At a Crossways retreat last weekend I heard Dr. Nathan Frambach's presentation on the emerging church phenomenon. The question with which he wrestles is: is this phenomenon simply a new form of worship in the postmodern era or is it an emerging ecclesiology? In the end Dr. Frambach sides with the latter. For him, emerging church is a way of understanding the church distinct from its immediate contemporaries but in tune with the ancient church.
I find Robert Jenson to be a helpful conversation partner when addressing this question (big surprise to few readers, I know). Jenson describes postmodernity as a world that lost its story, its grand narrative for describing reality. The modern age maintained a plotted story, but replaced God as the storyteller with pure reason and scientific knowledge. The modern project failed as evident through events such as the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cold War, Vietnam and Watergate, Columbine, 911, the push to war in Iraq, and so on. These events tell us that the more "progress" humans attain by our own abilities the greater our potential for self-annihilation. So now after the modern era, postmoderns inherit the lack of a storyteller but add to that the loss of a story. In this sense, postmoderns are more geniune in their wordview than moderns, because one cannot have a story without a storyteller. However, after the failure of modernity's story -- one in which hope in the future is determined through progress -- the only viable option seen by many people is nihilism and despair.
This presents a major challenge to the church. How can the church witness to the in-breaking of God's reigning throughout history if history does not have a story? How can the church confess Jesus is Lord if there is no storyteller? How can the church proclaim his resurrection if nothingness and death are the ultimate destinity for all that is?
Jenson proposes that the church does mission in the postmodern situation by being God's story and inviting people into God's story. The story of God is "what happens between Jesus and his Father in their Spirit."(1) It is the presence of the triune God in our world. Or more accurately, God's story is the participation of humanity and the whole cosmos in the Trinitarian life of God. By being God's story through its liturgy and ministry, the church invites people to experience the triune God first hand. Once they know the storyteller, they know there is a story.
Only if the world is moved by -- the grand narrative told by -- someone self-consciously known as Jesus who is resurrected to life beyond the nihilism of death, can then the future be moved forward by a freedom and thereby be a source of hope. Therefore, the story called ‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’ is the only option that freely moves us into the future. Knowing that we neither determine or negate the future makes all the difference for public proclamation of God's reigning -- a source of hope even in a postmodern world.(2)
From what little I know from casual obervation of the emerging church phenomenon, it seems to me that the emerging church gets it -- at least more so than most churches I know. Their innovative worship, their attention to various "texts" both sacred and cultural, their awareness of suffering as a critical part of reality, their intentionality in building a community, and their "theology pub" approach to being actively present in their neighborhoods -- all of these are ways the emerging church is inviting postmoderns into God's story by speaking a language they understand: "Yes nihilism is a real option, but let me tell you about another possibility for a hopeful future. O.K, maybe the world doesn't have a story -- only ambiguity and a plurality of truth claims -- but let me introduce you to a storyteller." Once they come to meet the storyteller, they realize they've been characters in the story all along.
So if the emerging church is an emerging ecclesiology, then it is not emerging ex nihilo (from nothing). This understanding of the church's mission is robbed from Robert Jenson's ecclesiology. And not only his of course but it is taken from Tillich, borrowed from Barth, linked to Luther, aquired through Aquinas, augmented by Augustine, captured in the Cappadocians, and promoted by Paul. The "new" way of being church is emerging from the telling of God's story in the world -- the proclamation of gospel -- that first emerged from Jesus' empty tomb.
(1) Robert W. Jenson. Systematic Theology: The Triune God. vol 1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) 221, cf. 46.
(2) Robert W. Jenson. “What If It Were True?” as published by the Center for Theological Inquiry on their website Copyright 2002-2004.
