The Tomb of the Emergent Christian

I'm a sentinel of sorts, now, standing vigil over one of the last markers of a movement that flickered and died.

After a brief conversation, Presbymergent shut down its Facebook presence many moons ago.  As the remnant of folks left as admins all wanted to keep the page up as an archive of sorts, I volunteered to serve that end.  For a page to exist, there has to be at least one admin, and so that's what I've become.

I am the last Presbymergent on Facebook.

Emergence was a thing, for a while, a decade ago.  It rose out of two simultaneous threads.

In the old-line denominations, emergence was a reaction to the stultifying institutional inertia that can makes denominational ministry such an awkward, lumbering, graceless thing.  Be open to the new!  Don't crush everything under the weight of bureaucratic anxiety management processes and protocols!

For those who'd been brought up in the corporate dynamics of the megachurch world, emergence was a reaction to the synthetic falseness of business-model Christianity.  Be flexible!  Be organic!  Be less like a JeezMart, and more like a gathering of creative friends!

The spur to emergence in both of these milieu was the advent of new and dynamic media, which seemed to offer the promise of communities dynamically being amazing on the interwebs together.  It had the potential to stir the oldlines to new life, and bring authenticity to the groupspeak of evangelicalese.

And it didn't work.

Just didn't take.  The reasons were varied and complex.  Emergent folk weren't really... um ... how to put
this... "organizational" people.  Efforts to fuse the ethos of generative entropy with articles of incorporation and denominational schtuff proved untenable.  I know.  I was on that committee.

That, and we manifested the counterintuitive tendency of anarchists to over-organize, creating such complex structures to insure that every voice is heard that no decision can ever possibly be made.

There were other things.

There was a whole bunch of deconstruction, but not much construction or permission-giving to simply create together.  As the winds tousled our hair, we talked about how to make a sail, and lamented the incompetence and abusiveness of other sail-makers, and dreamed about new ways to harness the wind.

But we did not, in all of that, get around to making a sail.

And so the energy dispersed, like winds uncaught.

What I find fascinating, honestly, is that people still come by on social media.  For a while, folks would post stuff...political links, self-serving links.  Those, I deleted, and shut down unmoderated posting permissions.

Such is the task of a sentinel.

But other people still come and leave their "likes," expressing approval, one or so every week.  I love those little moments.

It's like the roses and cognac, left by masked visitors on Poe's grave, to honor what was.  Or those leavings on the grave of F. Scott and Zelda, little trinkets, wine and beads, tokens of respect.

Oh, this was a lovely thing, those likes seem to be saying.  What it could have been...

So it goes, when you stand vigil at the grave of a movement.

Emergence, The Spirit, and the Trap of the Klatch

There's been much to do lately in my denomination about the intersection between the "emergent church" and the Presbyterian Church. To hear it from some, it's the great hope of the church. The synthesis between this postmodern and socially-networked movement and the mainline church will, finally, bring in the young people.

Meaning, people under the age of 40. Sigh. I'm not even young by Presbyterian standards anymore.

There are articles about it in Presby magazines, and on the Presby website. Folks are eager to embrace this new movement. Of course, given the rapidity with which Presbyterians do things, this new excitement more or less coincides with the death of the emergent movement.

Truth be told, we're not a particularly lively critter lately. There's some puttering around on the presbymergent Facebook page, and a few meetings of good hearted fellow travelers. But the contagious energy and passion that drives and grows a movement? I wish I saw it, but I don't.

Where I still struggle with emergence, in either it's generic or presby manifestations, is in two particular areas.

First, that I just can't seem to find anyone else who's willing to write or say: emergence is a manifestation of the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. Yeah, I know, progressives and mainliners get all stammery and awkward when that topic comes up. We'd rather talk about interpretive frameworks and the dynamics of community and a relational church. Those things are nice and comfy and process-oriented. But somewhere, someone needs to be saying: "I've had a dream. I'm feeling a calling. I feel God moving in this." They don't need to be getting all glassy-eyed and Benny Hinn about it. We're just not that thing, thank the Maker.

But if this isn't about God working something new to transform and further our understanding of the Way Jesus lived and taught, then it's...well...not really worth paying attention to. It's just another incursion of cultural expectations into the life of the church. Yeah, it comes out of liberal academe. But if that's all it is, it's of no more spiritual value than the cultural phenomenon of the megachurch, and with considerably less influence. Maybe I haven't read enough. Maybe the forty presbymergentish bloggers whose feeds feed me just haven't gotten around to saying it or pointing me towards someone else who does. I'll keep listening.

Second, and related to the first, if the idea of relationality and the transforming power of Spirit-lead dialogue is to have any impact on the church, then it needs to be expressed in a very different way. Best I can tell, emergent conversations tend to be conversations among the like-minded. Little circles of young and youngish progressives gather to suck down Starbucks and light candles and read Rumi and do drum circles and talk amongst themselves about how crappy and abusive the rest of the church is. Sometimes, those same progs go and klatch with older progs in crumbling mostly-empty buildings. Candles are once again lit. It's all very cozy and safe. It's a fallout shelter for progressive Christians in a megachurch-nuked America.

But transformation only occurs when you graciously engage with the Other. That means making a point of getting out of our comfortable klatches and pushing outward into ones that aren't quite as easy. Can we share the value of Spirit-driven relationality with that fundamentalist blogger? Or that atheist with a chip on his shoulder? Do we reach out to that young Korean who's burned out on the relentless demands of the church she grew up in? Or that soldier who has returned from war with a shattered faith? Or that mom who goes to a Big Parking Lot church because it's kids program is a well-oiled machine that fits well with little Tyler's soccer schedule? Or the blue-haired matriarch of that little country church with 22 members?

Entering into dialog with folks who are Not Us in this era of social media is not logistically hard. Just spiritually challenging. Those conversations require us to speak our truths and have them tested. They require us to listen to others, and to speak the grace that we know in ways that might speak to them. Our faith does not ask us to limit our conversations to those who are us. Or to only value and show grace to those who are like us.

In fact, we're required to do exactly the opposite.

Failing the Sesame Street Test

Back when I was a kid and Elmo was still a distant nightmare haunting the minivan dreams of America, Sesame Street was actually pretty cool. It was wild and wacky and irreverent, more inspired than the product of professional educator focus groups. And yet Grover taught us to read, Cookie Monster taught us speak a few words in Spanish, and the Count taught us that vampires aren't all bad.

One of the repeated spots was a simple pattern matching test for tots. Four squares would be presented. In three of them would be three objects that fit a general category. Three cookies, for instance. Or three pairs of pants. In the fourth, there'd be a rock. Or a donut.

Or Mr. T.

We'd be asked: Which of these things does not belong? It wasn't that the thing was worse than the other things. Mr. T may not be a chocolate chip cookie, but he's first name Mister, second name Period, third name T, and we pity the fool who says otherwise.

It was just that...other than being made of matter...the thing in the fourth box didn't conceptually fit with the things in the other three. It was dissonant. It did not belong. And over the last few days, that's been my conundrum.

Over at the fitfully active presbymergent site, I've been having a back and forth with a Presbyterian Minister of Word and Sacrament who does not believe in God. Oh, he believes in God the same way that Ludwig Feuerbach believed in God, in that he understands God as a concept. But he rejects the idea that there is any referent to which that symbol directs us. He also states that faith is unnecessary and counterproductive, and..at least in his conversations with me, describes "people of faith" in terms that are actively dismissive. Sample quote from our exchange:

"If you need a supernatural being to keep you from robbing my house, selling drugs, starting wars, then by all means believe in one."

I've actually heard that line several times before in my online debates with neoatheists. There's a reason for this.

He is, quite simply, an atheist.

While I disagree with him, I like the guy. His blog is on my feed-reader. He's a humanist and generally open to caring for other human creatures and seeking justice for those who are oppressed. He can get a bit shrill on occasion, but I'm hardly in a position to throw stones.

Here's my struggle. He appears to enjoy the forms and ritual of Christianity. He likes the story of Jesus, and the ethic that Jesus taught. He likes the sense of community one finds in a church. But I find myself really struggling to see why he would choose to be the pastor of a Presbyterian church.

The chaplain of a humanist society who reflects fondly on some of the things he most likes about his Jefferson Bible? Sure. Heck, be a Unitarian. Unitarians are cool.

But if you conceptualize faith in the same way as Richard Dawkins (who he really likes), then...crazy me...it would seem that leading a church is an odd vocational choice. His own congregation is open-minded, open-hearted and progressive...but they do use the word God without slapping it into the quotation marks I use with my boys whenever I describe creatures that have no connection to reality, like the "tooth fairy" or "Sarah Palin."

If you consider yourself an atheist and non-religious, being the pastor of a Christian church seems...well...like you're failing the Sesame Street Test. In a way that a kid could peg in a heartbeat.

And I'm not being a grouch about it. Just genuinely baffled.