Was John Wesley "Emergent"? - an interesting thought!

My friend Jenny Sprong posted a link to the following very interesting article to a list for Methodist ministers.

I think the notion has quite a bit of merit... Although, one should always take care in trying to fit contemporary categories to persons, or approaches, from bygone eras!

Andrew Jones writes, ?The emerging church might well be a protest (Don Carson) but it might also be a corrective measure to the excesses and imbalances of the reformation and the Enlightenment. Let the Reformation continue.?

Writing in the Advent/Christmas 2007-2008 issue of the Church of the Nazarene?s Preaching Magazine, Hal Knight (no relation), Professor of Wesleyan Studies at St. Paul?s School of Theology in Kansas City, writes about ?John Wesley and the Emerging Church.? Keith Drury has helpfully summarized Knight?s points of comparison in this nifty table (HT).

Graduate student and research assistant/reader-grader Kalev Hinrich summarizes Knight?s article: ?John Wesley has been turned into a leading Emergent, postmodern theologian who not only endorses Generous Orthodoxy from his grave, but was its leading founder without knowing it.?

Hinrich offers a pretty lengthy critique, concluding: ?In short, Wesley becomes a gracious liberal theologian ? but given the context of [Knight?s] argument, so does the Emergent Church and postmodernism. The grand conclusion: The postmodernism and the Emergent Church are basically new forms of liberal modernity, and nothing could be further from the truth.?

Both the original article and Hinrich?s response are interesting reads.

Please follow the links in the article to get the meat of the post... I think it is quite sound and sensible!

What do you think?

Technorati tags: emergent, John Wesley, Church

Do 'emergent' church, and post-modernist approaches to Christianity, mean that everything goes!?

My friend Jenny posted an incredibly poignant blog entry about the emergent church movement. When it gets down to it does the emergent movement fall apart because of its lack of boundaries?

Read Jenny's post here.

Here's my response to her in which I try to make a case for two contemporary theological movements that seem to inform the emergent church, i.e., post-liberalism and radical orthodoxy:

Hi J,

I agree, this is the tension between 'everything goes', and 'nothing is allowed'.

Every theology comes with an up side and a down side. The up side of the emergent church is that it allows enough freedom for people who have been constrained by, or hurt by, structures and hard nosed ideals to find a place within the faith. The downside is that it lacks enough structure to be safe for those of us who need it.

I have recently been reading in the areas of 'post liberalism' (who are the 'brains' behind the ideas that inspired the emergent movement) and radical orthodoxy (what I perceive to be a further move beyond post liberalism - with the Anglican theologian John Milbank). Both are very popular movements in contemporary theology.

Among the post liberals you have persons such as Hans Frei and George Lidbeck (from Yale), and my favorite - Stanley Hauerwas from Duke.

Check out the following links for some insights:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_theology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_orthodoxy

Whilst there are some shortcomings, this still seems to be the most sensible theology for our time. It is a mistake to think that there are no boundaries in this theology, and that everything goes (that is liberalism, and some would say heresy). Rather, this theology asks 'what is truly orthodox?', and also 'why have we believed certain things to be wrong and others to be right?' i.e., do we still believe that this is where the boundaries should be? Or should they be shifted (as opposed to completely doing away with all boundaries, which seems to be a simplistic liberal approach)?

Rather than being unquestioning, which is what most assume, it is asking MORE rigorous questions in the pursuit of real truth... However, many of us (myself included) often feel a little bit uncomfortable with some of the questions that are asked, and also by who is asking them. The questions are no longer framed by respectable old white men from Europe and America. Now they come from young women, people from the two thirds world, young Americans who dislike their society and don't have jobs... Of course their questions are just as valid as those of the 'old theologians' like myself.

I think that this too will change... These radicals will one day become the establishment and a different process will challenge the same old content when that happens. Then, those people will wish for the days when things were their way once again... I guess that's part of being human. Revolutionise the world until it is your world, then build structures to support it (like the oxymoron of an 'emergent' 'church' - church is establishment (i.e., it has already emerged). You know what I mean!? I hope I've been sensible enough with this.

Of course, all this is great for theology! It pushes the boundaries, and stretches our thoughts... But, it is not so great for a person who has been beaten up.

Rich blessings,

Dion

U2charist... Have U2 songs become the new songbook of the emerging Church?

I have been preparing for an address that I will be giving at a conference in two weeks time (here's a link that will give you some details on the conference).

One of the talks that I will be doing is on the future of worship... I have been praying, pondering, reading, and thinking about the topic. In my search I came across a remarkable article on the 'Preaching Today' blog, called 'Mixing Pop Culture, Video, and Church'.

Of course there are many of us who have already begun to create multi-sensory worship experiences (through the use of sounds, video, drama, interaction, and of course silence [by the way, watch nooma 005 | Rob Bell silence, it's a superb challenge to contemporary Church!). However, at the end of the article the author, Ray Hamm, makes the following interesting comment, and asks a few pertinent questions:

One of the things they did was to play lots of U2 songs. Each Sunday had a separate focus centered around a U2 song: "Mysterious Ways," "In the Name of Love," "City of Blinding Lights," and "Beautiful Day." The band played covers of each song almost note for note, and produced great versions.

They said that some people in the church community were upset by their initial mailer, but the director of creative arts here at Daybreak said there were more concerned with attracting non-Christians than offending people [emphasis mine, I like this approach to Church!].

So what do you think about this? Are these sorts of services (that mix pop culture and church) a good way to reach people or a way of "selling out" to the culture? And, between this and the U2Charist, are U2 songs the new prayer book of choice?

Would you be brave enough to have a Eucharistic service and use U2 songs instead of hymns and worship songs? Perhaps that's just exactly what we should be doing to attract a new generation of 'seeker'....

Check out the following link for more on the U2charist (it even gives an order of service outlining which songs can be used).

What is the future of worship? Leave me a comment, I'd love to include your thoughts (properly referenced of course!) in my presentation.

What is the 'emerging church'?

My friend Arthur, who is the Children's Pastor at Bryanston Methodist Church, sent me an email about the emerging Church. WOW Art, this blows my mind! AND...., your blog needs updating.....

What is the emerging Church? Here's a quote from the paper you can download below:

Perhaps a little Mark Twain tomfoolery will give us a fresh start. Here's the urban legend: The emerging movement talks like Lutherans - which means they cuss and use naughty words; they evangelize and theologize like the Reformed - which means, in the first case, they don't do much of it, and in the second, they do it all the time; they confess their faith like the mainliners - which means they say things publicly they don't really believe in their hearts; they drink like Episcopalians - which means - to steal some words from Mark Twain - they are teetotalers sometimes - when it is judicious to be one; they worship like the charismatics - which means with each part of the body, some parts of which have tattoos; they vote liberal - which means they all move to Massachusetts come election time; they deny truth - which means Derrida is carried in their backpacks.

Ha! Isn't that GREAT! I loved the bit about worshiping with every part of the body, "some of which have tattoos"!

Download Scot McKnight's address to the Westminster Theological Seminary on the emerging Church here. (Gus, you and I will enjoy this guy, he is a progressive New Testament scholar! Very few of those around! Except you and I of course ;-)

Wes, I would love to hear your learned thoughts (being a Doctor of the ecclesiological arts yourself).

The article is a GREAT read, and certainly resonates with my idea of what the Church should be! I will be using some of this when I preach at the Highveld and Swaziland SYNOD of the Methodist Church in a few weeks!