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The Emerging Church: A Journey Back to the Future |
Sam Harbin
Arriving just in time for the church service, you enter a dimly lit
room. Projected images of ancient Christian art decorate the walls,
accented by flickering candlelight. The aroma of freshly-baked bread
makes your mouth water. Strains of contemporary instrumental music
provide an auditory backdrop for the meditative activities of
worshipers already unfolding at separate stations around the room. Some
pray, face-down, on the floor. Others add entries to a “hunger
journal,” describing ways they have experienced spiritual longing in
their life. At another, worshipers compose Post-it note prayers and
attach their petitions to the silhouette of a cross on the wall. At
still another, little children express their worship through the medium
of finger-paints. Motioning you into a seating area which resembles a
Barnes and Noble coffee and conversation pit, a greeter presses a cool
lump of modeling clay into your palm as the speaker for the evening
takes his place on a high stool out among the audience. The speaker
invites listeners to create, while he speaks, a clay sculpture based on
the text for his talk, the sixth chapter of the gospel of John.
By this juncture, you may suspect that you have time-warped into an
ancient Gothic liturgical gathering, perplexingly populated by
contemporary Montessori preschool educators. In fact, you have found
your way into a gathering of worshipers who belong to Generation X.
Though among the “generation which defies description,” professing
believers within these youthful descendants of the baby boomers, this
first thoroughly postmodern generation, have taken to calling
themselves the “Emerging Church.” What this group is emerging from is
the old view of life in the world, known as the “modern” world view.
What they are emerging toward is the apparent successor to the dying
modern mindset, a new paradigm known as postmodernity. In the modern
world, absolute truth was accepted, authority was authoritative, and
the concepts of right and wrong were recognized and embraced, in
principle if not in practice. In the postmodern world, truth is
relative, authoritarian leadership is shunned, and the old boundary
lines separating right and wrong have been replaced with personally
determined value systems (“my truth”). In the modern world, science
ruled and life’s perplexities were unraveled through research and
reasoning. In a postmodern world, science is suspect, as is human
reason, since the scientists themselves are biased due to personal
prejudice and political agendas. Postmodern thinkers do embrace one
absolute: that there are no absolutes. Since no truth can be absolute,
all points of view must be equally tolerated; hence the cardinal sin in
postmodernity is intolerance of the others’ values.
You may have heard much or little about the phenomenon known as the
Emerging Church. Are these people truly saved and simply searching for
creative approaches to evangelizing postmoderns? Is it a cult? Do you
have to ride a skateboard or live in southern California in order to
join? Should you be concerned if your twenty-year-old son thinks it’s
cool?
Sadly, confusion and ignorance bolstered by strong opinion have been
the response of Fundamentalists to these questions, at least according
to our critics. The Emerging Church may become more the passing fad it
now seems to be. Like the men of Issachar (1 Chron. 12:32),
Bible-believing men and women desire to “understand the times” so they
can proclaim the gospel faithfully and effectively. Informed awareness
of the Emerging Church is at least part of an intelligent understanding
of our times.
Like the generation which is their primary target for evangelism, the
Emerging Church is difficult to define. Largely nondenominational,
those who identify themselves as “emergent” fall across a wide spectrum
of belief and practice. The more conservative elements appear to be
brothers and sisters in Christ who grieve the failure of the modern
church to reach and retain Gen-Xers, who are attempting to do something
about it. At the other end of the spectrum, some appear to be
questioning the very nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ. To their
credit, when some emergent writers speak of a “broadened gospel,” they
emphasize that salvation is not just a magical prayer that enables a
person to escape Hell to live any ungodly way he chooses. Rather,
genuine salvation is the beginning of a new life, a life of obedience
to the commands of Jesus Christ. They emphasize growing to become more
like Jesus, not just the prayer that marked the point when the process
began. But, other emergent writers use the term “broadened gospel” to
resurrect some old enemies of the cross—the reports of whose deaths may
have been greatly exaggerated—such as the social gospel, which aims not
at personal redemption from sin so much as the liberation of the
oppressed from difficult earthly circumstances.
Because emergent groups fall across such a wide spectrum, it is wise to
avoid broad statements such as, “The Emerging Church believes. . . .”
It is more accurate to address what a single emergent congregation
believes and practices. Emergent groups appear to be grappling with the
same challenge faced by Fundamental churches: how to effectively
confront a culture hungering for relevance with the exclusive claims of
Jesus Christ. The Emerging Church has both assets and liabilities. On
the positive side, emergent churches appear to be engaging contemporary
culture with the claims of Christ. They are definitely “in the world”
(John 17:11), not cloistered away in a Christian subculture, safe from
contamination but sealed off from spiritual impact on pagan culture.
Emergent pastors teach their people a “missional” mindset, reminding
American Christians to think of themselves as aliens on a postmodern
mission field, not citizens of a supposedly Christian nation.
The Emerging Church presents a new celebration of human creativity in
worship. Worship gatherings are designed to engage humans as God made
them, with all five senses. Not just sight and sound, but touch, smell,
even taste will be summoned to enable the worshiper to understand
spiritual truth and respond to God in expressions of praise. Various
styles of learning, in addition to lecture, are accommodated through
visuals and artistic activities, even during the sermon. Visual
learners who quickly lose interest in emotion-free lessons find this
new involvement refreshing. Men and women who can’t sing well enough to
minister in music have found other gifts (formerly welcome only in
Vacation Bible School) useful in the Emerging Church.
But there are problems, such as the uncritical acceptance of much of
popular culture. In choices of entertainment, music, or the consumption
of alcohol, emergent believers draw more inclusive boundaries than
Bible-believers of previous generations. Where Fundamental churches
have lacked creativity, the emergent groups seem to be on the pendulum
swing of excess. Instead of helping people to objectively focus on God
with all of their being, worshipers may be attracted to the subjective
experience of focusing on God with all of their being. It is one thing
to desire to “experience GOD” through genuine worship. It is something
else entirely to desire to “EXPERIENCE God” in the name of worship.
To their credit, emergent groups have raised fair criticism of the
megachurch movement. They react negatively to man-centered sermons that
sound like a Tony Robbins lecture on human success. They reject
performer-focused “worship events” which resemble rock concerts,
complete with platform celebrities. Some emergent pastors have returned
to expositions of Scripture in context to educate a Biblically
illiterate younger generation. They lead gently as shepherds among
sheep, not as paid professionals who drive the sheep by virtue of their
position. Fundamentalists may be reawakened to grow and change
themselves, through revitalization of these Biblical methods.
The Emerging Church does seem somewhat hypocritical in their often
caustic criticism of “seeker-driven” churches. This new emphasis on
designing worship around postmodern sensitivities may simply indicate
that the “seekers” have changed, and now demand that the church adjust
accordingly.
Fundamental churches can be thankful that the emergent groups are
raising issues that can help our own self-examination, a process which
should never stop until we see Christ in glory. Like Paul on Mars’ Hill
(Acts 17), we must confront a culture of relativism. By God’s grace,
let us be compassionately flexible where we can do so without
compromise, but courageously firm to sound out in clear tones the
gospel of the only Savior, Jesus Christ.
To learn more about the Emerging Church, you may find these books
helpful: The Emerging Church and Emerging Worship by Dan Kimball
(Zondervan Publishing) Mission to Oz by Mark Tabb (Moody Publishers)
Postmodern Youth Ministry by Tony Jones (Zondervan Publishing) Dr. Sam
Harbin is Chairman and Professor of Pastoral Theology at Calvary
Baptist Theological Seminary, Landsdale, Pennsylvannia.
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