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2008-06-03 issue:

What is emergent?

Editorial

by Everett J. Thomas

Print Article

For some time now we have been publishing references to the emergent church—also called the emerging church. I’ve been wondering what it was and am still not sure anyone knows. Yet the language is creeping into our lexicon, and so maybe it would be good to describe why—and from whence it comes.



In his article, “Joining the Anabaptist Conspirators” on page 12, futurist Tom Sine identifies the “emerging” church as one of four streams.

“Essentially, those in this stream,” says Sine, “are seeking to plant new expressions of church that are contextualized to engage to postmodern young.”

The key phrase here is “new expressions of church.” But it is not yet possible to report exactly what those “expressions” are. Nevertheless something is happening in the Protestant church in the West, and it may be a big thing. One national Christian leader who thinks so is Phyllis Tickle.

Founding editor of the religion department at  Publisher’s Weekly, Tickle is widely known as an authority on religion in America. She has written more than two dozen books on the subject; most notable are in the Divine Hours series, the manuals I have used for the past four years in the practice of fixed-hour prayer.

On April 21, Tickle addressed the Associated Church Press’ annual convention in Dallas and talked about the emerging, or the emergent, church. The luncheon crowd was comprised of editors and reporters from many of the major Christian denominations in North America.
“You didn’t cause emergents,” Tickle said, “and you’re not going to stop it. Is it perfect? No. Neither was Martin Luther.”

The reference to Martin Luther and the beginning of the Protestant Reformation was intentional. Tickle believes that the Protestant church is in the middle of an upheaval as dramatic and radical as that which challenged the Roman Catholic church in the 16th century. But this time it is the Protestant church in the West—that has enjoyed “pride of place” for several hundred years—that will be supplanted. Whereas the 16th century had the Great Reformation, Tickle says we are now on the cusp of the Great Emergence.

Like most others, I wanted to know what an emergent looks like. Tickle says it is too early to tell. Further, some of the current characteristics of this phenomenon—it’s not really a movement—may not last into its final form. But there are some observations to make about emergent Christians.

The most immediate observation is that emergents borrow freely from any denominational or ecclesiastical tradition. It is in the crucible of these disparate traditions that something new is being formed, and it will not look like traditional Protestantism. According to Tickle, emergents are composed of four types: liturgical, mainline, conservative and renewal (or pentecostal).

Tim Nafziger (page 13), a blogger for our Web site who also helps summarize the Young Anabaptist Radicals blogs, is in the vanguard of such a movement in our tradition.

“One clear pattern in the emerging church is a sense that being a Christian is about more then just attending church,” Nafziger says. “It’s about living our lives together in a way that follows the life and teachings of Jesus. For Mennonites, that can sound like a cliché, but for young people who grew up seeing the sinner’s prayer as the main mark of being a Christian, that’s a radical statement.”

Maybe it is just another vanity on our part to think that we are in the throes of an upheaval as epic as the Protestant Reformation. Maybe not. It may be as difficult for us to see what is happening now as it was for faithful Christians in 1517 who first read Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses.

Any such changes do not mean the church is in trouble. Rather, they may reveal that God is still in control and doing a big new thing. Such changes can  also remind us that God’s Spirit is not dependent on us to keep the church alive.

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