Emerging Church is Shaped By Modernity Rather Than Scripture
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| Emerging Church is Shaped By Modernity Rather Than Scripture |
While the Enlightenment led to a
foundationalism based on scripture, this focus on the authority of scripture
actually shifted the focus of Christianity from the authority of the person of
Christ to the authority of Bible. The church in History has being changing
shape, being shaped by the preeminent forces of the times. In the Modern Era is
the Church, rather the Emerging Churches shaped by modernity rather than
scripture? In this paper I will deliberate how the Emerging Church is shaped by
modernity rather than scripture.
The
Emerging church movement (or the Emergent church movement) is described by its
own proponents as "a growing generative friendship among missional
Christian leaders seeking to love our world in the Spirit of Jesus
Christ." Instead of calling it a
movement, those of the Emergent sentiment would rather call it a
"conversation." The leading voice for the emerging church movement is
the Emergent Village, which began as a group of young Christian leaders gathered
under the auspices of Leadership Network in the late 1990s and organized in
2001. In their own words, they began meeting because many were
"disillusioned and disenfranchised by the conventional ecclesial
institutions of the late 20th century." http://www.theopedia.com/Emerging_Church
To prevent confusion, a distinction needs to be
made between "emerging" and "Emergent Church." Emerging is
the wider, informal, global, ecclesial (church-centered) focus of the movement,
while Emergent is an official organization in the U.S. and the U.K. Emergent
Village, the organization is directed by Tony Jones, a Ph.D. student at
Princeton Theological Seminary and a world traveler on behalf of all things
both Emergent and emerging. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/february/11.35.html
For
many within the movement, the emerging church is an umbrella that covers many
diverse movements. In Jonny Baker’s (Grace, London) opinion, emerging church is
a catchall term (E, Gibbs and R, K.
Borger: 2006:41).
The
term emerging church has been applied to a high profile, youth-oriented
congregations that have gained attention on account of their rapid numerical
growth; their ability to attract or retain twentysomethings; their contemporary
worship, which draws from popular music styles; and their ability to promote
themselves to the Christian subculture through website and by word of mouth (E, Gibbs and R, K. Borger: 2006:41). It
is in its simplest form a movement that is influenced to bring the youth and
the church to a new form of Christianity through a new way of thinking and
expression.
The
emerging churches indeed is a movement that are bringing a new aspect to
Christian ministry. According to M. Moynah in his book Emerging Church (2004:11) argues that “Emerging churches” does not
parachute a set model of church on to people: it is church from below. It
starts not with a preconceived notion of church, but with the desire to express
church in the culture of the group involved. It is church shaped by context,
not by “This is how we have always done it.”
The
emerging church thrust is in rethinking on how to bring life in the church and
the Christian community. Hence, it advocates for doing church in a new way that
suits the new cultural and technological environment. D, Kimball (2004:15) is
of the same view when he populates that the emerging church realize that there
is need to change how we think of the church, rather than merely change our
forms of ministry. In simple terms Emerging
church catches into one term the global reshaping of how to "do
church" in postmodern culture.
Emerging
churches are communities that practice the way of Jesus within postmodern
cultures. This definition encompasses nine practices. Emerging churches (1)
identify with the life of Jesus, (2) transform the secular realm, and (3) live
highly communal lives. Because of these three activities, they (4) welcome the
stranger, (5) serve with generosity, (6) participate as producers, (7) create
as created beings, (8) lead as a body, and (9) take part in spiritual
activities (E, Gibbs and R, K. Borger:
2006:45). This definition is both descriptive
and analytical, showing what we should expect to see as forms and nature of the
emerging church and gives us an analytically view of the Movement.
Are emerging churches shaped by modernity? Modernity
stands for a cultural condition, as a distinct from modernization which refers
to more technical development such as means of production or transport. The two
went hand in hand but the end result was greatly altered context for human
belonging and human self-understanding, entailing a gradual but total break
with pre-modern ways of life (G, Michael : 1997:75). Michael further argues that modernity
entails a “spiritual revelation over several centuries” (G, Michael).
Modernity is a culture of being all informed,
sound and open minded, understanding all aspects. The individual Christian
believer now is influenced with reasonalism and liberalization of thoughts,
ideology and theology. Thus, now an individual believer understands that God is
not involved in their day to day.
The so-called “emerging church” is the stepchild
of postmodernism. This ideology contends it is arrogant to believe that one
knows the truth; instead the “truth” is that truth is only determined
subjectively, being fashioned by culture, not Scripture. https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/1473-emerging-church-movement-the-new-face-of-heresy-the
Wells describes how
modernity has changed the role of the pastor. We have abandoned the agrarian
(and biblical) metaphor of a shepherd and replaced it with the model of a
corporate CEO. The successful pastor manages people and programs. His study has
been transformed into an office, and in that transformation the church has lost
its capacity for theological reflection. https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/warfield/warfield_westminwork.html
The world is radically changing and the church must
radically change with it. Emerging churches is nothing more than a way of
expressing that we need new forms of church that relate to the emerging culture
and life settings (E, Gibbs and R, K. Borger. 2006:41). Emerging churches are
shaped and conformed by modernity culture and life style changes so should the
church transform together with the trends of times.
Modernity has brought an openness of the mind by
reason of the influence of the Enlightenment Period. The Emerging churches
seeks to question all aspects of faith and employ rationality as the only
scientific discovery of truth. Thus the Church seeks to reexamine and question
every belief and practice in the church so as to find new ways to express these
beliefs and practices.http://www.apologeticsindex.org/291-emerging-church-teachings.
Reason is the instrument of discovery of all
doctrines and duties, whether “expressly set down in Scripture” or “by good and
necessary consequence deduced from Scripture”: but their authority, when once
discovered, is derived from God, who reveals them and prescribes them in
Scripture, either by literal assertion or by necessary implication (Warfield, 1931:
12). The Emerging Church are shaped by modernity rather than scripture. It can
be noted that the movement exhorts reason far above than scripture. Furthermore,
the church seeks to be relevant in the community of faith by accepting cultural
expressions that are not supported by the scriptures but are prevalent in our
time. Which is a clear indication that the emerging churches are truly shaped
by modernity rather than scriptures.
The emerging church believes that no one can claim
absolute truth concerning anything. According to them they argued that “since
we cannot know absolute truth we cannot be dogmatic about doctrine. This is one
of their pivotal beliefs and practices which is streaming from a modernity
flavor of thinking. “http://www.apologeticsindex.org/291-emerging-church-teachings.
Moreover, the emerging church rejects the absolute
stands on issues such as homosexuality are viewed as obsolete. Activities such
as drinking, clubbing, watching sexually explicit movies, and using profanities
are seen by some emergents as opportunities to show those who are not part of
the Christian community that postmodern Christians do not think they are better
than them through any false sense of moral superiority.http://www.apologeticsindex.org/291-emerging-church-teachings. It is against this background that we can argue
that emerging church are shaped by modernity rather than scriptures.
There is more than one way to ‘kill’ the Bible,”
McLaren says. “You can dissect it, analyze it, and abstract it. You can read
its ragged stories and ragamuffin poetry, and from them you can derive neat
abstractions, sterile propositions, and sharp-edged principles (McLaren, Brian:
2001:158). From the mouth of one of the proponents of the movement it is
correct to argue that Emerging Church is shaped by Modernity.
According to them, “Grenz and McLaren are not only
postmodern but they are also post-Christian. Their rejection of the classical
orthodox view of Scripture is sweeping. It includes a rejection of the
correspondence view of truth, a rejection of objective truth, propositional
truth, and inerrant truth in Scripture.” (Henard, W.D: 2009:107)
The
emerging church however, can be argued that it is to some extend be shaped by
scripture. It is the heart of the emerging churches to bring the Christian way
of life to be more like Christ and hence are shaped by scriptures. The emerging
churches finds perfect expression in the ministry of Jesus, who went about
doing good to bodies, spirits, families, and societies.
He picked the marginalized up from the floor
and put them back in their seats at the table; he attracted harlots and tax
collectors; he made the lame walk and opened the ears of the deaf. He cared, in
other words, not just about lost souls, but also about whole persons and whole
societies. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/february/11.35.html?start=4
Emerging churches are there to bring a new way of
thinking and doing church, however it can be noted that emerging churches are
mostly shaped by modernity rather than scripture. The emerging churches depends
on the modern ways of reason, theorization and ministry. Though can be argued
that to some extend the emerging church also is shaped and conforms to
scripture since it is after establishing and fulfilling the great
commission.
Reference
Canale, F.L., 2012. The Emerging Church—Part 3: Evangelical Evaluations. Journal of
the Adventist Theological Society
D, Kimball.
2004. Emerging Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
E, Gibbs and R, K. Borger. 2006. Emerging churches; creating Christian
community in Postmodernity cultures. SKCP: London:
G, Michael: 1997. Clashing symbols an Introduction to faith and culture. Darton Longman:
London
Henard, W.D., Greenway, A.W. and Rainer, T.S.,
2009. Evangelicals engaging emergent: A discussion of the emergent
church movement. B&H Publishing Group.
M, Mayonah. 2004. Emerging Church. Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan
McLaren, B.D., 2001. A new kind of Christian.
San Francisco.
Warfield, E.D. ed., 1931. The Westminster
assembly and its work. Oxford University Press. Oxford.
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