Tag Archive for 'emerging-church'

Postmodernism and Megachurch

Published
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christopher
5 April 2006 ago
in Postmodernism and Theology
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It seems that many critics of the emerging church like to equate it with the movement.  This is problematic because it is a misinterpretation of both movements.  First off, the megachurch movement was around well before “emerging” was even a word.  Secondly, the megachurch movement is (predominantly) an American Protestant movement, just like fundamentalism was.  It really began after 1955 and is found more in the South than any other area (link 1, link 2).  In comparison, Derrida (perhaps the most famous name when discussing postmodernism in America) was not even known to American universities until the early 1980s.

The main characteristics of megachurches are: (1) denominational (2/3rd have some denominational association, but this may be in name only), (2) multiple services per weekend (only 18% have less than 3 services per weekend), (3) politically conservative (over 80% of members describe themselves as being either conservative [50%] or somewhat conservative [33%]) and not politically involved (only 16% of the churches claimed to have partnered with another church in a political activity), (4) multi-ethnic (36% of churches claimed to have at least a 20% presence of minorities), (5) individual emphasis (over 75% of the members say that their church emphasises personal scripture study, personal devotions, and personal financial giving, while only 53% said there was an emphasis on family devotions), (6) emphasis on “belief” (over 70%  said that the key church activities centered on study/discussion groups and education/”Sunday school” classes, whereas less than 40% said the same about fundraising activities and social service activities), (7) membership is young married college graduates with children, and (8) emphasis on “evangelism” (members report large percentages of being encouraged to invite others to services and tell nonmembers about their own faith, churches sponsor a program or event to attract new visitors.  Communication (through distributed flyers/newsletters, radio/TV advertisements, and follow-up contact with first-time visitors each scored over 75%).  All data can be found at the above-mentioned link 2.
While the “emerging church” movement shares some of these features, these features are the ones that are also expected to be found in any “healthy” church.  Furthermore, using these features, it would appear that “emergent church” critics have more in common with megachurches than the “emergent” ones: denominational, politically conservative, emphasis on “belief”, and “emphasis” on evangelism.
The “emergent church” movement, on the other hand, does not default as politically conservative, is politically active, attempts to be multi-ethnic, is not denominational (or at least is denominational in name only), and does not have an individual emphasis.  It may be true that the “emergent church” arose out of the megachurch movement in some kind of response to it, but to suggest that response was positive is a mistreating of the evidence available.

“Emergent” epistemology

Published
by
christopher
3 April 2006 ago
in Philosophy, Postmodernism and Theology
. 1 Comment
What is “Emergent”
Intro: “Emergent” 1: “Emergent” and Culture 2: Targets of “Emergent” 3: “Emergent” Epistemology 4: “Emergent” Superior? 5: Analyzing “Emergent”

Back to Scot’s questions:

#3: Is the postmodernist of the Emerging folks (and one should not simply equate postmodernists and the Emergent folks) essentially affectional over against rational? inclusive vs. exclusivist? authentic vs. the absolute? is social history more significant that the history of ideas?

This may be one of the biggest parts in the emerging church movement. Scot deals with it in multiple posts, namely: truth and epistemology. To see where “Emergent” epistemology comes from, we must first go back to the primart start of the question. That, for the most part, is Modernism through (German) Idealism. Early modern philosophy (that is, Western philosophy since Descartes) has worked from the positions of and correspondence. Later modern philosophy (particularly that of Idealism, especially German) took an opposite stance of subjectivism and coherentism. Postmodern philosophy has generally disregarded these two as being exclusive theories.

Truth

For Modernism, the theory of truth was that of correspondence. In geek terms, this is represented by WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get. Perception and reality corresponds to each other. A statement something is true if and only if it corresponds to the way things are in the “real world.” So, the statement “the book is white” is true if and only if it is in reference to a white book. If i was pointing to a green book when i made that statement, the statement would be false. This theory is good because it seems to work very well because (as said earlier) WYSIWYG. But, this theory has two problems:

  1. We cannot step “outside” of our perceptions to see if it is true. At best, we can reach a universal agreement.
  2. We must assume a set of arbitrary labels before analyzing the statement. We must already be in agreement what “book” means and what “white” means. Furthermore, we are assuming that this agreement is universal or else someone (such as a colorblind person) may agree that “the book is white” when i point to a “green book.”

The second major theory of truth developed well after correspondence. The theory of coherence defines a statement something as true if and only if it is consistent with an already assumed set of statements. “Santa Claus exists” is false because its falsity fits better with the laws of physics (link) than if it were true.
It is most likely that we construct truth through a combination of these two (and possibly more) theories of truth. Taking one to be absolutely true to the exclusion of the other would lead to an indefensible extreme (absolutism on one hand and relativism on the other). Postmodernism has chosen to navigate as such. “Emergent” also takes this path by rejecting both extremes.

Knowledge

Closely related to truth is the theory of knowledge. Again, there are two major theories of knowledge that are used in modernism: foundationalism and coherentism. Foundationalism was popular in early modern philosophy and can be likened to a pyramid. Basic beliefs create the foundation from which other beliefs are derived. If a basic belief is changed, so must everything derived from it. Generally, this theory requires that the object of knowledge be true (see above), the subject must believe it, and the subject must be justified somehow in believing it. The knowing cannot be accidental or coincidental. For instance, if there was a clock in a room stopped at 11:25 AM and i happened upon it at that time, my knowledge that it is 11:25 AM is coincidental. The clock, because it has stopped, is not a reliable source of truth. The fact that it was 11:25 AM was simply coincidental. If it had happened to be 3:12 PM, then my knowledge based on the stopped clock that it was 11:25 AM would have been wrong. So knowledge must be justified through some reliable evidence.
Gettier, though, brings up a number of counterexamples that discount this theory. One is that of Mr. Smith. In short, Smith’s daughter tells him that she has just bought a car. She is honest, reliable, and Smith knows of no reason she would deceive him. Therefore, Smith now believes that “his daughter just bought a car”. Furthermore, because of this, Smith also believes that “someone in his family just bought a car.” Unbeknownst to Smith, his duaghter is lying to distract him from the fact that Smith’s wife just bought a car as a surprise for Smith on his birthday tomorrow. Smith believes “someone in his family just bought a car.” Furthermore, it is true. Even further, Smith is justified in believing it (as his reliable and honest daughter gave him the information). But, we don’t wan’t to call this knowledge because Smith’s knowledge is for a wrong reason. His “knowledge” is accidental.
The second theory of knowledge can be likened to a crossword puzzle or a raft. The whole is greater than the parts. Something is true only in its coherence with others. Yet, there is not a foundational knowledge from which others are derived. Beliefs here have an interlocking strength even if, taken individually, they are open to doubt.
Postmodernism uses both of these theories for knowledge. By combining these two, postmodern philosophy can account for “the book is white” by analizing both the propositional statement and the non-propositional information. “Book” and “white” are accounted for in postmodernism so that the statement “the book is white” is true only when in specific contexts that willingly agree upon given labels (such as “white” and “book”). The statement is not true because there happens to be a white book being referenced. “Emergent” epistemology comes from this view.

“Emergent” epistemology

Scot asked how we should see “Emergent” epistemology. In many ways, it seeks to be in between the poles that Scot offered. It seeks to navigate between absolute and relative. It seeks to be inclusive of other possibilities by attempting to remain humble about the humanness behind human knowing.

Targets of “Emergent”

Published
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christopher
3 February 2006 ago
in Postmodernism and Theology
. 0 Comments
What is “Emergent”
Intro: “Emergent” 1: “Emergent” and Culture 2: Targets of “Emergent” 3: “Emergent” Epistemology 4: “Emergent” Superior? 5: Analyzing “Emergent”

Next question is

#2: Is the “emerging” movement fundamental a church of protest? And, if so, is the primary target of the protest evangelicalism? What are its targets?

i think this question is much easier. The Emerging Church movement is a movement of disillusionment. While the church groups the EC “emerged” from were focused on a stringent hierarchy and maintaining some balance of top-down leadership, the EC wants to break that order and return to an egalitarian structure. Charisma (leadership quality, not speaking in tongues or raising the dead) is becoming the focus again. Leadership is being invested into people of various backgrounds who are able to lead charismatically.

Protest is a pretty strong word to use for the EC, especially if one considers that the EC wants some kind of harmony and/or acceptance. Protest excludes that possibility. If the EC had to be characterised as a protest, i’d suggest its target is Fundamentalism (again, think Niagara Conference in the 1890s and not a specific denomination). Fundamentalism arose as a result of Darwinism and was meant to define as being totally against any kind of science. The five fundamentals that came from the conference were: (1) inerrancy of Scriptures (total perfection of the text with no contradictions, writing errors, even to the last jot ant tittle) which was a rather new concept, (2) the diety of Jesus (and hid virgin birth), (3) the substitutionary atonement, (4) literal resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and (5) the literal return of Jesus in the Second Coming (which required some kind of view of Revelation that excluded amillenialism and preterism). Some of these don’t seem too bad–and they’re not. Yet, by taking this relatively radical position in the 1890s, the fundamentalists were able to set up a strong dichotomy between “sacred” and “secular” that had slowly faded away since around the time of the Reformation.

It became such that these fundamentalists decided what was orthodoxy and what was not. Belief in evolution (even the one scientifically proven)? Wrong. Belief in a metaphorical interpretation of eschatological events in the Bible? Wrong. The radicals defined Christianity instead of the texts. They defined the method of interpretation (which excluded any kind of critical or grammatico-historical approach). That is what the EC may be protesting: a group of humans claiming authority on things well behond human understanding.

“Emergent” and Culture

Published
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christopher
31 January 2006 ago
in Postmodernism and Theology
. 0 Comments
What is “Emergent”
Intro: “Emergent” 1: “Emergent” and Culture 2: Targets of “Emergent” 3: “Emergent” Epistemology 4: “Emergent” Superior? 5: Analyzing “Emergent”

Let’s start with Scot Mcknight’s first question:

#1: Does “emerging” refer to the postmodern culture in all its varieties, or to the church hat accompanies that shift in culture, or to the ideas that are part of that culture, or to the gospel that responds to that culture, or to the gospel taking shape in a new way in a new cultural paradigm?

When using the phrase “emerging church” (EC for short), one may be tempted to think of something arising out of something else.

Lacan’s Contribution

Fundamentalist and conservative “Christian” groups want to paint the EC as coming out of the culture (the “secular” to be more precise) and into the Church (or the “sacred” to be more precise). Yet this isn’t wholly the case. Since Lacanian “deconstruction” (yes, Lacan not Derrida)….(this can be found even before that in the structuralism of Saussere), the concept of restricting the relationship of “signified” to “Signifier” into a 1:1 representational model has been severely questioned. The groups that try to put the EC into this model fail to understand the “from what” and “into what” which the EC actually emerges.
One thing that came as a result of Lacan’s work in inverting the formula

Signifier
--------------
signified

into

signified
--------------
Signifier

is that a single Signifier can refer to multiple signifieds. Or, let’s be more realistic here and use an actual example: bathrooms. Let’s say we’re at a restaurant and a man and a woman need to go to the bathroom. As they approach the bathroom area, both doors are identical with the exception of the sign above the doors that say “Gentlemen” and “Ladies.” The actual Signifier here is the door and not the signage. We can remove the signage and the door on the left (which previously had “Gentlemen” over it) is still the men’s room (signified). Yet, the doors are identical. The man could say “we are at ‘Gentlemen’,” to which the woman may counter, “no, we are at ‘Ladies’.” Here, there is no empirical difference between the Signifiers, yet due to social constructs, they do represent different signifieds. The Real is masked by some Symbolic/Imaginary difference.

Through Derrida

Thanks to Derrida, we have a neat word that describes this difference: differance. In French, the word difference (from which we get an obvious English translation) is pronounced the same as the non-word differance. The only difference between the two is in the written form of the words. Now, this is where Derrida drags up some of Heidegger’s works. Personally, i’ve worked with some of Heidegger’s “untranslated” works (particularly Band 69 of the Complete Works, Besinnung), so i’ll briefly outline what Derrida is taking of Heidegger and resignifying for our present discussion.

In later works of Heidegger, he becomes increasingly interested in a clearing of Being. From this clearing, the horizon of meaning can become disclosed to Dasein. To put this in simple terms: we originate from a small clearing (much like one in a forest) and our network of signification and representation expands, but always starting back at this original clearing. This resonates in Derrida’s (in)famous statement: “There is nothing outside the text.”
Here, we are not speaking of relativism in which one can define and assign meaning however one wishes. Rather, we are speaking of hermeneutics. A particular word gains its meaning only when used in its given context. We, as the reader/observer, will not properly understand the meaning of something without knowing its context. In this way the signified of the Signifier “play” does not become known to us until we are given its context: “it’s useless to play a trick on someone expecting it.” The Signifier “play” could have originally been interpreted as “on-stage dramatic re-enactment”, but without its context, its meaning cannot be known.

Furthermore, the distinction in differance may come into a better light by looking at language. When saying “differance“, the hearer does not know which the speaker is using (the one with an “e” or with an “a”) without appealing to the written text. Those who wish to make language something purely spoken have to deal with the difference of differance and, arguably, cannot deal with it. Language is both the spoken and the written.

More Questions

All of this will lead us to seeing that meaning of words in a given language are wholly self-referential. A given word cannot be defined without appealing to another word. So, how can we discuss origins without discussing meaning? How can we discuss anything without assuming the others with which we discuss are using the same arbitrary assignments of meaning? How can one analyze the EC without learning its context? To what extent is its context?

An “Answer”

My answer here is fairly anti-climatic: we can’t. Even by trying to come to an agreement of terms, we are already assuming an agreement of terms. To what does “emerging” refer? Well, it depends on who is defining it. Who’s “right”? Mostly everybody.

If i may suggest a responce, the EC isn’t simply a group of people emerging from one thing into another, but rather the intersection of two different cultures. By rejecting the dichotomy of “sacred” and “secular”, the EC invites the “secular” into the “sacred” and pushes the “sacred” into the “secular.” The EC is secularizing the Gospel. Not in the way of “making it impure”, but of “making it for all.” There seems to be evidence that this is what the early group of Jews that became the first Christians did…especially Paul. i’ll leave us with a quote from Carl Raschke’s The Next Reformation:

[Altizer sensed] Barth’s emphasis on the utter transcendence of God found in its cultural instantiation in churches that only had to take the passionately human character of a crucified Christ with a grain of salt.