Those flingin flangin emerging churches
Greg the explorer sent me a link to this article which seems concerned to put several nails in the coffin of the emerging church:
In the UK, a nudist beach mission has just finished in Wales. Graceway, a church in Auckland, New Zealand, encouraged its members to ‘pray with your hand around a cup of coffee’ as a way of experiencing the Spirit ‘as warmth in your spirituality’. In Canada, a church called Worship Free House doesn’t offer sermons – but does install art.
According to prominent evangelical church leaders, all are symptomatic of a dangerous protest against biblical orthodoxy. While The Da Vinci Code puts the gospel on trial, the emerging church questions established biblical teaching throughout church history by offering what they says is a more authentic expression of Christianity.
“Some believe [emerging churches] to be the greatest challenge to mainstream churches since the birth of the Charismatic movement,” says Andy Peck, assistant editor of the UK’s Christianity+Renewal magazine in a recent article. “As some churches struggle to grow they will welcome emerging church thinking with open arms. ”Labels are useless to describe this alternative Christian movement, which has exploded out of the UK and the US and is now expanding into Australia.
Proponents like to talk in terms of ‘connecting’, ‘sharing’, ‘re-imagining’. They say the movement is not one as such but rather a ‘conversation’ within Protestant Christianity. They say labels are unhelpful to their cause. It is perhaps easier to define what the emergent movement is not. “This is not biblical theology,” says Canon Jim Ramsay, Director of Sydney Diocese’s Evangelism Ministries. “It’s a shaking of Christian orthodoxy.”
Punch ‘em in the goolies!! Singled out for criticism (implied or otherwise) are people like Cheryl, Steve (or Graceway, anyway), Darren and of course big bad bustling Brian McLaren. Interestingly, the only person on that list who has never commented here is Brian McLaren. He should get his act together. Or alternatively, he should stay away so that he doesn’t contaminate us with his non-orthodox Christianity.
Of course they are particularly worried about a Wales naturist beach mission, described here in an article published on April Fools’ Day, complete with founders Adam and Eve and a Sir Pent who invites Eve to pass some fruit to Adam. Clearly the site which published the article, emergingchurch.info is evil, as it has the temerity to list signposts as a link!
May 9th, 2006 at 10:17 pm
my most favourite quote is this one from Bishop Forsyth:
“If God had meant us to have the new, he wouldn’t have given us the old”
i’m struggling a little to recognise the Christian Gospel in that…
May 9th, 2006 at 10:56 pm
At some point historically, every church observable today went through a stage of “emergence”. I’m not sure many current congregations are an exact cultural replica of Paul having a chinwag in the Mediterranean circa 60AD. So, there was a shift of styles at some point in every section of the church.
I kinda like the idea of an expression of Christianity that is more reflex natural as opposed to ritualistic, traditional for it’s own sake, or even cultural to the point of culture-idolatry.
Then again I’m a cult leader, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt.
May 10th, 2006 at 8:24 am
well, to be quite honest, I think the cultishness is in the other direction. Time was when being an Anglican was in itself a celebration of theological diversity (unfortunately not cultural diversity — but in the white bread Australia I grew up in, what did we know of that?). Not any more, at least not in the Jensen’s Sydney. Having read the whole article in Southern cross (where it is followed a couple of pages later with an incredibly insensitive article on how not to waste your “blessing”of cancer), two things struck me on first reading.
One was the incredible stupidity of being taken in by an April Fool’s joke as representative of what the latest “enemy” are doing (nude evangelism in the chilly Welsh mountains in early spring? yeah, that would really have mass appeal!!). In our desire to demonise the enemy, it’s always dangerously easy to suspend critical thinking and believe any absurdity that makes them look bad.
The second was the equating of incense and candles with idolatry. Huh? I’ve yet to see anyone actually worshipping a candle (though of course someone .. somewhere …). These people have no notion of the power of symbolism to connect human beings to God. Their theology is ultra-rationalist, Moore College actually teaches that God only communicates to man through propositional revelation. Sad, really, they miss out on so much (and would deny it to others). they are afraid of symbolism, they see it as unreliable (probably because it’s much harder to control how people understand it .. again, how sad!) And they cannot see the glaring idolatry of believing that they are the only ones who understand the bible correctly, and that anyone who studies the text and sees something else is automatically denying the authority of scripture. While some of us see the biblical mandate as being to distinguish between true and false shepherds (by their fruit, not their textbooks, I believe) these guys have a mission to discern true sheep from false, and if we do not baa with their accents we are not of the true flock ..
Sorry to make this long, but I go to an anglican church (it is therapeutic to confess, yes?) and have had many encounters with these people.
May 10th, 2006 at 9:03 am
good post blestpickle. When our current bishop (Newcastle: + Brian Farran) was concecrated at Christ Church Cathedral the use of candles and insense would have been choking Peter Jensen. In fact he refused to hold a candle (whilst every other bishop in the place did) as a simble that Bishop Brian had been called to be a light to this world (at least the Newcastle diocese) - one of our Newcastle clergy had to hold it for him.
I agree with Don Carson who does have a point where he says he worries that the danger for the emerging church is an `unwitting drift from Scripture’. Now the question obviously arises whether or not a drif t may well be a good thing - a drift from one particualr view and understanding to a far more genreous and embracing view and understanding of scripture.
Scripture was never intended to be used as a weapon but just about every Sydney Anglican (of te Peter Jensen fan club type) uses it as a dagger or a grenade - ‘loob in a scripture verse and see the suckers burn!’
May 10th, 2006 at 10:03 am
Dan,
You have a gift with words that is clever and provocative. There is clearly a sacred secular divide when you can’t hold a cup of coffee and worship and use every day symbols as part of our rituals. Sometimes in the church we enshrine some rituals and symbols as more sacred than the tools they point to and serve.
Mind you I know a number of people who properly worship caffeine a little too much….
All the examples given at the start of the article were, for me, great expressions of churches embracing culture in healthy natural ways. Maybe except the nudist beach one, I am not sure how healthy or natural it would be for me to enter into that kind of mission, I think I would do the Kingdom more harm than good with my frame.
Luke 10: 1-2 says: After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
These 72 were the start of the church. There were, I believe no other groups of disciples we know about, maybe groups were forming around other areas Jesus had been, irregardless I believe Jesus was implicating that the future workers would come FROM the harvest. This makes sense to me and encourages me to embrace the very people I am sent to serve and minister among. To love them and to embrace them and to believe that many of the things they do and love and express in spirituality is not all wrong, in fact some of it maybe incredibly rich and meaningful. They, as new fellow workers and followers of Jesus, may not even understand no want to participate in the rituals the church has always expressed. I believe worships is a cornerstone of our faith but its expression may take on a multitude of expressions. Communion is something Jesus talks about as important for his followers to participate in. However the bible was never a teaching manual of lists and instructions for church in neither our century nor any others.
I am not a good writer so sorry for going on. I guess I am saying the future church is I pray and hope and believe made up of people who have no or little loyalty and tradition of the current expressions of church. It is not that they are naturally opposed to them, though I am sure this would be true of a portion from their perceptions of church. But rather that the imagination of what church could be for them in belonging and serving in rich community lies in their freedom to dream and live. Let people paint freely, hold onto cups of coffee and smell deeply and well…I wont be there, but if they must get naked on a nudist beach…hope it is very warm and your mind wont wander. The bottom line for me is that missional imagination that leads people to Jesus and embraces them in community happens.
May 10th, 2006 at 10:28 am
1. cheryl Says:
my most favourite quote is this one from Bishop Forsyth:
“If God had meant us to have the new, he wouldn’t have given us the old”
It’s particularly funny to hear a Protestant say that!
May 10th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
Cheryl:
I too share your reaction to the quote: from Bishop Forsyth:
“If God had meant us to have the new, he wouldn’t have given us the old”
I too don’t see the gospel in it, or human history or the biblical narrative. I would love Bishop Forsyth to explain more what he means by that statement.
May 10th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
“All change is dangerous”
Really?
Crickey!
(BTW: Thought the worship sounded great, Cheryl… )
May 11th, 2006 at 6:17 am
thanks lynne! the article forgot to mention that Mark Pierson was also responsible for the worship…
actually, the article ripped so much stuff out of context on so many fronts that i’ve realised we probably need to give Bishop Forsyth the benefit of the doubt too, and assume that his quotes about change weren’t what they were reported to be…
May 11th, 2006 at 9:22 am
St Barnabas, the church in Broadway Sydney that Bishpo Forsythe used to be rector of quite sometime ago, burnt to the ground early yesterday morning.
May 11th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Cheryl I missed that one and now I’m wishing I’d been there even more…LOL.
I never thought us Urban Seeders would feature in something suggesting we were heretical…
I love this line: “…Worship Free House doesn’t offer sermons - but does install art”.
Not only do they miss the point, but you could hardly get more culturally biased…one thing I learnt in the Solomon Islands was that we really like pontificating, and we’ve forgotten how to sing, dance, act…”We live by faith not by sight”…WHAT THE?! (more cultural bias)
And this one’s a corker: “…pagan and Christian symbolism - candles, incense, poetry, technology and art” - which ones of those are ‘pagan’ and which ones are ‘Christian’?!
May 11th, 2006 at 10:10 pm
Guess its pretty difficult to take seriously any article which missed April 1!
My dilemma as a “liminal”,caught in “continuous change”,”disembedded”, struggling to be in “communitas”,looking for “transition” but in all probability in a state of “equilibrium” which is “death” is not Jensen or Forsyth but American conultants whom I struggle to understand.
For us “liminals” books by consultants like Roxburgh (The sky is falling) need interpreters - is there an emerging church dictionary?
How can there be a discussion on prophets but not a word about injustice,evil empires,exploitation or the poor?
Why in leadership discussions is there talk of Luther,Constantinople and Brueggemann but bot King,or Berrigan(s) or Macleod or stringfellow?
Why the use of “tribes” but not congregations or communities?
Why do us “liminals” worry that the emerging church appears to us to spend a lot of time conferencing about themselves but not about war and peace teams, or the selfishness of church schools and home schooling,or the exploitation of sweat shops or child labour around the corner;have we got it wrong or dont we understand?
This is the only place where “liminals”like me can struggle to understand the emerging church.
Forget about Sydney diocese (altho if I understand Roxburgh even out of Syd can be found the “transition”) the challenge for all of us in the community of faith is how the hell do we mobilise and organise to confront and overcome the kingdoms of evil?
Hope someone can help without any punching in the goolies(is that some term understood only by dog lovers?).
June 5th, 2006 at 10:20 pm
i choked on my cup of tea while watching mediawatch tonight… here’s the transcript…http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s1655730.htm
June 5th, 2006 at 10:39 pm
Oh that is gold!
June 5th, 2006 at 10:54 pm
I see no reference in the sydneyanglicans article to NUDES. I take it someone let them in on the joke? Does anyone recall (or have a copy) of the original comment?
Cheryl, I think you’re right about the Bishop being quoted out of context. This statement, “It might mean looking with some interest and being a little more relaxed about trying something new.” which doesn’t seem to follow from the previous one, does suggest he’s not totally averse to change.
Anyway, if anyone’s looking for me, I’ll be down at Wyndup Beach! :p
June 5th, 2006 at 10:56 pm
Forget about the NUDES request. Media Watch to the rescue~!
June 6th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
I nearly choked too, Cheryl!
It’s interesting that christian publications aren’t floating beneath the radar of things like MediaWatch anymore…
June 6th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Damn! There goes my church plant idea!
June 6th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
I get a good laugh from media watch normally but when they do a story like this I laughed so hard ended up ROTF coughing MAO.
June 6th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
Grace, do you need a hand putting it back on?
June 6th, 2006 at 5:24 pm
No the Zombie Bums from Uranus ate it.
June 9th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
Sendup of Emerging Churches @ http://purgatorio1.com/?p=105
LOL Hope noone takes offence and is willing to laugh at one-self.
June 9th, 2006 at 5:04 pm
Oh, that is brilliant! It seems there is the genesis of an “anti-emerging church” movement, looking at some of the comments.
June 10th, 2006 at 5:22 pm
Re: 22 - Purgatorio - check out their page on leading worship - http://purgatorio1.com/?p=182 - too funny!
June 10th, 2006 at 11:33 pm
Purplegraciegirl I wouldn’t call it genesis of “anti emerging Church” movement I would say it has moved on somewhat from that. Just check out some of the critics on the web for example
http://www.sydneyanglicans.net/mission/missionthinking/true_confessions_of_the_emerging_church/
and
chrsitianity today under chuck colson
as I think Bec says its good to surround yourself with people you may not agree with or in this case know both sides of the story
June 11th, 2006 at 1:06 am
I’m pretty out of touch with things, GR, so I’m keen to be informed.
Random, or even widespread, criticism is one thing, but for there to be a “movement” suggests some degree of organisation.
Would you say things have developed that far?
June 11th, 2006 at 7:47 am
GR - have I said that here?! LOL. I do believe it’s good for me to be surrounded by people I don’t agree with…
PGG - I wouldn’t say there was an “anti-emerging church movement” - I’d say that the people who used to rant about “postmodernism” (even though they didn’t really know what it was, in my opinion) have now moved on to ranting about the “emerging church” (and again, they don’t really understand what it’s on about). To be fair, though, the emerging church movement (or at least many individuals within it) hasn’t always been particularly “nice” to the institutional church - there’s a difference between gently critiquing something and slamming it.
June 11th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
Thanks, bec.
I can see that one of the (necessary?) qualities of the emerging church has been to critique the traditional/existing church. As I understand it, new movements of significance often start out at the fringes of the old. ie. The outcasts. So a degree of criticism from the centre is also implied.
I guess the trick is to encourage criticism in both directions in ways that are constructive, or at least civil. I detect a good deal of anger, even hatred?, in some of the responses to that photo essay on purgatorio1.com… that GR posted. Bloody funny post, though.
June 11th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
If any one is interested in looking up the “No Vote” for emrging churches check out Energent No @ http://emergentno.blogspot.com/ from there you can look at other critical sites using the technoarti tags - emerging church critque.
Not tryinging to play devil’s advocate - no way not me. ;0)
June 11th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
Severe typo disease - my typing did not keep up with me that time.