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EMERGING FAITH BOUNDARIES: BRIDGE-BUILDING, INCLUSION, AND THE EMERGING CHURCH MOVEMENT IN AMERICA _______________________________________ A Dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri-Columbia _______________________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy _____________________________________________________ by LLOYD CHIA Prof. Mary Jo Neitz, Dissertation Supervisor DECEMBER 2010 The undersigned, appointed by the dean of the Graduate School, have examined the dissertation entitled EMERGING FAITH BOUNDARIES: BRIDGE-BUILDING, INCLUSION, AND THE EMERGING CHURCH MOVEMENT IN AMERICA presented by Lloyd Chia, a candidate for the degree of doctor of philosophy, and hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance. Professor Mary Jo Neitz Professor J. Kenneth Benson Associate Professor Wayne H. Brekhus Associate Professor Richard J. Callahan Thanks to, Mary Jo Neitz for being the best advisor EVER and for seeing me through this project from start to finish. My committee for your patience with me, for your invaluable input, and of course for passing me! My family for always believing in me and supporting me at every step in my life. Valerie for inspiring me and for giving me strength when I was weak. All Nations Fellowship for embracing me and being a wonderful church family. His Family Centre for your unceasing prayers and unwavering support. All my friends who have seen me through this journey in one way or another. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Mary Jo Neitz for believing in me and supporting me through this entire project. When I emailed you many years ago, little did I know that I would be privileged to work under the best advisor one could ever hope for. I would also like to thank my dissertation committee members, Wayne Brekhus, Ken Benson, and Chip Callahan for being so supportive of my ideas, and for giving me much food for thought along the way. I am also thankful to the Sociology department at the University of Missouri for giving this guy from Singapore a chance! Thanks especially to Ed Brent for having so much confidence in me. Thanks also to JT and Will who have been with me since I started this journey, both of whom I respect very much, and will probably be out-published by. Thanks to Mary and Debbie, for all your help through the years, and for always graciously accepting my forms even when I handed them in late. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................... ii ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... iv Chapter 1. STATEMENT OF THE SOCIOLOGICAL PROBLEM .................................. 1 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................ 22 3. METHODOLOGY AND FIELDWORK ....................................................... 56 4. ORGANIZING EMERGENCE ................................................................... 88 5. MAPPING BOUNDARIES AND BORDERLANDS .................................. 132 6. THE SWEET PROBLEM OF INCLUSION .............................................. 184 7. BRIDGE-BUILDING ................................................................................ 250 8. CONSTRUCTING THE POSTMODERN ................................................ 338 9. FINDING ELUSIVE TOGETHERNESS .................................................. 413 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................... 440 VITA ................................................................................................................. 454 iii ABSTRACT This is a study of a nascent Christian movement called the Emerging Church Movement in America. The movement seeks to build relational bridges with other faiths, and to be inclusive of people marginalized along lines of race, class, gender and sexuality. Through observing meetings and conferences, conducting in-depth interviews, and through examining published and online data, I analyze how the movement accomplishes their goals. I examine the cognitive “maps” they use to think about their relationships with diverse others and how they reconceptualize “us versus them” boundaries. Next, I look critically at how the movement fosters inclusiveness through a set of customs and practices. I also highlight the implicit lines of exclusion that belie their ideals. Then, I explore how the Emerging Church builds relational bridges with diverse others to foster relationships across difference. I examine their strategies for bridge-building with Jewish and Muslim groups, and even their critics. I outline how they manage perplexing interactions, and evaluate their efforts to build relational bridges in order to socially spiral outwards. Drawing theoretical resources from the sociology of religion, the sociology of culture, social cognition and boundaries theories, this project seeks to contribute to a generalized understanding of how social groups can work together across differences. iv Chapter 1 Statement of the sociological problem: difference + closeness In this introductory chapter, I highlight the core sociological problematic. I argue that sociology has been good at showing us, 1) how people do “sameness” by forming homogenous and exclusive close-knit groups, and also 2) how people also do “differentness” by establishing safe distances from outsiders they view as dissimilar and dangerous. What sociology has not explained so well is how people do a kind of togetherness that emphasizes and preserves differentness instead of sameness. This is an important issue facing religion in America, with many institutions seeking to engage skillfully with diverse others in a pluralistic and heterogeneous world. I identify the Emerging Church Movement as a site where this relational dynamic is a goal of the ideal, and is hence worth studying. The core concepts of my study are boundaries, inclusion, bridge-building and postmodernism. “You are us, you are not us” This dynamic plays out in our world everywhere and all the time. The human tendency to create boundaries of separation from others seems fundamental to our social nature. We claim uniqueness by defining ourselves against others. We are socially attuned to the contours of people who are like us, and people who are not like us. Yet, the shape of those in-group out-group contours constantly evolves. Sociologists have long been interested in the twin processes of inclusion and exclusion. We are at once interested in the Durkheimian orientation toward social solidarity: how societies, groups and dyads establish a corporate identity and come to a functional consensus of what ―togetherness‖ is. Yet, we are also interested in the logic of distinction, categorization and hierarchy in the social 1 world as per Marx. How and why do groups come to see others as different and inferior, hence justifiably subjugated or excluded? I am fundamentally interested in how groups can ―do difference together‖: acknowledging social divides, respecting them, but still establishing a basis for coming together and being together. This type of coming together seems to acknowledge boundaries, while simultaneously respecting and transcending them at the same time. What do we have in social theory that conceptualizes and theorizes this kind of coming together across social divides? Doing differentness… together In social theory, sameness and closeness have been well theorized. The intersection of sameness and closeness shows how individuals and groups forge a sense of sameness to build solidarity through common association. Similarly, difference and farness has also been adequately theorized. We see this in processes of ―othering‖ that distinguish people as different, inferior, or sometimes even less human. We see this in how the studies of gender, sexuality and race have in some manner theorized on these twin processes of in-group solidarity and out-group othering to better grasp how our social world works. Herein lays the sociological problem: what do we have in social theory that illuminates a particular combination of difference and closeness? What understanding do we have about how categorical others distinguish each other mutually as different, but forge togetherness instead of distancing themselves from each other? 2 I contend that the discipline in general has been biased in its focus on the consonance between sameness and closeness, and difference and distance. This question is not just ―academic‖ in the pejorative sense. Our world has very real problems, where in-group extremists have caused much harm to those they categorize as others. That diverse religions could possibly ―coexist‖ (as the bumper sticker goes) seems ideal, but how exactly is this accomplished? Where can we see this particular combination of difference and closeness? What can we learn from these interactions? My chosen site for exploring this problematic is religion. Religion has become a more prominent focal point for boundary issues, and rightly so. In fact, the 2008 Association for the Sociology of Religion annual meeting was titled, ―Religion Crossing Boundaries‖, where papers presented dealt with a variety of boundary issues: religion crossing transnational boundaries, religions crossing virtual boundaries, religions crossing inter and intra-religious boundaries, and more. It does not

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