What's In A Name?
I like reading socio-cultural histories and following the patterns of cultural trends. I am in no way fashionable or trendy myself. I couldn't tell you what sort of music is popular these days or what sort of clothing is in (I wear blue jeans, t-shirts, and birks). But I love reading about how the evolution of fashion affected, say, the women's right's movement. Or even about how the transformation of the "book" from scroll to codex to electronic medium influences how we psychologically interact with the text. So books like A History of Reading and Freakonomics fascinated me.
Since reading Freakonomics a couple of years ago, I've been intrigued by the history of names. The rise and fall of naming trends, the sounds that enchant a generation, the cultural events that send a name soaring or plummeting in the charts. I look forward to the Social Security Administration's yearly Mother's Day gift of the 1000 most popular names from the previous year. I am addicted to sites like the Baby Name Wizard that tracks current trends and reports of historical patterns. Yes, it is nerdy, but I like these attempts to understand the cultural zeitgeist.
So I've been lurking at the edges of recent conversation at Andrew Jones' blog about the names emerging and emergent. The question posed was if those terms are a help or a hindrance to those of us within this conversation. Or as some interpreted it – is the shelf life of those terms rapidly coming to an end. Are emerging and emergent the ministry equivalents of Jennifer and Jason, or to be contemporary, Madison and Jacob – useful popular names for a season but which have become so overused and trendy that those who think about such things don't want to use them anymore?
I found the comments in the discussion interesting. Sure there were those who freaked out about using any labels at all. Others threw up their hands in despair at the idea that some people have given emerging/emergent a bad name and so therefore we must promptly abandon them. Some were more ambivalent saying that a name doesn't define who they are as Christians, and a small few actually said they liked the names.
What I found most intriguing was how this name discussion parallelled the biggest trends in baby naming – essentially that the trend these days is to be unique (not trendy). Of course the irony is that everyone is just giving into the trend of not being trendy. But our culture places so much value on individuality and not being one of the crowd that of course anti-trendiness and uniqueness have become virtues.
But have we ever stopped to think that in the mad dash to avoid cultural trends what we are really doing is refusing to be part of a community. By snubbing our nose at a label we are rejecting those who own that label. We say "we are different and better than you so therefore we don't want to be associated with you." Sure in the history of naming there perhaps are appropriate occasions to do such things (did all the Adolph's start going by their middle name after WW2?). But to eschew a name/label because it isn't unique enough or just isn't "me" represents the height of individuality. And I thought that one of the things that pesky emerging/emergent label conveyed was a shift away from individuality towards community. But maybe that's not what people really want.
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julieclawson(at)gmail(dot)com 
I too am fascinated by names, by their origins, and their rise and fall in popularity.
A friend named his son with a unique name – Zellyn — said he wouldn't find anyone else in his class with the same name. And when, having lost touch with him for many years, I wanted to find him again, I just did a Google search on "Zeyllin", and in a short time had found his blog. He still won't talk to me, though!
But what's the origin of emergent or emerging as related to church? Who first thought of it, and why?
Funny I should be reading this as I prepare to preach on the birth of John the Baptist and how various folks were involved in the naming process. The angel first gave the name, Elizabeth announced it, the community protested against it, and Zechariah confirmed it. Naming can often be a very complicated thing.
I've always been of the opinion that only a few folks embody what emergent/emerging truly is (McLaren, Tim Keel, Nanette Sawyer, etc). For the rest, I think they are guilty of what I call "religiosity": using high minded rhetoric to justify egoic actions.
Most "emergents" I've met aren't really doing anything different than the church they're reacting to. They've just rearranged the furniture in the parlor, so to speak. Everything that is done is just another thing to sure up the ego.
Every band has a wagon, I suppose.
For those of us outside the US, the Baby Name Map shows the popularity of baby names from other countries along with the US SSA data. For example, here's the popularity of your name.
How many emergents have you met landon? I know quite a few personally and I don't think most of them would fit your description.
Steve – for a couple of good histories of the terms emerging/emergent check out these posts by MarkO and Dan Kimball.
Landon – I really don't know what your limited view of what exactly is the emerging church is, but to paint everyone who self identifies as emergent as doing so merely for ego purposes is a tad over the top.
Landon, your post reminds me of the perhaps-now-dated Christianity Today article entitled "The Emergent Mystique."
A few quotes from the article:
"McLaren guesses that "only a few dozen" churches across the country are fully committed to the theological journey he sketched in A New Kind of Christian. Even Rob Bell did not start that journey until after founding Mars Hill Bible Church. The number of churches whose pastors have cool hair is, of course, much larger—but hardly qualifies as a single movement any more than the number of churches whose pastors wear ties. For the moment, as the Emergent Convention demonstrates, the confusion of style and substance makes for strange bedfellows."
"At the Emergent Convention, emerging theology and emerging culture don't so much coexist as collide, thanks to the somewhat uneasy partnership between Emergent and Youth Specialties. During one particularly experimental worship session, featuring a well-known British dj (hair: spiked) whose pulsating techno music (complete lyrics: "It's just you and God") builds to a climax that would have played well in pagan Corinth, I find Brian McLaren outside the convention hall.
"I hate it," he says ruefully of the worship music. Another Emergent leader tells a seminar, "The general sessions are a betrayal of everything Emergent stands for."
"The truth is that the convention makes it difficult to tell what Emergent does stand for. Even the invited guests seem bewildered. Plenary speaker Robert Webber, whose book The Younger Evangelicals celebrates the emerging church, is clearly taken aback by what he sees: "They claim to be rejecting the last 30 years of evangelicalism—and they're repeating the last 30 years of evangelicalism."
That CT article was dated even before it was written. Yes, there are elements of the EC for whom it is just all about style, but the way Crouch wrote that article you'd think that's pretty much all it is (with the exception of Brian and Rob).
The truth is that those of us engaged in more substantive conversation and theological re-imagining extend far beyond (though certainly include) the Coordinating Group of Emergent Village.
I know many didn't like the CT article, perhaps for good reason. But unless Bob Weber and Brian McLaren were misquoted, I think the things they said bear on the topic at hand. Weber's especially. I don't think he would have been quite so quick to dismiss Landon, although he wouldn't have left Landon's comment as the last word about ALL involved in the emerging church, either.
Landon is correct that many (but hardly as many as he implies) emerging folk are basically just making stylistic changes. But he's way over the top to suggest that these folks are all just egoists.
Sure, I'd love for those folks to go even further than they are now, but at the same time, I see nothing wrong with the impulse to change the styles and forms either. In fact, it's such a no-brainer for me anymore that I wonder how it could ever even be a controversial issue. It's all about contextualization and incarnation. Why would we consider that egotistical?
"Hi, my name is Landon, and I'm over the top." Seriously, folks.
Here was Julie's quote:
But to eschew a name/label because it isn’t unique enough or just isn’t “me” represents the height of individuality. And I thought that one of the things that pesky emerging/emergent label conveyed was a shift away from individuality towards community. But maybe that’s not what people really want.
Part of the post (as I understood it) was about those that are trying to define themselves for egoic reasons. I thought I was chiming in. What Julie was naming was the natural extension of what I see in much of the emergent/emerging church. I don't think my comments were that far out of line at all.
I'm a seminary trained pastor with a good amount of experience with pomo new church starts. I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. To assume that I don't know what I'm talking about is pretty "over the top" don't you think?
Sorry to post again – I'll try to consolidate next time.
To your last point, Mike:
I get contextualization and incarnation, but that's an example of what I'm talking about. So much effort is put into the indigenous nature of the worshiping experience that it is believed that that is the end goal, and no recognition occurs that what is occurring is merely a different form of what is being reacted to.
It's not controversial. It's sad that people have stopped there and called it good enough. Nay, it's sinful that the leadership has not pushed the community to go further.
Thanks for your reply Landon. BTW, I didn't assume you didn't know what you were talking about. I asked how many emerging folk you actually knew. It was an honest question, since truthfully the emerging folk I know don't fit your description. But I suppose you might be working with a different set of people.
I certainly did not intend offense with any comments. I had taken a hiatus from the blog world for about a year, and (apparently) I've forgotten the rules of etiquette. I will write in a more carefully manner.
I was interested in the discussion as it pertained to "new forms" of Christianity. I communicated poorly. I apologize.
Thanks for the graciousness – I'll choose words more carefully next time.
Fascinating stuff. The baby name site got me. Thanks for yet another thing I want to read but will just pick at a bit.