I debated on how to organize this post for a while and concluded that arranging it around some of the questions asked of me or asked at the conference would be helpful. Granted, it should be understood that as a post-modern movement, the Emergence movement is not known for giving different answers from other approaches to Christianity; instead, Emergents are known for asking different questions. When I left Memphis, I had more questions than when I began, but this was not frustrating; it was liberating.
What is Emergence Christianity?
There are many authors who could answer this question more skillfully than me: Brian McLaren, Phyllis Tickle, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt... among many others. I would urge you to explore some of their books before you Google the movement or resort to Wikipedia. I'll attempt to paraphrase some of their ideas in this post.
Firstly, Emergence Christianity is not a denomination but a movement that transcends traditional modern labels. Those who identify as Emergence Christians come from many backgrounds, from ethnic to denominational to political to racial to sexual orientation. The Conference itself demonstrated this in every way apart from racial diversity-- there was little racial diversity in the gathering in Memphis for whatever reason but thanks to social media, people of color still reacted and contributed to the conversations going on.
Emergence Christianity, in the words of a mainline Presbyterian pastor I became friends with last weekend, exists in the tension between polarities. Polarities like Evangelical and mainline churches, whites and minorities, men and women, conservatives and liberals, heterosexuals and LGBTQ communities. Emergence Christianity seeks to be an all-inclusive, socially active, intellectually relevant, and culturally diverse interpretation of Christianity.
Secondly, Emergence Christianity exists within a historical pattern. Phyllis Tickle calls it the 500 year rummage sale, and it has happened before. For example, about 500 years ago, a man named Martin Luther nailed 95 Theses to a door and the Protestant Reformation occurred. About 500 years before that, there was the Great Schism, when Christianity broke into the Eastern Orthodox church and the Catholic Church. About 500 years before that was the Council of Chalcedon, and about 500 years before that was the life of Christ. See any of Phyllis Tickle's books for a much better summary of the historical narrative.
Therefore, we are in the midst of a change that historically occurs. As society evolves, so too does religion. Phyllis Tickle calls the current change The Great Emergence (also one of her books) and she named Brian McLaren's A Generous Orthodoxy as this movement's 95 Theses.
Who are the Emergence Christians?
Firstly, there are people in the world who could probably identify as Emergent without having a name for it. That's where I was for a few years. These are Christians of all ages, races, genders, sexualities, genders, and denominations who are unsatisfied with the tenets of the Christianity they inherited or first adopted. They are people who love Jesus, who often grew up very immersed in their church and religious tradition, but, at some point, began to ask questions which their tradition was unwilling to answer satisfactorily or at all. This was the beginning for me; my first questions were about evolution. Later they were about other religions and then sexuality and then atonement theory. The tradition I was born into and eventually embraced as my own (Protestantism, specifically evangelical Southern Baptist faith) thought asking these questions was dangerous; I was discouraged from asking and told I should accept on faith. So, I was on a path to Emergence before I knew what it was called, before I met a mentor who could name it for me and direct me to other people and writers who felt the same. Many other people around the world may feel the same love for God, faith in Christ, but dissatisfaction with the tradition they are in.
Secondly, Emergence Christians are all types of people. One thing that stunned me about the conference was the age diversity present. I was not the youngest and and the oldest attendees appeared to be looking at 80. This is not simply a movement of rebellious young Christians infected by liberal arts college professors (as my father seems to think! Love you, Dad.) Instead, the movement appeals to all ages, to Protestants and Catholics, to those raised conservative and those raised liberal. Some Emergents attend home churches, gather in pubs to discuss theology, engage in worship online, or reject traditional forms of worship, where others are pastors or highly involved members of churches in their denomination.
What questions are Emergence Christians asking?
There are SO many, but I'll just touch on ones that surfaced at the conference.
1. How should we read the Bible?
Phyllis Tickle proposes that one of the modern interpretation of the Bible that doesn't jive with our post-modern world is the Protestant tenet, sola Scriptura or highly literal interpretations of the Bible. She proposes that the Bible is "actually true" rather than "factually true" and debunks the Protestant idea of inerrancy.
Brian McLaren says that the Bible should not be read literally as a constitution of rules, but as a narrative of God's engagement with the world, and always put in its historical context.
Emergence is willing to acknowledge the uncomfortable parts of the Bible-- such as the blatant patriarchy, the lack of criticism against slavery, the amount of violence, and the apparent inconsistencies and contradictions. My own upbringing ignored troublesome passages and made excuses for tensions inherent in the text. But Emergence holds the Bible sacred and as such, desires to understand it on as many level as possible, in the proper historical and human contexts.
2. How should we understand the atonement?
Emergence Christianity want to know and understand all theories of atonement and find varying degrees of validity in each one. Modern Christianity, particularly Western Christianity, has embraced Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) as the most common understanding of the atonement. (Atonement meaning how someone is saved and what the role of Jesus's death and resurrection plays in salvation.)
PSA says that all of humanity, thanks to Adam and Eve's sin, is inherently evil and under the curse of Original Sin. Because God's nature is both loving and just, God could not accept humans into Heaven because of sin. Jesus, as both human and divine, takes on the punishment that all people deserve and all of those that accept this reality are saved. This is what I was raised to believe, and I was never offered any alternative.
My initial problem with this was two-fold. A) What happens to people who never have a chance to believe in Jesus? Would a loving God truly condemn them to eternal conscious torment? B) Why is God compelled by wrathful justice to act in a certain way? God is God, and I was taught all-powerful; therefore, could God not save everyone since God loves everyone? Why should God be compelled to act in a certain way? Plus, even our modern interpretation of justice wouldn't accept a judge taking the death sentence for a convict.
Emergence Christianity seeks to have a better, balanced understanding of the atonement, (See Tony Jones's essay A Better Atonement) perhaps one with less or no emphasis on original sin.
3. How should we approach sexuality?
The Emergence Movement is, by nature, entrenched in academics. Emergent Christians seek to make their faith relevant with respect to science and history and genetics and biology. Therefore, Emergent Christians are, by majority, affirming and welcoming to LGBTQ persons. As the scientific and psychological understanding of sexuality and gender evolves, so should the church's response to it. When verses from the Scriptures are brought up, an Emergent Christian will most likely urge friends to put those verses in historical context. There was no scientific understanding of alternate sexuality when those verses were written and certainly no social understanding of committed and consensual homosexual relationships. But, overall, Emergence Christianity advocates tolerance and acceptance with Jesus as the model. Jesus continually subverted contemporary assumptions by being generous and kind and accepting to those that religious leaders of his day condemned.
Takeaways?
There are many other questions being asked, less answers being given. But above all, the Emergence Christians celebrate the in-breaking. of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God does not just allude to heaven and the afterlife but the coming of a new world, and invasion of God's love into this world. God's love is subversive, all-encompassing, unconditional, and as Christians, we should be driven by love above anything else.
