Phyllis Tickle said it herself: “If ever I saw an Emergence bunch of folks, it's you all!”
And that is no doubt true. We were born in 1958 and set out very early to be a different kind of Baptist church. Let me name just three such ways in which we were different that immediately come to mind and which embody Emergence Christianity.
Tickle talks a lot about the "erosion of Sola Scriptura" in the church. She says the end of slavery, the evolution of women's roles in society, the prevalence of divorce, and now the traction of gays gaining more acceptance in society have all worked to erode the notion that we must abide by the strict letter of the New Testament. Very early on we affirmed our love and respect for the Scriptures but freed ourselves from wooden interpretations which suffered no women to speak in church (much less pastor one) and excluded divorcees and gays from the life of our church. Of course, we have no slaves in our pews.
Tickle also says we are entering into a "hyphenated" world where strict denominational lines will be blurred. Early on, we recognized that Jesus has "sheep not of this fold" (John 10:16) and therefore embraced Christians of other denominations. Accepting non-Baptist baptisms — it was called "alien immersion" — was one thing that got us into hot water with other Baptists way back. As our former senior pastor Hardy Clemons once put it to me, "We thought it was more important to be Baptist than to be Southern Baptist, and more important to be Christian than Baptist at all." This kind of attitude allowed us to adopt the liturgical calendar and various liturgical elements in our worship which we share with Christians across denominations, geography, and even time.
Finally, Tickle suggests that the core theology which is driving Emergence Christianity is Micah 6:8 theology. I like it in the King James: "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" Micah 6:8 theology rejects Christian triumphalism that so colored Christian missions like that of the Crusades and replaces it with an open-handed witness that seeks to show Christ through our efforts in building the kingdom of God in our own community and beyond. In other words, we are not just about getting the world saved for heaven, but rather about seeking to bring God's kingdom "on earth as it is in heaven." I can think of no more beautiful ways that has happened than through our Sick Children's Clinic since 1961, and, more recently, our St. Benedict's Chapel, Kids Hope, and jail ministries.
Given all this, I think Stephanie Nash nailed it on the head when she said something like, "At Second B, we may already be an Emergence church — I don't know if that is good news or bad." It's good news of course if we want to feel like we've been steadily moving with the Spirit through our past. It may be disappointing news, however, if we were looking for a magic bullet which would rip open a hole to our future.
Instead, what we have been given is just a peep hole into that future. Next week, I will try to peek through that hole and tell you what I think I see. And the surprising thing is, the lens I'm going to use will come out of our past — the book of Acts and another book The Incendiary Fellowship, written by Elton Trueblood in the 1960’s, in which there is a chapter provocatively titled "Conditions of Emergence."
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