Hopefully you recall I’ve made a couple posts concerning the Emergent church movment—particularly based on the books of Brian McLaren (one of the movement’s most prominent thinkers) and D.A. Carson (a brotherly, constructive critic). Now to try to wrap up a sticky critter, what am I making then of McLaren and the Emergent Chruch movement overall?
I would say we have here Christians in the thrall of the progressive spirit, where new ideas are tend to be regarded with hope, and old ones with dissatisfaction. I don’t believe the progressive mindset is inherently superior or inferior to the conservative one, whether in religion or in other matters. There’s a place for both in the body of Christ: for those who are excited to help us adapt to new situations and process, integrate and be appropriately changed by new knowledge and perspectives on the one hand, and on the other for those who are animated to guard us against the sorts of innovations and adaptations that threaten or conflict with our faithfulness to God and who powerfully appreciate the quality and depth of the long-tested thoughts and ways we have inherited.
But being counterbalances to one another, the progressive and conservative types easily become frustrated with one another. For that matter, I expect they’re stirred by different kinds of preaching and prefer different ways of doing church. Whether willingly or by force of its situation, and whether in a competitive or cooperative spirit, the American church makes a market economy of religion; diverse churches compete for members and fill various niches for a variety of clientele. This situation has the advantage of spurring churches to adapt to better fill people’s felt needs (which can, by the way, include the need to give and act and be transformed, not always only to consume and be comforted), and the disadvantage of catalyzing divisions: whether competing factions or disconnected body parts. It’s easiest to connect with people similar to ourselves, to feel most edified by teaching focused on our peculiar situations in life, to listen to people who share or at least understand and respectfully empathize with our basic assumptions, and to open our hearts through the cultures and subcultures that are our homes.
I’m not convinced that the way we segregate on Sundays is entirely a bad thing in every case. But having specialized niche congregations means we need to be all the more vigilant against forming factions between the various niches or losing the ligaments that keep Jesus’ bones in order. When some Christians stop thinking and behaving like other different Christians are important parts of the Body of Christ, with unique helpful contributions, the Body of Christ out of joint.
There’s a phenomenon in social psychology called group polarization. Essentially, it means if you put a bunch of moderate environmentalists together in a pot, stir them around and let them simmer, you’ll tend to find in time you have a pot of radical environmentalists. Groups of risk takers will become riskier, groups of cautious people will become more risk-adverse. Part of the reason for this seems to be that each person pursues greater acceptance and perhaps leadership by embracing a slightly stronger version of the group identity (“we’re progressive; it’s good to be progressive; I’ll be cooler if I’m especially progressive”). Perhaps an even more important reason for group polarization is informational influence (“I think heavily taxing the rich is a bad idea. Gee, she has a good argument for why such taxes are bad that I hadn’t thought of. Ever more clearly, those taxes are really bad.”) Nobody’s sharing the good arguments favoring substantial taxes on the rich; it’s not just that members might not feel encouraged to do so (though that may be true); maybe nobody in the group even knows about those arguments).
So what I’ve been insinuating is this: I believe group polarization forces are harming the development of the Emergent Chruch situation, and doing so on both sides. Minds close (even minds that boast of openness), faction mentality grows (even among those who are trying to transcend factions), conservative thinkers, having formed a herd, may conserve too much, and risk-taking thinkers, having formed a herd, take too reckless of risks.
While the older books I’ve read of McLaren’s seemed like pretty good stuff, more recent writings by McLaren & company (for example, A New Kind of Christianity) have seemed to me to be slipping in a more reckless direction in their project to instigate helpful bold theological shifts. I feel like progressive values and the problems we progressive types tend to face with Christian theology have grown in power more or less unchecked (despite, or even sometimes by means of vocal opposition from more conservative folks). As the foundations for theology are brought into question, I think the desire of Emergent folks to develop something fresh that resonates with their current values is threatening the integrity of their listening and reading, and question-solving.
Nevertheless, I do believe that key elements of the Emergent project are fundamentally worthwhile: as our knowledge and our culture develop, many of us start generating new questions (some of which have positive potential), and I think the church profits from having a think tank / beta testing contingent for new ideas. Not everybody needs to be a beta tester, and in fact it’s probably best if most people aren’t.
The work comes with extra responsibility. By the same token that bold questioning allows us to identify legitimate problems with our traditions, it also opens the door wider to changing whatever we don’t like and spinning it up to both ourselves and others that that’s what God wants (or at least that he’s cool with it).
So for the time being, I’m settling on a flashing yellow (and sometimes red) light of “proceed with caution” regarding the movement. Despite all the headache and insecurity that may come with controversy and possible heresy, I still want to be in on the conversation, because their questions are my questions too, their needs seem like my needs, and I’m hopeful that with careful work and perseverance we just might help one another discover and welcome in the solutions we need.
