has its adherents who refuse to be identified with it. (For example, as the charismatic movement gradually died out and television evangelists began using the label for themselves and their ministries many of the original charismatic leaders declined the label and distanced themselves from the movement without discarding its original ethos.)
So how can we ever get a handle on the ECM–assuming it is really a movement which I think is obvious (in the sense I have outlined above)? Two alternative approaches come to mind. First, we might simply survey all the people who call themselves “emerging” or “emergent” and find out (e.g., along the lines of an ethnographical study) from them what they have in common. That way we might discover the central, magnetic core of common interests, ideals and (relative) commitments that define the movement. Second, we might survey scholars who study the movement (as opposed to simply believing everyone who self-identifies as emerging or emergent)–asking them what defines or characterizes it. In either case what we are after are the movement’s “family resemblances” which I would call its core interests, ideals (values) and commitments.
The two approaches are very different and each has its dangers. One danger of the first approach is that we might only ask those leaders we favor or are directed to by others who favor them. Another danger is that we might include in the survey mere hangers-on—people who are exploiting the popularity of the term “emerging” (or “emergent”) but have no real affinity with the original movement. A danger of the second approach is that we might locate and interview scholars who have a bias about the movement or whose study of it is focused on only one segment of the movement.
Obviously, the best approach is to combine the approaches—survey many people who self-identify as emerging or emergent and ask scholars and experts who have studied the movement with some scholarly distance. In practicing these approaches we have to strive to include as much of the diversity of the movement as possible and find scholars who are as objective as possible. None of this is guaranteed to deliver the definitive definition or description, but it’s probably as close as we can come to it. (And, of course, we have to remember that a movement is dynamic so “as close as we can come to it” always means “for now.”)
I cannot claim to be a scholar of the movement or even an expert, but I have become acquainted over the years with a variety of people in some leadership position in self-identified emerging churches (and some that don’t self-identify as emerging but are widely considered to be that anyway). I have also read fairly widely in the literature associated with the movement. Some of the people I have met face-to-face and talked with about emerging churches are Doug Pagitt, Dan Kimball, Tony Jones, Kyle Lake, and Brian McLaren (who has spoken in my classes). I have spoken at emerging churches and retreats of emerging church planters. I attended and spoke at the National Pastors Convention in San Diego which was a gathering place for people interested in and involved with the ECM. Some of my students have gone on to be leaders in emerging churches including Journey (Dallas), Mosaic (Austin), Eucatastrophe (Fort Worth) and UBC (Waco).
Earlier I mentioned a book that I consider especially helpful in understanding the ECM: Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger. Another very helpful book is Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches: Five Perspectives edited by the late Robert Webber and authored by Mark Driscoll, John Burke, Dan Kimball, Doug Pagitt and Karen Ward. “Listening” includes chapters by the five self-identified emerging church pastors and responses to each chapter by the others. An excellent article that attempts to describe the ECM is “Five Streams of the Emerging Church” by Scot McKnight, by all accounts one of the most sympathetic and astute scholarly observers of the movement. It was published in Christianity Today’s February, 2007 issue and may be read at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/february/11.35.html?start=6 of simply by googling the title.
The five authors of “Listening” seem to represent a broad spectrum of approaches to doctrine, theology, scripture, authority in general, worship and interactions with culture. At opposite ends (at least on some major issues of concern to both) are Mark Driscoll and Doug Pagitt. Clearly Driscoll considers Pagitt too liberal and Pagitt is uncomfortable with what he seems to regard as a fundamentalist streak in Driscoll. (I have heard that Driscoll has since disassociated himself from the ECM, but that only raises the question whether someone can do that definitively or whether they are still emergent even if they reject the label and much of the rest of the movement. Driscoll, for example, seems to be in quite a bit of sympathy with Kimball who is, by all accounts, an influential ECM pastor and author.) Between then are Kimball, who calls himself a “conservative evangelical” while distancing himself from much that goes under that label, and John Burke, who clearly is evangelical in his sympathies even if he doesn’t like much that people associate with the evangelical movement in America. Karen Ward is difficult to describe; she regards herself as part of the so-called mainline of Protestant life and yet also pushes the envelope on matters of church life and leadership as well as worship and even theology.
One thing is obvious from the “Listening” dialogue. These five authors, chosen because editor Webber and publisher Zondervan consider them representative of the diversity of the ECM, have some things in common in terms of core interests, concerns, ideals, values and commitments but also diverge from each other quite a bit on at least the details.
For example, Kimball believes the Nicene Creed must serve as a kind of “floor” on which all Christians, emerging or otherwise, conduct their theological dance (to use a Pagitt metaphor for theology). Pagitt, on the other hand, expresses disagreement and prefers to hold all human statements of belief, creeds or confessions or doctrines, open to reconsideration and revision. For Kimball (and probably also for Burke to say nothing of Driscoll!) the Bible holds a place of primacy in determining right doctrine and practice. For Pagitt (and Ward?) the Bible is story and guide but not absolutely authoritative in any traditional sense.
One cannot help but come away from reading “Listening” with the impression that among these five ECM leaders (who network with each other) there are really three distinct “flavors,” if you will. One is Driscoll’s and it is hardly different from traditional conservative evangelicalism and even smacks of fundamentalism. It’s no surprise that, after this book was published, Driscoll disavowed the ECM. But that still leaves Kimball and Burke who seem fairly close to each other in terms of wanting to hold to the primacy of inspired scripture and historical Christian orthodoxy even if they seek to hold those in new ways (e.g., without beating people over the head with them). For Kimball and Burke, apparently, what makes their ministries “emerging” is their emphasis on contextualization and sensitivity to non-Christians and their worldviews and beliefs.
Pagitt and Ward seem to breathe a different air than Kimball and Burke (to say nothing of Driscoll). For them, so it seems, “authority” is a dirty word that conjures up images of inquisitions or at least modern emphasis on certainty and the power that comes with its claims. Pagitt and Ward seem to be open to endless revision of doctrine; for them theology is a journey without end or any definite place to stand. Revealing is Pagitt’s objection to Kimball’s metaphor of the Nicene Creed as an anchor to keep the boat (the ECM?) from drifting too far. Pagitt is uncomfortable with any anchor and Kimball responds by wondering why love is so non-negotiable for Pagitt (if he rejects any definite anchors).
The five authors are cordial with each other, but their differences are sharp. Kimball and Burke definitely want to keep at least one foot firmly planted in Christian orthodoxy and even evangelical faith broadly defined (not as it is defined by the media or the Religious Right). Pagitt seems to be in reaction against orthodoxy and evangelicalism—without throwing them out altogether. Pagitt is the prophet calling for greater humility and fighting triumphalism in the evangelical ranks while wanting to be part of that conversation. Kimball and Burke sympathize with those concerns of Pagitt’s but, at the same time, worry that he is in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
So what do these five and other emerging church leaders I have known and read have in common?
Drawing on my own acquaintance with emerging church leaders and on the books and articles I have read I have come up with a portrait, as it were, of the ECM today. The portrait is made up of common (not unanimous) interests, concerns, methods, ideals, values and commitments of ECM people especially in North America.
First, they are dissatisfied with traditional church life because it seems inauthentic and stuck in modern modes of thinking and acting. They are seeking authenticity in church life by re-examining traditional approaches to either doctrine, worship or church structure or all of those. They are willing to discard what is not useful in contextualizing the gospel of the kingdom proclaimed by Jesus among today’s postmodern (especially young) people. At least some of them would balk, however, at discarding the authority of scripture and basic creedal orthodoxy.
Second, they believe the conventional approach to church membership of believe, behave, belong needs to be replaced with belong, believe, behave. In other words, right belief and behavior spring from right community. (One of my concerns, however, is how this plays out in terms of leadership. Most of the emerging churches I know that talk this way have higher expectations for belief and behavior for the leadership team which is often the only membership.)
Third, they believe Christian churches should not primarily be focused on their own survival but should focus primarily on mission to and for the world and that mission should be driven by a vision of God’s kingdom as bringing as much of the world as possible into conformity with the message of Jesus Christ as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount. They are all opposed to anything that smacks of Christendom including any coercive methods of bringing in the kingdom.
Fourth, they are disillusioned with modernity and its affects in Western culture and society. And they believe “religion” and “modernity” are so intertwined that we need to develop a form of Christianity free of both. They like Bonhoeffer’s suggestion of a “religionless Christianity.” By “modernity” they mean the inflation of reason that seems to exclude faith (Peter Rollins) and the emphasis on control that has marked so much of Western culture since the Enlightenment. (They do not mean the advances made by science.) By “religion” they mean traditionalism that goes through motions without knowing why (except it’s what has always been done).
Fifth, they are mostly driven by youth culture. With some notable exceptions, people over forty do not seem very involved—except as gurus of the movement (e.g., Leonard Sweet, Brian McLaren, et al.). (However, many of the older leaders of the ECM are pushing forty and it will be interesting to see what comes next—when kids in middle school today get into their twenties and begin to develop their own youth-oriented movement. As Alexander Pope quipped “We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow. Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so!”)
Perhaps others will want to add more common features, family resemblances, of the ECM, but these five seem to me to sum up the movement’s core pretty well—at least for now.
So, now, let’s return to Brandon Morgan’s point in his two guest posts here. It seems to me he is arguing that, to a very large extent, the ECM has rightly focused its critique of “religion” on conservative evangelicalism. (And I would add that much of that critique is really aimed at what I call neo-fundamentalism and the Religious Right. Almost without exception when I meet ECM people who call themselves post-evangelical they mean post-fundamentalist or post-neo-fundamentalist. Most of them are unfamiliar with, for example, the Anabaptist and Arminian wings of evangelicalism.) If I understand Brandon correctly, he is asking why ECM leaders who raise their voices against conservative evangelicalism do not critique so-called mainstream Protestantism as well. I agree. Here I won’t speak for Brandon, but I think so-called mainstream Protestantism is dying for lack of vitality and that vitality has something to do with its adoption of liberal theology as its default theological method and foundation. I’m not referring to everyone and everything associated with it; no doubt there’s still much good and alive in some segments of mainline Protestantism. However, overall and in general mainline Protestantism is still working within a modernist paradigm that reduces Christianity to cosmic awe and ethics. These aren’t bad in and of themselves, but authentic Christianity also includes personal transformation, a relationship with Jesus Christ (however mediated) and sound doctrine (not necessarily held or promoted dogmatically). The shadows of Schleiermacher and Ritschl still haunt the halls of mainline Protestant power.
I’m a newcomer to the emerging conversation, but from what I’ve seen I have both reservations and hopes. I do believe that the Church needs to evolve throughout time, and rethink what it means to preach the gospel in this day and age. However, I’m now hesitant to use such labels as “progressive” or “emerging” because they can become brand names way too easily. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I always thought the point of the emerging movement was the get away from labels and cliques. Lord knows the Church doesn’t need another exclusive elite club!
Thank you for this excellent presentation of ECM. I am one who was strongly influenced by the Charismatic Movement in my youth. In fact, until experiencing the “Charismatic renewal,” everything I had previously experienced in church was rote. I saw no real “life” there and had not personally appropriated the authentic spirituality that should be available for any Christian. The Charismatics made everything I had learned before blossom into a vital reality.
In later years, I removed myself from the Charismatic movement for a number of reasons but I never forgot the spiritual impetus that it gave me and the divine reality that the movement introduced me to. I came to call myself a “pneumaticist” – one who is in favor of whatever the Spirit of God is doing to make the faith real to people.
I am not part of ECM, but I am enjoying what I am hearing about the movement from a few of my friends and in what I read. It seems to be a phenomenon that is making the Christian faith real and the worship encounter authentic. I am thankful that in the 1970s the charismatics rescued for me what had been a dying, second-hand faith that has remained lively and vital to this day. I can only be glad for those for whom the ECM seems to be doing the same thing. If I live long enough to see another movement to infuse vitality into faithful living, I will rejoice in that as well.
“I think so-called mainstream Protestantism is dying for lack of vitality and that vitality has something to do with its adoption of liberal theology as its default theological method and foundation.”
This is an often repeated meme but I struggle to find any actual evidence for it. It seems that most of mailine protestantism’s decline has been the product of a generational horizon and not anything particularly theological:
http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/michael-bell-looking-at-the-pew-forums-changes-in-religious-affliliation-data
Any sources you could point me to?
Long ago a National Council of Churches leader (Dean Kelley) wrote Why Conservative Churches are Growing; it was an indictment of mainstream denominations that pointed directly to their lack of theological rigor and commitment as one explanation for their decline. Another book that points out the same problem is The Empty Church: The Suicide of Liberal Christianity by historian Thomas Reeves. I was part of the mainline for many years–serving on staffs of churches, serving as interim pastor, serving as deacon and executive council member (these experiences were in the UPC and ABCUSA) and observed this decline and reason for it first hand.
Roger,
With all due respect the first book you cited was published in 1977 and the second in 1996 which basically marks the periods of the generational horizon. Since then we have seen decline in conservative denominations (Like the SBC) which now have rapidly aging populations (As Mainline denominations had from the 1970s to 1990s). This was a believable thesis when these books were written but how then do we explain a similar decline since then in theologically conservative Evangelicalism?
The latest Pew data shows that there has not been a flight from Mainline Protestantism to Evangelicalism or Catholicism. Losses in Mainline Protestantism to unaffiliated or none are similar to losses experience by Evangelicals and Catholics.
Basically, every major demographic of Christian belief is waning in the United States. There is no empirical evidence that this is a unique or uniquely bad phenomena in theologically liberal Protestantism. It’s a problem primarily with aging congregations across the board and bad retention.
How exactly would you determine whether and to what extent a particular theology is the cause of a denomination’s decline? Sure, the claim that liberal theology is a major factor in mainline decline is impressionistic, but based on our experiences in those denominations. I don’t think there’s any doubt that so-called mainline denominations are declining in numbers. Pick up the NCC’s yearbooks past and present and check the numbers. The United Methodist Church has dropped by millions in the last couple of decades. More conservative denominations have grown during the same time period. I don’t think anyone is able to count the numbers of people who have left both mainline and evangelical denominations for independent churches.
There has been a lot of debate around Kelley’s thesis since the late ’70s. Most recently, Diana Butler Bass has provided some good evidence through her work on “practicing congregations” to suggest that the issue in church decline has little to do with conservative vs. liberal theology, and a lot more to do with demanding vs. undemanding churches. Churches that ask a lot of their parishoners, that demand a strong commitment and active participation in the mission of the church, tend to grow, regardless of whether that church’s particular theology. Churches that don’t demand a lot usually do not grow.
Of course, even that is probably too simplistic of an explanation. Brian McLaren provided a good, and fairly comprehensive list of other possible explanations a few months back in this post. Here is the relevant bit:
CT had an article with a title question “has the emerging church emerged?” It was cheeky, I know, but there something to it I think. Many leading voices in the EMC said that “emerging” meant “coming out of cultural isolation.” Being on the conservative side of things, it is easy to see how this works. McLaren’s “A New Kind of Christian” gave a nice illustration of this as someone who let go of classical theism, exclusivism, and creationism as relics of evangelical modernity. Allegedly, there was also supposed to be some sort of movement coming out of the mainline. But this just seems to have amounted to mainline ministers adopting the use of social media (Diana Butler Bass became a blogger!).
The two streams coming out of the mainline and evangelicalism resulted in a cacophony that seemed to have slide back into the mainline. I recall Butler Bass complaining about going to an EMC conference and counseling a young Christian who was struggling with homosexuality. She said to her, “I really want to embrace my gay identity and be in a place I can be loved and accepted, but I can’t get past these verses in Romans.” Butler Bass’s response, “Um, that is not an issue for us. We moved past those problems long ago.” Her ultimate question was, “Who are we?” I don’t think there has ever been a good answer to that identity question, which is why the movement has run out of steam.
Roger – the term “movement” is an interesting one, as it begs the question what defines a “movement”. I have seen brand new networks start with no one yet involved and call themselves as “movement”. With all the emerging and emergent church discussion called a movement, I once was challenged by someone who said if you took all the churches listed in Bolger and Gibbs “Emerging Churches” book and added up all the people in them together, they are less than a amount of people in the video overflow room of a megachurch.
That stuck with me and since then I always am interested in how spread is this really? It had a lot of traction in the early days, but got so diverted when the theological diversity set in as the focus. When you examine the actual churches of the voices in the “movement” the churches generally are pretty small. I once did a count to the best I could of the top leaders and authors known in the emergent world (I don’t consider evangelicals and those like Mark Driscoll in that world) and then did a rough adding of church size and it was less than 1,000 people all combined from the prominent voices and authors all combined. Maybe I am wrong, but try naming the names of leaders and voices and then adding up the people of their churches and see. They are vocal in blogs and on web sites and books, but when adding up the totals of people in churches it gave a picture which caused me to wonder how much of a “movement” has it really become over many years based on actual churches and people? I know there are more churches than the leaders and voices, but based on those and other ones I know of they are very small groups. I don’t want to discredit the good things that happens in these churches at all no matter what size they are. But to call something a “movement” and ask questions about that is a good one to ask. Thanks for the great article with great observations and questions.
i was one of the 50 leaders interviewed in that book but our ministry has been involved with thousands of churches in dozens of countries. if the other participants represent lots of voices like i do (3000 fresh expressions/emerging churches in UK alone) then we are talking about a sizable chunk of new ministries in a period of time where the traditional church has struggled and declined. smells like movement to me.
So you only counted “prominent voices” and then estimated how many might be in their churches? What about all the thousands of others who are reading and listening to those prominent voices? Trust me, my friend, this movement extends far beyond just that small handful of leaders and the folks in their particular churches. Let me give you a few other numbers to figure into your calculations:
1) I coordinate Emergent Village cohorts. Right now we have around 75 active, with another 75 or so that were active at some point in the past decade. That’s 150 groups meeting. Each of these probably averaged around 6-12 folks at any given meeting, but also maintain lists of others who have attended at various points in the past, or who come occasionally. For instance, the Chicagoland cohort I led had over 400 people on our email list. But let’s be conservative. Let’s supposed that each cohort represents just 20 people who have really bought into the emergent movement. That’s 3000 people right there who are directly connected just to Emergent Village – and EV is just one small part of the ECM.
2) I have slowly been working on creating a google map of Emergent churches. Right now there are about 50 on the map, however, these are just ones who are willing to formally call themselves “Friends of Emergent Village.” There are like many times this number who are more broadly emergent in some way, but who don’t want to formally affiliate with EV or simply don’t know about the map. But let’s just go with these 50, and let’s suppose each church represents around 50 active participants on average. There’s another 2500 just from this map alone.
Also, don’t forget about the much more extensive church listings on Zoecarnate.com. There are hundreds of churches listed there, and if each of them represent even 20 or so people, that’s still participants in the thousands or tens of thousands.
3) BTW, the Emergent Village email list was around 10,000 people the last time I asked, but that was a few years ago and it has probably grown since then.
4) Also, how do you measure the impact of emergent ideas on existing churches, both evangelical and mainline, who may not be easily identifiable externally as emergent, but who really are in their ethos and practices? One way might be by looking at book sales. Now I don’t have these figures – and I know almost no emergent author (with two possible exceptions) is getting rich off of book deals – but if we look at those two exceptions, Brian McLaren and Rob Bell, how many books do you suppose they have sold? It has to be in the tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands at least. And even if only a fraction of their readers are convinced by them, that’s still a significant number.
5) Speaking of Rob Bell, his church there in West Michigan is around 10,000 people currently. That alone is ten times your original estimate.
6) And let’s not forget the Wild Goose Festival, which had around 1500 attendees, each of whom could probably easily think of a couple dozen more who would have come if they had been able to make the trip.
7) And, as Andrew has already mentioned, let’s not forget the global emerging church, which probably outnumbers the American phenomenon. Besides Fresh Expressions in the UK, there is also Red del Camino (a network of “emerging” groups in Latin America) and Amahoro Africa, not to mention all the other places Andrew could probably tell you about.
Anyhow, bottom line, you’re looking at far more than just a few thousand. It’s in the tens of thousands at least, and probably in the hundreds of thousands by now.
is the EC a movement? In a word . . . yes. http://tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com/tallskinnykiwi/2011/08/the-emerging-church-movement-or-conversation.html
If EC folks themselves use the term “conversation,” have they coalesced enough to form a movement? How does the term conversation relate to movement, or is this apples and oranges?
Roger, social scientists actually agree on what defines a movement. In my new book, The Church Is Flat, I propose that the ECM is a movement in light of the working definition of a New Social Movement.
Then we agree, right?
As a pastor of a “cowboy church” I think your catagorization of us as being a movement is bang on the money.
The umbrella of “cowboy” churches covers a wide range of theologies from fundamentalist to charasmaniac and everything in between, with the bulk being in the evangelical to charismatic range. There are cowboy churches that are independent and those that are part of a denomination. We tend to network informally across the spectrum.
The movement encompasses to those which are really nothing more than an outreach event (probably the bulk of them in my experience), that’s not a criticism, simply an observation, to those which are fully functional churches ministering to all age groups, discipling, doing outreach/evangelism/missions, offering the ordinances of baptism and communion,and performing all the other hallmarks of a full service church.
The two things that tie cowboy churches together are a desire to reach the lost and a worship style that appeals to those with an affinity for the western lifestyle.
Phyllis Tickle has an excellent book on the history of the EC, titled “The Great Emergence.” I believe she has a new book out as well, but I have not read that one yet.
I’ve read “The Great Emergence” and was not impressed. One reason is that it seemed based on sweeping generalizations about history unsupported by evidence.