If You're Curious About Emergent

Now the way I understand it, there is a difference between the current words emergent and emerging. Emergent has to do with the community that is based on emergentvillage.org and emerging is the term used to describe the conversation/church/movement that is currently challenging the modern concept of Christianity. With that having been said, I think there are also many who would say emergent and emerging are the same thing. Either way, if you want to learn more about emergent, read An Emergent Manifesto of Hope edited by Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones. Its a collaboration of thoughts from an eclectic group of people (catholics, protestants, mainliners, authors, counselors, etc...) about the emergent conversation. It's a great read especially if you're confused about all this stuff. The best part is each contribution is only about 5 pages long and if you get confused by one author you can skip it and move on to the next one.

Definitions

Ok, McLaren uses 2 terms thoughout the book that need clarification so we can all be on the same page as we begin this discourse.

Modern(ity) - used to identify the world in which we have lived in over the past 500 years. McLaren gives 10 phrases to help clarify what modernity was/is all about.

1. an era of conquest and control ("modern people have dedicated themselves to controlling people, results, risks, economies, experiments, profit margins, variables, nature, even weather.")
2. age of the machine ("the universe itself came to be seen as a vast machine, controlled by an engineer-God, and ultimately, modern folk themselves became small cogs in the machine, machines themselves."
3. age of analysis ("by taking wholes or effects apart into smaller and smaller parts or causes, each of which become understandable, analysis renders the universe both knowable and controllable")
4. age of secular science (basically everything can be explained through science)
5. age aspiring to absolute objectivity ("assumed was the highest faith in human reason to replace all mysteries with comprehension, superstition with fact, ignorance with information, and subjective religious faith with objective truth")
6. critical age ("if you believe that you absolutely, objectively know the absolute, objective truth, and you know this with absolute certainty, then of course you must debunk anyone who sees differently from you.")
7. age of the modern nation-state and organization ("modernity has been the story of organization and reorganization")
8. age of individualism ("the modern era moved inexorably from a focus on 'we' to a focus on 'me'")
9. age of Protestantism and institutional religion ("Where religion most thrived in the modern world, it was in its most institutional forms and its most Protestant forms")
10. age of consumerism ("people often quoted the maxim 'Money can't buy happiness' but seldom acted as if they believed it")

Postmodern(ity) - the age we are moving into. "Post" does not equal "anti." Postmodern is simply growing out of modernity having learned from that era. Kind of like saying you are postpubescent having gone through puberty making you no longer a child, but rather, an adolescent. (we may not really be able to know what the postmodern era looks like because we are just now entering into it. it would all be speculation)

A Preface

Before I begin commenting on Brian McLaren's book A New Kind of Christian, I want to preface it by saying this......
This new postmodern way of thinking is very new to me. It has thrown a major twist into the way I think about Christianity. Please understand that the posts to come will simply be my way of sorting through some of the information I have been taking in over the past 6-9 months regarding postmodernity and the emerging movement. I welcome your thoughts, but let's keep this to a friendly and honest discussion rather than a heated debate. I'm sure that some of the thoughts and questions I present will bring out strong emotions based on the beliefs that are embedded within you either because you have wrestled with it yourself, grown up believing it because it was taught to you that way in Sunday School, or just because you know it's the truth. I encourage you to ponder this information and give it a chance. Then let's discuss it and discover what we can learn from McLaren as well as each other.

How I'm going to go about this...
In the back of the book is a reader's guide put together by Tim Keel, the pastor at Jacob's Well in Kansas City. (if you ever get the chance to go there, do it. it's a great community) I'm going to take some of the questions Tim asks in the reader's guide to help bring out the thoughts and questions I have about this book. Although I'm going to first try and define some terms McLaren uses throughout his book. So here goes...

A New Kind of Christian

For Christmas my dad got me a book by Brian McLaren entitled A New Kind of Christian. Now when it comes to reading, I would say that I am an amateaur. Up until about two years ago, picking up a book was more like chinese water torture simply because the reading I was doing was always assigned by a professor. Once I finally got over the idea that reading was boring and a chore, I found that there were certain books I enjoyed reading. Thus far, I have discovered that I like books whose subject matter include relationships, being a guy, and "Christian" living. And even though I do enjoy these subjects, I have not found a book that really pulled me in and kept me yearning for me. (well maybe The 5 Love Languages). I digress...

So I got this book A New Kind of Christian and I can't put it down. The premise of the book is that the reader is evesdropping in on a conversation between a pastor and an high school science teacher as they discuss the Christian worldview from a modern/postmodern perspective. McLaren uses this style of writing to give us a look into the questions that he has encountered himself. I have come upon some very interesting thoughts throughout the book and wanted to share them with you. So over the next few weeks, I'm going to try and collect some of these thoughts as well as my own to post on my blog. Check back to find out where my brain has vacationed.

Challenging Thoughts

Right now I'm in Kansas City at a Worship/Leadership Conference that is being held at the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection. So far it's been very interesting to hear some of the thoughts that are being brought to the surface from those faces who are identified with the Emergent Churches. These include Dan Kimball, Brian McLaren, and Tim Keel. I've really appreciated all they have said that challenges the way we think about Christianity and worship.

One of the things that I have taken from this is the clarification of what some terms mean that I've heard for a long time and not understood. Some of these include fundamentalist, conservative, post-Christendom, modernity, and evangelical. Although many of these terms are thrown around a lot, I've finally come to grips with what they really mean. However, it also seems to me that many people have their own definition for a lot of these words including emergent and post-modern. And to be honest, I'm not sure I fully undertand what these two mean. If I could try and define these after this weekend, I would say this...

Emergent is Christian living and worship that combines the tradition of the Church with the experiential learning style of a community's culture and attempts to remove the central focus of the Church from self to world.

Post-modern still escapes me as far as a definition goes. Some say that its basically as it says, being after the modern era. The modern era as I understand it really l

A Kind Comment / Something to Think About

Take a look at the comment left by anonymous in my last post. Thanks to whoever wrote that.

Tonight I am doing a lesson for my middle school students on assurance of salvation. Honestly, I have struggled with putting this lesson together for a few reasons.

One - is there really such a thing as total 100% assurance of our own salvation? Ultimately God is the only one who truly knows our eternal destination. Now having said that, I do believe beyond a doubt that our salvation is guaranteed if we accept and believe that Jesus is the Son of God and died for my sin, your sin, and all humankind's sin. He is our Savior. No question. That is the assurance that I have. But even so, doesn't God make the call our final bus stop?

Two - I guess the reason I started to question individual assurance of salvation is from John 10:27-28 (My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.) This scripture passage is many times quoted as showing that once we are saved, we are always saved. But it does appear in vs. 28 that Jesus is talking specifically about those who "follow me." So doesn't that indicate that we are to actively follow Jesus once we believe in him? Is this where we "prove" that we believe in him? The outward sign of our inner faith. But then we get into the whole deeds vs. faith debate.

I'm not saying that assurance of salvation is incorrect or impossible. I'm just asking some questions and trying to "work out my salvation with fear and trembling." (Philippians 2:12)

p.s. - wouldn't this be a great topic for my roomate and my radio talk show? I'm sure we'd get a few calls on this one.