The Emerging Church
So, this was interesting. Our ongoing survey of RT readers (it’s still going– please take a minute to answer the key questions if you haven’t!) has yielded this breakdown of respondent’s religious affiliations. You can’t base any scientific analyses on this, obviously, but it was interesting to me that of those who responded, over half were associated with some kind of organized religion.
Given the negative impression that folks have of organized religion, a conversation I had with my pastor may offer some hope. He was talking about the concept of “The Emerging Church“, which is basically welling up spontaneously all over. It’s a much more progressive Christianity– instead of focusing on the “sin & salvation” model, it takes the view that Christ didn’t judge but helped people to be all they can be. Very much sharing the progressive view of humankind, that we’re born good and can be made better.
He made the funny comment that historically, the Christian view of Christ’s life has been: “He was born (lots of talk & celebration about this), did some stuff, then died (lots of talk & celebration about this).” The Emerging Church basically says, “Whoa, back up there. He did and said a whole lot of cool stuff during his life, we need to pay a LOT more attention to that.” In many ways, Christ was the original progressive, speaking truth to power, fighting for the oppressed, and operating through non-judgement and non-violence.
He was basically trying to say, “I know we have this crappy empire-based system that the Romans are lording over us. But there’s another way of living that I’d like to tell ya about.” Sounds like what we progressives have been saying about our current empire and emperor.
Here’s an interesting piece of an article from Christianity Today, talking about one aspect of the Emergent Church movement:
A notable emphasis of the emerging movement is orthopraxy, that is, right living. The contention is that how a person lives is more important than what he or she believes. Many will immediately claim that we need both or that orthopraxy flows from orthodoxy. Most in the emerging movement agree we need both, but they contest the second claim: Experience does not prove that those who believe the right things live the right way. No matter how much sense the traditional connection makes, it does not necessarily work itself out in practice. Public scandals in the church—along with those not made public—prove this point time and again.
Here is an emerging, provocative way of saying it: “By their fruits [not their theology] you will know them.” As Jesus’ brother James said, “Faith without works is dead.” Rhetorical exaggerations aside, I know of no one in the emerging movement who believes that one’s relationship with God is established by how one lives. Nor do I know anyone who thinks that it doesn’t matter what one believes about Jesus Christ. But the focus is shifted. Gibbs and Bolger define emerging churches as those who practice “the way of Jesus” in the postmodern era.
The article also talks about judgement in the Bible (if you can, you know, get past Jesus saying “Judge not, lest ye be judged” and all that).
Jesus declared that we will be judged according to how we treat the least of these (Matt. 25:31-46) and that the wise man is the one who practices the words of Jesus (Matt. 7:24-27). In addition, every judgment scene in the Bible is portrayed as a judgment based on works; no judgment scene looks like a theological articulation test.
Which is why Biblical litmus tests at GOP presidential debates irritates me– if these folks were judged, in a Biblical context, by their works instead of their words, they’d be screwed. (BTP said, judgementally. :-))
Anyway, look for an Emergent Church near you– we’re part of the solution, and we’re part of the counterbalance to the right-wing nut-job hate machine that has taken over large portions of the modern Christian church.
Related posts:
I’ve often said that if Jesus were alive today he’d be a liberal. Great post.
And now we have Huckabee (who is now the lead GOP Candidate in Iowa as of today…) using Christianity to support the death penalty…this guy is whacked:
“Interestingly enough,†Huckabee allowed, “if there was ever an occasion for someone to have argued against the death penalty, I think Jesus could have done so on the cross and said, ‘This is an unjust punishment and I deserve clemency’.â€ÂÂ
Bythepeople sez:
What does it tell you about the people who did not respond? Aren’t we important too?
I think this is a better poll showing people’s religion. It is just as meaningless as your on-line poll, but it makes a very clear point.
LINK
Further, I don’t understand how your unscientific poll leads to any of your conclusions about an emergent church, even if I made the assumption that there was some validity to the poll.
Let me try the link again:
LINK
You really need to provide a way to preview comments here on RT
Huckabee’s assertion is absurd because to my understanding Jesus’ rationale for being on the cross was due to his belief in propitiation. I highly doubt that anyone on death row thinks of their death as dying for the sins of others (well, maybe the demented think that if they have a Christ complex).
Also, Jesus reportedly did ask of his death sentence (to God) “why hast thou forsaken me”? What would Huckabee say about that?
I agree about the previewing of comments.
Regarding the poll, I am actually happy to say that Rochester Unitarians apparently make up a huge number in this poll. Its ironic because they make up less than 1/2 of 1% of the US population. For Unitarians, its all about deeds not creeds. If you want to see if you are a unitarian, just read this:
http://www.rochesterunitarian.org/beliefs_values.html
You probably are and just don’t know it. Susan B. Anthony belonged to this parish for 50 years. Deeds not creeds my friend.
Is “the Emerging Church” movement developing within different religions and religious denominations, or is it reflective of the practices of certain religions/religious denominations?
I like the notion that deeds are actually important (its amazing to me that this is often downlplayed). Still, I struggle with the notion of religion, per say. Much of the early texts are poorly written (for instance, jumping months, years, decades, or even centuries at a time, especially about ancient times), many of the early stories and revelations/prophesies strike me as pure fantasy (reflective of other tales at the time), God/Allah or whom have you, always seems to have way too many human characteristics to be God in my eyes (conveniently explained away by claiming we were created in his image), and religions appear to me to be frequently used to encourage people to conform to the status quo or what the status quo “should be” (not always a bad thing, but too often this is the case). Not to mention the blind faith part is really tough for me digest, given this is a primary tool of crooks.
In other words, I’m sometimes drawn to a message from a spiritual perspective, but I find religion itself so hard to swallow. I’m not trying to initiate a contentious debate here, but I am interested in how others have approached, or gotten passed, these issues in your own minds.
I agree with your points entirely. Often times a religious leader’s followers warp the original message to fit their own agenda. So much death has been wrought in the name of religion.
I couldn’t get past it, the warping, so I focus on good works.
[...] I just ran across a blog post from a progressive Christian blog, where the emerging church is discussed and described as “a much more progressive Christianity– instead of focusing on the “sin & salvation†model, it takes the view that Christ didn’t judge but helped people to be all they can be. Very much sharing the progressive view of humankind, that we’re born good and can be made better.” (The Emerging Church) [...]
Nice post - as it pertains to Christians needing a religion to follow progressive values,. Nor are progressive values the soul (pun intended) property of any organized religion.
I suppose you don’t need Jesus or an emerging Church to do as what Bigboy suggests.
Deeds not creeds.
Very good point.
Thanks for a good summary of the emerging church.
I notice we trinitarian universalists do not get any portion of the pie.
Oh, well, some day the bad news will give way to truly good news!
Peace,
Mike
Huckabee: The “new” FundaCon (that’s a NeoCon that carries a big Bible and will ask you if you’ve met Jesus and will even offer to introduce you to him).
[...] this month, I did a little post on Christianity’s “Emergent Church”.ÂÂ I belong to such a church, but I’m [...]
Just an FYI, there is now an Emergent Cohort in Rochester. See this for more details: http://roemco.blogspot.com
Callid Keefe-Perry
RoEmCo Convener