Well, I started out with some prognostication, and then I got distracted. It’s easy to get lost when you’re talking about the future, which is inherently hard to see anyway. But let’s get back on track nonetheless. As I was saying, the emerging church was set to become more mainstream, and it has done so in the past couple of years. This is not to say that the self-fashioned heresy-hunters are happy, but that’s not something that’s about to happen anyway. (Not ever, that’s their schtick.) Evangelicalism, however, has become more comfortable with certain forms and contributions from the emerging church. For those who followed along in the past year, you might think this is convenient, because evangelicalism is dead as well as the emerging church, or they’re at least on side-by-side deathbeds. What a pretty pair they make, gasping for breath to tell you that rumours of their demise have been greatly exaggerated. The precise meaning of the word “greatly” in this instance is still in some dispute.
Let’s allow that neither one is going anywhere just yet. Both are hanging on and will continue to do so for a while yet, thanks partly to a blood donation from the missional church, and partly to the inherent urge to continue flogging the horse long after others may have assumed its discontinued utility, if not its complete demise.
Right. So maybe now I’ll come out and say a few things in plain English. Let’s consider a few outstanding questions that linger when we consider how various types of emerging church are now acceptable in the mainstream.
- Firstly, what does it mean that the emerging church is more acceptable in the mainstream? Have they finally emerged?
- Secondly, what does it mean for the mainstream to be more accepting of emerging churches? Have they finally made the changes the emergents were calling for?
- Thirdly, where is the world outside the church in all of this? Do they benefit at all, or are they worse off?
In short, if we’re standing on common ground, who moved? Good question.
Let’s start with mainstream evangelicalism. I don’t think they’ve moved significantly, though perhaps they’re ready to meet in the “missional middle.” That is, with mission as the goal, they are prepared to accept some unconventional approaches and to deal with some decidedly unconservative people in their midst. In the name of missional ministry, they’ll apply some emerging church thinking. Unfortunately, with a large swath of this type of church, there’s a quiet battle for the word “missional.” I’ve written extensively on the meaning of missional in view of the various ways people use it. It is in truth a radical word with theological as well as practical ramifications. Some, however, have attempted to co-opt the word and prepend it to existing ministries to say that they are now missional. This doesn’t cut it — but if they are allowed to redefine the term so that it merely means something like “outwardly-focused,” they will rob it of its radical effect and excuse themselves from the radical change necessary to become missional in more than just name only. This looks to me like a recognition of the need to change paired with the unwillingness to actually change, at least to any significant degree.
In the years ahead, this is where we’ll see not major change, but more adoption of older methods rebranded missional. Think “missional campus” appended to a multi-site church reaching into the inner city, or the “missional program” (an oxymoron if ever there was one) of a megachurch running outreach programs, or the “missional service” that used to be called “seeker-sensitive.” None of these are truly missional in their core, but allow church leaders to tell their congregants that they’re “taking the good stuff” from the missional movement to apply to their own church ministry. They aren’t, but it’ll placate a lot of people.
As for the emerging church, the need to be “relevant” to the culture that was sparked by missional concern before spending ten or fifteen years re-theologizing will return for some. The emerging church will fracture between the liberalizing theological stream and the missional stream, which is to say, the part of the emerging church that returns to the roots of why the began to be emerging. The liberalizing theological stream, on the other hand, is made up of those who didn’t enter the emerging church for primarily missional reasons, or whose emphases changed once they began redefining their theology.
My suspicion is that the emerging church label will trend more toward the liberalizing theological stream, while the missional stream will simply drop the term and use “missional” instead, or else retain the combination term “emerging/missional,” at least for a while. Those who just say “missional” may have to battle the mainstream evangelicals for the definition of the term, while those who say “emerging/missional” will have to continue explaining that their theology is not of the emergent-liberal variety. In other words, we aren’t yet done with the frustrating semantic confusion and seemingly endless discussion of terminology.
Yes, I’m saying that the fractures we talked about last year in the emerging church will continue… likely with more pieces, and wider divides. For some, this may bring to mind Andrew Jones’ recent distancing from Emergent Village, but remember this is nothing new for those who recall the FORGE distancing from Emergent in 2005. Of course, we could toss in a few other notable names here as well.
So who moved? Everyone. Nobody’s really standing still here, everyone’s reacting to changes in culture and in the face of the church. But that’s the subject of my next post.
One more thing, though. Over the next decade, more books will be published about the whole movement. Of course already knew that… but this is the part where I toss out some easy ones so that if I’m wrong about any of the above, I’ll still be able to say I was right about something. ;^) Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m really wrong about any of this stuff. So watch for more criticism about the emergent brand and the money behind it, mainly in publishing and the attendant tours and conferences. Of course, some of the theology will be challenged in the liberalizing arm of the movement as well, so there’s enough controversy to go around. And like among our evangelical church bretheren, some of the coming fractures will have to do with good old-fashioned scandal as well as theological viewpoints and practical emphases.
By the end of the decade, it’s more likely than not that the emerging church as we know it will be done. It will either fizzle and be a failed movement, or it will be more fully integrated into missional and mainstream churches… but I don’t think that it’ll be a standalone movement as it is now. And in order for that to happen, the movement’s leaders will have to ask themselves (or remind themselves) whether they were emerging in order to build “their own thing” or in order to create change, even if it means letting “their own thing” fall into the ground and die.
Subscribe Posts
January 10th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
I was once part of a church during it’s fall into the ground and die part and then it’s regrowth. As it turned out, it was still a regular old church with prettier window dressing … the people were still meaner than snakes.
January 10th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
From all the stuff that has come out in the last couple of weeks, this is absolutely refreshing…you’ve captured the height, depth and breadth of whats has transpired…and given us a glimpse ahead.
I think emergent ” as a person ” is in hospice and likely won’t recover. But, I think emergent ” as spirit ” will live on. For me, it’s hard to say when the shift happened, maybe the (e)merger with Youth Specialties and Zondervan. There’s always something about labels, a product and marketing. It’s the reality of a best before date…the product can go stale, not good for consumption. Sadly, in a sense, the very thing it tried to avoid becoming…it became.
I think, the label might be dead or near death…but, I think the spirit of the conversation is still alive will continue to live. There is still a matrix of tough faith conversation and practice ahead…interfaith dialog, engaging pluralism, reconstructing theology around redemptive imagination. And I see new people entering the conversation, christians with Cosmology, Ecology, Science and Philosophy backgrounds…stretch the boundaries of faith. May we not be in such a hurry to label, and sell something as much as to encourage each other to find a language, and practice to re-imagine life…to see the Hope, the Kingdom that Jesus reveals.
January 10th, 2010 at 5:35 pm
The history of most movements within the church over the past 50 years is that they rarely remain a standalone faction. This doesn’t mean they fizzled or failed, instead, they invariably are integrated in some form into the mainstream. Emerging and missional movements will undoubtedly follow a similar path here in North America – missional more so that emerging in my view do to the liberal theological bent of EV.
January 14th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Hello! You remain as ever a challenging thinker and excellent writer. Though i disagree with a divide you seem to suggest between missional praxis and emergent theology (I could be misunderstanding you here), I resonated deeply with this thought:”So who moved? Everyone. Nobody’s really standing still here, everyone’s reacting to changes in culture and in the face of the church.” I haven’t read a truer statement in the recent blogs around this topic. Thank you!
January 10th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
@BroMaynard with the last word on emerging/ent™ church… and the word after that: http://bit.ly/7×8B3S
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
January 10th, 2010 at 4:58 pm
RT @kinnon: @BroMaynard with the last word on emerging/ent™ church… and the word after that: http://bit.ly/7×8B3S
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
January 10th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
RT @BlindBeggar RT @kinnon: @BroMaynard w/last word on emerging/ent™ church… and the word after that: http://bit.ly/7×8B3S
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
January 10th, 2010 at 8:14 pm
The decade ahead of the Emerging Church: http://subversiveinfluence.com/2010/01/the-decade-ahead-for-the-emerging-church/
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
January 11th, 2010 at 10:16 am
The Decade Ahead for the Emerging Church http://bit.ly/74N40H
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
January 11th, 2010 at 10:17 am
The Decade Ahead for the Emerging Church http://bit.ly/74N40H
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
January 14th, 2010 at 11:45 am
THANK YOU for speaking up about this. I also wade both streams, and see no reason a separation should be required or even expected.
Theology *is* missional work, and pursuing mission is precisely the way to pursue a theology. In my experience, growth and development in one inevitably produces a transformation in the other, in this way these aspects of faith are linked. The idea that one aspect may change while the other somehow remains static is a fiction.
Maybe we’ve misunderstood some of the implications of Brother Maynard’s post and he’s planning some expansion/clarifications of the fracture he’s thinking about.
This comment was originally posted on jonathan stegall
January 26th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
I’m sticking my neck out again with predictions for a decade. http://bit.ly/9e6k1t (Hey, it was popular last time http://bit.ly/74N40H)
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
January 27th, 2010 at 7:31 am
Man! the closing of the post really resonates my feelings. I hate to say it, but, christianity has become the churches idol. We have always spoke from a place of entitlement, the authority on ” God.” It was interesting I was out for dinner with my wife and friends on the weekend, and I told people I no longer indentify myself as a christian. I felt like I had come out of the closet, or an AA meeting. Some friends were shocked, but not really surprised. I really indentify myself with Jesus and the Kingdom, that is the anchor from which I live life from. I think I can live from that profound mysterious truth with out all the clutter of religious trappings. I read the Koran over the summer…maybe I’m going to hell now. But I could see beauty, and truths in their sacred texts…I don’t live out of that story. But I can relate to parts of it. Surely, the way to the future will be in humble conversation with other religions. I believe behind the noise of the religious fundamentalists, there are alot of people that want to listen and learn from one another.We can circle the wagons, retreat from the world, protect and fight…and starve to death, and miss on what God is doing in the world now. As I write this, the Anglican Diocese here closed 19 churches today. How do you say…irrelevant.
This comment was originally posted on Subversive Influence
January 31st, 2010 at 7:29 am
What a great post Bro Maynard.
When they came to forcibly make Him the king – he withdrew from the election. His goal was never to take over the civil government and make this a better place to live.
When He commanded them to cast the nets on the other side and the catch almost sunk the boats – they never took over the marketplace – they left their nets and boats and followed Him.
In the end, the governments, the marketplace, and the world’s religions will align themselves against Him – and His followers will be there with Him – in the margins – having left Egypt – having crossed the Red Sea – having left Babylon – being like Abraham – really have no where to go except follow Him.
This comment was originally posted on Subversive Influence