Monday, April 24, 2006

emerging thoughts

i've been reading up on the emergent church during this break, and had some great conversations this weekend about what's going on and where we should be headed. i've many thoughts going through my mind right now, but i'll just talk about one thing for this post.

one interesting thing about the emergent church in the US is that it's mostly made up of Christians who have been hurt in more modern churches. many times these injuries come from misunderstandings & miscommunication between the generation. these hurt people have left their churches, often staying away from church for a long time. when and if they come back to church, they're looking for a place where they will be accepted for who they are - even though they drink or smoke or just generally live a life that's not perfect from the outside looking in (as defined by the common churchgoer).

it does not appear that the emergent church is made up of new believers - the post-modern thinkers who are becomming Christians. one wonders if post-modern thinkers are becoming believers at all. if they were, initially it doesn't seem like it would matter where they went to church. this is simply because the post-modern person will likely never believe apart from a relationship with a genuine Christian living an authentic & consistent & grace-filled Christian life and would probably be content to attend any kind of service. however, as time passes, it is almost certain that the cultural and philosopical differences would begin to hinder communication and community and cause injury to new Christians just as has happened with many post-modern people who are already Christian.

it seems like something must be done about this. either modern churches need to learn to speak the language of the post-modern person, or post-modern persons have to have another option. unfortunately, most of the books i am reading by emergent theologians are written in such a way that they threaten the very foundations of the modern person's faith. as a result, people are spending more time arguing about these issues than learning from one another and working together at some sort of solution--a way to make the church a place for both modern & post-modern thinkers.

i really do think that it's possible for a post-modern person to follow Jesus. though trained in modern thinking as a soon-to-be-lawyer, i would consider myself more postmodern than modern, and i am a follower of Jesus. and as much as the modern church in many ways is judging the post-modern mindset and saying that post-modernity is unbiblical and is a threat to Christianity, post-modernity is a cultural phenomenon, a world-view, and one which will be with us for a while. i do think it's time that the conversation turned toward working together to reach the post-modern thinker. i hope that we will move in that direction.

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