Book Review: The Next Evangelicalism
I am a little nervous writing a review of this book. On one hand there is a lot I like about Soong-Chan Rah’s The Next Evangelicalism, but the book also raised some serious questions for me. But I’m white, and this is a book about identifying and moving beyond the white Western captivity of the church. Plus in the Introduction, the author dismisses any disagreement by saying his words flow simply from a love for Jesus and a desire to see the church healed. So I have a sad feeling that I could get into a lot of trouble if I speak my mind about this book. But I want to anyway – because even though there are aspects of the book that I have serious issues with, I think its overall message is absolutely necessary for the church to hear. I think some of those issues might get in the way of that message being heard by a wider audience, so I think they need to be addressed upfront and dealt with – even if I take some heat for doing so.
The basic premise of the book is that the future of the church is in its global non-white manifestations, but that the church is currently being held back by its captivity to white Western systems of thought. While some are lamenting the decline of Christianity in America, they fail to realize that it is only in white America that it is in decline. Minority populations are on the rise. By 2050 it is predicted that the majority of U.S. residents will be non-white, and most of them are Christians with strong churches and faith traditions. If the church is to survive, those who hold power must recognize and give up the ways white Western culture has influenced the church and instead look to other cultural expressions of faith for leadership, church structure, and healing for the church.
I found the first part of the book to be a fair exploration of how white Western culture has co-opted Christianity and the harm that it has caused. It is true that the church often reflects more of Western individualism than the values of community found in scripture. The author blames this lack of focus on community for the church’s failure to respond to social problems, and the overemphasis on personal sin and guilt for the lack of corporate shame for similarly sinful actions. This focus on individual sin is what has allowed corporate sins like racism to go unchecked in the church for so long – there is no communal structure for dealing with communal sin. Similarly the author writes on how the American dream has become confused with biblical standards. This has led to consumer churches and materialism as a measure of success in the church. The church growth movement and megachurches are given as the prime example of how far churches have sold themselves out to this white Western worldview.
The author argues that having the church held captive to this worldview not only hurts the church by promoting non-biblical values, but it promotes a cultural imperialism masquerading as biblical theology. When Western forms of the faith are presented as the only valid form of faith, then the gospel fails to be contextualized into ways other cultures can truly understand it. They are forced instead to adopt white Western culture in order to be Christian. People also fail to realize the diversity of the church – focus on the decline of white Christianity while ignoring the growth of Christianity worldwide. We miss out on the multitude of expressions of church and theology that have much to offer and teach all people of faith. The author says that we cannot truly learn from those just like us.
To break this captivity and heal the church from the harm caused by Western dominance the author insists that people must submit to learning from those different than them. For too long white people have had the “privilege” to ignore the others, and to have our theology and experience lifted up as primary. This privilege must be confronted and whites lay down all of our power for the status quo to ever change. If we do not give up that power and learn from other cultures then we are not missionaries for Christ, but simply cultural colonialists. To that end the author provides example of the ways ethnic churches function as ideals to emulate. He stresses living in community – giving aid to each other, celebrating with each other, and sharing true sorrows together. He also suggests that second-generation English-speaking immigrants like himself are the best choice to led the church of tomorrow. People like him straddle two worlds and have had the liminal journeying experience that can help transition the church away from its captivity to a more holistic perspective. The book concludes with the three-fold action plan of the church needing to confess its sin of white Western captivity and imperialism, submit itself to the spiritual authority of non-whites, and then finally live into the diverse community the Bible speaks of.
So for the most part I agree with the author. The church has been held captive and has caused serious harm because of that. All Christians should recognize that and those who have propagated and benefited from it repent. The diversity of the church should be recognized and white people should make the effort to learn from and to submit to people of other races. The racism in the church cannot be healed unless power is truly shared and whites stop trying to “reach-out” or “serve” the Other, but instead submit to the Other. I agree with all that and think that message is why this book is important for all Christians to read.
But I have my issues as well. The most basic being that I disagree with the author’s assumption that all cultures deserve respect and a voice – expect white Western culture. He spends a long time discussing why white Western culture is bad, but gives very little reason why other cultures should be accepted excepting the fact that they are not white or Western. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he doesn’t think that white Western culture is the only culture that has let cultural setting influence its worldview and interpretation of the bible. But at times I wasn’t so sure since white Western culture was always presented as captive and evil, and all other cultures as free and good. I think this book is going to be ignored or condemned simply for that assumption of the author’s. No matter how evil or misguided a culture has been, to write them off as utterly unworthy of respect (when they are your target audience) is not going to do much for advancing your cause. I understand the need to be harsh and to make readers uncomfortable, but to dismiss an entire race isn’t fair.
Similarly I really wish more time had been given to exploring the positive ways other cultures contribute to Christian identity. The main example that he gave, that of a Korean immigrant church, did little to capture my imagination as a reader. I am sold on his idea that we need multiethnic churches and that we need to learn from all voices. But then his example was of a single-language, single-culture church that separates itself from the outside world to keep its cultural identity strong. The community he describes in that church is wonderful – but I’ve seen the same thing in emerging or even rural Southern (generally racist) churches. If the church he was describing was all white and existed to keep that identity strong he would have (rightly) labeled it racist and imperialist. And while I understand the need for minority voices to preserve identity amidst a majority culture, his example didn’t persuade me of his message. At the end of the day I wanted a little more than “because they are not white” as reason why listening to and learning from ethnic Christian voices is a good thing. Like I said, I agree with the author’s conclusions, but he might face trouble with other readers with such weak examples.
Then there was my issue with his take on the emerging church. It was really bad timing that I read this book during my EVDC09 trip where I got to witness the diversity and community of the emerging church. While the author generally was kind and thoughtful in his critique of the white Western church, when it came to his take on emerging Christianity, his tone changed dramatically. He became angry and accusatory, calling our very existence offensive. He claimed our use of the term “emerging’ is offensive since ethnic churches are the only ones truly emerging these days. He was appalled by the number of emerging books published since there are by far more Korean churches out there than emerging churches and there are far fewer books on Korean Christianity. He was offended that a book he contributed to wasn’t featured on the Emergent Village website. And after stating over and over again that the failing of the Western church is its individuality, he criticizes the emerging church because it is communal and local which leads to all its members looking alike. He claims that all of us disgruntled evangelicals when we left our churches should not have continued the white Western captivity of the church by starting the emerging church, but should simply have joined ethnic churches instead. That statement really bothered me because it turned his argument into less of a call for diversity and embracing many voices, and more of a hatred of all things white. I am just as uncomfortable in the captive church world he describes as he is, but he can’t get past the color of my skin to allow that my disagreements with churches and my affinity to the emerging church might be about ideology more than race. But what really disturbed me was the author’s use of a blog post a friend of mine wrote from which he concludes that leaders in the emerging church don’t care enough to discuss racial issues. If he had bothered to get the full story behind that post and explore the context it was written in and responded to, he would have perhaps not so erroneously misrepresented the emerging church. But he didn’t bother to do that research and now has made very false claims about me and my friends (not by name, but I recall the post in question very well). Perhaps the angry anti-emerging undertone to the book is based on the “outsider” feeling I wrote about recently. Perhaps those of us emerging insiders aren’t doing all that we can to give up power and learn from others. But we are trying, and in truth agree with much of what is in this book. I just wish the author wasn’t so eager to condemn us (his potential supporters and allies) and write us off simply because some of us are white.
Okay so this turned out to be an insanely long review. At least from that, you can probably tell that this book is engaging and contains a lot to chew on. Even with my issues with it, I highly recommend others read it. It deals with issues that the church has to address. It is harsh and it is uncomfortable (sometimes extremely and needlessly so in my opinion), but that discomfort can lead to change. The church needs change – it must change if it truly wants to represent the Kingdom. The Next Evangelicalism is a good wake-up call for how we need change. I just hope that the message can be heard within this sometimes angry and extreme vessel.
Trackbacks and Pingbacks
- Book Review: The Next Evangelicalism
- how churches get embedded with values : djchuang.com
- Multi-culturalism from the early Pentecostals | jonathan stegall: creative tension
- Death Nell « Minnowspeaks Weblog
- NextReformation » church growth and Acts 2
- ‘the next evangelicalism’ according to soong chan rah « eugene cho’s blog
- race/church « Gracex2’s Weblog
- Best Books of 2009 « Christianity
julieclawson(at)gmail(dot)com 
Hey Julie,
Great and thorough review. I’m a Korean-American emergent too in Atlanta (co-conspirators with Troy, Melvin, etc), and are friends with other Asian Americans with an Emergent sensibility (just wrote a post on EV about it).
I was most excited to read about Rah’s chapter on the EC and came to a bit of a different conclusion than you did. I agree with you that I think he’s a bit too belligerent in his tone. And it is clear that the EC is making great intentional strides to be rid of race, gender, and sexual dominance. However, I believe he cares about the EC because he appreciates what it is doing. I worship with an emergent community that is mostly white, and I do affirm Rah’s notions at the same time.
I remember one of the big criticisms of EC was its being so reactionary to modern forms of church. People deemed it angry and rebellious. I think hyphenated-American Christians may need to go through the same emotions to come to a place of reconciliation. I’m seeing more Asian-Americans who find deep resonance with the postmodern hermeneutic but would really feel out of place if they go to an emergent gathering.
Wow, long comment. Julie, keep doing your thing. Good stuff. Thanks for your great words.
Julie – helpful and fair review. Even w/i the white culture there are many who are just now feeling like we have a voice (women/GBLT/poor whites) and so to exclude all white voices seems to be perpetuating a closed model of being the church. And I even get why the author would sound angry. But you nailed it.
It sounds like the author’s perspective suffers from a very similar kind of double-standard and myopia that much of American Progressivism suffers from. American Progressivism espouses tolerance, radical tolerance. Yet American Progressivism is vehemently intolerant of those who do not similarly espouse radical tolerance. Especially where progressivism overlaps with non-Christian and a desire to eschew radical tolerance overlaps with being Christian. Secular Democrats in this country -love- to bash conservative Christians. Some speak openly and genuinely about a desire to remove, stamp-out, re-educate conservatives (conservative Christians specifically). They justify this double-standard by pointing to the laundry list of evils perpetrated by this group of people. The good these people have also done is not only dismissed, but treated as a further indictment on the grounds that it makes the evils all the more inexcusable. It is not difficult to see how this kind of mindset can crop up in other contexts of empowerment, disenfranchisment and diversity of ideas. It is 100% important for The Church, writ large, to stop being white and Western. But to do this -at the expense of- white Westerners isn’t reform or progress, it’s revenge. And anyone who’s words sound too much like revenge is a voice to whom we must hope not too many take heed. Whatever great ideas the author may have, with bad intent and a bad heart, we must look elsewhere for a conversation about those good ideas.
If we genuinely are to embrace a Church which is defined by a plurality of cultures and a plurality of contexts, then non-whites are going to have to accept that for white people, the Western culture and context is -always- going to be ours. Even as we become the minority (both in the US and elsewhere) we are going to have our own, unique, valid point of view that we are going to want to keep. I enjoy (very much) learning from Kung Fu-Tzu, Lao Tzu and Buddha. But I’m still a (basically) white guy and I’m always going to be rooted in a liberal individualism that I am going to have to struggle to reconcile with the radical community described in my Bible. That’s my fight and I can’t engage it or win it by simply rolling over and allowing myself to be subsumed by a -competing- culture and context. We cannot replace Western imperialism with non-Western imperialism.
Maybe Evangelicals can take a tip from the RCC which, facing decline in Europe and a US dominated by Protestantism, has expanded in non-white parts of the world by leaps and bounds. But it sounds like this author wouldn’t be satisfied until not only was the Pope specifically not white, but that the Vatican had been relocated out of Europe.
I’ve been wanting to read this book ever since I heard Soong-Chan Rah speak several months ago. I have to admit that, at first, I wasn’t interested in this book based on the original title (The White, Western Captivity of the Church) or even the current title (it’s kind of nebulous). However, in speaking, he does all the good things that you mentioned above and very few of the bad things.
Overall, though, I think you’ve given a fair review (in my opinion, not having read the book yet). I’m glad you’ve been able to see the good and prophetic things in his argument in spite of the way it was presented at times. I’m not sure if I’ll be able get through the whole book, doing the same. So I might just read a condensed version in an article somewhere! Thanks again for your thoughtful review.
Julie,
This book is next on my list to read, and I’ve been looking forward to it for some time. Thanks for your thoughts on it.
Since I haven’t read it yet, I’ll check back in after I have. But for now, here are a few cents.
My husband and I have followed Soong-Chan’s advice to remove ourselves, church-wise, from our own white american culture setting. We are members of a black baptist church now for 3 years, and are not leaving.
It is true as you say that no one culture is 100% evil or should be 100% thrown out, or that all minority cultures are 100% perfect. But us whites submitting to spiritual leadership and culture that is not white-dominant is essential to us understanding the evil of our culture, and to understanding more of God than what our own culture portrays. My faith and perspective of God has grown immensely from learning from non-white spiritual headship. Immensely!
And as white folks, it is important for us to go through the journey of realizing the evil, claiming it as our culture, and then walking in the balance of knowing our privilege and inherent racism and power, while learning what parts of our culture do reflect God or can be redeemed to reflect God. The book Being White points some of those out (like the white american value of “fairness”, which you called on in your post. The tension is in recognizing that in our history and our present, what is fair for whites is usually not fair for minorities).
Perhaps what Soong-Chan was getting at with his response to the emerging church is, “why start another white-dominant style of church when there are multitudes of minority-lead churches that are growing and thriving that you could learn from in such an enriching and necessary way?” It is my experience that there is great potential that a minority-lead and dominant church would provide and fulfill in the areas that many people upset with white mainstream evangelical churches.
anne, you write that:
“us whites submitting to spiritual leadership and culture that is not white-dominant is essential to us understanding the evil of our culture, and to understanding more of God than what our own culture portrays.”
I can see how that may be true. But if it’s true for whites in the US, then is it true also for Asians in South Korea and Africans in Kenya, that they need to submit to spiritual leadership that is not [their-color] dominant so that they can understand the evils of their own culture and grasp more of God than what their own culture portrays?
I’ve received that advice to, as a white person, deliberately start attending an ethnic church, and quite honestly, I would LOVE to. However, my question in response has always been, “Why should I think that those churches would be any more accepting of me than my conservative white evangelical church was?” It doesn’t sound like Rah acknowledges that there might be more reasons than just race for a person to choose to attend or to leave a church, and quite honestly, from what I know about most evangelical ethnic churches, I’m pretty sure that most of them would probably reject me as “heretical” just as quickly as my white church did. Yes, overcoming racial divisions is something that emerging church folks care about, but that’s not the only thing we care about. Rah’s advice seems to be telling me that I should just stop caring about all that other stuff, and focus exclusively on this one single issue of race. I’m sorry, but I just can’t do that.
Karl,
hmm, that is making me think!
I dont know the dynamics of race and culture much outside fo the US, to be honest. I do know that white europeans have been oppressors globaly, sadly. Think of white missionaries, well intentioned yes, but who brought western culture entwined with the Gospel, and preached a Christ and church that had to look like them and their traditions.
So I dont know. Are the spiritual ramifications of those still present in places like Kenya or South Korea? Probably to an extent. So they are then learning from whites still.
We US whites have mostlly learned from only whites. Minorities here grow up learning from whites too, but thankfully in this day an age many also can be informed by leaders in their own ethnic cultures, if they’re involved there.
I think ultimately, for me, the goal is multiple cultural perspectives and reflections of God and His Truth.
that’s all i got for processing at the moment.
Dan – thanks for the insights. I agree, we all need to walk our own path and to work through our faith and our anger in the ways that work best for each of us.
Jan – great point. Hearing from the voice of the Other is important, and sometimes those Other voices emerge from within our own culture.
Jim – you’re right – we truly can’t escape our culture, but we can be aware of it and try to fight the parts that are hurtful to others. I have to say that I don’t think Rah is advocating the revenge attitude you describe, but that I think his words might be dismissed simply as being that. I understand that in a book you have to present a convincing argument and let nuance and the messiness of reality slide. I would like to understand his perspective on this better than it can be presented in written form.
Anne – thank you for sharing. I truly am conflicted on this issue. I fully agree that I have a lot to learn from those different than me. In generally I am uncomfortable with submitting myself to anyone’s spiritual authority. I’ve just seen that abused too much. so while I want to expose myself and learn from others – willingly placing someone in headship over me just because they are different than me isn’t a comfortable place for me right now. and I know that’s my issue. My other struggle is like Mike mentioned. Leaving a conservative white church for an often even more conservative black or hispanic, or asian church really doesn’t make much sense to me. If I am fleeing oppression of women, why would I be more okay with the same thing in a different ethnic setting (not that all ethnic churches are like that, but the ones I’ve known personally are). The emerging church to me is a compromise – a place where theology can be expanded, leadership shared, power given up, and community built. It is far from perfect, and the voices from the margins are just beginning to be heard by the majority (some have been listening and learning all along). I agree there is something important about escaping the dominant power structures and letting other voices prevail – but the answer might not always be so simple as walking down the street to a different church.
I don’t care for the title of the book. I think the original title is much better. Any noun ending in ‘icalism’ implies that it worships itself more than God. And, reverse racism is not a cure for racism. However, I am certain that this book has much to offer us.
What was the original title?
The original title was “The White, Western Captivity of the Church.” (From comment #4)
Thanks, I must have missed that when I was skimming over the comments.
Julie,
Thanks for the thoughtful review. I appreciate your willingness to reflect on the issues that I try to raise in the book. A few notes of clarification. I am not suggesting in any way that we do away with all forms of white Christianity nor am I trying to demonize white Christians. I’m very clear about the ways that white evangelicalism has blessed me and how there are numerous white Christians that have blessed me. I’m asking that the same opportunity be given for non-whites to bless whites.
It’s interesting that many have remarked that I take a hostile tone. That was not my intention. I do wonder if the strong stances that I take would have been received differently if I were a white Christian. For example, are there not white emergents who take an angry tone but are called prophets or someone who thinks outside the box? I find it interesting that I’m seen as taking a particularly hostile tone towards the emergent church, when actually I’m pretty hard on the whole breadth of evangelicalism.
I don’t think I ever said that the book was written because of my love of Jesus and wanting to see the church healed (btw, I do love Jesus and I do want to see the church healed), but interestingly your tone and even your phrasing seemed to imply a cynicism about my intention). Is there a place for an Asian-American to truly speak one’s mind and not be labeled as the hostile, angry Asian?
I think the biggest misunderstanding is the perception that I’m criticizing the emerging church out of hostility and bitterness. You will notice in that chapter that I don’t really talk about theological issues one may have with the emergent community. I think emergent raises important theological issues. My main criticism is evangelicalism’s (and the Christian media’s) rush to declare the emerging church as the next new thing — without considering that there is a significant move of God outside of the white, Anglo community. I really believe that the emerging church can be an important place of dialogue, but it means that we are willing to engage in that dialogue when hard questions (in this case, issues of racial bias and white privilege) are being asked.
One final comment, could you clarify what you are referring to when you talk about a blog entry that I cited that was a private conversation? Any reference that I had in the book was cleared by the bloggers and in fact the bloggers were sent a copy of the chapter for their approval. I’m not sure what you are referring to.
Again, thanks for the review. I am hoping folks see the ideas that I am trying to convey. I think it’s okay for Asians to be angry every once in awhile — it may break some stereotypes about the passive Asian who operates as an honorary white person in majority culture.
Thanks so much for stopping by and interacting! And thanks for the clarifications – I think all books need discussion forums to help improve understanding!
And like i said I fully agree with you that whites need to be learning from others. I think my pragmatic side of wondering how that will actually happen affected my response. I fully agree that there is a valid place for anger, but I’ve realized that expressing that anger rarely helps in the process of persuading others to my way of thinking. I think there are a lot of white christians who will see your anger as merely a reason to ignore you. As seen in the comments on one of my recent post (http://julieclawson.com/2009/03/22/mocking-our-neighbor/), there are enough Christians who still think it’s okay to mock other cultures – anger to them is just one more excuse why they shouldn’t bother to learn from others. it’s stupid and not fair (that word again), and yes, whites most likely would not face that same barrier. Having people turn off to the message from the beginning will just make it harder to change the world in the long run. Not that I have any better suggestions – I’ve got the whole piss people off thing down, but am not so good at the persuasive dialogue part.
The whole introduction thing was just me having issues with a serious pet peeve of mine. I wasn’t cynical about your intention at all, just annoyed with the literary device that discourages debate. I really hate reading books where the author says something along the lines of – “I know people are going to disagree with me, but I’m just _____ (sincere, speaking from my experience, doing it because I love Jesus…). It implies that anyone who disagrees doesn’t have a valid concern, or perhaps doesn’t love Jesus. Not that I haven’t done that myself – I just prefer authors who admit things are messy and invite disagreement and dialogue. The sections I was referring to was on p.23 in the Introduction where you write – “There are portions of the book that are intended to provoke. There may be times when the reader may react with anger, derision, defensiveness, and so forth. But as you read through the major arguments of this book, I hope you will find my deepest concern for the church, the body of Christ and the pure and holy bride of Jesus. The tone of this book will at times seem angry and confrontational. There may be aspects of this book that cause discomfort. Confrontation can lead to discomfort, but confrontation and discomfort can also lead to transformation.”
As for the emerging church thing – my reaction was affected by reading your book while I was gathering with a diverse group of others to imagine the future of Emergent Village. I don’t think any of us like the way the media proclaims the EC as the next new thing. Most of us simply care about seeing the kingdom of God expressed in its fullness. God is doing wonderful things outside of the white community. But for many the emerging church might be their only access to that world. While non-white churches are on the rise in the U.S., outside of the big cities the majority of the country is still white. Often people questioning the Western (often racist) churches they are a part of don’t have a non-white option to attend. Or if they do it is the Catholic church, which brings up a whole other set of issues. The freedom and shared power of the emerging conversation might be the place where they can enter into a bigger dialogue.
And to explain the blog post thing. Right before it was posted, a number of us in the emerging conversation had been contacted by a guy wanted to know why there were only whites in emerging leadership. Its a very valid question and a few of us tried to interact with him on email and blogs. But it quickly turned out that he wasn’t interested in dialogue, but simply in ridicule and condemnation. His goal was just to make others feel bad, and we simply had to stop interacting because it really wasn’t healthy. So he started emailing others. The email/question posed to emerging leaders was prompted by his questions. But it was originally posted to a Google group that unfortunately no one actually read. So we didn’t know the question had been posed until Rebecca made the blog post wondering why no one responded to her invitation to discuss race in the EC. But then once we discovered that her question sprung from interaction with that certain guy, we really didn’t want to jump back into an unhealthy conversation. So her blog post was true, and your interpretation of it valid, it just didn’t represent the whole story. The topic was discussed outside of that setting – the up/rooted cohort devoted some of our meeting to the issue even. The impression I got was that people in the EC deeply care about this issue and want to find solutions. But having people tell us “you suck, you should feel bad” isn’t very productive to actually helping make things better. Many of us would love to discover productive ways to move forward in this dialogue. Anyway, I hope that clarifies.
Thanks again for the interaction, and for the book. I do hope the message can be heard and taken to heart.
The books Being White and Divided By Faith should be next on your list, they will couple well with your struggles right now, if you haven’t read them yet. They address the racial church divide and the feelings of how do whites help without staying in self hatred.
PS
Awesome of you to weigh in, Soong-Chan!
Soong-Chan Rah – Thanks for stopping by. I have a follow-up question for you, related to my earlier comment. You said:
I’m personally excited that this “significant movement” in the non-white church is going on, and I fully agree that it deserves more attention in the broader evangelical world than it has previously received. I also recognize that on a lot of issues (e.g. social justice, living in community, etc.) the non-white church is way ahead of us and has been for a long time. In fact, I think you’ll find a lot of other emergents would likewise recognize this fact, and fully admit that we didn’t start the conversation on this stuff – y’all were the ones we learned it from in the first place! But what I’m wondering is whether you think the movement in the non-white evangelical church also includes many of the other theological issues that are raised in the emerging church conversation? Would there be an openness in most of these churches towards someone like me who skews more towards the “progressive” end of emergent theology? I know generalizations are difficult, but to be honest, nearly every evangelical non-white church I’ve encountered has been even more theologically conservative than the broadly evangelical baptist church I got kicked out of – so I don’t have a lot of reason to think I would be any more accepted in those churches than I was there. Like I said above, being emergent definitely includes a concern for racial diversity in the church, but it’s not limited to that, and I’m not willing to sacrifice all those other issues for the sake of only one.
BTW, just to further clarify the situation with Rebecca’s blog post, I think she did post it partially in regards to the conversation she had with you, and also, as my wife said, in the broader context of the previous interaction with that other guy. However, unfortunately, she posted her invitation to interaction on a forum (a google group) that was very sparsely frequented, so I honestly don’t think the lack of response was due to a lack of concern but simply because there weren’t very many people around to engage with it in the first place. Furthermore, as my wife said, it was followed up on and engaged with in later face-to-face discussions at up/rooted meetings where we devoted the entire night to the issue. Rebecca was not at those meetings (due to geographical distance), but I think she also brought the issue up later at her own downtown gatherings as well. Hope that helps.
Julie,
Thanks for your response. I do understand your pet peeve, but it felt like you were misrepresenting what I actually said. Someone reading your review, not having read the book could conclude that those are my actual words. In fact, my intention in the intro was to invite dialogue, knowing full well that many whites in the audience would hesitate to engage in a dialogue with an ethnic minority who comes off sounding angry or hostile.
As for the blog post, it was coming after a fairly lengthy (and very informative) conversation with an emergent blogger who pointed me towards her blog (in fact it was a blog entry that referenced her conversation with me). The point of her blog entry was that on the same blogsite, she referenced a quilt that drew 8 responses while a blog post that referenced race drew much less. This occurred on the same blog site. So the comparison is to what drew attention on the same site, not one that drew more traffic and another that drew less traffic. So I didn’t do sloppy research as you claim, I was merely reporting the specific comparison that an emergent blogger herself made. The back story, at that point, is actually not relevant to the comparison she is making.
Also, I don’t think my one step solution is join a non-white church. I think for some that is a great and productive solution. For others, it is being immersed in a different culture overseas. For others, it is reading and referencing non-white authors. There are other ways to engage, but I’m asserting that white privilege allows white Americans to never have to engage non-whites as authorities (particularly spiritual authorities), whereas non-whites are constantly dealing with the implicit, subtle, and sometimes not so subtle superiority of white theology or ministry models.
“The main example that he gave, that of a Korean immigrant church, did little to capture my imagination as a reader.”
In referencing Mike’s comments, it seems there is a great sense of defensiveness that I would generalize the emergent church, but it seems that there is no problem in generalizing nearly all immigrant and ethnic minority churches as not open to his particular theological leanings.
Mike,
Could you clarify your follow up question? Are you asking about the state of the non-Western, non-white church when it comes to openness to more “progressive” expressions of Christianity?
Oops. Hit submit before completing the previous post:
The second to the last paragraph should read:
For example, Julie talks about my main example of the Korean immigrant church doing little to capture her imagination as a reader.
The point of the chapter was not to talk about the successes of a single ethnic church, but to focus on the connection between social service/justice and evangelism that is often missed particularly in 20th century evangelicalism.
But its interesting that our story doesn’t capture your imagination. But as a white person, you have the capacity and the power to ignore our story. As an ethnic minority, I don’t have the power to ignore the white story. Particularly in the context of the church. As a college student and as a seminary student, my story and the story of other people of color was consistently marginalized while the European and Euro-American story is required and put front and center. That inequality is what I’m trying to remedy. We are entering into a new era of Christianity and we need to hear these other stories, even if they are not what we want to hear or reflect our particular leanings. I have no choice but to hear the story of the white Christian community. Are white Christians willing to hear our stories?
http://www.ProfRah.com
Soong-Chan -
Thanks for the clarification about the church attendance issue. I didn’t get that perspective in your book, it is helpful to know. And while I know that Mike doesn’t think all ethnic churches hold to the same theology, he is speaking from his experience of those he has encountered. If one’s issues are with a certain branch of white western theology, just having that repackaged in a Korean or Hispanic form doesn’t address the theological issues. As Jenkins wrote in The Next Christendom, these emerging branches of the church are by and large very very conservative. They generally promote patriarchy and oppression of LGBT peoples – it is difficult for some to welcome the other if that means excluding yet others. I know this isn’t across the board, but I think it is a real issue that people are struggling with.
I’m curious as to why you think the context of the blog post is irrelevant? If your conclusion is to understand the motive of those that didn’t comment, why would you not be interested in hearing the motive of those involved?
And I think you misunderstood my comments on the korean church example – and I admit, my language wasn’t clear. I thought the story of the church itself was great – the community and what it did for each other is a fantastic example of what the church should be. But as an EXAMPLE given to white western christian as to what we should embrace, it failed me as a reader. To say whites should embrace other cultures and then give as your primary example a monocultural church that albeit fantastic is not very different than white churches I’ve been in made the example weak. Your EXAMPLES didn’t work for your argument. Of course we should be exposed to stories of these churches, it just didn’t fit within the context of your argument imho. I don’t wish to dismiss any expression of church and that wasn’t my point at all.
Yes, that’s what I’m wondering about. As I said, I’m not trying to generalize, but as Julie mentioned, in my own very limited experience every evangelical ethnic church I’ve encountered (I’m not including mainline “liberal” ethnic churches like, say, Trinity UCC) have been just as or even more conservative than the white evangelical churches I’ve been pushed out of.
Beyond church experiences however, I’ve gotten into a number of online discussions with folks who have leveled your same criticism of the emerging church as not being diverse enough. However, in the course of the conversation there actually are two critiques that seem to emerge:
1) we’re not diverse enough; and
2) we’re all a bunch of heretics anyway.
If that second one is a common sentiment about emergents among ethnic church leaders (the ones that have heard of us anyway), then if I were to begin attending at, say, a Korean church, I think I might be more afraid of being rejected for my theology than for my race.
I guess I’m just worried that racial/ethnic diversity doesn’t always go hand in hand with theological diversity, and I’d really, really like to have both.
Does that concern make sense? Any thoughts?
Hi Julie et. al-
I’m just joining the discussion now. Thanks for the review and the words that have followed.
It might be true that ethnic churches tend toward a more conservative theology, but that’s true for every culture, I believe. By “conservative theology”, it seems like you’re thinking of a theology that is characterized by patriarchalism and exclusivism, if I’m reading your comment correctly.
I think the heart of this “conservatism” comes from a pharisaical disposition that you seem to be most opposed to, and understandably so. Even the majority white evangelical church has this “conservatism”, I believe. I’m guessing this is why the emergent church is moving toward a more inclusive theology and disposition.
I think by dismissing the example that Rah gave in his book for the reasons of conservatism and monoculturalism is missing the point entirely.
It seems to me that the larger point of TNE is that it’s easy to look at an outside culture and offer critiques on how it can be improved. It’s difficult, however, to expose the idols or blindspots of my own traditions, theological leanings, etc, especially if I’m in the dominant culture.
It just so happens that evangelicalism is majority white and western in public life. As the dominant culture, it’s easy to offer critique and look at ethnic churches and say, “they’re monocultural, conservative, etc.” and therefore I think it’s irrelevant and irresponsible to use their examples of communal life.
But what if the ethnic church looks at the western church and says, “they’re materialistic, individualistic, and libertarian” and therefore I think it’s irrelevant and irresponsible to use their examples of theological practice and methods.
Both groups lose out on humbly owning our blindspots and looking for remedy.
TNE seems to suggest that we’re enculturated in the west to a point that it’s difficult to accept those blind spots at all.
It’s easy to react and say, “well, look at how those communities fall short too!”
But to say that would miss the point entirely – that other communities of faith are rising and have something to contribute that’s different than the white dominant church.
As the dominant culture, it takes much more work to allow the minority culture to have a voice.
The minority culture is already avalanched with voices from the dominant culture.
In regard to the emerging church, the data does suggest that there are statistically more ethnic churches than emergent churches (I hope I’m using the term correctly).
This does not mean that the emergent voice should be silenced – it means that the voice of the ethnic churches should be more actively sought out. As it stands, the statistics (and influence in public life) are grossly disproportionate considering the rising number of ethnic churches.
Why isn’t there more interest in the experience of these ethnic churches and how they’re doing communal life? Yes, they might be theologically conservative and monocultural, but they are doing communal life in a way that’s different than a predominantly white church.
Do they deserve to be heard as examples of non-individualistic communities despite their monocultural tendencies? Certainly.
However, it’s that much harder to want to learn from them if I’m in a dominant culture.
Mike-
I just saw your post. I think you’d be surprised to find that there’s a growing number of ethnic churches that are more theologically diverse, communal, etc. Soong-Chan might have thoughts to better substantiate that claim.
Btw, I’m speaking for 2nd+ generation ethnic churches. I’m assuming you are as well. That is, unless you’ve attended a Korean speaking only church or something similar to that =)
Drew,
I’m just speaking generally. I don’t have any specific Korean churches in mind (and I could have just as easily substituted “African American” for “Korean”). My only personal, indirect experience with Korean churches has been through a female Korean friend who went to seminary and got a ministry job in an evangelical Korean church, and faced quite a bit of discrimination and devaluation of her leadership abilities because of her gender, which, as she described it, was normal for the Korean church culture in which she was raised. I have no way of knowing if her experience is typical or not, but that is the sort of thing I have in mind.
Mike-
Also, I think Scripture speaks of the same struggle of conservatism (pharisaism) and liberterianism (corinth). I know these aren’t the same categories of theological diversity vs theological narrowness, but I think it’s similar in terms of the heart of truth vs grace.
So I think there will be extremes in every culture, especially as they react to each other. It’s true that some indigenous cultures might be more predisposed to certain value set, but I think with globalization occurring, the same extremes (and middle-grounds) will be found in each culture.
i guess it comes down to what we choose to ignore and what we choose not to ignore – or what we can’t ignore.
Julie, it seems for you, that you choose to not ignore issues of patriarchy and oppression of LGBT people.
What Soong-Chan said in his response is that we white folks CAN ignore issues of race, as you are doing by dismissing pesronally the importance of joining an ethnic minority church. We get to choose to see that as not the most important thing.
But he also points out that he, as a minorty, does not get a choice of whether he wants to ignore white culture or white church. He can’t ignore it, because it is in his face all the time, and our majority nature is continually pushing him to conform to it over and over. He doesn’t get the option of ignoring what the white church is doing, or choosing to stay out of it. He is forced to be bicultural because he is a minorty.
As the majority, we white people can function just fine, in our own minds, monoculturally. We can move about this nation with ease functioning only in the dominant culture.
He implores us white people to stop choosing to ignore. To see. And to realize that our humanity, indeed our spiritual health, is tied up in not ignoring. That seeing and engaging is essential to our health.
Drew, you are spot on. You have a way of explaining things that really works!
I am enjoying that we can have healthy dialogue on things as we seek to bulid one another up and seek Christ together.
I do have to be bold here, though, and call out a very ethnocentric comment that Julie made:
“If one’s issues are with a certain branch of white western theology, just having that repackaged in a Korean or Hispanic form doesn’t address the theological issues.”
To speak of an ethnic minory church as a “repackaged” version of a white church is very demeaning. Even if some core principles are teh same between a white church and an ethnic minorty church, the cultural differences will make it a COMPLETELY different church entirely. And I mean entirely. The different walk of life that ethnic minorities (must) have than us in this nation will change the perspective on christianity and probably that theology that you disagree with.
To say “repackaged” is to simply switch the color of skins, shapes of faces, and perhaps the form of meet-and-greet during the service. There is so much more to being not white that you are missing. We are not just different by skin color!
drew – from my experience the emerging church is all about trying to discover the blindspots in culture. And ethnic churches should have every right to offer critiques of white churches, and we need to listen. And as I have said, the example of the Korean church does show a great picture of a church practicing communal life. If that was all it was intended as, then that’s great. I assumed it was intended to illustrate why the Korean church is better at community than white churches as reason why we should join or imitate the Korean church. I am not denying that it is a good illustration of community, but just saying that I have seen many white churches doing the same thing. It isn’t a convincing argument as to why people should leave the white church to join an ethnic church (if that was the point of the example as I thought it was). Maybe I was reading too much into what the author was trying to do there, I don’t know. I hope that distinction is clear.
One other question I have that has be gnawing at me in this discussion. Should race trump theology? Should submitting to the spiritual leadership of other races be more important than the theology one believes? As in should I attend a church whose theology I disagree with just so that I can be in the minority racially? As I’ve said, I am in full agreement that whites should be learning from people of other races. But what I seem to be hearing is that theology, gender equality, and inclusion of the oppressed are all far less important than race. And it is because I honestly find all of those important that I do align myself with the emerging church.
anne – First regarding my repackaging comment. I did not mean it to demean, I intended it to express the ways in which white western culture/theology has been pushed onto other cultures. When there exist churches in say Haiti that function exactly like southern baptist churches in the U.S. – same English hymn, same American style clothing, same architecture, same preaching style – and all that is different is the color of skin, I truly do see that as colonial repackaging of western white christianity. The people as they are are not being expressed in the church. They had to essentially become white to be christian. My graduate degree is in Missions and Intercultural Studies, and I know that this colonial non-contextualized expression of christianity is very very common. So no, I’m not interested in attending a southern baptist church no matter what race of people fills the pews. Yes, the people will be different – their struggles will be different, but they should also be allowed to be themselves. And of course there are ethnic churches where that totally is the case as well.
And I agree that whites do have the “privledge” of ignoring other races, and that that is a bad thing. I never experienced this until I went off to Wheaton college. My whole life until then involved interacting with many different races with some of my closest friends being first generation immigrants. I didn’t even think that going to college would be any different since diversity was simply a part of my life. I didn’t know the WASP world I was entering at Wheaton. With only one non-white teacher during the entirety of college and grad school, I truly did miss out on what I should have been learning. Being back in Austin and interacting with many different races and knowing that my kids won’t attend all white schools is a blessing to me. My family are the token white people in our neighborhood. I do my best to read churchy books written by non-whites, and am very drawn to liberation theologians, womanist writers, and post-colonial writers. So in all honestly it is offensive to be told that I am ignoring people of other races because I do not go to a church defined by its ethnic demographic.
A quick clarification. I never said that going to a non-white church was the only way to escape Western, white cultural captivity. It is one of the ways (and it has been a positive experience for many).
Why do I keep hitting enter before completing my entry? To continue:
It is one of many ways. And giving the Korean church example is not to assert that the example of the Korean church is the new norm. I’m arguing that examples like the Black church, Native American ministries, immigrant churches, and second generation churches are stories that have not been heard by evangelicals because the white story has been so dominant.
this is an interesting discussion and it sounds like a provocative book that i’d like to read.
julie said:
One other question I have that has be gnawing at me in this discussion. Should race trump theology? Should submitting to the spiritual leadership of other races be more important than the theology one believes?
julie, you might want to check out a post andrew rens (windblown from the ooze) made on our blog about community in a postmodern time as it addresses this very issue. you may or may not agree with the example used but it is not the point of the post. how interpretive communities in postmodernity shape community and how and why one participates is the focus.
Hi Julie,
Thanks for reviewing this book. It was fascinating to read your perspective. This was my first time reading your blog and I think you are an excellent writer.
I had Dr. Rah as a professor and also recently read and reviewed The Next Evangelicalism (TNE). I came away with a very different response to the book. I am also white and while I do not entirely identify with the emerging church I would say that I share many convictions in common with the movement. In spite of my emergent leanings, I wasn’t in the least offended by Rah’s critique nor did I sense anger or a “hatred of all things white.” Rather, I thought Rah did a great job showing that it is not people he is denouncing, but rather the culture that is dominating evangelical churches in America—and that culture is white and Western. Western, white culture is what must be rejected, not white persons. I think you may have taken too much of what Rah said personally. For example, you said,
“I understand the need to be harsh and to make readers uncomfortable, but to dismiss an entire race isn’t fair.”
I didn’t find Rah harsh while I can understand how some whites could feel uncomfortable reading this book. Here you use the word “race” referring to whites. There is a lengthy discussion in TNE about why the concept of race is artificial and unbiblical. Rah does not dismiss any “races” in TNE because he has rightly rejected race as an artificial, sociological construct designed to oppress people. Rah does not reject anyone, Rah rejects systems, ways of thinking, destructive cultural forces.
You also write,
“I just wish the author wasn’t so eager to condemn us (his potential supporters and allies) and write us off simply because some of us are white.”
Again, Rah is not rejecting anyone Julie, least of which you and your friends. Rah rejects, and calls us to reject, the culture that ensnares us in this country.
Hope that helps. Again, thanks for choosing to engage with TNE. I think it is an important work that needs as much attention as possible.
~T. C.
julie said:
==
One other question I have that has be gnawing at me in this discussion. Should race trump theology? Should submitting to the spiritual leadership of other races be more important than the theology one believes? As in should I attend a church whose theology I disagree with just so that I can be in the minority racially? As I’ve said, I am in full agreement that whites should be learning from people of other races. But what I seem to be hearing is that theology, gender equality, and inclusion of the oppressed are all far less important than race. And it is because I honestly find all of those important that I do align myself with the emerging church.
===
No, race should not trump theology. Everything flows from theology. All the issues you bring up – oppression, injustice, chauvinism – are all decried in a robust theology. I apologize if it may have sounded as if I thought otherwise.
What’s interesting is that the social dimensions of the gospel that you seem to highlight seem to be most pronounced by non-white theologians – namely, black and liberation theologians.
You can certainly align yourself with the emerging church, but I think it’s safe to say that there have been many other discussions birthed in non-white contexts about the very same issues that the emergent church is talking about.
Mike-
As a Korean-American myself, I can totally relate to the experience of your friend, and I’m probably an expert by now on how Korean culture can seep into a theological disposition. In fact, my own journey has led me to learn to love the Korean church again, after becoming frustrated with some of the patriarchialism that you wrote about.
I willingly admit that there are flaws in the enculturated Christianity of Korean churches.
TNE, in my opinion, is simply pointing out flaws in the enculturated Christianity of white, western churches that might be less clear because it’s couched in a dominant position.
The wart of immigrant churches might be patriarchialism but the wart of emergent might be something else. We all have warts.
However, there’s a whole lot of good in both, too.
It just seems to me that the good in the Korean (and other ethnic) churches aren’t highlighted to a degree that’s commeasurate with how much they have grown (and embodied Jesus to unreached communities) in the past few years.
I think TNE gave me a perspective on why this was the case.
Forgive me for rambling a lot, but I realize I didn’t address the “submitting to leadership” query.
I think a good question to ask might be, “Am I willing to learn and submit to an “other” leader?”
“Other” can stand for any group that I might have biases against, whether it’s racial, socioeconmic, gender, etc.
Obviously there must be some congruency of theology, mission, values, etc., but there just might be some hidden biases that are deeper than a confessional statement or strategy.
Hopefully the answer is “yes”.
Unfortunately for me, I’ve found that it’s hard to learn and submit to anyone without an eye of suspicion.
No need to go into my authority issues… but yes, it’s a good test for me!
drew said:
What’s interesting is that the social dimensions of the gospel that you seem to highlight seem to be most pronounced by non-white theologians – namely, black and liberation theologians.
i think foursquare churches are another good example. the denom was started by a white woman and the church i attended sporadically was one of the most diverse churches i am familiar with. theologically, foursquare is quite “robust” even if it isn’t emergent.
one thing some ethnically diverse churches have that the north american emergents don’t is a much greater activity of the holy spirit. i think because some ethnically diverse churches are already doing much of what emergent is interested in they don’t really feel a pressing need to join the conversation, but the ec could potentially gain much from them, not least of which is a greater understanding of the working of the holy spirit. andrew jones mentioned not long ago on his blog that it is only in north america that the ec is devoid of a more charismatic flavor.
…
I’m not meaning to pick on either one of you in particular, nor on Rah’s book (Julie’s read it, but I have not), but I sometimes get a little frustrated by how the term “emerging church” is used in these kind of conversations, as if it referred to one very limited thing, like an actual organized denomination or something, rather than (as I believe it is) the description of a broad social/spiritual movement that is happening across the whole spectrum of Christianity. I would say that if ethnic churches are already displaying these “emergent” tendencies (as you suggested linda) then they are part of the “emerging” movement already, whether they use that terminology or not.
Sometimes I think when people criticize the “emerging church” for not being diverse enough, they really just have Emergent Village in mind. But of course, Emergent Village has never claimed to represent the entirety of the emerging church movement, nor has it ever claim to have any particular “ownership” of the conversation. And besides that, even the accusation that EV itself is not diverse enough is somewhat off-base (though not entirely) since EV is and has been deliberate about including diverse voices (as my wife’s recent experience in DC can attest). There is still work to be done on this, but it has not been neglected.
At any rate, what frustrates me about all of this is that I think any of us actually needs to act like we’re playing on different teams here. For Rah to say that emergents should have just joined an ethnic church instead of starting their own makes it seem like “ethnic” and “emergent” are somehow two distinct entities – like separate denominations or something. But IMHO, the ethnic church need not be in competition with the “emerging church”. It’s already a part of it! (Or at least some are, I guess.) Rather than fighting over who had what idea first, why not say that we’re all part of the same movement that is emerging in Christianity right now and we’re all interested in learning from each other? Why alienate potential friends and allies by drawing hard lines between what should be very fuzzy and inclusive categories?
BTW, I like Andrew, but if he said this, then I’m not sure he knows what the hell he’s talking about.
I know (or know of) plenty of charismatic emergents, and would consider it to be just as much a part of the movement as anything else.
S.C. Rah says, “As a college student and as a seminary student, my story and the story of other people of color was consistently marginalized while the European and Euro-American story is required and put front and center.”
That’s interesting, because I’ve found just the opposite to be true in my experience. I’m a white male (and therefore the ultimate oppressor), but the majority of my religious studies classes have been focused on African-American, Indian and various liberation theologians/historians.
In many of my classes, I’ve been the long white person, and at times, the lone male, too. I attended an mostly-black seminary, but I didn’t really think of it (nor did my fellow students) as such. And in my classes, it seemed almost every statement I made had to be framed with “as a white male” disclaimer to be taken seriously or listened to. More to the point, on more than one occasion, I’ve been in classes where overgeneralizations about white people are made (”white folks just…”), which in my mind is just as problematic as Anglocentricity/racism.
I think the post-structuralist urge is to create an overaching white, male antagonist: the idea that white men write history, etc., and no one else has a say. What gets overlooked is that most white men don’t write history or have much of a say, either. While white men tend to hold most of the power in America, that doesn’t mean that all or most men hold power. It is a select (rich) group of white men. I don’t want to dismiss the privilege of culture of being a member of the dominant class, but there is a difference between a white male with a stack of bill and a white male with dirt under his nails and dishwater on his clothes.
Of course, one other thing is missing from this conversation: class. Most folks commenting here seem to have attending graduate schools of some sort, giving all of us another kind of privilege that others — white, black, orange, green — don’t have. Perhaps it would be just as helpful to attend a church of poor whites as it would be to attend an ethnocentric church?
Both are overlooked societal others, stereotyped and marginalized.
In fact, I’m pretty sure it was the poor with whom Jesus was primarily concerned. And, yes, racial minorities (in America) and nonwhite throughout the world are generally more impoverished than whites, but the narrative is much more complex than that, too.
Unfortunately, these discussions, however, tend to descend into a race to the bottom of who is most mistreated in society, which does little to help move things along.
Hi David– I’m not white but I very much understand where you’re coming from. Certainly I’m not denying the prevailing systems of white privilege that are so ingrained we tend not to even notice them (so peeps please don’t jump on me for being an ‘Uncle Tom’ or turncoat…), but I think the thing is we aren’t just one thing. We have multiple identities– white, female, straight, diabetic, ADHD, clinically depressed, poor, middle-class etc etc. Most or all of us, at some point, will be an Other based on any one of these factors. Once all these are put into our own individual contexts, it may turn out to be very different things that emerge at the forefront of our identities, sets us apart or marginalises us. Eg. as an Asian student studying abroad in a Western country, it was never my Asian-ness that alienated me from others and prevented me from fully participating in university life, but entirely different things altogether.
It is interesting to me that there is an underlying assumption in the book and among most, though not all, emergents that some form of institutional church remains the norm and should be the expression of “church”. Both are looking to reform, update, etc. the institution but an institutional/organization expression nonetheless.
In my experience many of these issues of culture differences, race, ethnicity or even the categories that Pippin raise go away when there are fewer than 15 people and it is purely relational based interaction. Of course, these groupings generally are not publicized because they do not have the size of profile to be seen in the way an Emergent Village or mega church or other institutional expression does. The larger the group and the more organized/institutionalized the more division there is along many lines. It causes me to wonder…..
Bloggers,
Wow! I stumbled across this blog and read some very interesting viewpoints. Some were too long to read. Unfortunately, I personally missed out on Dr. Rah’s message at CCDA, but I did order a copy of the message for my MP3 as suggested by my white brother. I am Native American and currently reading “Decolonizing Methodologies” by Linda T. Smith. It’s an insightful book that gives examples of the western philosophy that steers our educational system and Christianity.
I agree that other ethnic voices tend to fall on deaf ears because they are perceived as not the experts in the field. We can help shape evangelism and the emerging church so that the past is not repeated. I realize that the church has been shaped by the dominant society and has worked for them, but it doesn’t mean it will always work for others of different race. I still struggle with what a Native Christian church would look like without offending the churches in America. Our US history is tainted with lies and oppression that we don’t want to acknowledge, but it is something I have to reteach my Native peoples that Christ is not white. I have yet to see a self sustaining or successful church led by a NA pastor with NA leadership, and one that is financially stable to pay all expenses in full. We may have the gospel, but we as Natives are always struggling to keep our churches/ministries a float. It sounds like I have to add this book to my list to read. blessings,
mike, if any of these charismatic emergents you know have blogs or books i’d love some links. the only person i’d consider remotely emergent who actually talks about charismatic things is mike morrell on his zoecarnate blog. i know others in the conversation who say they are postcharismatic but when i read their blogs there is no conversation about things like healing, deliverance from demons, prophecy, dreams/visions from God, hearing from God, etc. those are the sorts of things i’d love to read more about in the ec. so far i’ve not been able to find anyone who engages on that level or talks about it if they do. on my blog we talk about all those things in addition to things emerging/ent.
Linda, I think Makeesha Fisher (”Swinging from the Vine”) would be one such person. I haven’t interacted with her much, aside from a comment or two on her blog. But I know she comes from a pentecostal/charismatic background and while she seems to have left a lot of the conservative evangelical stuff behind, I think she’s still open to charismatic expression and experience. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen her write a time or two about the frustration/discomfort/loneliness of being one of the few people in most emerging gatherings that she has attended, who is open to those types of (charismatic expression and phenomena) things.
http://www.swingingfromthevine.com/about/
David Henson, I think you make a good point that class is often as much of a divider as race. I had that brought home to me through an acquaintance in law school. Hers was a complex experience, and I hope you won’t mind if I share some of it.
She is a young african american woman, whose father is a doctor. So she grew up in a gated community on a golf course, and experienced privilege that I never experienced during my lower-middle class white upbringing. She had more early educational opportunities than I, who attended a fundamentalist Baptist private Christian school with pretty sorry – or at least very uneven – academics (can’t recall if hers was private prep school or just a very good and well-funded public school because of its location).
At the same time, she experienced subtle (and not so subtle) discrimination in that mostly-white setting, as you may imagine. Not discrimination in terms of being bypassed for opportunities, but hurtful social and interpersonal discrimination. Her brothers were frequently pulled over by the cops for “driving while black” because they drove a Lexus and a BMW, and the cops assumed the only way a young black male would have such a car would be if he was a drug dealer. etc.
In spite of the pain of dealing with discriminatory attitudes, in many ways (economically and educationally, and with a stable loving home environment with 2 married parents), she was more privileged and advantaged than most of her white classmates. She was an above average but not elite student. But because of her race and gender combined with above average academic achievement, she was given substantial scholarships to both college and law school – though economically her family didn’t need them. In law school she was above average, but not at the very top. Roughly, in the top third of the class. When it came time to search for jobs, her prospects were very different from her academic peers who were white, especially white males. As an african american woman, she had her pick of job offers from the most prestigious firms in the country. A white male would have needed to be in the top 5% of the class at least, to have equivalent job opportunities. Even if he had come from a much more economically and educationally disadvantaged background and had to clear more hurdles than she did to get there.
Socially, due to the twin factors of race and class, she was caught in between worlds. She was a proud, strong african american woman, very justice and race conscious, had no real interest in being part of the mostly frat-like white social crowd, and was very aloof to most of her white classmates – it took real initiative and effort to break through her exterior, and the willingness to suffer a rebuff or two initially. Once convinced you were sincere (and persistent), she would let you in, to an extent. But only to an extent because you were white and she was black. But she often encountered resentment and the “cold shoulder” from her african american fellow students in the Black Law Students Association, who were from socioeconomic backgrounds very different from hers. She spoke like Claire Huxtable; amongst themselves they spoke more like Chris Rock. Some said she acted “too white” and sneered at the expensive car she drove and her nice wardrobe (she told me this). It was really frustrating for her, because emotionally her identity was *very* black but her black peers rejected her on the basis of class.
Talking to her, getting to know her and listening to various facets of her story convinced me that a lot of these issues of race and class are more complex and multifaceted than most conservatives or liberals usually admit. It was one of my own most impactful “listening” experiences in terms of listening to the voice of someone whose ethnic identity is different from my own. Law school is a ways afield from the ethnic-church related topic of this thread. But the discussion by David and Pippin of the multiple factors beyond just race that can form our identity, prompted these memories.
so I feel totally evil for having dropped the ball on responding here – life has gotten in the way recently. I hope to find time later. But just wanted to quickly say – sorry!
Karl,
I think that conversation of race and class is so difficult so I appreciate you sharing all that. I wonder if part of the so-called “white, western” mindset is to be able to only handle one part of that complexity at one time — narrowing the conversation to one issue. You are either poor or rich, white or nonwhite, not realizing as you have indicated that we are often a mixture of several different categories.
the folks I’m thinking about specifically are not authors, but just friends in the conversation: people like Makeesha and Dave Fisher, Sarah and Ryan Notton, Rusty and Stephanie St. Cyr, etc… All folks who have come to the conversation from Pentecostal backgrounds, and though they’ve perhaps moved beyond some of the abuses of that tradition, as far as I know, have not rejected the basic idea of charismatic faith. Indeed, as I’ve seen it, many emergents, myself included, could be considered “charismatic” in that we believe in and are open to the power of the Spirit in healings, spiritual gifts, etc. For many of us, opening ourselves up to this has been part of our emerging journey.
For myself personally, I consider myself a “non-practicing” charismatic, insofar as I am open to the “miraculous” gifts, but also recognize that I myself have not personally been gifted with the more dramatic ones (and I am not Pentecostal insofar as I don’t believe that every Christian has to manifests miraculous gifts like speaking in tongues), nor am I temperamentally suited to the usual style of “charismatic” worship. I’m all for it, it’s just that personally I can only handle it in small doses.
Another place to look for charismatic emergents would be among Vineyard folks like Rich and Rose Swetman, Jim Henderson, and Todd Hunter, among many others who have long been friendly to and a part of the emerging conversation. In fact, Vineyard folk in general tend to be more “emerging” than most denominations.
Oh yeah, and there’s also John O’Hara’s AGmergent group, which blogs over at Emerging Pentecostal.
Well, then you yourself would be an example of exactly what you’re looking for.
The emerging church is not something “out there”. The emerging church is all of us, including you. If you don’t think your particular type of voice (whether charismatic, or non-white, or whatever) is represented well-enough, then all you have to do is add it. Stop waiting for someone else to fix the problem and just be the change you want to see.
thanks mike. i am familiar with most of the people you’ve mentioned but i did take a second look at their blogs. ‘emerging pentacostal’ looked the most promising but hasn’t been updated in over a year. the others aren’t really talking about charismatic things much, at least not the things i mentioned earlier. interestingly, todd hunter is now anglican. i do need to look up jim henderson again. he seems like a cool guy.
i’m not really a charismatic or pentecostal per se, and never have been, but skipped those phases and went straight to post-charismatic. the vineyard is where i fit best, but sadly the emerging vineyard plant i was a part of folded quite awhile ago. i am “being the change” as best as i know how…it just gets a bit lonely at times.
most charismatics/pentecostals probably wouldn’t consider themselves emerging/ent because they still do ministry in very modern ways, especially seeing church as a “performance” with a “celebrity” pastor up front. to their credit they do focus on similar issues like social justice, have women pastors, and are more diverse, but they go about it generally in a very different fashion than a church in the emerging conversation would. hopefully, this will change in time though.
linda, there are quite a few Anglican churches, especially those associated with the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA,) that combine charismatic worship with a service that isn’t nearly as much in the “modern performance” paradigm. What I have appreciated about the Anglican church is that it has been the best fit for me, for addressing many of those types of concerns that Mike and others would characteriize as “emerging.” A desire for a richer, less shallow, more God-focused worship experience, a desire for making ministry to the least among us an important facet of faith instead of looking at it suspiciously, a willingness to “agree to disagree” on a pretty large range of nonessentials, more openness to women exercising spiritual gifts and leadership than is found in most evangelical settings, etc. Of course most AMiA churches will be fairly conservative on what have historically been considered the “essentials” of Christian belief and maybe even on some nonessentials. Not all are strongly charismatic and not all are equally as concerned about ministry to the poor – YMMV. But the Anglican ethos and theology can be a good fit for a lot of people with “emerging” concerns and impulses, particularly if they remain relatively conservative in their theology on the historic essentials (i.e. still within the umbrella of “evangelical” but on the progressive end of that spectrum). Ironically, I am attracted to the Anglican church for all the above reasons but the particular Anglican church we are in, is much closer to a the typical low-church evangelical protestant praise music attractional seeker church than I would choose.