Thinking About the Emerging Church Movement

As some of you may or may not know, I am currently in the midst of evaluating and critiquing the emerging church movement. To bring you up to speed with what this is, it is a movement that tries to take the cultural ideology of postmodernism and apply it to the way that church is done. In a sense, emerging churches believe in immersing themselves into the culture it is trying to reach. Postmodernism is a view of the world that is as much a world view as modernism or Christianity is a world view. Modernism is what most of us were, of course, raised up under, and its perspective of things is very objective. Postmodernism, on the other hand, invites people to view things more subjectively. Now, when I first came across this whole idea, I admit I was more than skeptical; in fact, I was against it, at least internally, because I was taught that anything to do with the word “postmodernism” is wrong, because all of life is objective (not the first time I have “jumped the gun” on something).

As I began to read and research this topic, however, I found out several things: (1) There are obviously some dangers to this philosophy, as there is in any extreme. (2) There are also some benefits to this viewpoint. (3) There are all kinds within this movement: extremists that could be considered “nuts,” and others that I would find myself in agreement with more than not. Now, I have just finished a book called Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church, by D.A. Carson, and I am almost through another one called Emerging Churches, by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger. Nevertheless, I just read an article from the web from Misty Anne Winzenried, who is a former assistant editor of Children’s Ministry Magazine, and currently resides in Bothell, Washington. The article I read was written in Children’s Ministry Magazine’s January-February 2004 issue, and its title is called, “Postmodern Children’s Ministry.” I want to pull out her main outline, as well as some of her thoughts, because I think she did an outstanding job of summarizing the values of this movement. She is not recommending the movement as a whole (as I am not either), because she is careful to say that “Scripture should inform all of our thinking-these elements of postmodernism can only be evaluated and valued through the lens of Scripture.” She does, however, commend these values to us as ways that can help our own ministries if we understand it, but also cautions against its more radically hard positions. These are her thoughts, so I hope you will enjoy them:

Postmodernism Values Spirituality – “According to George Gallup Jr., 96 percent of Americans surveyed say they believe in God! And 82 percent of those surveyed say that they want to experience spiritual growth.” “Any openness to conversations of faith is an invitation for the gospel to come alive for people.”
Postmodernism Values Mystery – “Modernism, the precursor to postmodernism, was a staunch supporter of scientific evidence and rock-solid guarantees.” “…postmodernism encourages us to value what’s mysterious and uncertain-and certainly, God is mysterious.” “…it’s important to realize that our Scriptures contain elements of mystery and clear truth. Any adherence to only mystery (that is, everything in Scripture is unexplainable and mysterious, so there are no clear answers) or only fact (that is, the Scriptures give clear answers to every question we have about Christ, the Christian life, and the world) is walking in dangerous territory.” “Accept that God is a mystery.” “Allow for the mystery in life.”
Postmodernism Values Relationship and Community – “Though Scripture clearly tells us that we have a personal God who’s concerned with each person’s heart and Christian journey, the Bible highlights the truth that faith is a relational and communal activity.”
Postmodernism Values the Voice of the “Other” – “Postmodernism encourages us to value diversity, each person’s uniqueness is valid and important in a postmodern culture.”
Postmodernism Values Experience – “How can we value people’s experience and at the same time call people to experience God’s way for us to live? Certainly, the solution is neither to water down the gospel nor to dismiss the people we want to minister to. The struggle with this postmodern value will be to hold on to the truth of the gospel, struggle against our culture’s relativism, and still value individuals’ experiences.”
Postmodernism Values Paradox – “Whereas modernism encourages us to put ideas in rigid categories of either-or, postmodernism is more comfortable with the paradoxical both-and.” “Remember from a faith perspective there’s a big difference between paradox and contradiction!” “The Christian faith is full of paradox.” “…paradox isn’t an excuse to have a relativistic faith-many things in Scripture are clear!” “Invite questions, even if it makes you a little nervous.” “Don’t always have the answers.” “Try to help people (kids) understand the paradoxes of the Christian faith.”