i’ve decided to consolidate the three threads into one so that it’s easier to find everything and i’ve placed it once again at the top of the page… what else have you got?
——
alright it’s been a few weeks since posting my paper on the emerging church and i’d love to get the conversation started… some of your thoughts, critiques, etc.my friend glenn, posted the paper on his site as well calling it “fair and scholarly”… so, that was great, but i’d like to get some discussion started about it. so, if you haven’t read it take a look!
——
Well, it is completely finished. The Extended Research Paper (mini-thesis) that I have been working on for Seminary is finally finished, and it finished with a bang! Not only did I get a good review of the paper from Dr. Castelein, I didn’t have a single re-write! This was amazing, exciting and brought about a great sense of euphoria to my home…
The introduction of the paper starts with a brief history of the movement before moving on to the more controversial elements of the movements. I think as a whole it turned out really well, but I’d love your feedback and a discussion if you’re up for it…
Related posts:
- emerging church.
- i’m done!
- glory hallelujah!
- breaking down the emerging stereotype
- and the grades are in.
Aaron ~ I’ll load the printer up with paper and dive in to it as soon as I get a chance. I’m interested in what you have to say.
Cool, i look forward to reading this over the break next week.
great! i look forward to hearing your guys’ thoughts (as well as the other 50 people that have downloaded the paper)!
not bad aaron. it was good to see at least a dozen books quoted. although a history from only books will be very one sided and there are a number of historical errors in your paper.
nice to see a good number of critics mentioned – esp. dennis m. who was one of this group’s first critics and roger oakland who has been ignored by EC but has something to say.
it should be mentioned that your paper only deals with one country and pretty much only with one or two networks in that country.
still . . .. its quite comprehensive and well written – a good resource.
thanks for posting it.
[...] Monts provides a very clear 58 page observation into the emerging church. (ht) It’s definitely worth the [...]
thanks andrew. what are some of the historical errors? i based the majority of that on what i’ve read and heard mark driscoll talk about.
good catch on this dealing with only 1 country… there should probably be a disclaimer about that. i would have loved to look at how it’s taking shape in the UK, australia, canada and other countries but i don’t think i have a good grasp on what’s happening in other locales being so far removed from them… blogs and books can only give you so much!
Sorry Aaron, I know I promised I would read it, and am still looking very much forward to reading it but, I think you must accept at least some of the responsibility on this one for introducing me to Chuck Palahniuk; I haven’t been able to put him down!
aaron, i read the paper and enjoyed it. i appreciated the brief sketch of the emergent conversation that you included and thought that the connection you made between neo-evangelicalism’s engagement of modern epistemology and the emerging church’s engagement with postmodern epistemological thought was quite prescient. i think that if each of the former groups realized and respected the unique missiological moments that gave rise to their thought and practices, they would harbor a lot more “love and respect”* for one another.
of course, as with any other paper i took issue with a couple of your assertions and points as well. i have pasted a couple of the aforementioned issues below. please feel free to glance over these minor matters and respond where appropriate (and willing!).
you refer to “traditional orthodox evangelicalism” as if our evangelical forbears had a consistent, stated epistemology in regards to scripture. in reality, evangelicalism has always been bound by shared missiology more than by philosophical or theological principle. i fear that by alluding to “traditional orthodox evangelicalism” you are positing a straw man that does not, in fact, exist. my reading and experience of evangelicalism suggests that it is one of the most diverse theological movements that has ever existed. i think that evangelicalism’s general openness to innovation and suspicion of hierarchy is one of the primary reasons that the emergent conversation arose within, and continues to be largely shaped by, the larger evangelical movement.
moreover, i felt that on a couple of occasions your strict definition of evangelicalism also lead you to speak of the “emerging church” as if it is a cohesive community that has shared theological assumptions and a unifying perspective on the best way to pursue God’s mission in this world. i still believe that emergent is much more of a generative conversation among friends than it is a ecclesiological or theological movement. of course, there are others that differ with me on the latter point, but i find most of those who simplify emergent in such a way are reducing in order to either critique the “movement” or fashion the conversation into a program that can help churches achieve their evangelistic goals.
there were a couple of other points at which i thought the paper was a little too reductionistic. i realize that a paper of this type forces one to generalize**
and i don’t want to bang on too much, but i think it is worth noting that many historic evangelicals, edwards and wesley come immediately to mind, that also focused on natural theology as a loci of revelation. in addition, while the missional communities such as the simple way are a remarkable example of ministries that are balanced between incarnational and attractional, there have long been communities within neo-evangelicalism, such as john perkins’ mendenhall ministries and voice of calvary ministries in mississippi, that have sought to adequately balance these two essential forms of christian ministry.
in sum, i thought your paper was remarkably well researched and serves as a good general introduction to the history and current state of the emergent conversation. however, i walked away thinking that the paper would have benefited greatly from peer review and subsequent conversation before submission.
i hope that you don’t find my reflections discouraging. i thought the paper was well done and am proud that you have written something of substance and are on the verge of graduating seminary.***
looking forward to the conversation…
* which would, undoubtedly, make emerson eggerich proud.
** and freely admit that i am often guilty of, often inappropriate, generalization.
*** two things i have yet to accomplish!
aaron, it really is a good paper and like gentry13 says, please dont be discouraged.
young leaders was a good experience, and i loved my time with them, but some of us were doing emerging church stuff in USA before that – some of us back in the eighties. there were some good networks and movements during the nineties that didn’t make it to the publications sitting on Christian book shops, since many of us didnt write any books or our models (house church, coffee shop, monastic communities, etc) were not given credit for being “real” churches.
anyway, i have to cringe a little when i read new histories saying this person started that movement and that person kicked off this. so many hidden people pioneered and then moved aside to allow others to get the spotlight. maybe history only remembers the eloquent voices.
sorry for the ramble. i will take another look when i get mo and just threw a few tiny corrections your way.
but i really did like your paper and appreciate the hard work.
thanks for your concern guys, i’m not discouraged whatsoever in fact, i truly appreciate your comments!
thanks andrew for the clarification on the histories of the movement. i find it interesting that no one has moved to refute driscoll’s assertion to starting the emerging church movement. i first read about it in his book “radical reformissionary” several years back and he continues to put forth that notion in lectures and other writings. i’ve always found it odd that he claims the creation of the movement that he is so vehemently opposed to.
gentry,
i had a really hard time coming up with a broad and sweeping generalization for “traditional orthodox evangelicalism”. i had a hard time using such a term because it’s not a completely faithful term considering the diversity within the movement. i hear your critique and i agree, although i’m unsure how i would’ve changed it considering the brevity of the paper as well as the scope. my only thought would have been to include a disclaimer at some point—in retrospect, that would’ve been a good inclusion. (i still like the straw man i created though )
i think at the same time the straw man that i created with the sweeping generalization is the same thing that the critics of the ec are doing… and although i really didn’t want to go down that route and create more nuance in the definition, i think the generalization i gave, however, was much more gracious than the critics and hopefully that can be a good contribution to the broader conversation despite the lack of nuance.
i too wish that i would’ve had the discipline to get the paper done with enough time for peer review and generous conversation to add to the paper… but such is life. it would’ve been good for me and it would’ve opened my eyes to the absence of perkins and the like!
i’m like jake. been meaning to read it. just haven’t gotten around to it.
on a side note. tony jones tells a much different history in his new book. one that tells a different side than what driscoll has been saying.
Alright… I read the paper (sorry josh, you’re on your own now). Well, actually I read it about two days ago and have now just been trying to find the time to write out my thoughts.
I want to start by saying that I loved the paper!
Strong, and well researched, with my only thought of criticism being in reference to your mention of “Traditional Orthodox Evangelicalism” being rather vague, but I see that that has already been mentioned in previous posts.
Your ability to bridge this gap of ignorance between “Traditional Orthodox Evangelicalism” ( I see your point, it’s not extremely easy to break down into simpler terms) and the emerging church is tremendous, and given the proper platform I have every faith that you have the ability to invoke great change and understanding in the church!
A bit of a side note: I was reading your paper at Starbucks the other day and was questioned about what I was reading by a partner, when I explained the content of the paper a regular, named Matt, went on to question if this thesis was written for Lincoln seminary to which I replied, “Yes” and proceeded to inform him of your name. Anyway, he said that he was in his first year at Lincoln and that he had heard your name before. He also asked if he could read the paper as to get some insight into the subject matter that the paper concerns.
I told him I’d ask you to make sure you were cool with that.
glad you enjoyed it jake! hope it brought you some clarity…
feel free to pass the paper along to anyone that you would like… if he decides to use any of it for anything, he just needs to cite it. (should i be concerned that my name is being passed around the halls of LCS?)
as per the straw man, i agree with you that the critics of emergent are committed to oversimplifying the conversation. however, if we return the favor by oversimplifying the great diversity within evangelicalism we will obscure the roots of the conversation and discourage participation by our more conservative neo-evangelical brothers and sisters.
i was also thinking today…i’m not a particularly conservative neo-evangelical* by any means, but i respect the neo-evs passionate pursuit of the missio dei and remarkable abundance of good fruit that the movement has produced. i’m glad that the emergent conversation is deeply invested in innovative, forward thinking mission and practice. however, at times i think we need to remind ourselves that the missional approaches and (positive and negative) fruit produced by our forbears is worthy of significant study and reflection.
so here’s to keeping our seat at the neo-evangelical table…and inspiring creative conflict, fostering unlikely collaborations and pissing a few people off along the way.
i agree i’m just not so sure that it’s a necessarily bad thing to return the favor in regards to the straw man… especially if it helps them see the conversation as a whole in a positive light and in understandable terms. i think from there once we find some common, positive ground we can then begin to get into the nuance of it all. i just don’t think the modern mind (especially the anti-modern mind) is completely capable of dealing positively, and amicably with the way the conversation is set up. it almost seems as if they’re incapable of dealing with abstract thought outside of the box (although this is not true and a complete stereotype, this is how they present themselves).
i truly hope that we are able to keep our seat at the table—that we are not thrown by the wayside, but to a greater extent that we decide to stay and pursue unity through diversity. undoubtedly there will be conflict and i hope that we can all embrace it because without it we’ll never move forward and only fall further into a status-quo mentality while mission passes us by.
RANDOM THOUGHTS JOTTED DOWN WHILE READING
When you defined “Relevants”, I got blown away. Because I believe God gave me “Relevant Reverence” as the name for my band and put pretty much your exact definition for “Relevants” on my heart.
The “Revisionists” simply have a bad name. I immediately find myself repelled from it. And I’m curious as to whether they simply question these orthodox views in order to confirm them first for themselves, or simply refuse to come to conclusions on anything in fear of being wrong.
So, Scripture is a primary source of Truth. But, Aaron could also say something truth regarding a matter not found in Scripture. My question is, how do I confirm it as truth?
Does the Emergent Church want to battle poverty, and other social ills through the Church directly, or through the government?
Great paper! Gave me a lot of clarification regarding the beliefs and inconclusive conclusions of the Emergent Church. It also leads me to believe that the Emergent Church is being very poorly marketed/taught, since so many people, including myself, when introduced to it, hear “relativism” and “universalism”.
And I think it’s primarily because instead of these pastors simply stating these “emerging” truths for what they are, they are defining themselves as “emerging”, which automatically puts orthodoxy on defense.
The emerging churches beliefs (as laid out in this paper) seem quite Pauline, quite alike to covenant theology. So, why give it a weird name that’s just going to turn people off? It’s not a new movement. It’s a clearer understanding of Scripture.
alright, you have to at least address the whole creating a new “denomination of emerging”. That’s my biggest concern.
eric, in my opinion, there is no such thing as a new “denomination of emerging” or even a cohesive “movement” that goes by the name of emergent.
emergent has always been and, hopefully, will always be a generative conversation among friends who are committed to the Kingdom and mission of God. emergent has no statement of faith, no ecclesiological leadership and plants no churches.
however, i can see how the way that existing denominations and church groups have utilized the emergent tag has led many to believe that emergent is something it is not.
pax.