Exploring Emergent, Part II

Argh. Spending my spare time in the past day or two (ie, time not working or playing with my 2 year old daughter) reading online articles about the Emergent Church, I have already deduced that my early observations on the Emergent Church are very limited. But I’m intrigued enough by this movement that I’ll continue exploring it. A few questions about Emergent based on my very limited, on-line reading:

   
1. Is there a theology in Emergent?  I assume there is (there’s tons of theology books listed on their reading list), but the introductory articles I’ve found that outline Emergent principles seem more engaged with post-modern philosophy than with theology. (In my previous post I said that the Emergent movement looked alot like liberal protestantism, but that comment was based more on Emergent’s world view than on theology – I don’t find Emergent Village’s The Emergent Story article to be rich with theology.) From my small amount of reading, it seems that Emergent is very concerned with experiential forms and ways of doing ministry, but that theology – outside of a culturally relevant and engaging ecclesiology – is largely not articulated or named. Is Emergent less a theological paradigm and more a form of church, a method of ministry, that can be applied (in varrying degrees) by communities of various different theologies?

   

2. How accessible is the Emergent movement to those of us who have never taken a course in philosophy or cultural studies, or have trouble pronouncing Jacques Derrida’s name? Can someone engage the Emergent church without reading countless tomes of philosophy or cultural studies?

   

3. Can Emergent engage Lutheranism, the Lutheran Confessions, or the paradoxes that constitute the core of Lutheran theology?

Just some thoughts and questions from someone who is not well-versed in these things, but who is interested nonetheless. I think there is alot of potential in the Emergent movement, but I feel like I’ve only just dabbed my toe into the expanding sea called Emergent. I need to get deeper into this stuff . . .