Tony Jones: I Received a Fascinating Email…
…from one of my heroes and a pioneer of the internet. He encouraged me to post this but asked that his identity be withheld.
Dear Tony,
I actually procrastinated a bit this morning and read your chapter (partly because I’m interested in new books, as I’m writing one of my own). Obviously (given the length here) either I really wanted to procrastinate, or your writing struck a chord. Probably both....
..........
The only other movement I can think of that really successfully mixes the cherished doctrines of the traditional left and the traditional right is the libertarian movement. But libertarianism is still an ideology! It still takes specific positions on the above ideological divides: less legislation of morality, less control of economic life, more secularization.
Still, I think it’s great, if true, that a new kind of Christianity is emerging in which left and right are brought together and put their differences aside. If it does so by pretending that there aren’t differences, or that the differences aren’t meaningful or that they don’t matter, however, they’re fooling themselves and the facts sure to come back to bite them in their fantasies, as facts are wont to do!
If I had to guess, I would say that the leaders of the emergent Christianity phenomenon (as you’ve described it) are, in fact and perhaps unadmitted to themselves, good old-fashioned liberals. It is one of dear old habits of the left to reject all “categorization” in political terms, or to say that they lack ideology, or are “mainstream” or “moderate” (with everyone to their right often being dismissed as knuckle-dragging right-wingers). But if they are liberals that actually tolerate conservatives, instead of dismissing them as knuckle-draggers, that’s wonderful. Likewise, if the movement has fundamentalists who nevertheless are willing to break bread with gays instead of saying they’ll go to hell, great. Sounds like real Christian love to me.
The point, which I’m not saying you don’t already get, but which doesn’t come out in the first chapter, is this: you can’t escape ideology except by escaping politics altogether. You can, of course, form communities in which ideology doesn’t matter so much. ...
And this goes to one of my biggest irritations about Emergent. It isn't that Emergent leaders appear to be political liberals. I spend much of my time within the hierarchy of the PCUSA, where in meetings, I'm nearly always in a non-liberal minority and not infrequently in a minority of one. I can live with that. What I find irritating is the persistent proclamations by Emergent-types of being an expansive movement that transcends all boundaries (political included) and foreshadows the emerging work of the Holy Spirit in the world while using (with only very narrow shades of difference) the same religious left perspective that Mainline denominations (i.e., National Council of Churches club) have been using for decades. Whether influenced by denial, naivete, or cold calculation, many of these folks need to get in touch with their inner liberal and own it. :) Maybe we could ratchet down the messianic sanctimony and have a conversation.
I'm probably coming at this from a different angle...but I want to echo this with a hearty "amen."
I've felt a bit alienated from some of the Emergent conversation lately because of my strong Anabaptist takes on politics...which you think would be ok at Emergent stuff.
It is frustrating that everything is draped in talk of being a large table for all perspectives...when as more time passes, things in Emergent shift into mainline sentiments with free-church ecclesiology.
Posted by: Mark Van Steenwyk | Feb 21, 2008 at 10:51 AM
I hear ya, Mark. You and I have talked about these issues before. We are coming from different angles but the experience is the same.
I much prefer the type event you did with Sider a while back or the CCO meeting that Bob Robinson just returned from.
"mainline sentiments with free-church ecclesiology"
That is just about the best six-word description I've seen. Outside of Jesus Creed, I find few Emergent forums that really strike me as diverse.
I guess if you and I are to get together and have diverse conversation we will have to do it ourselves. :)
Posted by: Michael W. Kruse | Feb 21, 2008 at 12:36 PM
This is precisely the issue that about which I have started posting with the emergent preoccupation with the postmodern. It results in a very non-pragmatic set of ideas that do not have teeth because of the rejection of boundaries rather than the recognition of boundaries accompanied with a critical analysis.
We cannot implement an idea and organize people around it without clear boundaries and outcomes of what we want to be and achieve as a people. We cannot be ambiguous and organize people in the church effectively. But we can be self-critical of the boundaries and roles within our organization along with the theological ideas that legitimate that. As Presbyterians we have this already in the BOO - Once Reformed, always reforming. But not ambiguous nonetheless!
Posted by: Drew | Feb 21, 2008 at 12:55 PM
Well said Drew. Thanks.
(And for my non-Presby friends, BOO = Book of Order; part of the PCUSA constitution. :) )
Posted by: Michael W. Kruse | Feb 21, 2008 at 01:25 PM
This has been the problem I've had with Emergent, Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis. They all talk about a politics beyond left and right, but when you read and listen to what they are saying, it's the same old liberal Christianity. I'm not against liberals either, I'm a moderate Disciple among many a liberal and I'm able to break bread with them and love them. (not to mention my partner is also a liberal Lutheran.) But at least be honest about who you are and stop with all the pretense. That is what I can't stand.
Posted by: Dennis Sanders | Feb 21, 2008 at 11:31 PM
It just seems like they are saying "we are progressive without labels". Labels are inevitable and it is not only naive but not constructive to say that one is in a movement or organization without them. The United Church of Christ (I think it was them) formed out of this principle and merely created a new denomination.
It is more pragmatic to affirm boundaries and then critique them through an intentional critical negotiation and a willingness to reconstruct them as a part of one's organizational strategy. But this is good organizational behavior that keeps things flexible and agile and does not need postmodernism to obscure it!
Posted by: Drew | Feb 22, 2008 at 07:12 AM
Michael,
As always, I appreciate your blogging presence. If some of the leaders in the emerging movement truly crossed some political boundaries, it would be headline news. In my mind, to be "independent" or a "centrist" when it comes to political issues means you not always have liberal conclusions at the end of your arguments about how Christianity and politics emerge. Great observation about Kennedy on tax cuts.
Posted by: Dan Brennan | Feb 22, 2008 at 07:35 AM
Love this phrase...
"ratchet down the messianic sanctimony"
:)
Posted by: grace | Feb 22, 2008 at 08:50 AM
Dennis
"...it's the same old liberal Christianity"
I'm old enough to remember the 1970s (finished college in '81) and I remember well both the religious and political leftism of the day. The Clinton era didn't apporach the politics of that era. I can easily understand those not much younger than I am for seeing the political left as some new emergent form of doing things. However, McLaren, Wallis and some others are old enough to know differently and it is for that reason that I find it hard not read their "beyond left and right" claim as disingenuous. The Religious Right at least has the transparency of saying “We believe political conservatism is the way.”
Drew
Good stuff once again. Next week I'm going to post about the GAC Mission Work Plan. A big piece of that is an exercise in boundary clarification with regard to mission.
Also, I saw at your site you are reading some Peter Berger. Berger and Luckman's "Social Construction of Reality", which I read in college was helped the pieces click together for me with postmodernity issues.
I like the way you think.
Dan
(BTW, what's with all the "D" names today? :) )
Thanks. I really do like much of what I see in many Emergent settings but the politics is very monotone.
Grace
Every 10,000 words or so I write a good one. :)
Thanks
Posted by: Michael W. Kruse | Feb 22, 2008 at 10:21 AM
<brain_dump>
I don't like to label myself partly because of a desire to avoid certainty (which can be a wrong attitude for me), and partly to avoid the stereotypes that others then place on me when I 'own it'. And here is the tough one, maybe a little because all the 'cool kids' are doing it...
I am in kind of a tenuous spot. For some views I would be labeled anywhere from conservative, to liberal, to libertarian. I am a fountain of contradictions. I hold my views with an open hand instead of a clinched fist.
</brain_dump>
Posted by: David Brush | Feb 23, 2008 at 05:46 AM
Fair nuf, David. Here some my additional thoughts.
To some degree it is still the 18th Century with Rousseau versus Burke.
Rousseau had the notion of natural man is untainted and it is society and its institutions that corrupt him. Society is utterly malleable. It can be deconstructed and reconstituted according to whatever agenda we see fit. For him, everything must change and we have to get back to the garden. (Sound familiar.)
Burke saw society as a complex interconnected web of traditions and institutions whose complexity is beyond the grasp of an individual or individuals. Therefore, radical changes are highly susceptible to negative unintended consequences (as in the French Revolution.) Therefore, we need to conserve traditions and institutions as we adapt to challenges.
Emergent is overwhelmingly Rosseauesque.
Furthermore, the captivation of Emergent folks with Jim Wallis (a long time Religious Left leader who was at it back when I was in college in the late ‘70s), Barak Obama (the most liberal voting member of the senate) and McLaren’s neo-Malthusian deconstructive “Everything Must Change” (where he acknowledges he finds little of use from writers and thinkers before the last half of the 20th Century and last May identified himself as a “Religious Progressive Left Behind” at a Media Matters/Moveon.org event) speaks volumes. Then there is the unquestioning embrace of things like Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth” and the incredibly polemic “Story of Stuff” clip put out by the radical left Tides Foundation (just shows what you can accomplish if you put out an attractive articulate engaging young woman to do you polemics.)
That presence of these elements in a conversation about emerging church doesn’t trouble me in the least. That it is overwhelmed by this mindset and yet folks keep trying to pass it off as this broad inclusive discussion is silly. :)
Posted by: Michael W. Kruse | Feb 23, 2008 at 09:12 AM
Hey Michael,
I wonder if you or Mark V.S. or others piling on Emergent here in this thread are involved in an Emergent cohort group where you live. I ask this because in my experience as an Emergent cohort organizer I have seen the emerging church conversation as a "big tent"/large swath of "common ground" where Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Protestants of every stripe (e.g., Southern Baptist, Assembly of God, etc.) have come together in conversation and friendship around Jesus and his Gospel of the kingdom of God. In coming together, we haven't given up our "otherness" and blended into some mushy liberal new homogeneity called "Emergent." That's a total misunderstanding and misrepresentation of what is happening, in my opinion.
So when I read concerns/criticisms of Emergent for having an unrealistic or disingenuous "third way" ideal/rhetoric, I think there's just a fundamental misunderstanding of how we hope this "third way" is going to play out. The "third way" isn't a point on a spectrum between "liberal" and "conservative." The "third way" is another parallel spectrum altogether, that I would say is above (and transcends) the liberal/conservative spectrum. The "third way" is relationship/friendship, and the spectrum is simply how close/tight-knit or far/separate we are relationally.
I don't think anyone in Emergent is trying to deny that these polarities exist. My sense is that there is just a real collective tiredness with the dominance of that whole paradigm. Doug Pagitt and Tim Conder did a seminar last week here in North Carolina, and I blogged my reflections about what they described as the shift from "bounded set" and "centered set" structures to (their term) "relationally-centered set" structure. It was new language for me, honestly, but it really made a lot of sense. I think that's a much better way of understanding what is happening in Emergent and the emerging church more broadly. To put it one way: The question isn't so much "how are we different in what we believe/think?" as it is "how are we connected? what can I appreciate and learn from that other person's perspective/tradition/tribe/camp?"
Anyway, to say that there's a "vast left-wing conspiracy" within Emergent or something is just a bit off. Yes, it's true there seems to be a lot of folks planning to vote (sorry, Mark V.S. ;-) and vote for Barack Obama at that -- but don't call us all "liberal Democrats." There's far more nuance and complexity going on here. I, for one, came to my decision to support Obama independently from any supposed "Emergent agenda." And besides, politics is just one aspect of this whole conversation that I'm interested in anyway.
BTW -- Tony Campolo, writing on The Huffington Post, says that he and Wallis and McLaren chose the name "Red Letter Christians" (over other possible labels, such as "Progressive Evangelicals, etc.) purposely and intentionally to describe a broader-based concept and coalition. I think it's unfair and shallow, honestly, to sit back and just write it all off as "the same old religious left." But if I understand why you would say that: If you're not convinced something "new" is happening, then you're not convinced. And "A New Kind of Christian," "A Generous Orthodoxy," "The New Christians," "The New Conspirators," "The Great Awakening," and "The Great Emergence" all rolled into one is probably not going to convince you either.
Which brings me back to my original question: What has your exposure to Emergent and the emerging church conversation been? Because I've got a Catholic guy, an Orthodox woman, a black Pentecostal government worker, an AG pastor, a Hispanic city planner, a Southern Baptist businessman, and a few other folks who don't see eye-to-eye on everything but who are all "Emergent" that I'd like to introduce you to ;-)
Shalom,
Steve K.
Posted by: Steve K. | Feb 23, 2008 at 11:27 AM
Wow, Michael...you hit some nerves here, brother! I will be looking forward to your reply to Steve. I think I know what you might say, and am glad to leave that to you. ;^)
Hello, Steve! For myself, I believe that the whole "emergent" conversation has too many divergent (hmm, interesting!) strings that often get tangled together. As a result it is quite difficult to have a single "emergent" understanding.
I agree with you, and with Andrew Jones and others, that there are a great many open-table conversations going on ... but there are also a great many that are not so open or welcoming to "others".
The "emergent umbrella" is somewhat more difficult to really differentiate and I appreciate Michael's more balanced approach in light of that.
Blessings.
Posted by: Peggy | Feb 23, 2008 at 03:15 PM
Hi Steve and thanks for comment.
As to connection with Emergent, I was at the Roanoke Presbyterian Church in Kansas City that played host to the community that eventually became Jacob’s Well. I have several friends who attend their. I value their work. I spent a week at the Emergent Village gathering in NM back in Oct, 2005. I attended the Youth Specialties/Emergent gatherings. I attend my local cohorts events when I can, although we meet sporadically. I am acquainted with the Presbymergent dialog going on in my own denomination. I’ve read many books by McLaren, Pagitt, Bell, Hirsch and others. I regularly hang out at Jesus Creed and read blogs by any number of Emergent folks. All that is to say that I’m not viewing from afar.
I would also draw a distinction between “emergent” and “emerging church.” “Emergent” I tend to link more closely with orbit of things surrounding Emergent Village. Emerging church indicates a much broader spectrum of developments and conversations happening in church and around the world.
I agree that in our local cohort there is a greater diversity of opinion. I also know that there is some diversity in the folks who show up at regional and national events. However, if you look at the agenda and focus of these regional and national events concerning how to engage the world, and if you look at the events put on by those in the Emergent orbit, there is a highly uniform political perspective evidenced. That need not indicate a conspiracy. I’m merely making the observation about the monotone nature of the political discussion and the inclination to dismiss those who don’t share the viewpoint as un-evolved Modernist who haven’t emerged yet.
As to red letter Christians, I have a masters degree from Eastern University where I had two classes with Dr. Campolo. I had Dr. Sider for a class and briefly served on a board with him. I was reading Jim Wallis’ stuff back in the 1970s. I have more than passing knowledge of what is at work here. I expect to write a response to Campolo’s article next week but in short, calling a duck a chicken doesn’t make it other than a duck and calling “political progressivism” by the name “red letter Christian” doesn’t change the reality either.
The ethos that that permeates the Emergent environment is political progressivism. I don’t know that this is particularly wrong but the level of a national discussion it is not broad conversation as advertised. There is no transcendence over left and right. Only progressivism cast as transcendence. And this is the point that I think the author of the note to Tony makes so well.
I have rarely been treated rudely in Emergent like contexts but I have nearly always felt alien and at the periphery because I don’t have the right political agenda, despite sharing a great many similarities in views about postmodernity and issues confronting the church.
Posted by: Michael W. Kruse | Feb 23, 2008 at 04:35 PM
Peggy,
"Wow, Michael...you hit some nerves here, brother!"
Yes, and the knee reflex usually gets me some bruised shins.
Just being honest about my profound ambivalence to Emergent, although I still don’t think I express myself well in ways that is can be heard by those who spark my critical remarks.
Posted by: Michael W. Kruse | Feb 23, 2008 at 04:42 PM
But thanks, Michael, for being willing to take the bruises. The Abbess is so grateful for your voice ... it makes me not feel quite so alone out at my edge of the conversation. ;^)
Posted by: Peggy | Feb 23, 2008 at 05:04 PM
So, it's tomorrow and McLaren, Wallis, Campolo, etc. have all 'owned' the label liberal. How does would that event improve the issues of inclusiveness in the emergent story? Would that maybe actually cause further polarization within the conversation or a fork in the road?
Part of my own questions regarding emergent and the emerging church conversations rely soundly on missiology (or missionality to use the cool word) and not the politcal as much. Unless the conversation is a catalyst for expanding the number of people that experience the Kingdom of God, it borders on religious self indulgence, and I have no interest.
Posted by: David Brush | Feb 23, 2008 at 05:32 PM
David I think missiology necessarily takes us into questions of engagement with the poltical sphere. My point isn't that McLaren, et al, shouldn't have their political views. My question is where is the intentional inclusion of those without those views?
When the Relgious Right emerged in the late 1970s they claimed they were the "Moral Majority" who were emerging from silence to make their views prevail against liberals (read everyone who wasn't on their side.) Now we have the Christian Left as the "emerging moral majority" who represents the thinking of all sensible people, unlike those mind-numbed conservatives (read everyone who isn't with their agenda.)
Emergent can be a broad inclusive conversation where people of all different perspectives meet and reflect on the future of the church. Or Emergent can be a missional community that sees a particular poltical agenda as the self-evident expression of that missional community. It can't be both ways. This poltical progressive activism, while claiming to be a new third way, whether intended or not, is a marginalization of dissenters. It is that marginalization that is the cause of the fork in the road for me. So...
"Would that maybe actually cause further polarization within the conversation or a fork in the road?"
It already is a polarization and trying to have things both ways doesn't change that. My message would to Emergent would be, Is this a conversation or a political movement? Pick one. If it is a conversation than do a more intentional job of including other perspectives in your public image.
Posted by: Michael W. Kruse | Feb 23, 2008 at 06:27 PM
Thanks for the conversation Michael! I think we share the same desires, a broad platform for discussing the future of the church.
To surmise, any organization is swayed by the ideology of it's most visible personalities. Today Emergent Village is currently directed by a left leaning ideology. Indeed no conspiracy is needed in order for that to be the case, it is natural cause/effect.
I do think I find more value in the diverse nature of the emerging and missional church conversations taking place on local, denominational, and para-church levels, then I do in the confines of Emergent.
This question comes to mind: How can I truly be ecumenical and inclusive of diverse views if I am unwilling to accept the meta-narrative of human diversity as truth?
Could this be part of the reluctance to 'own it'?
Posted by: David Brush | Feb 23, 2008 at 08:38 PM
Well said David! I think your questions are right on target.
"I think we share the same desires, a broad platform for discussing the future of the church."
Bingo!
Posted by: Michael W. Kruse | Feb 23, 2008 at 09:42 PM
Hey Michael,
As usual....Bingo! "It already is a polarization..." The important thing is not to avoid labels but to love intentionally in the midst of an honest conversation...."speak the truth in love"....
BTW...Sorry I disappeared without a trace. I've been on a long fast run for the last several weeks and have not had the time or energy to even read the blogs....then alone comment.
Peace.
Posted by: Brad Cooper | Feb 24, 2008 at 11:56 AM
Hi Brad. You mean people actually have lives outside of reading my blog? :)
I always enjoy our converstations. Glad to hear from you.
Posted by: Michael W. Kruse | Feb 24, 2008 at 01:07 PM
Yes, Michael, and lately it has been a very busy life. But it has seemed like a long trip away from good friends....My forecast for future blogging is cloudy with a chance of occasional showers....
Posted by: Brad Cooper | Feb 24, 2008 at 01:15 PM
Hi Michael,
Well, I must confess...to me, this is a really bizarre/confusing post.
I am not sure where you are hanging out but I am engaging with people all of the time locally and nationally around the supposed "Emergent" conversation and I have not once experienced what you describe. Nor have I observed conversationally what you characterize Emergent to be on a political level. It is true that there are events at which people who are on one or another side of the political line gather and/or talk. But often I have observed them to be both conservative or liberal (but most often moderate). Most are trying to wrestle through what faithful engagement in the public sphere looks like coming from previous commitments. Most are trying to examine/re-examine previously unexamined commitments in light of the gospel without determining in advance what that might be.
I am also on the board of directors for Emergent Village and in our gatherings as a board (and you may not believe this) but there has never been a explicitly political conversation. It is true that Brian is connected to Sojourners, Jim Wallis, and other traditionally liberal groups, etc. But Brian never assumes anyone else is where he is, nor does he seek to promote any agenda in conversation.
It is not that I am trying to trump your concerns and/or observations, I simply have no experience with what you are describing as "typical" of Emergent. I am baffled.
You write:
"My message would to Emergent would be, Is this a conversation or a political movement? Pick one. If it is a conversation than do a more intentional job of including other perspectives in your public image."
I think that people should take Emergent's definition of itself as a friendship and a conversation at face value. I promise there is no political conspiracy. Further I think it would show some sophistication to recognize that within a young and de-centered relational set that the whole can't be held to answer for a few people whose public image has expanded (especially in a super-charged election year). Even though there are some who are getting more press, it doesn't mean that they are to constitutive of the whole.
Best to you,
Tim
Posted by: Tim | Feb 24, 2008 at 10:55 PM
Ironically Mark, my feeling has almost been exactly the reverse. I've felt almost beat over the head lately with the anabaptist stuff lately in emerging circles, and am kind of getting tired of defending my continued engagement with mainstream politics.
Perhaps we both just need to suck it up and continue contributing to the conversation and not assume that just because others disagree with us, that somehow means our views are not welcome.
Posted by: Mike Clawson | Feb 25, 2008 at 02:01 AM
Perhaps emergents are not willing to own the label "liberal" so quickly because while many of our political conclusions may be similar to liberal views, our motivation for holding them is very different. In my experience (and contrary to the accusations of our critics), we are not simply subscribing to some "liberal" party line and and then twisting our theology to fit that. Rather, most of us are motivated first by deep biblical reflection and commitment to a particular vision of the Kingdom of God which then motivates us to public engagement that often gets expressed in ways that appear "liberal". However, emergents will still (rightly IMHO) declare ourselves to be separate from the traditional Left-Right divides precisely because the rationale underlying our positions is fundamentally theological, and not beholden to the underlying political ideologies of either the Left or Right (if there is any such discernible thing anymore anyway in this era of big budget, Big Brother neo-conservatism).
Just my .02...
Posted by: Mike Clawson | Feb 25, 2008 at 02:13 AM
Hey Tim. Good to hear from you.
“…bizarre/confusing…”
You know me pretty well. These are my trademark qualities. :)
Much of my time the last four years has been more focused at the PCUSA national level. Part of what colors my remarks is hearing how others perceive Emergent and Emerging Church from within that context. I’m not suggesting that the board of Emergent is working to identify the Emerging church with political progressivism although I do think at least McLaren does that in his “Everything Must Change.” The enthusiastic embrace of this book in Emerging Church circles highlights that connection for me. I’m mostly suggesting an ethos at work, not a conspiracy. Here are a few other observations.
First, I responding to line in the e-mail to Tony “If I had to guess, I would say that the leaders of the emergent Christianity phenomenon (as you’ve described it) are, in fact and perhaps unadmitted to themselves, good old-fashioned liberals.”
Second, McKnight wrote in his five streams of the emerging church article in CT:
A final stream flowing into the emerging lake is politics. Tony Jones is regularly told that the emerging movement is a latte-drinking, backpack-lugging, Birkenstock-wearing group of 21st-century, left-wing, hippie wannabes. Put directly, they are Democrats. And that spells "post" for conservative-evangelical-politics-as-usual.
I have publicly aligned myself with the emerging movement. What attracts me is its soft postmodernism (or critical realism) and its praxis/missional focus. I also lean left in politics. I tell my friends that I have voted Democrat for years for all the wrong reasons. I don't think the Democratic Party is worth a hoot, but its historic commitment to the poor and to centralizing government for social justice is what I think government should do. …
Third, on three occasions over the past couple of years at KC Emergent Cohort meetings someone has asked me or the group if it is possible to be both Emergent and by a Republican/conservative. I’ve had people ask me this elsewhere. I’ve never heard anyone articulate this concerning being a Democrat/liberal.
Fourth, one of the common refrains I hear in blogs and in face to face from encounters with young adults embracing emerging church goes something like this, “I used to be part of conservative Christian Republican-voting community but I’ve really found a home in the emerging church conversation.” I’m not saying they don’t exist but I’ve yet to meet the one who says “If used to be part of liberal Christian Democart-voting community but I’ve really found a home in the emerging church conversation.”
Fifth, the great majority of “Presbymergent” folks I come into contact with (who actually understand that emerging church is not a worship style or a gimmick) are drawn to Emergent/emerging church because they share similar interests about being missional but they perceive Emergent comports well with their Mainline Denomination take on social justice. Nearly every movement I see emerging church getting on board with I see parallel expressions within the PCUSA and they are based on the same theological/economic/political analysis.
Is Emergent Village consciously fostering this? No. What I think is more likely is that a great many in the conversation are unaware of how heavily their notions of justice, and the means by which justice can be achieved, are influenced by biblically alien categories. A great effort has been made in deconstructing Evangelicalism but I don’t sense the same level of deconstructive analysis toward Mainline Progressive understandings of justice. The deconstructive effort that has been directed at ecclesiology and mission has not been employed to the same degree toward economics and politics. What has been deconstructed has overwhelmingly been done by theologians and philosophers, not people who are multidisciplinary with a solid grasp of these fields.
I came from a Nazarene background, which I left in 1981 and became PCUSA in grad school in 1983. I changed partly because of certain doctrinal specifics but also because of a dearth of any engagement with justice issues beyond a narrow set of pietistic rules and connection with the then emerging Religious Right. I can very much identify with those who are coming from settings where they feel justice issues have not ignored but I’m disappointed at the “ethos” I see in emerging circles concerning justice issues.
You wrote:
“Further I think it would show some sophistication to recognize that within a young and de-centered relational set that the whole can't be held to answer for a few people whose public image has expanded (especially in a super-charged election year). Even though there are some who are getting more press, it doesn't mean that they are to constitutive of the whole.”
I agree. Yet if there truly is to be a broad conversation I think there has to be forums where those who don’t share the ethos are intentionally brought into the mix.
Sorry for the length of this but I do want to add that one of the things I have always appreciated about you and so many Jacob’s Wellians is the openness of conversation. I honestly don’t get that same feel at the larger regional and national gatherings. Frankly, I Unlike with so many JW folks, I fell tolerated rather than included. :)
I’m trying to gather my thoughts for a series of posts that I expect to call “Not Eveything Must Change” the will dialog with McLaren’s book and maybe flesh out some of my concerns.
Posted by: Michael W. Kruse | Feb 25, 2008 at 10:14 AM
Hi Mike
"I've felt almost beat over the head lately with the anabaptist stuff lately in emerging circles, and am kind of getting tired of defending my continued engagement with mainstream politics."
I can relate to that as well in some contexts. I do think that Anabaptism and progressive politics are two persistent themes in emergent conversations.
“Rather, most of us are motivated first by deep biblical reflection and commitment to a particular vision of the Kingdom of God which then motivates us to public engagement that often gets expressed in ways that appear "liberal".”
And that really is the crux for me. As I noted in the comment to Tim, political progressivism in the emerging church looks a whole lot like political progressivism in the old historic Mainline denominations. I hear identical arguments and common sources referenced in discussion. This is where I think we need to turn a sharp eye.
BTW, did you see the book “Good Intentions” I reviewed today? Julie figures prominently in Chapter 8. They highlight her essay about the “Justice Bra.”
Posted by: Michael W. Kruse | Feb 25, 2008 at 10:29 AM
If that is the case, then maybe we should stop caricaturing the Mainliners as "good old-fashioned liberals" either. If they have solid theological reasoning underlying their progressivism, as opposed to merely being co-opted by a secular leftist ideology, then it wouldn't seem accurate or fair to call them merely "liberal" either.
I don't know enough about the Mainline tradition to personally say whether this is the case, but I do think the rationale behind political positions matters. Being progressive (or conservative) because your understanding of scripture and the gospel leads you there is very different than being progressive (or conservative) because you've bought into the polarities of American politics and have devoted yourself to a particular side.
Posted by: Mike Clawson | Feb 25, 2008 at 01:15 PM
And no, I haven't heard of that book. I'll let Julie know about it. Thanks for the heads up.
Posted by: Mike Clawson | Feb 25, 2008 at 01:19 PM
"Being progressive (or conservative) because your understanding of scripture and the gospel leads you there is very different than being progressive (or conservative) because you've bought into the polarities of American politics and have devoted yourself to a particular side."
I'm with you there.
Posted by: Michael W. Kruse | Feb 25, 2008 at 03:54 PM