Tensions Within Movement

I haven’t written for a few days, so it’s good to be back. The last few days have been full of good things (Dad getting out of ICU despite some lingering respiratory issues and a viewing of the consciousness-raising “Sicko”) and bad (our Corolla getting swiped by an unknown vehicle in a parking lot of a grocery store). Nevertheless, I’m still standing. I finally pushed through the rest of Robert Webber’s “Listening to the Beliefs of the Emerging Churches”. As I alluded to a couple of days ago, this book has been the greatest challenge for me to date in my explorations. A huge part of this is that it was incredibly difficult for me to resonate with several of the authors. At least three of the five contributors held Scripture as the final voice of authority – advocating for a position of closed revelation (“we know everything we need to know about the essence and nature of God as it has already been revealed through Scripture”). I hold the Holy Spirit in higher reverence than the Scriptures and believe we live in a time of continued revelation (that “God is still speaking” – as the motto of my own denomination - the United Church of Christ suggests). While a part of me was glad to see that the emergent movement seemed to contain such a wonderfully rich sense of diversity, I wonder if the emergent movement truly does. It felt like there were at least 2 contributors that at least one of the contributors would have said “are not Christian” due to the generous and gracious nature of their orthodoxy. I guess my hope is that through continued dialogue and conversations these awkward tensions might be broached. Of course, I have to realize that these tensions have existed since the earliest days of the church (see the arguments between Paul and the Pillars of Jerusalem regarding circumcision and table fellowship). From the book, I could see a splintering of the movement in the next 5-10 years as some (Driscoll, Burke, and Kimball) would advocate for theological litmus tests (i.e. a particular view of Scripture and profession of one of the historic creeds) for those who would like to use the term emergent. We shall see what the future holds. In the meantime, after 6 weeks of reading texts almost exclusively devoted to the emerging culture, I’m going to start reading more texts related specifically to worship issues. Of course I hope to engage them through the lens of the emerging culture. I look forward to this next stage of exploration. Til next time…