{"id":6613,"date":"2010-02-05T00:00:38","date_gmt":"2010-02-05T05:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/05\/the-living-emerging-movement\/"},"modified":"2010-02-05T00:00:38","modified_gmt":"2010-02-05T05:00:38","slug":"the-living-emerging-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/05\/the-living-emerging-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"The Living Emerging Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Thumbnail<\/a><\/span>There are a number of approaches to talking about the emergent church or, as I have preferred to talk \u2014 emerging movement and emergent village\/church, and the two favorite approaches are to say: it\u2019s dead or it\u2019s undefinable. About four years ago I was asked the \u201cWhither Emergent?\u201d question: Where was emerging headed?\u00a0<\/p>\n

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At the time I suggested three things: some emerging Christians will become mainline liberals (or progressives as many prefer to be called now), some will retreat a bit by assuming their old seats in evangelical churches, and others will continue to impact the evangelical movement in a missional or expansive, robust gospel direction. I don\u2019t have numbers, but that\u2019s probably about right, but I\u2019ve since realized that there really weren\u2019t that many other options. Anyway, I\u2019m not into futurism or prophesying.<\/div>\n
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One thing is very, very clear now: many in the emerging movement, and especially many in what I preferred to call the \u201cemergent\u201d crowd, have taken up solid stances in the American mainline churches. You will probably find folks like Brian McLaren and Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt and Phyllis Tickle more often among the mainline crowd than among evangelicals. It can be said that emergent\u2019s biggest influence is probably right now more with the mainline than anywhere else \u2014 except to offer two caveats: (1) many evangelicals who have emerging sympathies were worn down by the progressive direction of others and just dropped the label and are still emerging while (2) many other emerging folks are creative and living in the cracks of the mainline-evangelical divide but really don\u2019t have a central organization right now for some kind of overt identification. I could be wrong, but this is what I\u2019m seeing and sensing.<\/div>\n
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Which leads me to my point: Philip Clayton\u2019s new book, Transforming Christian Theology: For Church and Society<\/a>\"\"
\n<\/strong><\/em>, is nothing if it is not the fully skinny on progressive, mainline-shaped emergent theology. If Brian McLaren\u2019s A Generous Orthodoxy<\/a>\"\"
\n<\/strong><\/em>mapped the frustration and ambivalences of many emergent thinkers and wonderers, Clayton\u2019s book maps the terrain and the direction of the same.<\/div>\n


\nClayton argues that theology has been the prerogative an elite group of professors, but he believes it\u2019s got to be seen as what all of us do instead of just what the professors and professionals do. He outlines what can only be called a progressive emergent agenda for doing theology in a series of proposals \u2014 too many to name here. It\u2019s a good book and I hope it gets a wide hearing. Thus, his emphases are:<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Belonging, behaving, believing<\/div>\n
Change is important and inevitable<\/div>\n
Big Tent theology doesn\u2019t have to be divisive<\/div>\n
Theology creates story and it leads to action<\/div>\n
Activism is shaped by theology<\/div>\n
Church ministries are sliding into missional churches<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
But what struck me about Clayton\u2019s book, and it struck me because I thought it was noticeably old-fashioned and at the same time not completely in sync with the central themes of the book itself, was the six questions of theology he thinks that folks are asking and need to ask:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
1. Who is God?<\/div>\n
2. Who is Jesus, called the Christ?<\/div>\n
3. Who is the Spirit, or the Holy Spirit?<\/div>\n
4. What is humanity?\u00a0<\/div>\n
5. What is the problem of sin, and what does salvation mean?<\/div>\n
6. What is the nature and function of the church?<\/div>\n
7. What is the future in which we hope and for which we long?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Well, as I read this, I thought \u2014 straight out of the old categories of theological textbooks. Surprised me.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
And what I found mission was a Jesus-shaped core to those questions, a Jesus whose kingdom vision was reshaping all theological questions: And Philip\u2019s book is shaped more by that set of categories than those six. So, I wonder if the first question isn\u2019t \u201cWhat is Jesus\u2019 vision of the kingdom?\u201d and how does that question re-shape the whole?<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are a number of approaches to talking about the emergent church or, as I have preferred to talk \u2014 emerging movement and emergent village\/church, and the two favorite approaches are to say: it\u2019s dead or it\u2019s undefinable. About four years ago I was asked the \u201cWhither Emergent?\u201d question: Where was emerging headed?\u00a0 At the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[430,1736],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emergent","category-emerging-movement"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Living Emerging Movement<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"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,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/05\/the-living-emerging-movement\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Living Emerging Movement\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"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,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/05\/the-living-emerging-movement\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-02-05T05:00:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/assets_c\/2010\/01\/PhilClayton-thumb-333x445-11188-thumb-200x267-11189.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/05\/the-living-emerging-movement\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/05\/the-living-emerging-movement\/\",\"name\":\"The Living Emerging Movement\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-02-05T05:00:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-02-05T05:00:38+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"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,\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/05\/the-living-emerging-movement\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/05\/the-living-emerging-movement\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/05\/the-living-emerging-movement\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Living Emerging Movement\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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