so i’ve been thinking a lot lately about the Emergent Church movement that is quite popular in Christianity these days. this movement, or “conversation” as they like to term it, is largely a reaction to modernism and seeks to sort of reinvent the church in order to be more relevant and attractive to non-believers. they say that their main focus is to be as “missional” as possible. but discussion of that will come later. because i’ve been thinking a lot about this “conversation” lately, i’ve decided to take part in it and to begin studying it. after a bit of research, i picked up the book The Church in Emerging Culture: Five Perspectives, a book containing, believe it or not, five perspectives on the Emergent conversation, edited by Leonard Sweet. over the next few blog posts, i’m going to be doing a series of reviews on each of the five different perspectives contained in the book and giving my thoughts on them, also providing an introductory post, using Leonard Sweet’s introduction to the book, and a concluding remarks post where i offer what i think of the “conversation” as a whole.

this is the title of Leonard Sweet’s introduction of the book. he begins by stating the problem that all views are trying to address. this is the problem of how the church, the body of Christ of which Christ is the head, is to interact with the culture around it. Sweet states that just as Christ lived and preached in a particular way to a particular culture, we should struggle to see how we are to live, teach, and preach the Gospel of Christ in our contemporary culture. he sees us entering a new era, postmodernism, that is “characterized by difference, diversity, and divergence from any single norm.” and it is this emerging culture that each of the writers in the book is responding to. Sweet describes that these authors are concerned with the interaction of Christ and culture, with the disagreements coming on the issue of “whether Christianity requires a recapitulation (evolving) or a repetition (preserving) at each juncture of history.”

the divisions between the authors are described in vivid metaphor (a literary device that emergents are very fond of) by Sweet and are helpful in getting an idea of where each of the different views will be coming from.

the first of these metaphors is that of a garden. this “clearing” is described by Sweet as those who only use tried and true methods that have been passed down to us from past generations. people in this category are concerned with a “preserving message/preserving method” paradigm. gardeners base Christian identity on an obedience to “an autoritative narrative that dictates what methods are holy, honest, and authentic,” or, in other words, those who view the Bible as the only rule of faith and practice. because of the strong emphasis on Scripture, those in the garden are not concerned with “selling” the Gospel to nonbelievers in the form of mass-marketed, “seeker-sensitive”, niche directed services, but “a sure story, a true story, an authoritatively preserved story in which the mystery of sacramental blessings abound.” within this book there are two gardeners: Michael Horton, a Reformed theologian,professor, and editor of Modern Reformation magazine, and Frederica Mathewes-Green, a Greek Orthodox author and commentator.

the second “clearing” described by Sweet is that of a park. those in the park rely on the message handed down from generation to generation, but seek to find new ways of expressing that message. thus thy are said to focus on a “preserving message/evolving methods” paradigm. this “clearing” is where most of evangelical Christianity resides and is very diverse in expression, but unified in the “paths and missions” of Christianity. Sweet states that the truism inherent in the park is that “to stay the same, some things have to change.” those in the park pull elements from all parts of the wider culture and incorporate them in ways to share the Gospel. concerned with speaking the language of the culture, those in the park recognize the church as a rock of truth and changless, yet at the same time they contend that the church is also a “river of life that is ever flowing–making things fresh, cutting new beds, finding new ways.” Erwin Raphael McManus, author and pastor of Mosaic church in Los Angeles represents the speaks on behalf of those in the “park.”

those in the third “clearing” are said to reside in a glen. these believers belong to the “evolving message/preserving methods” paradigm. they are anti-pop culture and view technology and new methods of worship as “encroachments” from the outside culture and fear that liturgy will become secondary to technology and a seeker-sensitive commericalized gospel that creates a “church that’s being transformed into a humorous parody of St. Paul’s injunction to be all things to all people–and a capitulation by Christians who, as philosopher John Locke always protested loudly, ‘boldly prefix God’s most holy name to their inventions.’” former editor-in-chief of Re:Generation Quarterly, and regular contributor to Christianity Today, Andy Crouch represents the glen.

the final “clearing” described by Sweet in his introduction is that of the meadow. in agricultural language, the meadow is “open to augmenting the seed stock, even using new techniques of cross-fertilization, hybridization, aquaculture” and the “latest John Deere tractors, combines and other equipment.” so this paradigm would be one of “evolving message/evolving methods.” there are no boundaries in the meadow and the meadow is “the church’s best breeding ground for creativity and innovation” as those in the meadow do not see Christians as a people engaged in a counterculture ideology, but one that is thoroughly immersed in the contemporary, so-called “postmodern” culture. doctrine and theology are of little importance to those in the meadow as they believe that it is metaphor and relationships that people want, not hard truths that will cause strict distinctions between the church and the world. because of this, they hold that “the story mode of the Gospels, more than the doctrine mode of the Epistles, is the natural habitat for the emerging culture,” and that because “the Gospels do not critique or argue,” it is in the manner of the Gospels (again, rather than the Epistles) in which we are to relate to the world. this is a strong reaction to the “garden” paradigm as meadowers say that the more that Christianity is concerned with itself, the less relevant it becomes to everything else. Sweet is careful to warn, however, that “the meadows of today will be the gardens of tomorrow.” Brian McLaren, author, postmodernist, and Emergent senior fellow represents the meadow view in this “conversation.”

it is at this point that i will stop in the discussion of these four views. i have purposely left out my thoughts and critiques of each (as much as i could at least) out for the time-being so that the reader can go through each of them and form their own thoughts. however, i will definitely be engaging each view as i go through each of the author’s articles and will revisit these four “clearings” in my concluding post in the series. stay tuned!