The Emerging Church Movement: A Sociological Assessment Ganiel, G., & Marti, G. (2015). The Emerging Church Movement: A Sociological Assessment. Currents in Theology and Mission , 42(2), 105-112. http://currentsjournal.org/index.php/currents/issue/view/7/showToc Published in: Currents in Theology and Mission Document Version: Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Queen's University Belfast - Research Portal: Link to publication record in Queen's University Belfast Research Portal Publisher rights Copyright 2015 LSTC General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Queen's University Belfast Research Portal is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The Research Portal is Queen's institutional repository that provides access to Queen's research output. Every effort has been made to ensure that content in the Research Portal does not infringe any person's rights, or applicable UK laws. If you discover content in the Research Portal that you believe breaches copyright or violates any law, please contact [email protected]. Download date:25. Sep. 2021 The Emerging Church Movement: A Sociological Assessment Gladys Ganiel Research Fellow (as of April 1, 2015), The Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation and Social Justice, Queen’s University Gerardo Marti L. Richardson King Associate Professor of Sociology, Davidson College What we bring to the study avoid offering any systematic or coherent definitions, which contributes to frustra- of the Emerging Church tion in isolating it as a coherent group— Movement especially for sociologists who strive to define and categorize. In presenting our With so many voices, groups, and orga- own understanding of this movement, nizations participating in the Emerging we categorize Emerging Christianity as Church Movement (ECM), few are willing an orientation rather than an identity, and to “define” it,1 though authors have offered focus on the diverse practices within what various definitions.2 Emerging Christians we describe as “pluralist congregations” (often called “gatherings,” “collectives” or 1. Scot McKnight, “Five Streams of the Emerging Church,” Christianity Today, 51.2, February 2007: 35–39. e categorize 2. James Bielo, “The ‘Emerging Church’ in America: Notes on the Interac- Emerging tion of Christianities,” Religion, 39, no. 3 W (2009): 219–232; James Bielo, Emerging Evangelicals: Faith, Modernity, and the Desire Christianity as an for Authenticity (New York: New York Uni- versity Press, 2011); D.A. Carson, Becoming orientation rather than Conversant with the Emerging Church: Un- derstanding a Movement and its Implications an identity. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2005); Lloyd Chia, “Emerging Faith Boundaries: “communities” by Emerging Christians Bridge-Building, Inclusion and the Emerg- themselves). This leads us to define the ing Church Movement in America” (The ECM as a creative, entrepreneurial reli- University of Missouri, dissertation, unpub- gious movement that strives to achieve lished, 2010); Gladys Ganiel, “Emerging from the Evangelical Subculture in Northern social legitimacy and spiritual vitality by Ireland: A Case Study of the Zero28 and Ikon Community,” International Journal Ancient-Future Faith: Rethinking Evangelical- for the Study of the Christian Church, 6, no. ism for a Postmodern World (Grand Rapids, 1 (2006): 38–48; and Robert E. Webber, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2007). Currents in Theology and Mission 42:2 (April 2015) Ganiel, Marti. The Emerging Church Movement 106 actively disassociating from its roots in to pubs and restaurants, small informal conservative, evangelical Christianity. Our gatherings and large formal conferences, findings and rationale for terms and defini- public events like “beer and hymns” nights tions for grasping the ECM are extensively and lectures by Brian McLaren, as well as developed in The Deconstructed Church: private events like hanging out in people’s Understanding Emerging Christianity.3 homes and attending overnight dialogues Our interest is in the persons, prac- that included sleeping on couches and tices, and sociological significance of making breakfast together. We participated Emerging Christianity. Our consequent in these and other settings, saturating our- labeling and isolating of the ECM is not selves in conversation and reminiscence, intended to ignore the varied and evanes- because the ECM is a diffuse phenomenon cent strands of the movement, particularly that is not readily captured in any single when the movement values autonomy, place or person. Regardless of the (often diversity, and dissent, but to find analytic controversial) figures who write and speak ways to examine the ECM as an intriguing regularly like Rob Bell, Nadia Bolz-Weber, instance of institutional innovation. We Peter Rollins, and Tony Jones, none of do not rely on our theological convictions them “define” the ECM—yet they all are or on presumptions regarding what the manifestations of it. Christian church should be or should not Within the seeming cacophony of talk be doing. The ECM has both sympathizers4 and happenings, we find the ECM to be and critics,5 yet we assert that our interests a far-from-settled social occurrence. The lie neither in forwarding or retracting relatively small numbers of people who the ECM. Rather, we pay close attention identify as Emerging Christians, or who to observations of Emerging Christians attend recognizable emerging congrega- tions, has led some observers to proclaim and their congregations in the United 7 States, Northern Ireland, and the United the death of the ECM. Nevertheless, Kingdom in order to understand them on the ECM’s resonance with wider trends and values of “Western” society lead us their own terms.6 In our work, we went to conclude that Emerging Christianity 3. Gerardo Marti and Gladys Ganiel, will persist, even thrive, as it continues to The Deconstructed Church: Understanding Emerging Christianity (Oxford: Oxford ington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2009); Josh Packard, University Press, 2014). The Emerging Church: Religion at the Margins (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Reiner Publishers, 4. Doug Gay, Remixing the Church: 2012); and Jason Wollschleger, “Off the Towards an Emerging Ecclesiology (London: Map? Locating the Emerging Church: A SCM Press, 2011). Comparative Case Study of Congregations 5. Carson, Kevin DeYoung and Ted in the Pacific Northwest,” Review of Religious Kluck, Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Research, 54 (2012): 69–91. Who Should Be) (Chicago: Moody, 2008). 7. On the number of Emerging 6. Other recent efforts include Bielo, Christians, see Marti and Ganiel, chapters Emerging Evangelicals; Chia; Philip Harrold, 9–11. On the death of the ECM, see Scott “Deconversion in the Emerging Church,” Daniels, “The Death of the Emerging International Journal for the Study of the Church,” Pastor Scott’s Thoughts, April 10, Christian Church, 6, no. 1 (2006): 79–90; 2010, http://drtscott.typepad.com/pastor_ Cory E. Labanow, Evangelicalism and the scotts_thoughts/2010/08/the-death-of-the- Emerging Church: A Congregational Study of emerging-church.html, (accessed December a Vineyard Church (Surrey, England/Burl- 22, 2014). Ganiel, Marti. The Emerging Church Movement 107 influence the organization and values of a flexibility of mind and spirit that ques- even the most established and “traditional” tions the very validity of core beliefs. For Christians and their denominations. In the example, Peter Rollins has talked about end, sociological study of the ECM con- deliberately short-term “pop-up churches” tributes to more general understandings of as a vital form of Christianity.8 Even the ongoing relationship between modern more, Emerging Christians’ standards religion and contemporary social change, for measuring success are a challenge not helping us to better grasp how processes only to traditional Christianity, but also to of religious individualization take place sociologists of religion who have relied on and are encouraged even within religious indicators such as church attendance and communities. adherence to core doctrines as measure- ments of religious vitality. Other aspects of the crisis of moderni- The social world that ty are increased pluralism and the hyper-in- prompts the “Emerging” dividualization of the self.9 People’s greater awareness of the plurality of expressions of the ECM of not only Christianity, but also other After more than a decade of observation faiths, has made over-arching narratives and systematic research on the ECM, in which one’s own religious community we see the “deconstructed churches” of has all the right answers seem implausible. the ECM as a response to the crisis of Multiple institutional demands prompt modernity, not only in religion but also the need for understanding how religious across all spheres of life. Part of the crisis commitments fit with various, contradic- of modernity is the proliferation of in- tory domains.10 The challenge of religious stitutional demands such that people no authority (which cannot be imposed) and longer rely on singular institutions for the challenge of understanding oneself their ethics, beliefs, or values. Overall, among so many competing institutional established religious institutions have not imperatives (which cannot be avoided) adjusted well to these changes. Rather, they leads to people having to individualize