The emerging/emergent church movement refers to a broad Christian movement that arose in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Proponents of the movement advocate rethinking Christianity against the backdrop of postmodernism. The movement is hard to define because it encompasses a diverse range of perspectives and practices. However, some common themes include:
- A desire to reach postmodern and post-Christian cultures
- An emphasis on authenticity, community, and experiences
- A more participatory and decentralized approach to church
- An openness to rethinking theology and Christian practices
The terms “emerging” and “emergent” are sometimes used interchangeably. “Emerging” is the broader term, whereas “emergent” often refers more specifically to the formal Emergent Village network of churches and leaders that coalesced in the 1990s. However, not all emerging churches are part of the Emergent Village.
Proponents of the emerging/emergent church movement argue that Christianity needs to change and adapt in order to remain relevant in postmodern culture. For example, they suggest focusing less on doctrines and absolutes and more on community, narratives, and ambiguity. They emphasize living like Christ and ask questions like “What if Jesus were physically present today? How would he live?”
Critics, however, argue that the movement sometimes strays too far from biblical truth in an attempt to be culturally relevant. They caution against letting culture determine theology and reject the movement’s openness to doctrinal reinterpretation. Critics also express concern that emerging churches may cater too much to the individual at the expense of truth.
Key Figures and Influences
Some key figures and influences in the emerging/emergent church movement include:
- Brian McLaren: A pastor and author who has written extensively on postmodern Christianity. His books include A New Kind of Christian and A Generous Orthodoxy.
- Tony Jones: A theologian and author who was the national coordinator of Emergent Village for many years. He wrote The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier.
- Rob Bell: Founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Michigan who is known for his creative and controversial theology. He wrote Velvet Elvis and Love Wins.
- Stanley Grenz: Theologian who authored early works connecting postmodernism and the Christian faith, such as A Primer on Postmodernism.
- Phyllis Tickle: Scholar and author who wrote about the church entering a new “Great Emergence” comparable to the Protestant Reformation.
- Newbigin, McLuhan, and Postliberals: The missional theology of Lesslie Newbigin, the philosophy/theology of Marshall McLuhan, and “postliberal” theologians like Hans Frei and George Lindbeck influenced the emerging movement’s desire to rethink Christianity for a new cultural context.
In addition to individuals, emerging leaders point to our rapidly changing culture and postmodern sensitivities as influences demanding new theological formulations. They see postmodernism’s skepticism of absolute truth-claims as necessitating more humble, culturally-engaged, and experiential church expressions.
Beliefs and Practices
Given the diversity of perspectives and practices present in the emerging/emergent church movement, it is difficult to generalize specific doctrines and methods. However, some recurring emphases include:
- Authenticity: A focus on being real, transparent, and avoiding “pretense” in church gatherings and Christian living.
- Experience: Valuing sensual and artistic experiences in worship as well as God’s ongoing work in people’s lives outside of Sunday services.
- Participation: Encouraging all Christians to actively participate in worship, theological dialogue, and creative culture-making as an expression of being the body of Christ.
- Immediacy: Focusing on living and articulating faith in the midst of today’s cultural moment rather than trying to recover past doctrinal formulations.
- Stories: Communicating and living out the Christian story as an overarching narrative that shapes identity.
- Dialogue: An openness to accepting ambiguity, paradox, and doctrinal diversity within Christianity.
In terms of church structure and worship, emerging churches take diverse forms including house churches, traditional church buildings, café-style gatherings, highly liturgical, and everything in between. Most value participatory, experience-driven worship; use of technology and arts; and ancient-future faith practices.
Postmodernism’s Influence
Engaging postmodernism and post-Christendom culture is a defining concern of the emerging church movement. Postmodernism broadly refers to the contemporary mindset and cultural milieu that is skeptical of objective truth claims, metanarratives, and absolute certainty. Post-Christendom refers to the declining prominence and cultural authority of institutional Christianity in many Western nations.
Emerging church leaders believe Christianity has been profoundly shaped by modernism’s quest for rational certainty and cultural dominance. But as postmodern sensitivities make such formulations untenable for many today, new theological paradigms are needed. Core doctrines like biblical inerrancy face deep skepticism in a postmodern climate. The emerging church aims to retranslate Christianity for a culture that distrusts dogma and craves authentic spiritual experience.
Critics argue that some emergent voices go too far in accommodating postmodern preferences at theology’s expense. The proper response, they say, is to thoughtfully engage culture without compromising on objective biblical truth. Christianity must remain countercultural, not dissolve into culture. The emerging church’s theological diversity stems partly from varied opinions on where to strike the right balance.
Thoughts on the Atonement, Hell, and Salvation
Given its decentralized and theologically diverse nature, the emerging church contains many viewpoints on topics like the atonement, hell, and salvation. Some leaders adhere to traditional perspectives on these matters while others propose new paradigms. For example:
- Most affirm Christ’s atoning death on some level, but some question the ‘penal substitution’ perspective and emphasize other understandings like Christus Victor.
- Some affirm the existence of hell and others favor universal salvation. Many at least reject picturing hell as a place of literal fire and torture.
- There is openness to expanded perspectives on salvation apart from conscious faith in Christ, given postmodern reluctance to claim Christianity possesses the one exclusive path to God.
Overall, emerging voices display greater comfort with paradox, ambiguity, and doctrinal diversity than past formulations of evangelical theology. They also exhibit caution about defining salvation and the afterlife in too much speculative detail. Jesus’ life and teachings regarding ethics and justice arguably receive more attention currently than questions of destiny.
Ecclesiology and Church Leadership
Most emerging churches embody a decentralized approach to church structure and leadership. They distill church down to its most basic identity as a community of Jesus’ followers without heavy institutional trappings. This aligns with postmodern sensitivities suspicious of bureaucracies, hierarchies, and power differentials.
Leadership is ideally dispersed across all participants in a church with an emphasis on spiritual gifting over formal titles or education. Gatherings often occur in homes or third spaces like art galleries rather than dedicated church buildings. Liturgy and sacred practices from ancient to modern sources are incorporated based on meaningful connection rather than formal church tradition.
Critics argue that such highly open, decentralized church forms can lack accountability and depth. But emerging church leaders respond that rejecting institutionalism need not mean sacrificing substance, and that the traditional church format has its own flaws.
Politics, Social Justice, and the Arts
The emerging church places strong emphasis on living out and embodying the way of Christ in justice work and artistic culture-making. It aims to break out of the walls of church buildings to be the incarnational presence of Jesus in the world. Emerging voices apply Kingdom ethics to address matters like poverty, oppression, environmental care, inclusion, and peacemaking. They see the arts as integral to human flourishing and spiritual formation.
This holistic ethics aligns with the emerging church’s focus on following Jesus’ life and practices. It also arises from the movement’s origins among young creatives and activists. Critics argue that sometimes greater focus is placed on social justice or creative expression than evangelism or personal morality. But most emergent leaders see no conflict between upholding biblical truth and addressing ethical brokenness in the world.
Relation to Evangelicalism
The emerging church arose and remains concentrated among evangelicalism but also frequently critiques and pushes back against aspects of evangelical subculture. Many leaders exhibit discomfort with the perceived political alignment, cultural hostility, overemphasis on doctrinal formulas, and celebrity-driven megachurch model present in segments of evangelicalism.
At the same time, emerging church leaders often retain admiration for evangelicalism’s zeal, commitment to biblical authority, and salvation through Christ. They aim to carve out space for a culturally-engaged, postmodern-friendly, but still Jesus-centered faith. Whether the emerging church successfully balances needed change with core continuity remains much debated.
Some evangelicals see the emerging movement as dangerously compromising foundational truths, while others are sympathetic to its desire for more humble, holistic, and thoughtful engagement with culture. Ongoing frictions center on issues like inclusivity, biblical authority, atonement theology, and perceived universalism.
Response and Criticisms
The emerging/emergent church movement has been the subject of considerable analysis and criticism since it began garnering attention in the 1990s. Recurring critiques include:
- Its openness to questioning long-held theological views straying into biblical unorthodoxy.
- Too much cultural accommodation in attempting to be relevant to postmodern sensibilities.
- Lack of spiritual depth and doctrinal grounding in highly decentralized church forms.
- Misguided political perspectives among some leaders on issues like economics and sexuality.
- Inconsistency and division stemming from its decentralized and theologically diverse nature.
Advocates of the emerging church respond that no movement or denomination is free of excesses. They say critiques often mischaracterize the thoughtful revisioning work being done to translate Christianity for new cultural landscapes. Both supporters and critics generally agree substantive engagement and discernment are needed given the movement’s influence.
The Emerging Church Going Forward
Currently the emerging/emergent conversation seems to have lost some of its cohesion and momentum from the 1990s and 2000s. Wide theological diversity likely contributes to this dissipation of energy. And as with any movement, innovation eventually becomes an established path with its own limitations.
However, by raising issues of cultural engagement, theological creativity, and reimagined ecclesiology, the emerging church has left a lasting mark on global Christianity. Its desire to escape rigid formulations and live out an ancient faith in ever-new contexts remains pertinent. Elements like relational community and social action continue growing in various church segments.
Both critics and advocates generally hope key emerging conversations about postmodern cultural engagement and translating Christianity for post-Christendom will continue, albeit with discernment of how far innovation can stray from biblical truth. The fruit of theological creativity remains to be seen as all parts of Christianity seek faithfulness and relevance amid our rapidly changing world.
