They don’t build them like this anymore. What will the Next Church look like? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A few days ago, I posted an ‘catch-up’ article about Emergence Christianity. At the recent gathering in Memphis, Phyllis Tickle noted that the idea had been around long enough that we were now ready to decide if this is a movement or a conversation or something else altogether.
Like the Mayan Long Count, things come to an end and start over. This is one of those points, according to Tickle. See the last post for details.
I’m 41. It’s long past time for me to figure this out. But these aren’t the kinds of things that can be “solved.” And most folks feel like this is a good time to really begin to open this conversation. Remember that no one will have to jettison my beliefs or hold my congregation hostage to wade through these ideas.
How I Got Here
I’ve always approached Emergent Church, Emerging Church, and all the other iterations as a simple response to the institutional nature of the various denominations served by myself and younger colleagues: “We don’t want to do it that way just because you always have.”
But Emergence Christianity has stepped beyond that. Or at least has progressed to the point that the layers of institution that we are peeling back are starting to strike a serious nerve. Everyone loses a little dead skin from time to time. Most of that dust in the corner is what used to be you. But, peeling layers starts to get our attention when we get down to the sensitive stuff. And we have. Members of the conservative factions of our denominations have decried the Emergence conversation to me as “rife with heresy,” and “filled with non-facts and pseudo-data.” I love those terms. And I agree: Some of this stuff is indeed heretical. But we’ve gone back on what is and isn’t heresy before. Just ask Origen.
A quick study of Bart Ehrman’s Lost Christianities demonstrates that the litmus for heresy and orthodoxy comes out of a sometimes long and protracted engagement between disagreeing factions. And clear winners don’t always remain in ascendancy.
Institutional Entropy
I’ve been wondering if the disillusionment with the organized church that has been so rampant in the last ten years is a birth pang of the Emergence Christianity that we’ve been talking about. One reason that the institution sheds layers like a dead carapace is the fact that the institution(s) is/are in fact dying. A survey of this blog will provide conversation about the Death Tsunami faced by the UMC. And in recent news, NPR is again reporting on The Rise of the “Nones.”
Institutional entropy may simply be a way for the Emergence Crowd to say, “Now’s our chance.”
Many people think that Emergence got its start as a contemporary movement to pacify young people who were tired of hearing droning organ music, droning prayers, and droning sermons. Leaders with a little vision realized that some concessions were in order. Don’t wanna lose those young folks. That’s far too simplistic, but the idea does have some merit.
Whether or not it was the beginning of Emergence, churches threw a little snap and bling, some backbeat and some electric guitar — and thought that it was enough to keep young people. Success in some areas led to a fad that led to a phase. Now, the success of contemporary worship is not only measurable, it is foundational in some places.
But changing ideas of worship was not the totality of Emergence. It was merely a symptom. Had that been the case, this conversation would be moot. It would appear that the worship conversation simply gave the younger crowd some space to ask the real questions on their minds:
- “What’s up with homosexuality? I know some of those folks and they aren’t as evil as you seem to think.”
- “Why are you so down on Hindus/Catholics/Muslims/Baptists/Methodists/[Insert Belief Here]? I think they make some interesting points.”
- “How come it’s okay for these guys to preach badly, but this nice woman here doesn’t get a chance despite the fact that she’s smart, passionate, and seems to have heard God ask her to preach?”
- “Why are you so worried about dogmatic salvation in eternity when so many people are suffering right now?”
If these questions weren’t out there, I would conclude that this is the end of a Long Count that isn’t going to start up again.
But the questions exist. And the institutions, so far, are very slow to respond. And not just to issues of homosexuality, social justice, poverty, and gender equality. These questions have been around for some time. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke these words into the collapsing social institutions of the 1960’s:
A religion true to its nature must…be concerned about man’s social conditions. Religion deals with both earth and heaven, both time and eternity. Religion operates not only on the vertical plane but also on the horizontal. It seeks not only to integrate men with God but to integrate men with men and each man with himself. This means, at bottom, that the Christian gospel is a two-way road. On the one hand it seeks to change the souls of men, and thereby unite them with God; on the other hand it seeks to change the environmental conditions of men so that the soul will have a chance after it is changed. Any religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a dry-as-dust religion.
Kinneman’s UnChristian is an indicator of the failure of mainstream protestant leaders to address the abiding questions of young people with no church affiliation. And the followup, You Lost Me, is the corollary for young people who have fled their congregation and organized religion entirely.
We are still suffering losses in membership in the UMC as we recover our sense of pre-institutionalized identity with events like The Generative Leadership Academy in western Kentucky and the Emerging Leaders Conference sponsored by the Turner Center at Vanderbilt Divinity School. But these events must be seen as a starting point and not an end point. There must be room to converse about difficult questions of theology and practice within the institution, or the conversation will continue without the institution.
Why Institutions Are Failing
In the UMC, pastors like me are asking these sorts of questions, sometimes in an effort to change doctrine, but more often to engage those who share the sentiment. Younger pastors tend to be more blatant about their disagreement with doctrine. Some don’t make it through candidacy for ordination because of it. And the fact that pastors are often too soon separated from congregations that are just beginning to embrace these questions means that the process is short-circuited, and sometimes intentionally.
The institution is preserving itself, but is that faithful to God’s will? The Pharisees thought they were preserving God’s will, but were preserving their institution. The Inquisition was convinced it was preserving God’s will, but were in fact preserving their own notion of institution. Balance this against the idea that Noah was the lone faithful adherent who stood against (and above) the tide, pun intended.
I can’t help but think of the last scene of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (already has the right feel, doesn’t it?). In it, Indy is up against the antagonist in the last showdown. The test before them is to choose the Holy Grail from a wide selection. The antagonist chooses an ornate model, carefully designed and well-crafted. As he drinks from it, he turns to dust. The guardian of the grail has but a single comment: “He chose poorly.”
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The bad guy wasn’t an evil Nazi, but he was a greedy sympathizer. The good guy wasn’t clergy, but he knew his history. Not without irony, the grail turns out to be a simple cup, but one with great power. And our hero chooses the cup because he has a better concept of the cup’s original owner, even if he’s not exactly chasing after him as a disciple.
Sweet Fancy Moses! The poster boy for the Emergence Christianity conundrum is Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones!!
I firmly believe Christianity will endure. The answers about the endurance of the institutions of the Church are not so clear. Without intentional reflection and at least the possibility of transformation, the United Methodist Church in particular may be finished before it gets restarted.
What do you think?
Can we shed the carapace without destroying the institution?
How do we pursue a new iteration of Church without doing harm to those who have been faithful custodians of the legacy entrusted to them?1
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Find your comments quite interesting and informative as the UMC which I attend is trying to find its way through the process of visioning a future with hope.