Ten years ago I had never heard of the emerging church. Oh, I was reading postmodern philosophy and asking all sorts of questions that were getting me in trouble, but I had no idea that there were other Christians discussing these sorts of ideas. I had just finished my first round of grad-school having studied Intercultural Studies and Missions at Wheaton College. I often had made my classmates (and a few of my professors) uncomfortable by asking why missions concepts like contextualization of the Gospel, socio-linguistic relativity, and intercultural difference could not also be applied to our own American culture. If it was okay to have the Gospel make sense culturally in some third world country, why couldn’t it make sense to all people in the United States?

But this was the era when “purpose driven” churches were cutting edge and where in a post-9/11 flag-draped America, homogeneity trumped authenticity. Facebook and Twitter were still years away, so it was a lot harder to discover that you weren’t the only one asking the crazy questions. Even so, it was early in 2002 when someone recommended to my husband and me that we might enjoy reading a book by this guy Brian McLaren. As others have often mentioned, what I discovered in A New Kind of Christian wasn’t completely new, but more of an affirmation that there were others exploring the same sorts of questions about faith as I was. And knowing that one is not alone holds a special power. Knowing that I didn’t have to ignore those nagging questions or divorce my intellect from my faith saved my faith. Instead of a hollow and confining static system, it had been transformed into a living reality.

Knowing that there were others out there meant I had to find them – which is where The Ooze enters in. I found that community online, and more specifically its message boards. I created a profile with a fake name (MaraJade) and a false avatar and jumped in with both feet. Over the next few years the evolution of my faith played out on those boards. I eventually added my real name as virtual friendships morphed into physical ones, but it was there that I began to re-imagine theology, and church, and what it even meant to be a Christian. While it was not always the safest place to explore such questions in a public forum, it was the only place where such dialogue could even occur. It is amusing now to think as The Ooze shuts down that all these old conversations, these snapshots of a faith in transition, will now be archived at Fuller Seminary. I pity the sociologist of religion who will sift through them someday for her dissertation.

But as the conversation grew, territories were claimed and lines began to be drawn. Certain groups declared that there was a range of acceptable questions (generally permitting the re-imagining of worship practices but not theological stances) and they (loudly) denounced the rest of us. Others set up camp as either for the Ooze or for Emergent Village – competing for publishing contracts, conference speaking spots, and (of course) advertising dollars. Those of us involved in both observed that tension and felt like we were being made to choose sides. Looking back, it seems so silly that in a conversation about deconstructing the systems of modernism in favor of re-imaging a wholistic and healthy way to be the church such petty fights would ever be waged, but I guess that is the way of man (and I intentionally used the masculine there). For me the conversation was holy in whatever guise it took.

I never made it to a Soularize until this year and I regret that. But there was still something intriguing to enter into that space ten years on and discover where the past decade has taken the conversation. In a struggling economy the trappings of financial success have long since lost the power to sway the conversation. Petty differences have given way to collaboration as those who believe that re-imagining church for a postmodern world is more than just the latest trend to follow. The angst of needing to constantly deconstruct where we all have been has mellowed into a loosely held space where dreams and critique coexist. The urgency to fix the world has passed while the passion to hope for a better world remains.

In short, the emerging conversation I encountered at Soularize this year was one of hope. While it might not burn as brightly as it once did, a bonfire requires too much empty energy to sustain itself. What we have left is a smoldering movement – not in the negative sense of having been reduced to ashes, but of the sort of long-burning coals that warm homes and bake bread. And there are still new people joining the conversation – asking their own questions and desperately attempting to cling to their faith in meaningful ways. But how they enter in looks different now that there are those of us who have matured in this conversation for the past ten years or more there to welcome them in.

Groups like Soularize and The Ooze may be winding down, but that is because the conversation has shifted. We no longer just need space for questions; we need space to build as well. Learning parties are no longer just about questions, they are also about formulating responses with our lives. I am grateful for this last Soularize for serving as a transition in that shift. And I am looking forward to what lies ahead.

“Blessed are the good-hearted, poets and the dreamers. And all us crazy, holy, hungry ones who still believe in something better.”

I went to the Wild Goose Festival for the community. Meeting for the first time this year in the hills of beautiful North Carolina, Wild Goose was a gathering focused on arts, justice, and faith. I went eager to reunite with old friends and to finally translate a few virtual relationships into reality. Oh, I was excited to hear David Wilcox and Jennifer Knapp and learn from respected Christian leaders, but it was the gathering of friends that drew me and my family to the fest. And while it was the community that brought me there, it was the communal experience of commitment that defined my time there. Those lines posted above from Carrie Newcomer’s song “Where You Been,” sum up perfectly the experience that was the Wild Goose Festival.

If anything, Wild Goose was a gathering of those who dream of a better way. A better way to be human, a better way to be the church. Not in a “we want to be better than you” sort of way, but more of a deep felt recognition that the world is not as it should be. It was that wrestling with trying to live into the lives God created us to live that became the conversation at Wild Goose. As part of that, one theme that kept resurfacing in the talks I heard was that of learning to be open to the full range of human emotions and experiences in the world. The typical Christian impulse in our country is to dwell upon the joyful aspects of life and faith. We put on the mask of pretending all is fine to the world. We hold church services oriented around worship, praise, and the uplifting parts of scripture. While there is nothing wrong with doing those things, they don’t allow the faithful to reflect the fullness of reality. As the great civil rights activist Vincent Harding pointed out in his talk, there is pain and suffering in the church. Institutional and social evils such as racism and the inequalities it produces affect the body of Christ – harming both those who commit and who suffer those sins. To pretend that all is well when all is obviously not well is to pretend at joy – not to experience it in reality. As Harding commented, to ever be able to truly laugh, one must also be allowed to honestly weep for all the pain and suffering. Pretending that all is well or to deny that the suffering exists harms our souls, preventing us from being whole healthy people. In his talk Soong-Chan Rah also called for the need to remember the words of lamentations in our churches. The Western church has exorcised such biblical passages of lament from our services, lectionaries, and prayer books, and we would do well to be reminded from the global church (that knows far more about experiencing suffering) that recognizing and lamenting our sins and pain is part of what it means to follow God.

While the church of course has a long way to go in regards to becoming balanced and healthy in such ways, it was encouraging to get a small taste of what that might look like at the Wild Goose Festival. I can’t speak for everyone there, but from the conversations I was a part of it truly did seem to be a gathering of folks who deeply dreamed of a better way. People who desired for our faith to mean something tangible. People, who, as Richard Rohr said there, don’t want to settle for the easy shallow faith of merely worshiping God – putting God on an idealized but distant pedestal to be admired but not known. They want to follow God in ways that transform their lives and therefore the lives of others as well. People who desire to follow God in ways that bring about justice, that seek to restore broken relationships, that always orient around caring about the needs of others. But also people who don’t trust in their own strength to do such things, who know the world and the church are messy, and that we need time for lament and repentance as part of our experience of following Jesus.

It can be easy to talk about such things, and I know I’ve done my fair share of talking before. But what I appreciated about the Wild Goose festival was that it forced us past the point of posturing to a place of transparent honesty. At most of our church gatherings, conferences, or cohorts we can easily erect a façade of self and allow others to see only what we desire them to see of who we are. We can talk grand ideas, look as pious/hip/committed as we desire, and then escape back into our solitary lives without anyone glimpsing our rough edges. But there is something about camping in close proximity in sweltering weather in fields crawling with ants and ticks, where the nearest water is a spigot several fields away, with your communal shit stinking up the port-a-potties and your children sleep-deprived from the excitement of camping and the loud bands that play into the wee small hours of the night that violently rips away any façade one might have attempted to hide behind. Everyone sees you crawling dishelved out of your tent in the morning desperate to concoct a coffee-like-substance over your tiny camp stove. Everyone hears you yelling at your kids to stop (literally) bouncing off the tent walls and go to sleep. And I’m pretty sure half the people there witnessed my tired, hot, and hungry children having a grand royal meltdown in the food area one day at lunch. It was just a few days, but it was real.

So when we came to worship together and share our passion for following God in transforming ways in this raw state of discomfort and exhaustion, it was more than just talk. We were those crazy, holy, hungry ones who believe in something better. It was a glimpse of the Kingdom of God that went far beyond just friends gathering to have fun together at a festival or to posture at caring for others. It was a gathering of the most committed Christians I know – those who long to follow God wholly. And that gave me great hope for the church. I had to laugh when I read after the festival that some opponents were deriding the festival, questioning our faith and referring to the event as Apostate-palooza (because *obviously* anything to do with art, camping, and justice can’t possibly be Christian). Yet I realized that they were right in a way. This was a gathering of apostates of the church as it has become – a often meaningless and impotent entity beholden to civil structures of culture and politics that cares more about power and privilege and shoring up hollow rituals and traditions than it does about loving others and believing in God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Wild Goose was a gathering of those crazy folks who are committed to a better way. We are apostates of meaningless religion, ready to strip away the facades and get at the real work of following God.

That was my Wild Goose experience – leaving me raw and tired and strangely full of hope.

And then I came home and saw the social networks ablaze with the inquisitional fires of the evangelical church jumping at the chance to denounce Rob Bell for his audacity at (supposedly) proclaiming in his upcoming book that in the end love truly does win. From the blog posts dismissing him for his universalism to John Piper’s juvenile tweet of “farewell Rob Bell,” it was hard not to laugh at the absurdity. Here I had spent a weekend having my faith in the church’s ability to actually follow Jesus somewhat restored to only be immediately reminded of the vitriol many in the evangelical world possess for any who don’t buy into their very historically recent and rather scripturally unfounded definition of what it means to be a “biblical Christian.” But what truly got to me was how in how this debate was framed those opposing Bell’s ideas were being forced to claim that in the end God’s love actually doesn’t win. Like Jonah pouting after God didn’t utterly annihilate the people of Nineveh, they are actually defending a system that puts limits on God’s love simply because they want to be the ones with a corner on the truth who get all the goodies in the end. Call it doctrine or dogma or self-centeredness, it simply confounds me that people still continue to argue against the love of God.

What appears to be at the source of the controversy is Bell’s supposed claim that a loving God would never judge anyone to eternity in hell (although since most people –including myself – have not read the book yet, no one really knows if that is what he is actually saying. But check out the YouTube promo video here). So Bell is being called a universalist which in evangelicalese is code for "I'm a heretic who hates the Bible" (or something to that effect). But if Bell is saying what I think he’s saying (and of course I have no idea, but I’m throwing my 2 cents in anyway), he is actually far more in line with traditional orthodox Christian theology than this new-fangled thing called evangelical theology. I’m betting that the position he is asserting is that of a universalist who believes in hell (which is where I’ve found myself landing these days as well).

In this view nothing – not human doctrine nor prejudice – can stand in the way of a God seeking to reconcile all things to godself. God created humans to be in constant relationship with godself – growing ever closer to mirroring the image of God we were created in. We instead chose to attempt to be godlike without God, walking away from God in the process. But God did not reject us. God could have withdrawn from us, casting us away from divine perfection – annihilating us in the process since by nature we could not exist apart from that which we were meant to be in eternal relationship with. Instead God was merciful and simple let us walk away. But like Dante so beautifully portrayed in his Divine Comedy, even as the furthest reaches of hell are frozen over as Satan flaps his wings in a furious attempt to fly further and further away from God, he is still not out of the reach of God’s love. Hell exists, but it is a place of our own creation as we try to flee from God asserting “our will be done” instead of “thy will be done.” God does not condemn us to hell, or cast us out of his presence (which would destroy us); instead God pursues us out of Eden and even into hell, offering the gift of blessing and redemption. We are meant by nature to be in relation with God, created in God’s image our purpose is to bear that image and continually reflect it back to God through our acts of worship in this world. Despite our attempts to flee to the furthest reaches of hell, God still reaches out to us because if we still exist, we are still image-bearers, and God seeks after us to restore the racked icons of our person to godself.

When the historical church couldn’t understand how a person could be forgiven and reconciled to God they declared them an anathema which means that their fate be cast up to a higher court for although it was beyond them how they that person is in Christ he or she could never be beyond God. And if in the consummation of creation all things will be reconciled to God, then unless we want to assert that God rejects and therefore annihilates those who flee from him, we have to believe that in the end God’s relentless pursuit of his beloved results in the actual redemption and reconciliation of all things. In the end all that belongs to God, all that was created in the image of God, will turn away from its rebellion and be reconciled unto God. In short, in the end love wins. Love is not fettered by temporal constraints, or extended only to the workers that arrived early in the day. We were created to be in relationship with God, and it is the return to that state of theosis where we can participate in the covenant where we are blessed to extend God’s blessing to the world that God desires for us.

I saw a glimmer of a church that got that with the Salvation Army this past weekend – a group of passionate followers of Jesus taking seriously the call to end the injustices that stand in the way of the blessing and reconciling of the world. They know, in their own peculiar way, that love wins. So instead of trying to put limits on God’s ability to redeem creation and pouting about wanting to be the only ones the divine lover chooses to pursue, maybe we can start acting as if God really does rule the universe. Maybe we can accept the gift of God's love and instead of selfishly keeping it all to ourselves we live into our identity as blessed icons and give that love away.

I grew up attending Bible and Baptist churches; now I generally identify with the emerging church. So I've had quite a learning curve at the Episcopal seminary where I'm studying. Between balancing prayer books and hymnals and crash courses in chanting, I've frequently felt like a stranger in a strange land.

I am open to learning this new rhythm of worship, however foreign it feels at times. But I am discovering that I struggle with the observance of the Eucharist. My issue isn't theology but method: as I pray the same words each time I partake, I feel constrained and long for something more. I'm not bored or looking to be entertained, I just feel the need for our remembrance of Christ's sacrifice to reflect the infinite diversity of the body of Christ.

I didn't grow up with diversity in eucharistic practice. On the first Sunday of the month we were instructed to search our hearts, confess our sins and then grab an oyster cracker and a plastic shot glass full of juice (always juice). Only in the last few years has the act of taking the bread and cup moved me to accept the call to live eucharistically in the world. This happened only when I saw the Eucharist set free from its traditional rituals.

In the house church I helped lead for a time, we closed with the Eucharist every week. In that small setting, the way we transitioned into sharing the bread and juice (yes, still juice) depended on the day's lesson. If we had explored the stories of Jesus' healings, our breaking of the bread would point us to how we could share our resources to help heal the body of Christ. In weeks where we talked about community, we would sit at a table and together mix the dough to bake our own bread.

We were the body of Christ, and the act of Eucharist became the vehicle through which we understood our role in that body. Breaking the bread and sharing the cup changed week to week–it assumed the role of shaping us into who we were called to be.

The church I attend now similarly re-imagines what it means to take and eat in remembrance of Jesus. In discussing Jesus' encounter with the disciples on the beach before the ascension, we partook of a communion of fish tacos–pushing us to reflect on the disciples' experience. In a recent new leaders' meeting, we were charged to humbly accept our call to serve the church through an invitation to partake in a humble communion of pretzel snack packs and juice boxes.

A recent worship gathering focused on us all being members of the body who have something to give. We were invited to an empty table. There the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 was told, with the interpretation that the miracle was that after seeing the boy's gift of bread and fish, the people shared what they had brought until they all had resources in abundance. So we were asked to share whatever we had with us–gum, granola bars, soft drinks, Goldfish, Altoids. The table overflowed with abundance, which we served to each other.

Eucharist pulls me into these moments of remembering what it means to be a disciple. It is ever evolving as it speaks to a church that is always advancing the kingdom of God. I know the stories I've told here may be offensive to some, and I respect the traditions that find meaning in engaging Eucharist in one set way. But I've seen a world of meaning open up when the Eucharist is allowed to be as dynamic and diverse as our creative and infinite God–the God I respond to in remembrance when I take and eat.

For full disclosure, I haven’t fully read Hipster Christianity yet – just extended excerpts (thank you Amazon "look inside"), summaries and reviews and articles and blog posts McCracken has written. I don’t know McCracken, but I do have to say that discovering recently on his blog that he was a fellow Wheaton College grad who lived in Traber dorm (a stereotype that only fellow Wheaties will understand) helped clarify his cultural influences for me as well as explain his obsession with C.S. Lewis (who at Wheaton was referred to as St. Jack or “the fourth member of the Trinity). But I did take his “are you a Christian hipster?” quiz, which of course told me I was a hipster. From what I could tell anyone who isn’t fundamentalist or Amish and has a pulse in the 21st century would be labeled “hipster” according to the quiz – including McCracken himself who seems far cooler than I will ever be. As I’ve mentioned numerous times before, I am the definition of uncool. I have no sense of style, I don’t know how to do my hair, I don’t listen to music, I am not artistic, I’m a freaking stay-at-home (mostly) mom for crying out loud. But apparently (according to McCracken) since I read non-male/white/Western theologians, think the church should discuss something as important as sex, attend a church that meets in a warehouse and uses candles, like Stephen Colbert and Lady Gaga, believe we can learn truth from literature and film (I got the same Wheaton College English degree as McCracken after all), desire to steward God’s creation, and think oppression, human trafficking, and modern day slavery are wrong I am a self-centered hipster and therefore in danger of compromising my faith for the sake of being cool.

And so once again I state, “Seriously? You’ve got to be kidding, right?” The logic there is so horrible I don’t even know where to begin. I’m struggling to tell if he is just another one of those Christians who lashes out at anyone who has a different faith journey than him (and I’m sure he would poke fun of me using the term “faith journey”), or if he is truly ignorant of how deeply rooted in faith much of the stuff he criticizes actually is (or if this is a disguised theological attack that chooses not to use theology). I just don't know. I don’t deny that the people he describes exist, or that there are people who desperately just try to be cool. But why he feels this obsessive need to label and therefore dismiss entire sections of the church who are simply trying to faithfully follow Jesus is beyond me.

Why is the conversion of the girl who had her perspective changed by the art history prof in college who now creates non-Thomas Kinkade Christian art as part of worship more suspect as being inauthentic or not truly Christian than the drug dealer who read a Chick-tract and now works in a soup kitchen? Is God not working for transformation in her life too? Or why is believing that Kwok Pui-lan, or Musa Dube, or Richard Twiss, or Gustavo Gutierrez might have something to teach us any different than believing we can learn from C.S. Lewis, or Francis Schaeffer, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer? Or why is the guy who wears thrift store or fairly made clothes more in danger of having caring too much about his appearance interfere with his spirituality than the youth pastor who spends hours describing to his group (in great detail) the exact sorts of bathing suits or the exact width of shoulder straps the pretty young high school girls are allowed to wear during summer camp? Or for that matter than the middle-aged women who have self-appointed themselves the modesty police or even Richard Foster who devotes a large section of Celebration of Discipline to the clothes Christians should wear? Why is it okay for their ideas about appearance to be faith-based and biblically-sound, but not the so-called hipster’s? Why are emerging forms of spirituality automatically suspect as being more culturally influenced and therefore harmful to Christianity than those that emerged twenty or thirty years ago?

I know I am not a creature independent of my culture. No one is. Anyone who claims otherwise needs some serious re-education. But to claim that we so-called hipster Christians are the way we are simply because we are self-centered "all about me" folks who are trying to be cool and relevant utterly misses the point. I attend a church of broken misfits who are desperately trying to live faithfully. I don’t attend my church because we are so cool that we meet in a warehouse and sit on couches, I attend it for the community that has formed around each other in that particular environment. Sure the environment influences who we are, but it isn’t the sum of who we are – just like gathering by a river or in the catacombs or sitting in pews or a cathedral influences but doesn’t not ultimately define other churches. I don’t read postcolonial voices because that makes me relevant; I read them because I believe the body of Christ cannot survive without all its parts. I don’t buy fair trade because it’s trendy; I buy it because the Bible tells me to care for the poor and to not cheat a worker of his wages. I don’t fight human trafficking because it makes me feel good, I do it because it is wrong that six year old girls are kidnapped and forced into prostitution where they are repeatedly raped by men who have a sick and twisted view of women and sex (two topics that churches apparently should avoid discussing because they are just trendy shock-gimmicks). (And by the way, when we’ve reached the point in the conversation where people are questioning opposing the enslaving of children as sex toys because it might be too trendy and relevant of a topic then I’m done with that conversation – God is nowhere in it).

I am a cultural creation, I freely admit that. But don’t for one minute project your disapproval of my culture trappings onto me and assume that I have uncritically allowed such things to put the “realness” of my faith in peril. If you want to criticize such things or suggest another type of popular culture that you think is more appropriate for Christians to embrace (cuz, we all embrace something) then do that. Let’s disagree, but for the sake of respectful and truthful dialogue please don’t naively dismiss my lived faith as merely an attempt to be cool when nothing could be further from the truth.

I understand that in many ways this is just one more example of those who follow postmodern philosophy being misunderstood and opposed by others.  In deconstructing the idea of power most postmoderns value flattened structures over hierarchical ones.  In their mind to create a system where one person is empowered implies that other people will be disempowered.  To avoid such cultural stratification, they choose to employ symbiotic instead of hierarchical leadership structures.  In symbiotic systems all voices are valued because we all need each other to survive.

Naturally, this conception of power meets resistance, some of it well deserved.  Postmodern philosophy and conceptions of identity and power have been harshly criticized by some proponents of feminist and liberation theology.  As they argue, it isn’t fair that right when previously marginalized groups like women, minorities, and queers were beginning to gain a distinct voice and power within the theological world this new philosophy comes up and challenges the very idea of identity and power.  It is hard for an identity based group to essentialize themselves and say that the power held by white men needs to be given instead to ____ (women, the poor, immigrants, queers, Asians, Latinas…) when the very idea of reducing oneself to such a category is being questioned alongside the very conception of power itself.

In truth, I am conflicted on this.  I agree with the need to not essentialize.  Who I am cannot simply be reduced to my gender, or sexuality, or economic status.  And I fully support the idea of flattened leadership where all voices are valued equally.  I promote the biblical idea that in Christ there is neither slave nor free, Jew nor Gentile, male nor female.  At the same time I know how easy it is for a new philosophy that questions power roles to simply become an excuse to preserve the status quo without ever actually hearing the voice of the other.  If one isn’t aware of how one’s philosophy preserves the exclusion of others, laziness can become another means of oppression.  As a woman I’ve fought this.  I’ve repeatedly been annoyed when in discussions asking men to stand up against misogyny in the church by supporting women’s ordination I am told, “well, we shouldn’t waste time on that issue since we really just need to rethink how we do church altogether.”  That response obviously doesn’t grasp what it means to live symbiotically with each other.

I’ve also encountered those that approach power openly who tell me, “step-up, we’d love to hear your voice.”  It took me a long time to actually trust those voices and to take them up on it, mostly because I didn’t fully understand that there were people who truly did hold power in an open hand.  I expected there to be hoops to jump through, votes to be taken, and popularity contest to be won, but when it came right down to it, none of that stuff actually existed.  I think this is where the emerging conversation is most often misunderstood.  People just don’t believe that an open power structure really can exist and so they demand we force our supposed leaders to take responsibility and start acting like leaders by setting the boundaries for this conversation.  They want us to play by their rules, and when we don’t they feel like we are deliberately excluding them even as we repeatedly ask them to construct the conversation with us.  I think a lot of work truly needs to be done to communicate this open shared power system more fully, but I also implore the critics to take the time to understand the real philosophical beliefs about power that many emergents hold.

At the same time, I understand that traditional assumptions of power will always be projected upon even those who try to subvert it.  Yes, there are people in the emerging movement who do develop followings and that gives them a certain sort of power under traditional notions of leadership.  It doesn’t help that some elements loosely associated with emerging do things like charge extra at conferences for passes to the speakers lounge where the lowly attendee can hobnob with the powerful speakers.  But for those that actually do value shared power, they constantly face accusations of greed or selling-out if they try to act like a leader.  They have to choose to remain true to their own belief system and get crucified by outsiders wanting them to hold power more tightly, or compromise their beliefs and get mocked from within.  Navigating amidst diverse philosophies and demanding factions while seeking to love and respect all is a difficult task.

I personally believe that the emerging church needs to be more transparent about our open power structures.  We can’t get sidetracked in discussions about how to dismantle other people’s power structures, instead we need to be proactive in working on how we build and grow and rely on each other.  If we truly need each other, we need to admit that openly and seek out the other to learn from her.  Waiting for others to come to us and telling them to “please, step up already” is too unsettling for those still clinging to traditional conceptions of power.  For symbiosis to really work, we must always be in flux, being challenged and fed in mutually beneficial ways.  The point isn’t to essentialize or include the token other, but to admit we cannot survive apart from the whole body of Christ.  This goes beyond, while still embracing, the need to give up privilege for the sake of the other.  The point isn’t to simply shift power and privilege from one group to another and then deal with the vicissitudes of that structure, but to move towards this symbiotic ideal.

I appreciated Eliacin Rosario-Cruz’s comment to me on this topic recently on his blog – “I think we need to confront the myth of lack/giving away power. What I mean by that is, our power does not disappear just by thinking we do not have or we are giving away. Kenosis is performative.”  All sides in this discussion need to take a step back and consider how they view power.  Some need to acknowledge and respect the postmodern mindset, others need to understand that that mindset can never be passive.  Sharing power must be active and never become an excuse to exclude by inaction.  We all have a lot to learn about how to make this work, but I would hope the conversation can develop in a way that that doesn’t mock or silence any contributing voice.

While I might still have that conversation in various churches these days, I feel that something has begun to shift in the church since that time. Our globalized world has forced a new understanding of how we conceive of our faith to emerge. It is harder to deliberately ignore the diversity of voices speaking into this thing we call Christianity. While some might still proclaim the other to be wrong simply for being other, it is impossible to deny that the other exists. This isn’t about being open minded or being politically correct, it is simply a necessary reaction to the nature of the world we live in. Other theologies, other voices, other ways of reading scripture exist (other always being relative to one's vantage point). We are too interconnected to ignore them or pretend they don't matter. They are simply part of the air we breathe as Christians which is becoming increasingly impossible to not acknowledge.

I am reminded of how my exasperated professor dealt with my rather obstinate historical research methods class in college. A few of the students had dismissed his attempts to teach them differing approaches to how people approach historical research as supportive of revisionist history (and therefore evil). They desperately wanted to cling to the notion that the “God Blessed America” version of history they believed was in fact the only true version of history – any attempts to tell the stories from the margins of women or minorities were simply revisionist corruptions. So the professor had us read a study that detailed the various ways the history of Williamsburg has been presented to tourists over time. Depending on what was going on in the world at the time, the historical story as it was told by the reenactors varied tremendously over the years. Each version had an agenda and portrayed American colonialism in a way that shored up that agenda. It was difficult for the students who were insisting that the very hero-centric pro-God version taught under the influence of 1950’s anti-communism was the real history to continue to bang that drum when the evidence of how history is manipulated by the teller was laid out so blatantly before their eyes.

The world has been blatantly thrust in front of our eyes, and even the church can no longer resist this emerging consciousness. What stories get told and whose theology gets privileged can no longer be determined out of ignorance. In our interconnected world, the voices of womanist and feminist theologians, the cries of the liberation and postcolonial theologies, and the narrative understandings of scripture that focus on exile, family, and oppression are accessible to even the average Christian. The church is far bigger than some of us might have once believed, we just had to be forced to open our eyes and see it. While this might seem a tad patronizing to those outside the American church system (I can see them rolling their eyes at our elation of our delayed “discovery” of the other), I for one am grateful for this emerging sensibility in the church (even if it is long overdue). Coming face to face with the diversity in our unity might not imply immediate acceptance or respect or understanding, but it pushes us outside of ourselves. Seeing a slightly clearer picture of the world as it is forces us to acknowledge and often wrestle with what we see.

Call it interconnectedness, or globalization, or simply awareness of our neighbor, the church is emerging or perhaps converging upon itself. What gives me hope when I consider what is emerging in the church is that the conversation pushes us into this converging community. And when we are in community, when we start to actually know our neighbors, is when we can start to live out the call to love our neighbors.

This entry is part of a Synchroblog on “What is Emerging?” in the church today. Here's a list of other contributions to this conversation. I'll add more as they are posted – feel free to write your own post and send me the link!

Pam Hogeweide compares the emerging church movement to a game of ping pong.
Sarah-Ji comments that the emerging questions people are asking are far bigger than any defined movement.
Sharon Brown writes about using labels as an excuse.
Peter Walker reflects on how the emerging church conversation helped him recognize his power and privlege as a white male.
Dave Huth posts a on new ways to talk about religion.
Kathy Escobar finds hope in seeing a spirit of love in action emerging in the church.
Nadia Bolz-Weber reflects on the the beautiful things she sees emerging in her church community.
Chad Holtz writes on our Our Emerging Jewishness.
Julie Kennedy describes her organic entry into the emerging church and reflects on moving forward with a new public face.
Dave Brown comments on the emerging church and swarm theory.
Danielle Shroyer reflects on what is emerging in the church.
Brian Merritt offers his pros and cons of the emerging church.
Julie Clawson is grateful for emerging globalized Christianity.
Susan Philips points out that emergence happens as G-d redeems our shattered realities.
Mike Clawson reflects on the non-western voices that brought him to the emerging conversation.
Jake Bouma suggest that what is emerging is a collapse into simplicity.
Liz Dyer believes a chastened epistemology is a valuable characteristic emerging out of the church today.
Rachel Held Evans writes on what is changing in the church.
Tia Lynn Lecorchick describes the emerging movement as a wood between worlds (from The Magician's Nephew).
Amy Moffitt shares her journey towards a theology of humility.
Travis Mamone comments on the need for the emerging church to rely on the word of God.
Sa Say reflects on the the prick of doubt.
David Henson lists what he sees as what is emerging in the church.
Angela Harms writes in in defense of emergent.
Wendy Gritter asks how we can listening to the voices from the margins.
Bruce Epperly comments on the largeness of spirit of emerging spirituality.
Linda Jamentz reflects on listening to the voices from the margins in church.
Lisa Bain Carlton hopes that our emerging conversation can respond humbly to our moment in time.
Christine Sine asks how far are we willing to be transformed.
Lori Allen Wilson reflects on what is emerging in the younger generations.
Cynthia Norris Clack sees love emerging in the church.
Bob Fisher lists the values emerging in his faith community
Mihee Kim-Kort writes of the conversions and conversations she sees around her.
Ann Catherine Pittman believes that what is emerging in the church is inclusivity.
Matthew Gallion describes how emergence is spread thin across the whole church.
Phil Snider offers guarded praise of emergent.

A truth that I’ve repeatedly been reminded of this past year is the utter inappropriateness of basing one’s identity on the belittling of others. What it means to be a man of integrity cannot be defined through the mocking of Asian culture. What it means to be a Real Man cannot be defined through the debasement of women. And what it means to be a real 21st Century Christian cannot be defined through the dismissal of the entire Western church.

So I am having a hard time with Soong-Chan Rah’s and Jason Mach’s article on the emerging church, even as I believe they are addressing a vital issue. Let me say upfront that racial reconciliation needs to happen in the American church, and that to be healthy the church must start listening to all of its diverse members. I have no quarrel with that message in the article, I just don’t understand why Emergent must be the sacrificial lamb in this conversation. After reading Rah’s chapter on the emerging church in his book, The Next Evangelicalism, I, with others, wondered at the caricature he presented of the emerging conversation. In order to support his thesis that the white western captivity of the church must come to an end, he presented a picture of the emerging church as a bunch of trendy looking white guys who deliberately exclude racial minorities. A portrayal that resembles no part of the emerging world I have ever seen. I know he was repeatedly called out on this very issue, so I had hoped that in this article there would be a bit more journalistic integrity. But once again, we have the same skewed stereotype of emergents (even as the article exclusively quotes women and racially diverse emerging leaders who are seemingly counterexamples to its thesis). This inaccurate portrayal thus functions as a straw man that can easily be attacked and dismissed as standing in the way of a more global and diverse emerging Christianity.

The article asserts – “In truth, the term “emerging church” should encompass the broader movement and development of a new face of Christianity, one that is diverse and multi-ethnic in both its global and local expressions. It should not be presented as a movement or conversation that is keyed on white middle- to upper-class suburbanites. … If the label of the emerging church is to have a future, then the term needs to be reclaimed and disassociated from the specific brand of Emergent, and applied much more broadly to the church around the world”

Here’s the thing, every emergent and emerging Christian I know would agree with most of that statement. We know this is about a broader, global movement and have no delusions that white suburbanites are its center or future. And almost all of us agree that we need to intentionally listen to and learn from a wide diversity of voices within the church. We are part of the same team, working towards the same goals. Of course, Emergent is not perfect or above critique. Of course, it isn’t the sum of the emerging conversation. No one ever said it was. Emergent serves to network and resource the emerging conversation, doing its imperfect best to make this shared vision a reality. So why throw us under the bus and say we need to be kicked out of the conversation?

The thing is, I get where the small kernel of truth in their stereotypes came from. Over the past 15-20 years, the church has been attempting to make sense of the shift worldwide to a globalized, post-colonial, post-modern culture. Although this shift manifests differently around the world, we are all too interconnected to not be affected in some way. Early on in the contemporary Evangelical church these shifts were seen as simply a generational phenomenon prompting discussion on how to make church relevant to young people. Many churches jumped on the bandwagon of how to do trendy church, and yes, publishers attempted to capitalize on it as well. Since the money in the evangelical world in America historically supports charismatic white men, they became the poster children of the conversation. But as the conversation matured, others realized that what was emerging in the world was far more significant than generational trends, and so started to ask questions about how the church is held captive to culture and modern philosophies. Dialogues across diverse Christian traditions helped begin to heal wounds caused by racial and denominational divisions. These new relationships blurred boundaries both in and out of the church, making it impossible to quantify the number of churches participating in the conversation.

These emerging conversations and relationships brought renewed faith to some, but frightened or didn’t go far enough for others. Many of those (including publishers) who were simply riding the waves of cultural trends jumped ship and moved on to the “next big thing” (New Calvinism anyone?). This rejection of what was emerging worldwide was often rooted in a rejection of the very outside perspectives and theologies now beginning to be heard from women, racial minorities, and Queer believers. The reality is that the conversation is diverse (imperfectly so, but diverse nonetheless), and to dismiss it as being all about hip white males is hurtful to the rest of us contributing to the conversation who don’t fit that stereotype. Pretending we are invisible simply perpetuates the myth that we don’t exist at all. Sure, it is still a daily struggle be heard in a world that often clings to the vestiges of patriarchy, racism, and bigotry, but our voices are still there (even if marketplace Christianity isn’t throwing money our way).

I am Emergent and I don’t fit their stereotype. I am about the most un-hip person in the world. I might be white and youngish, but I am also physically handicapped and female. I am not one of the pretty people, I have no sense of style, I don’t listen to cool bands, my hair is a disaster, I am awkward, introverted, and a total bookworm. In most emerging communities I have participated in, I am generally one of the youngest people there. My friends are culturally, racially, generationally and theologically diverse and are (mostly) as uncool and imperfect misfits as myself (sorry guys, you know I love you, but it’s true). But we care about what God is doing in the world. We care about justice, we care about racial reconciliation, we care about making sure we listen to previously marginalized voices (and we continue to fight for them when they are not heard). Some of my friends have never heard of the term “emerging church” and some of us volunteer our time to help support this conversation through the network of Emergent Village. We have a lot to learn and a long way to go. I know that none of us desire to cling onto power for the sake of white western culture, but we also feel no need to utterly reject and condemn that entire culture. Healing and emergence in the church will never take place through the silencing of voices we don’t like or the caricaturing of those we don’t understand. There are wounds dealt to persons of color, to queers, and to women that the church universal must work to heal. But if we share the same dream of healing those wounds, why can’t we stop fighting amongst ourselves and figure out this emerging thing together?

That said (and I know I'm a few days behind here), Danielle Shroyer's post What Do You Do When A Revolution Isn't Sexy Anymore is a must read. She really captures the day to day work most of us are doing to help make following Jesus not just relevant and meaningful, but possible in today's culture. Thank you Danielle.

This video highlights some of why the network formed.

TransFORM: Missional Community Formation from TransFORM on Vimeo.

If you are interested in finding out more, join the TransFORM network or plan to attend the upcoming gathering. They are gathering missional practitioners on the East Coast to learn from each other and to mobilize others for forming new missional communities. Whether you’re a pastor, prospective "church planter," or simply interested in finding out more about transformational missional communities of practice, this gathering is designed to inspire and equip you to go and do likewise! Speakers include Brian McLaren, Kathy Escobar, Pete Rollins, and Anthony Smith.

Time: April 30, 2010 at 8am to May 2, 2010 at 1pm
Location: Wesley Theological Seminary
City/Town: Washington, D.C.