John Piper has a handle on what these terms mean, and shows it in this post. I’m not in total agreement with his analysis but pretty close. The point is, he has taken the time to investigate and, as usual, comes out ahead of guys like MacArthur in showing some balance and compassion where its due.
Highlights:
Emergent seems to be a reaction—among younger believers primarily, 20- and 30-somethings—to several things. In my judgment it’s not a very healthy reaction, though I can understand why it might happen. [MK - in addition, Emergent is centered around a specific site/organization]
Emerging might be used by some people—like Mark Driscoll—to describe a proper reaction that is taking place against some of the negative things going on in the church, but a reaction that doesn’t throw away the doctrines.
So be careful, when you’re talking emerging or emergent, to know which group you’re talking about.
The word “missional” is kind of the “in” word today. And a church that is missional tends to be a church where everything is thought about in terms of making an impact on people around the church who are not Christians. You design everything to think that way. And I think that is a good thing.
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I’m working on a longer post of my own thoughts about this that I will try to get up later today.
Piper is not the only one defining the terms this way. I could have used various other modern church figures to make my point, but part of my current mission is to tear down people’s perceptions of Piper as cog in the old world who is interchangeable with the current crop of strident hyper-fundamentalists (not to mention any names – oops, I already did in the opening paragraph).
In my experience, having watched, engaged in, and written about the movement, this is the way the terms are defined and understood by others who have done the same.
Defined this way, I think we can all comfortably call ourselves emerging. Yes?
***You might find this post about a book being co-authored by Brian McLaren and John MacArthur of some interest as well. :-0
Related posts:
- Andrew Jones responds: “John Piper and an ‘upper-middle-class’ emerging church” Andrew Jones (Twitter), a recognized long-time leader in Emerging Church circles responds to my post from earlier this week. Here is an excerpt: The EC...
- What is the “Emerging Church”? In my experience, having observed, engaged in, and written about it, the following are some important and often misunderstood facts about the movement: The Emerging...
- What is the Emerging Church? The “EC” (Emerging Church) is not a denomination. It has no creed or doctrinal statement. It has no charter or by-laws. It has no president...
- Emerging / Emergent Roundup for January 2008 I plan on doing a lot of reading and writing about the Emerging Church this year. It seems there has been an ubundance of posts...
- John MacArthur and Brian McLaren to Co-Author New Book The winds of reconciliation are blowing through the stratum of Christendom of late. First, Steve “Shake Me to Wake Me” Camp made a heartfelt apology...
Hey Michael…
Glad your helping tear down perceptions of Piper as an old cog…
See here for Driscoll’s full explanation of his understanding of the emerging church: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58fgkfS6E-0
When are you coming to Seattle?
-Joel
That Mac and Mc book’s a long time in coming. Is the devil skating to work yet?
No, actually he flies to work on a pig. lol
Joel,
Good to hear from you! Help me out on the mission.
Would love to come to Seattle. The closest I might get this year is Calgary… but that’s still 12 hrs away.
I’ll make it there yet.
Michael,
I respect Piper a great deal, but I think he perpetuates a common misunderstanding here about Emergent — he fails to distinguish between the Emergent Village network, which is a diverse cross-section of Christians from a variety of theological and ecclesiological traditions, and your run-of-the-mill emergent Christian. Piper’s assertion is that emergent Christians are allergic to precise theology. In my experience, the opposite is true. Emergent Christians care a great deal about theology (the “doctrine,” which Piper strangely equates to the Jell-O in the famous “nailing Jell-O to a wall” analogy). Most emergent churches have statements of faith. (I’m not sure I can think of one that doesn’t!) The Emergent Village network, however, does not have a statement of faith, precisely because it represents a wide cross-section of Christians from a variety of theological and ecclesiological traditions.
So while I agree that Piper “gets it” more than MacArthur and others, I still think he’s missing the point. It’d be more honest if Piper were to say that he has fundamental disagreements with where emergent Christians are willing to go theologically, which is really what he’s alluding to when he lifts up Driscoll for being “very vigilantly biblical [and] reformed.” Piper isn’t really interested in creating more “emerging” or “missional” Christians. Piper and Driscoll really only care about creating reformed/Calvinist Christians, and to me that’s too bad.
Hi Steve,
Thanks for commenting.
I hope you noticed that this part was my addition “[MK - in addition, Emergent is centered around a specific site/organization]” That’s me saying that and not Piper.
I’m a little confused about your statement about “most emergent churches.” How can you tell when a church is Emergent? (That sounds like a lead-in to a punchline… but its not. I’m sure the guys over at Pyro could fill that in with 100 great punchlines.)
I’m fine with not over-defining these terms and I would say your analysis of Piper’s concerns is true. He’s probably more concerned with the lack of a coherent doctrinal statement among the Emergent churches. But I guess that’s why we go by Baptimergent, Anglimergent, and Fundamergent – in the case of the new movement expected to emerge from the co-writing of MacArthur and McLaren.
Your last sentence is bang-on “Piper and Driscoll really only care about creating reformed/Calvinist Christians, and to me that’s too bad.”
All one needs to do is witness the outpouring of Calvin-gushing this week on the various blogs… and I say this as a multi-point Calvinist myself… but there was something very near to idolatry going on. And Calvin himself probably would have said “Shut up already.”
I heard of someone who, upon meeting Piper in person for the first, blurted out “I’m a Piper-ette!” to which Piper replied, “I’m very sorry to hear that…”