“There’s a movement in churches today, primarily in the UK and the States, called the Emerging Church, or the Emergent Church movement. (Sometimes those phrases seem to mean different things. Sometimes they’re used interchangeably.) I’ve heard the term Emerging thrown around since about 2000, but when I’d ask people what it meant, I’d get such mushy replies that I was often left more confused and unsatisfied that I was before. So I recently decided to delve a little deeper. I asked even more people (and sometimes the same people over again) what the movement was all about. After getting yet another set of wiggly mush out of them, I decided that I was just going to have to get serious about this. It was time to turn to the monolith of all worldly knowledge, Wikipedia. I looked up the entry there and.... Well, I’ve come across useless Wikipedia entries before, but usually it’s because there’s no content, not because there’s a copious amount of content that says nothing. The entry on the Emerging Church takes the cake for being one of the worst Wikipedia entries of all time. (I considered adding my own 2 cents to the page, but I’m not the kind of person that likes to swim in verbal Jell-o.) So in desperation, I finally turned to Amazon, where I found two books that I hoped would help me finally get the answers I craved: The Emerging Church: Vintage Christianity for New Generations, by Dan Kimball and Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be) by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck.
I read Kimball’s book first and found it to be very helpful, very straight forward, and really interesting. Kimball explained not only what the Emerging Movement is, but how it started, what it’s in response to, and how it (sorta) looks. His book is written in an Emerging style (conversational) with quotes from other Emergent authors along the sides as they respond to Kiimball’s thoughts. By the end of the book I felt like I had this Emergent thing pretty well nailed down in my mind.
Unfortunately, reading the second book I had ordered, Why We’re Not Emergent, made me realize that Kimball’s take on the Emergent Movement is not definitive. Though he is really clear on how he sees the movement, his view is really only one of many, many, many. I suppose a parallel would be for someone who sees in only black and white to ask about colors. Someone could explain red to them in great detail until they feel like they really “get” colors for the first time ever. But then a second person comes up and says, “Oh, that’s just one color. Let me tell you about aquamarine.” And as more and more people come up to tell about another color, the completely color blind person starts to feel like there’s really no way to pin down what color is when there’s so many different variants of color. Rather than focus on the variations, though, I’d like to specifically focus on Kimball’s color/variant of Emerging. Even if there are too many colors to know them all, I still think there’s value in zero-ing in on one or two.
Connections, Explanations, and Elucidations
Dan Kimball believes there is a new culture emerging. As he explains it, there are four main worldviews that describe all of known history: 1) The worldview of the ancients was one in which authority was vested in kings, prophets and oracles, information was passed along orally, and mankind was inconsequential in a world of competing deities. 2) The medieval worldview, on the other hand, held that the church was the center of authority. Communication was both oral and written. And belief was paramount. 3) The modern world (which Kimball places as the time between 1500 - 2000) put authority firmly into the realm of science and reason. The introduction of the printing press put knowledge (and therefore power) into the hands of the people for the first time. 4) But now, Kimball believes, we're moving into a postmodern era. There is a strong distrust of authority, even science and reason are no longer supreme as conflicting truths and beliefs become not only the norm, but commonly accepted. The internet has accelerated communication and opened it up on a global level. People find power no longer in kings or the church or even science and reason, but in their own personal experiences.
Kimball splits his book into two main segments: deconstructing the modern church and reconstructing it as the postmodern church. The first half of the book delves into the why's of the Emergent church movement. He points out over and over again that the church is no longer speaking to culture that is primarily "Christian" in nature. There is no cultural agreement that the Bible is a basis of truth. Rather, the emergent culture is largely not only unchurched, but has quite possibly never stepped foot inside a church. The common spiritual understanding of yore (where at least people agreed on the meanings of terms and the importance of God) are gone, replaced by a secular culture where spiritual terms can mean very different things to different people. Kimball believes that this emerging culture is still very spiritual, but that it is pluralistic and though people might feel a strong affinity toward Jesus, there's a strong hatred against Christians and Christianity.
Because of this emerging, postmodern population, Kimball believes there needs to be an entirely different approach to worship and evangelism. Rather than tightly scripted services, little congregational participation and sermons with fill-in-the-blank outline notes, Kimball believes the church needs to move toward more experiential services with the entire congregation involved in the service. Sermons should be personal, should incorporate visual elements, and should encourage people to not just study the Bible, but to struggle with it -- examining it at a personal, as well as cognitive, level.
Reactions, Virtual Stained Glass and Candles
Though Kimball's book is divided into deconstruction and reconstruction, there's an overall feeling to the book that the whole thing is really, at it's core, a reaction. The American church is a varied conglomeration of denominations, movements, styles, formats and beliefs (I assume the UK has a similar variety) and yet Kimball seems to be reacting to "the modern church" as if it's one well-defined institution, embodied most particularly in the seeker-sensitive movement. Because of this, I think his descriptions and alternative solutions seem much more black and white than they are in reality. This makes for some ironic criticisms and suggestions on his part.
Kimball believes the emergent generation seeks "vintage Christianity." They want a sense that what they're partaking in is connected to the ancient and spiritual world and traditions of yore. They don't want the dry, hollow spirituality of their parents' generation, but the mysterious, mystical, and counter-cultural spirituality of the early Christians. So how do you go about creating a service that meets that need? You hang up black sheets around the room, you light some candles, you fill the room with crosses and then you project images of stained class windows on the over-head projector. Kimball repeatedly used the term "props" for many of these things, which certainly doesn't fill me with a sense of authenticity and harkening back to days of yore (when churches were dark because they were big and made out of stone and used candles not so much to create a sense of mystery as to try to dispel a bit of that darkness).
Kimball took a group of non-Christians to a seeker-sensitive mega-church service and later asked their opinions on the service. Their reactions were unanimously negative, citing that the church had a corporate feel, was too well lit, and felt performance focused. Kimball then uses this negative image of the modern church to explain that the Emergent church should be the polar opposite in each of those areas. As a member of a church that has less than 40 members, has no bookstore, no coffee shop, and certainly no well packaged, pre-scripted performance feel, I found this black and white comparison to be less than helpful. It's one thing to call churches to be more Biblical, but Kimball seems to have gotten stuck on simply calling churches to be less seeker-sensitive modeled. And some of his suggestions were overly simplistic and seemed to miss his own point entirely: If the goal is to seek a more authentic form of worship, then why the heck are we focusing on the lighting? Why do we have a bookstore or coffee shop at all?!!
The intersection of worship and personality type -- and how Kimball seems to have missed that
The Emergent Church has named itself based on a perception that the western world is going through a paradigm shift. They believe that though not everyone has bought into this new mode of thinking, there is an emerging group of people (that began emerging in the early 1900's and is increasingly prevalent today) who do not connect with God, nor spirituality in general, in the same way as generations past. Because of this, the church needs to shift it's thinking and it's methods to better meet this emerging generation. Emergents believe that this emerging, postmodern culture will grow until it is the dominant culture (in the UK and US at least).
Though I agree that unchurched, or postchurched, populations are expanding in Europe and the US (in other words, we're in a postChristian era), I don't think that necessarily means that the church will only reach this population if they're dimming the lights, lighting candles and projecting images of stained glass windows. I do agree with Kimball that we need to encourage people not just to accept the Scriptures, but to wrestle with them. We need to be honest about our own struggles and we need to be authentic in our lives and witness. I don't think any of these things are necessary because we face an emerging generation. Rather, I think they're necessary because they're marks of integrity and honesty and are therefore Biblical.
I do believe that there are people who feel more deeply connected to God and their own spirituality when they are surrounded by candles, incense, sacred images, etc. However, I don't think this type of person is necessarily emergent. Rather, they're more likely ESFJs who, by personality type, prefer to connect with all of their senses or either ENTPs or ENFPs who, though not drawn to experiential connecting when they're younger, find it to be rewarding and helpful as they mature. In the same way, I think Kimball is not reacting so much against seeker sensitive churches in particular, but against ISTJs especially, as well as ISFJs and ESTJs a little more generally, all of whom prefer structure, linear thinking, and even fill-in-the-blank sermon notes. They also tend to be the personality types that you'd find in what we think of as "traditional" or "stodgy" churches.
So What?
So whether you would consider yourself to be Emergent or not, I think is still a good book for Christians to read. Kimball brings up several points that we often don't address because we've simply grown used to the status quo. ("What are visitors' first impressions when they attend a Sunday service?" for example. Or "Are we encouraging people to grapple with Scripture or are we encouraging them to accept beliefs without questioning them?") Any Christian church, whether Emergent or not, would do well to take times out for re-evaluation and re-focusing.
On the other hand, to the extent that Kimball encourages churches to make changes that will draw in the "Emergent generation" I think he's misguided. His suggestions may help to bring in artists, bohemians, and urbanites, but the world has always had such folk and it always will. At the same time, it will always have people who prefer tradition, familiarity, and staidness as well, and those people need to be reached with the gospel just as much as the trendy folk do.
It's cool to be Emergent these days (whatever Emergent means), but the Emerging population is just a subset of the world's total population. The unchurched come in every personality type and connect with spirituality in many different ways. We need to meet people where they're at. If churches were all to start seeking only after this emergent sub-group, that would leave most of the world unreached. We do need to reach the artsy, fartsy cool folks. I'm not saying we shouldn't. But we need to reach the boring, the traditional and the lovers of fill-in-the-blank lectures as well.”
