The paper was pretty good, but I don't think EC folk will agree with Hammett's contention that ECers think all churches must respond to postmodernism. Their statements range from people like Dan Kimball saying descriptive things ("We responded this way and this worked in this context but it might not be effective in yours") to McLaren's more prescriptive statements ("Churches that don't change will be left behind"). I think the point Carson makes, which Hammett quotes, cannot be underestimated: There are churches which have "all the strengths of the emerging church movement while avoiding most of its weaknesses." (Carson, Becoming Conversant, 56). I also think that the point about how ECers have failed to critique postmodernism cannot be understated. Scott Smith takes McLaren to task for his misdescription of postmodernity in Truth and the New Kind of Christian: the emerging effects of postmodernism in the church: "McLaren does not explain for his readers that postmodernity involves not just a description of cultural factors but also a normative, philosophical thesis that we are inside language and cannot get "out," to know the real world" (134). I think the main reason ECers never critique postmodernismity is because they are neck deep in it both in their critique of modernity as well as their language games about the conversation-that-is-not-a-movement-but-is-asking-for-money. Why critique your date to the dance?

I have enjoyed the articles here and believe that the problem we are having is accepting a "both and" rather than drawing lines with the issue of Emergent Churches. I believe that there is a middle ground in this debate over Emergent Church strategy. We can hide behind our degrees and forget the simple fact that we do not understand our kids and how they think. We can be afraid of change in our culture and look at it as all bad. Why not a middle ground?

Modernism and postmodernism both carry positive and negative traits. Modernism is great for valuing utility and linear process yet that is why we have Darwinism. Postmodernism does well to question the reality of life beyond simple observational means and introduces emotional truth and story once again to our culture yet it is why we have narcissism and aimlessness in parts of our culture.

So, really there is no choice but to address these both. And, if you want to reach those who are younger, then you better know how to speak their language. This is not a compromise but a Pauline principle. It is not a right or wrong issue. We have to function in the environment God places us in just like missionaries. This has been the problem with fundamentalism for the past 50 years. We must be for something, otherwise we will continue to gray our pews and dissolve our churches by attrition.

It is not a matter of scripture verses culture, at all, since most that I know in the EC are committed to the Word. It is a matter of living out scripture rather than simply critiquing culture with scripture. It is not informational it is transformationally biblical lives that are needed. It is time to discard the fundamentalist stand against social action and enfold back into evangelicalism our American and biblical heritage of feeding the poor as well as being firm on truth.

"It is a matter of living out scripture rather than simply critiquing culture with scripture."

I appreciate the warning from the emerging church against believism - that to be a Christian is to believe the correct thing or offer intellectual ascent to a systematic theology, rather than trust in and follow Jesus Christ, and do what he commands.

Such believism is not faitfhful to scripture's promise that we are saved by faith in Jesus Christ, for only in a mindframe foreign to that in which it was written could we interpret 'faith' to mean merely an intellectual ascent.

Rich, it's one thing to learn the language of postmodernity in order to reach those in it, but it's quite another to uncritically accept postmodernism. The former is honorable; the latter is dangerous, and is one of the main criticisms of the emerging church.

Bill, while I too appreciate the EC criticism of believism, I question its object. Where exactly is believism occurring? Where are church leaders saying, "How you live your life doesn't matter, but you better believe (assent to) these two/three/five things"?

It seems to me that believism is more of a praxis than a theology, and thus anyone is susceptible to it, including people who are part of the emerging church movement.

Tim, I agree that believism is expressed more in praxis than theology. Those of us, though, who focus on getting people to believe the right thing sometimes (and maybe more often than not) create an atmosphere in which believism is culturaly acceptable in the pews.

I appreciate the EC's value of shining a light on this heteropraxy. In valuing the authentic, they are exposing our tendency to focus on what our parishoners believe over and against how we as a community live our lives as disciples of Jesus Christ.

Had to look up praxis - didn't find heteropraxis. Double word score for you both.

Wait - found it, and many more scrabble words here:
http://www.islandnet.com/~egbird/dict/h.htm

A few thoughts.

I don’t think that all churches need to come to terms with postmodernity: I think that churches whose methods and praxis are a natural fit will continue to thrive for as long as there are christians of a postmodern mindset. As the author also rightly points out, many teenagers are still influenced by their parents, which means that (in a church context) many young people today are growing up thinking that the the way their parents do church is perfectly understandable and appropriate.

Not all churches need to respond to postmodernism. Those who choose to stay in a modernist framework will continue to exist for as long as their are modernist christians. However, the flipside is that when there cease to be large numbers of modern thinking people (if and when I should say), then those churches will probably dwindle and die. That too is appropriate in my view - I have no problem with churches existing for a season. They just need to be prepared to hand the torch over when the time comes.

The claim that there are a number of churches successfully reaching out to postmodernists who are not postmodern-oriented is not one that can be corroborated by data here in Melbourne, Australia - at least no figures I’ve ever seen. Fundamentally in my experience, young people in the church are being picked up from Christian families or in universities (which are also bastions of modernity in their own way). This is good. Does that mean that the church - in the broader sense - is doing enough? I don’t think so. I think that we also need to learn from studies like “A Churchless Faith” that there is a wide back door to our churches that young people are flowing out of at an alarming rate.

Will postmodernism be short lived? Probably - the rate of change in the western world has been accelerating over the last hundred years. That doesn’t bother me, because I think that the gospel needs to both redeem and challenge every culture. As such I don’t think any “postmodern” churches that are started now will probably be alive in 100 years time - their legacy will not be their churches, but the fact that those people continued to live out a faith that they could pass on to their children, and so on.

The phrase “Response should be Scripture driven instead of culture driven”, while indisputable with some of aspects of any culture, doesn’t address the core issue that ‘culture’ - by which I mean philosophical world view - influences how we think about, read, and understand scripture. In a way, it’s a bit like saying that our understanding of Scripture should be driven by Scripture not by language - who can understand Scripture except through the rules of the language in which they’re reading it? Likewise, who can understand scripture except through their own world view?

This doesn’t mean that scripture cannot challenge a world view - of course it can. But to affirm that there is a meaning of scripture divorced from all world views is in itself a subscription to a particular world view which affirms the possibility of such things. Tricky, huh.

I think, if we are going to take the conversation further, we need to equate ‘culture’ more with language than with praxis. I think that the analogy of ‘people who speak french struggle in an english speaking church’ is closer to the postmodern dynamic than focusing on the fact that in the french-speaking church they eat baguettes and baguettes are never mentioned in the bible. Praxis matters, but it flows out of world view, identity and understanding. Postmoderns may prefer the idea of church in a coffee shop, not because it is cool, but because they value relational intimacy and a sense of belonging, and they experience those things in familiar environments like a coffee shop, not an unfamiliar church building.

For me it all comes down to the fact that the gospel seeks to redeem and challenge all cultures: people shouldn’t need to learn how to think in any one culture or worldview just so that they can then experience church and have the gospel explained to them in that foreign world view. A lot of people still want to attack modernity in order to justify a postmodern existence - I understand this, because in many church structures there is no room for different thinking, and a lot of people would rather see their current church / denomination change than leave it to start a new one. But from a conversational perspective, it isn’t helpful. The emerging church’s emphasis should be on redeeming and challenging the emerging culture. As such, it should interact with critiques to ensure that it is faithfully representing that gospel and is appropriately engaging in broader christian fellowship and unity. Critiques coming from the outside will often involve some degree of miscommunication - my critique of a french novel starts with “why couldn’t it just have been written in english!!!” But they should be listened to and taken on board such that the emerging church can continue to faithfully challenge its own culture. And the existing church shuold be seeking to hand over the torch where necessary, and help wherever possible.

Just some pre-coffee thoughts.

Cheers,

ross daws