The Emergent Conversation

I first learned about the Emergent Conversation through a book I read over Thanksgiving of 2002 that changed my life. The book, A New Kind of Christian, by Brian McLaren gave a metaphor for my Christian church experience. In it, an evangelical pastor and his daughter's high school science teacher have a series of dialogues about what it means to be a Christian in a post-modern world. In another blog, on another day, I will explain all that the book illuminated for me about ecclesiology and the like. For now I will just say that it changed my life. Since Thanksgiving 2002, I have been receiving email updates and reading about the Emergent Conversation online at www.emergentvillage.com and thinking about the ideas presented by those involved with the conversation. I think one of the most interesting things about my whole experience with it is that I have sat on the sidelines, and most of you know that that is not my way. TANGENT: I discovered long ago that as women and girls we are largely shaped by the words our mothers use to describe us to their women friends when they are on the phone with those women friends in the other room of the house and don't realize we can hear them. When my mother is speaking to my aunts and to other "church ladies" on the telephone she refers to me as a "joiner." And this is largely true. I am not known to sit at home, ever. I like clubs, teams, parties, outings and all kinds of synchronized activities such as ice skating, swimming and color guard. She even once suggested I join the Navy, as I am so adaptable to regimentation. :END TANGENT. So the fact that I have sat on the sidelines with Emergent may have more to do with personal reservations than that I don't want to be involved somehow. I think my reservations fall into the following categories: 1) I either cannot get away from work or the conventions have been too far away to attend. 2) I don't really see it as all that revolutional of a movement when it was founded and is now governed by a group of older white men (can you say, "elder board"?) 3) I don't see it as truly inclusive of diverse ethnicity or gender or socioeconomic status. I think that exhausts my list, but in the spirit of the post-modern, post-conservative, post-evangelical movement of Emergent, I may revise, expand or rework my entire thought process and hence, this list at anytime. As for Emergent on a theological level, I think it is a good idea and the heart is in the right place, but I think I (and we, the evangelical church) need to be careful not to deconstruct everything about our faith.

And I am a pretty open-minded person (I don't think yoga is from the devil or that South Coast Plaza is besieged by evil spirits) but I will never walk a medeival labryinth as a method of worshiping God. It just ain't my thing.