How to Understand The Emerging Church

The "emerging church" movement is a recent development in Western Christianity. Some versions of the emerging movement place spiritual experience, intentional community and the freedom to question above strict adherence to particular religious views while others continue to stress the absolute truth of core evangelical expressions.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Interest in theology and philosophy.

1. Learn the basics. The emerging church movement in its different varieties tends to express itself as a Christian reaction to the philosophy of postmodernism. Postmodernism, which takes cues from philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzche, claims that absolute certainty is impossible and that modern scientific, intellectual and religious movements have wrongly assumed otherwise. "Emerging" Christians thus stress the importance of experiencing Christ in community over intellectual belief in, for example, the truth of Scripture, as a basis for life and faith.
2. Follow the "conversation." Emerging Christians tend to talk about emergence in conversational rather than programmatic terms. Many refer to the phenomenon as the "emerging conversation" to stress its difference from previous Christian movements, which some feel were based on outmoded systems of thought whose deficiencies are evidenced by the postmodern worldview. "Conversation" stresses the importance that emerging Christians place on experiencing spiritual truth in community.
3. Understand what "emergence" isn't. The emerging conversation is not a denomination or a monolithic set of views. Though there are common features across the emerging spectrum, "emergence" is often hard to define, reflecting its roots in postmodern epistemology (the study of how humans know what they claim to know).
4. Consider varying emerging views and groups. Some emerging Christians retain a very evangelical view of Christian truth and, while they stress the importance of deliberate spiritual community for prayer, service and spiritual experience (often referred to as "missional living"), they continue to maintain more literal readings of Scripture and doctrine. Others stress the idea that the Bible represents its own kind of spiritual conversation and are interested in Scripture as a source of narrative theology mirroring the experiences of their own communities.
5. Join the conversation. Dan Kimball and Brian McLaren are widely regarded as two leading voices in the emerging conversation and represent different strains of emerging thought. Their work is very accessible and explains the underlying philosophic jargon in understandable terms. The blogosphere is also a favorite venue for emerging Christians of all persuasions. Comment features on most blogs provide a very "emerging" way of joining this discussion.

Tips & Warnings

• Remember that there are different ways of being an "emerging" Christian.
• Avoid websites claiming to represent emerging views if they appear to be one-sided or overly hostile towards those who respectfully disagree.