{"id":4600,"date":"2009-07-13T10:14:59","date_gmt":"2009-07-13T15:14:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/?p=4600"},"modified":"2009-10-17T20:20:46","modified_gmt":"2009-10-18T01:20:46","slug":"what-is-emergent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/what-is-emergent\/","title":{"rendered":"What is emergent?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"what<\/a><\/p>\n

There continues to be a great discussion across the Interwebs as folks try to nail-down exactly what it means to be “emergent.”<\/p>\n

Folks are coming into the conversation from all different places in their lives, as well as at different points in the emerging conversation.<\/p>\n

Some people have been discussing emerging Christianity since the 1960’s (or before); some have been in the the discussion for 15 to 20+ years<\/a>; some picked up the discussion circa 1997 when the initial discussions were taking place that ultimately led to the formation of Emergent Village<\/a>; others listened in at various points along the way and started to align themselves with the emergent conversation in more recent years (myself included); and still others are on the “outside” hearing criticism from various folks and groups and wondering what its all about.
\n
\nRegardless of where you are in the journey and conversation, welcome!<\/p>\n

While defining the emerging church movement is probably similar to trying to nail jello to the wall, I thought I’d take a stab it this week by sharing what I’ve come to understand it as over the last few years. <\/p>\n

In no means will this week’s posts bring about a conclusive definition, but perhaps it will help define what I have currently<\/em> come to accept and understand.<\/p>\n

This week’s conversation started over on Facebook with a couple of comments related to the book, “Why We’re Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be<\/a>.” (Andrew Jones has a great review of the book<\/a> on his site.)<\/p>\n

I haven’t read the book personally, but it is on my list of books to read (even though its near the bottom right now ;-)).<\/p>\n

As an aside, there’s an interesting video<\/a> from the 2009 Christian Book Expo (which was held earlier this year in Dallas) in which a guest panel who try to define\/nail down what emergent means (the panel includes one of the “Why We’re Not Emergent” authors). It ends up being a lot less generous and friendly than I would have hoped to have seen. And ultimately they don’t get very far in the conversation.<\/p>\n

On Facebook, I offered a very basic 30,000 (if not 50,000) foot view of what I’ve come to understand emergent as and I’ll try and narrow some of it down in several other blog posts later this week.<\/p>\n

With emergent Christianity, there is a concerted effort towards dialogue and wrestling with our faith in community\/ecclesisa rather than simply accepting what theologians of yesterday have told us. There’s a much greater emphasis on “generous orthodoxy” and learning about God through community and each other than the typical top-down approach of a seminary trained pastor speaking for God.<\/p>\n

“There is an over reaching envelope of friendship and reconciliation that must surround all debates about doctrine and dogma.” T Jones<\/em><\/p>\n

So there’s the opening statement. I hope to drill down into several ideas including Generous Orthodoxy, Centered Sets, Missional and Trinitarian Based Values.<\/p>\n

It’ll be interesting to see where we go from here. Hopefully it will be a learning experience for all of us (myself included). I hope you’ll jump in and weigh in throughout the week (and beyond).<\/p>\n

Part 1 :: A generous orthodoxy<\/a><\/strong>
\nPart 2 :: Centered set<\/a><\/strong>
\nPart 3 :: Missional<\/a><\/strong>
\nPart 4 :: Trinitarian based values<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There continues to be a great discussion across the Interwebs as folks try to nail-down exactly what it means to be “emergent.” Folks are coming into the conversation from all different places in their lives, as well as at different points in the emerging conversation. Some people have been discussing emerging Christianity since the 1960’s … Continue reading What is emergent?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,19],"tags":[2268,1103,2269],"class_list":["post-4600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-reflections","tag-emergence","tag-emergent","tag-emerging-christianity"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pEnSo-1cc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4600\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}