Jewish Emergent Article
July 29, 2006
Shawn Landres from Synagogue 3000 (S3K) has a great article about the Jewish version of Emergent. Check out his article here at Sh’ma [PDF available here]. Here is a paragraph from his article:
Both Jewish and Christian emerging communities practice what one leader
called “orthoparadox” — the creative tension that arises when doctrine
and intentional practice are given equal weight in organizing a
community‚Äôs priorities… Like their Christian counterparts, Jewish Emergent communities are
blurring the line between the “sacred” and the “secular”; they are
ignoring traditional institutional boundaries to do their work wherever
it is, especially in local urban neighborhoods. Put another way, the
institutions are driven by actions, not defined by an address. And
perhaps partly as a result, there is room for serious Jewish theology
as the ground of both prayer and activism. [Read more]
I’m still waiting to hear from the Muslim Emergents, or the Hindu or Buddhist Emergents…are you out there?
Posted in Emergent
Adam Walker Cleaveland: 
July 29th, 2006 at 10:38 am
>>>>I’m still waiting to hear from the Muslim Emergents…are you out there?
If all religions are the same, as I have been led to believe, then of course they’re out there. Why would you even have to ask such a question. All religions are the same, remember?
July 29th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Unless I am missing your sarcasm Bill, I would say “as you have been misled to believe.” What are all of the emerging religions emerging from and to what end. As long as they are emerging - cool man, fine by me! Sigh, it seems like just another attempt by Adam to be provocative while proffering lousy doctrine. Wait…maybe that’s the point! The goal of the emergent conversation is to have equally dilute the beliefs of all faiths! It is not as though truth in any form or men’s sould are at stake.
July 29th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
oops - should say “souls”
July 29th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Adam,
Here’s a dumb question for you. Is there a place on your blog where you explain what emergent is (or some links which you’d recommend)? See, I was a Reformed Presbyterian for a long time, but left the Christianity just before the ‘emergent’ thing began, so I haven’t had reason to keep up with it.
When you describe secular/sacred being blurred together, I think only of the Reformed idea that Christ is the lord of everything. What makes emergent so controversial that people enjoy taunting you about it?
Is it because primarily theologically liberal churches are involved in the movement? What makes it different than the L’Abri movement in Reformed circles?
(Back to regularly scheduled programming…)
July 29th, 2006 at 9:29 pm
>>>>I’m still waiting to hear from the Muslim Emergents…are you out there?
Well, if you’re looking for something that looks like Jewish or Christian emergents, you won’t find it. ‘Muslim’ social structures are completely different to Christian ones - while people have some kind of allegiance to a mosque, there’s no defined community as there is in Christianity. There’s also different concepts of leadership - there’s no kind of centralised, official, process for recognising leaders - there’s nothing akin to ordination, for example.
Also, according to most of my Muslim friends, it makes no sense to talk about the sacred and the secular as Christians often have/do. If you think about it, that divide is relatively recent in Christian thinking, too…
I think it’s a bit nonsensical to expect to find something like Emergent in Hinduism or Buddhism. They’re so completely different to Judaism, Christianity and Islam in terms of social structures, theological structures etc. I’m sure you’ll find people who are trying to work out how faith and life fits together in their time and place, but that’s not unique - that’s existed in all religions, throughout history.
Which is why I am wary of claims that the emerging church is particularly unique or different. It’s just a new expression of challenges and questions that have always been asked and grappled with by Christians.
July 30th, 2006 at 10:39 pm
CK - I do want to answer your question, but give me a day or so. I’ll give you a brief synopsis and a few links. I’m off to study Greek but I will respond.
August 7th, 2006 at 7:55 pm
CK,
Thanks for the question. I’ll give you a brief answer and a link to the organization’s website, as well as to some of my previous blog posts. How’s that?
Emergent basically began as a group of friends who knew that they needed to either start thinking about Christianity in a different way - or give up on the faith. I think it’s fair to say that most of these folks were coming from more conservative/Evangelical backgrounds - and this was not working for them. Over time, they formed a network of friends, many very creative/artistics folks, who started thinking about and DOING church in a very different way. The alternative worship (alt.worship) movement was picked up as one of the different “emergent” ways to worship.
But many thought that this whole “emergent” thing was much more than just adding some candles & coffee to make a church “cooler” to a young generation (though there are still some churches that have “emergent” worship services who do just that). So they began to rethink theology - to rethink some of the ideas about theology and politics, and really struggled to find that nebulous “third-way” that so many have tried to find. They desire(d) to get beyond the polarities that exist in today’s liberal (mainline)/conservative (evangelical) churches today.
And now they are putting on events, writing books, writing in blogs and trying to incorporate new ways of being Church and being Christian in all expressions of the faith (evangelical, Mainline, etc).
Don’t know if that’s helpful at all, but here are a few links to consider
This is the organization’s website
Types of “emerging” churches
A post about Emergent’s lack of a doctrinal statement
August 7th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
Oh, and in response to your question about L’Abri - I don’t know much about that movement, so unfortunately I can’t say.
I’m not sure exactly what makes people respond in the way they do. I think there are just some who like to come here (and don’t ask me how they’ve chosen “this” as their place) and taunt…