Emergent and Emerging Church Distinction

It certainly doesn’t sound like Christianity to me, instead it reminds me on these subsets of pantheism:

Emergentism -In philosophy, emergentism is the belief in emergence, particularly as it involves consciousness and the philosophy of mind, and as it contrasts with reductionism. A property of a system is said to be emergent if it is more than the sum of the properties of the system’s parts.

Panpsychism – In philosophy, is either the view that all parts of matter involve mind, or the more holistic view that the whole universe is an organism that possesses a mind. It is thus a stronger and more ambitious view than hylozoism, which holds only that all things are alive. This is not to say that panpsychism believes that all matter is alive or even conscious but rather that the constituent parts of matter are composed of some form of mind and are sentient.

Hylozoism – Is the philosophical doctrine that all or some material things possess life. Some of the ancient Greek philosophers taught a version of hylozoism. Thales, Anaximenes, and Heraklitus all taught that there is a form of life in all material objects, and the Stoics believed that a world soul informed all things in the world. It is important to note that these philosophies did not necessarily hold that material objects had separate life or identity, necessarily, but only that they had life, either as part of an overriding entity or as living but insensible entities

Doug,

So this ‘emergent’ shift has been occurring for 500 years?

Do you know what event happened nearly 500 years ago that many ‘emergents’ are trying to ‘shift’ away from?

The Protestant Reformation that started back in 1517.

sophistry

John

do you know anything about Phyllis Tickle’s book? Im sure doug’s heard of that other movement that happened when luther nailed his 95 to the wittenburg door. If you know anything about emergent then you know where many stand on the reformation.

protesting, confessing, and reforming in 1517.

emersion, emerging, and emergent in 2008.

Daniel,

I was being fisecious since Doug decided to refer to this emergent shift occuring for the last 500 years when he should just come out and stated the actual event he was eluding too.

Why do so some emergents have to so ‘shifty’ with their terminology? Or is it just the inherent nature of their elusive hybrid pantheistic/monotheistic conversation?

John,

It’s because deep down they know their arguments are sophomoric. They despise knowledge. And, since truth (to them) is in the eye of the beholder, their shifty arguments may make sense to themselves.

Bren,

I agree.

I think Bren and John should get a room.

Or at very least, give a little room.

Is the ‘religion without religion’ deconstructive theology of Jack Caputo/Peter Rollins not a growing influence on the Emergent Village network which will take this grouping in a completely opposing and contrary theological direction to any network based around the Lausanne covenant (leading to increased tensions due to fundamental theological divergences). Pete Rollins fresh thinking about ‘religionless Christianity’ will I think generate a lot of controversy/discussion when he comes to the States in his forthcoming tours.

One critique to emerge from the voice of “Post-modernity” is the destruction of the meta-narrative. I like the ecclesiology, the theology and the Scripture reading that comes from its end. Which is why I must voice my frustration over the fact that the intellectual and organizational force for the ‘Conversation’ in America continues down a road obsessed with its own self-importance. I am speaking here of our own Emergent Village.

Now on my blog I even have one of those picture thingy’s that say “Friend of Emergent Village,” and I am going to keep it up, but with the release of “The Great Emergence” by Phylis Tickle, and now videos like this, I must speak out. (This is not an attack on her, or Doug, or whomever; it is an attack on a growing trend I have sensed leading up to and now after the release of this book amongst the Emergent crowd) This book to me is the ultimate insult to a post-modern worldview that one can imagine. It takes the scattered fragments of Church History, places them together in a subjective order and scheme (an attentive reader will notice that the chronology is off sometimes by centuries in her INTERPRETATION of history) and then turns that scheme into an authoritative interpretation of what is going on, to which we must sign up, because if we don’t we are missing out on the inevitable “Emergence.”

Let me say that I do feel that the Church in the West is changing, in 50 years I think we will have a relatively new Church around here. Nonetheless, I am not about to start stringing together a supposed pattern and argue that this is part of the trajectory of the sum total of Church History! What balls! And the most frustrating part is that many in the Emergent crowd, again amongst whom I count myself, is this rallying around our own self importance. It is as if we are saying…”See, WE are the focal point of what God has been doing in history, and what He is doing now. Here is our historical interpretation to prove it!” For God’s sake it’s the exact thing which we have protested against! So what, now we are going to create our own grand Narrative of History to bolster our message?

I say no. “Give me the local story of God’s interacting with the Community, or give me modernity!”

Hmmm. Interesting take Doug. I think most people would see the Emergent Village network as a subset of the larger emerging church movement, which is itself a subset of the larger postmodern shift. I think Dan and others who are seeking to create a new network within the emerging church movement are doing so because of the theological differences they have with some in Emergent Village. I’d be interested to know why you cast that as something “smaller”? Or did I miss your point?

“Hi, we’re emerging. That means we’re a miniscule cross-section of the Christian population, but we’re the best self-publicists.”