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EC05: Recap

May 27, 2005 by 5 Comments

It was good to be at the Emergent Convention. As Jake and I made the 13+ drive from Princeton to Nashville, he asked me what I was hoping to get out of this week. For me, I was primarily looking forward to the relational-aspect of the convention. I was looking forward to hearing some people speak, catch some seminars, etc., but more and more, I am changed and impacted by relationships over ideas, books or lectures. It was a good week, let me share some highlights with you.

Relationships
Obviously, it was awesome to be able to spend time with Sarah as she and the other Columbia Seminary folks joined us for the convention. It was also good to see friends from Spokane, Whitworth College and past conventions (Cory, Shane, Jen, Lilly, Josh, April & Nuc, Mark and many others), friends just made this year (Wes, Susie, Adele, Rachelle and many more than I can remember). I had some good conversations with Tim Keel and it was great to be able to spend a few hours getting to know Dan Kimball better, and sharing some of our stories with one another. It is life-giving for me, as it is for many in this Emergent “conversation” to be able to spend time with people who are also looking forward and desiring to see new/old things happen.

Convention Content
A few of us who have been to all three conventions remarked that this is probably a good time to stop the conventions for now. While there were some additions to the seminar list this year, and some minor changes to the seminars that have been repeated, I’ve heard most of the emergent folk give their schpeels – and they are good, but it’s time to take a break, set new visions, think about new directions, focus more on the theological work and prepare for the future – whatever that is going to be for Emergent/emerging church.

Time to Make the Move
It was fun to read Sarah’s post, “Some Thoughts on Emergent and the Church.” This was her first exposure to Emergent and I was very interested in seeing what she and the other seminarians were going to think about it. This is a quote from her blog:

I have found this conversation in this place to be geared more towards those coming from a different perspective and set of assumptions than I – toward people for whom women in ministry is a real question, and whether or not we can re-interpret the Bible or theology is a troublesome issue. I have found the conclusions of the leaders in most
of the seminars to be my starting assumptions.

It was interesting to watch speakers (McLaren, Jones, Pagitt, etc.) during their talks. They obviously knew the audience who was at the convention (a good majority from conservative evangelical churches, with some liberal mainliners mixed in), because they would often say things like “Now, this is just where I am at…” or “Now, what I’m NOT saying is…” or “I need you to hear this when I say.” It seemed like they had to “protect” someone’s image or something. I wonder if the connection with YS plays into all of this, and now that YS and Emergent have parted ways, those in Emergent will feel a little more free to actually just say what they think, and not feel the need to pad it and soften it up for the evangelicals in the crowd. I could be totally off on this, but that is what it felt like quite often.

I am definitely not in the inner circle of Emergent, so I don’t know all of what is going on, but I am looking forward to seeing what happens in the next 2 years. I believe that those involved in Emergent care about theology deeply, and I believe there is going to be a greater divergence theologically, between the conservative evangelical church and Emergent. But then again, Emergent is an incredibly broad umbrella, and there is a good chance that will only continue to be the case – so I don’t really know where that leaves us.

I love the relationships I’ve established through getting connected with Emergent – they have meant the world to me. I am looking forward to continuing to be involved with Emergent, to see what impact it will have on my own theology and ecclesiology, among other things. While I deeply connect with more sensory/experiential forms of worship, I do believe that I am most interested in the theological move Emergent will be making in the next few years. I will be waiting eagerly to see how Emergent decides to navigate their way, theologically, beyond the categories of liberal and conservative, all the while seeking a theology that is progressive, communal, contextual, temporary & evolving, discontinuous, co-creative, holistic and in sync with the rhythm of God.

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EC05: Seminar: New Theology for a New World (Pagitt)

May 20, 2005 by 2 Comments

Doug Pagitt:
Reasons for New Ways of Understanding/Explaining Theology
*our story doesn’t fit
*the ‘rules’ have changed – we know differently than we didn’t before
*this is the work of theological reflection

Theology is inherently temporary…
The story of God is also changing…it could be that the nature of realities is that things are changing.
The very essence of how we know ‘that we know’ – it’s changing – the postmodern shift of epistemology.
“To rely solely on the past for our ideas about God is simply not consistent with the call of the Kingdom of God.”
Our job is to do what those who came before us did, not simply repeat what they said. The call of our communities is to be theological cauldrons.

This sort of conversation, the tension between the traditional an the avant garde – it comes up all over the place (religion, science, education, etc).

1890-1920 – the world changed, the industrial revolution, the advent of the telephone changed the way humans lived.

Henry Churchill King: a president of Oberlin College, hired by Wilson to go into the Middle East after WWI; wrote the book “Reconstruction in Theology.”

The Quantum “Reality”
Much has changed since the age of Newtonian physics. It begins to answer a different question about the nature of reality – Newtonian physics explained the big things – but it doesn’t explain the peculiarities.

Nanotechnology: “Nanotechnology is the willful manipulation of matter at the atomic level to create better and entirely new materials, devices and systems.”

Characteristics of an Expanding Theology:
Rhythm with God
Integrated Holism: where everything counts, the multiple intelligences that people bring to things are important
Discontinuity: the world doesn’t make sense – and what is our theology in this world?
Progressive: developing, it’s growing, dynamic
Co-creative Humanity: that we co-create with God, it’s an invitation into co-creation with God, that’s the invitation from the garden on; illness of sin, discontinuity with God is sin – we are called to something better
Theological Communities
Developed and Living in a Context: Orthodoxy (the understanding that one dominant group’s beliefs won and became ‘the voice’ of ‘orthodoxy’), a contextual orthodoxy
Temporary and Evolving – “Our Current Best Guess”

Pagitt vs. Process Theology
Oswald Chambers (October 17th): “The sole purpose of Jesus in the world is not to do good things in the world, but for the inward development of a person…”

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EC05: Forum :: Blogger Lunch

May 20, 2005 by 3 Comments

Will Samson pulled together a phenomenal blogger lunch at a wonderful Italian restaurant in downtown Nashville. We had 37 bloggers this year, compared to the 15 from last year. Thanks to Will, we had lunch paid for by the American Bible Society (and here is one place Will is blogging for the American Bible Society) and either a free copy of Russelll Rathbun’s new book Post-Rapture Radio from Jossey-Bass or a ForMinistry t-shirt from the American Bible Society. Thanks again to Will – here is the list of all the bloggers present.

Once again – it is attending gatherings like the bloggers lunch, and the Emergent Convention as a whole, that helps me to understand why I blog. I met many people who said they were encouraged by my blog, or they just enjoyed seeing the random stuff, the stuff that was just really pushing the envelope. So, as often as I sometimes piss people off, and as some people have a problem with some things about my blog…

I’m convinced too about the beauty and joys of some of these friendships – people connecting, hooking each other up with contacts, etc. To whatever extent possible, these people are a community of mine – a community of loosely defined ragamuffins who all feel that the mode of the written word, and in our context, the blogging world, is a place where we find community, experiment with dialogue and attempt to live out who we really are.

Thanks bloggers!

(damn that sounded sappy…oh well)

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