Holistic Unity
This happens to simply be the first of the set of values about which I'll be writing, not that the order of my list points to a priority. But Unity (there, I've gone and capitalized it) is a good place to start.
The Enlightenment Period was no friend to Church Unity. My close friend Ted has a unique perspective on this, informed by his wife's Orthodox background, and his own travels through the evangelical parachurch, and the institutional church (Orthodox, Anglican, Presbyterian). He likens the last two thousand years -- and its myriad church schisms, splits, plants, reformations, counter-reformations, factions and hatfield/mccoy dramas -- to an auto windshield, dinged by a small rock, and then shattered into innumerable splintering shards. In the Modern Era man got especially good at this. If the church doesn't suit your needs, simply take some of that rugged pioneer individualist and Go Start A New Church. Better yet, go Start a Movement. (we'll talk below about this sentence when we grapple with the so-called Emergent movement and its genesis, and whether Emergent church plants can be agents of unity, or continue the windshield split)
Most if not all of the Christians who stand under the umbrella of the so-called Emergent Church seek to reconnect with the Church as a whole (it was author Brian D. McLaren who called it "trading up our many lower-case 't' traditions for a single, upper-case 'T' Tradition...).
Many of us reared in the evangelical worldview are stepping out into the blinding sunlight, blinking, and for the first time focusing our eyes on two-thousand years of missed Tradition. Missed opportunity. Apostolic and Univeral. The litany of saints, gone before us. We now want to take seriously the Hebraic "cloud of witnesses."
Christ's prayer for unity (John 17) is not bound by time (recovering this 2000 tradition), not bound by denomination (what can I learn from my Methodist sisters? from my Catholic brothers? Croatian Orthodox? Plymouth Brethren?), certainly not bound by gender, race, geography, generations, language, education, ethnicity, paradigms... The word boundless comes to mind.
By Unity, I'm also talking co-laboring, locally and abroad; dialoguing, and not just on one's own turf; opportunities to worship in unity with other believers, and making amends for past wrongs done in the name of denominational, dogmatic, doctrinal posturing. Because we live globally, this means a lot more travel. Pilgrimages to learn from other thoroughly Christian peoples, not seeking to impose our American brand of Christianity.
God-willing: We will learn from these Other brothers; we will adopt and appropriate worship styles, prayers, spirituality, spiritual 'heroes' (again a thought from McLaren), hymns, scriptural emphases that might differ from our own.
Will this bring about institutional unity? Catholics welcoming Protestants to a common table? Orthodox and Roman unity? Maybe. I certainly think we're poised as never before to head in that direction. But it is less important than spiritual unity, a unity which flows from scripture and a shared common creed. For this reason, we will see the earliest creeds (the Nicene creed is a prime example) re-emerge as central to the shared expression of our faith. This laboring to find common ground is not watering down; rather, it is ultimately Christ-like.
As christendom diminishes (both the real and mythological and nominal versions), as Chrsitianity continues its westward and southward circumnavigations, as Christian continents like Europe and North America lose their salt and its churches refine and also go underground (and as pre-Christian continents start sending missionaries our way), we American Christians might finally begin to see what European Christians have seen for a few generations -- that the petty denominational distinctions begin to rightly erode once one looks around and sees fewer and fewer like-minded brethren. As Christians become scarce, we'll head for the high ground of commonality. Of Unity. We'll have fewer and fewer of Modernity's hurdles to stand in the path.
Modernity classifies, distinguishes, taxonomizes and vivissects in order to understand. Post-modernity understands by context, looking for patterns, unified wholes. Just as the former lends itself to fracture, specialization, innovation and discovery, the latter lends itself to healing, community, renovation and recovery. This brings hope to me and many.
Let me take it back to a local level. I talked earlier about church plants. I'd say this. We hope, finally, that an Emergent church plant can indeed effect Unity (and not perpetuate Ted's Shattered Windshield Principle), by the nature of the fact that such a church plant would exist to seek out and live out this recovered ecumenicism -- both a here-and-now co-laboring, dialoguing, co-worshipping existence, and also a historical ecumenicism, capturing the lessons, lives and warnings of this great cloud of witnesses which surround us.
very thought provoking. I find it surprising that there has been an entire "movement" (for lack of a better term) in this direction of unity and reconnection with tradition which has paralleled my own seeking over the past few years, even though I was wholly unaware of that movement.
A few observations and questions on "Unity." My catholic friends would tell me that the RCC has focused on this value since the beginning, and that protestants are right to return to it as an emphasis. So why not just join the RCC (or some other historically contiguous branch, like the EOC)? Why go start a new movement, which seems to be more of the same old modernist "Go make a better church" spirit to which you refer? What better way to connect with 2000 years of tradition and the litany of saints than to join those who never disconnected?
The second question is related: In this pursuit of spiritual but not institutional Unity, who gets to choose which doctrinal or liturgical tidbits are unified and which ones are discarded? Because in the absence of institutional unity (little "u"), it seems that someone must make this choice. This also seems reminiscent of a la carte modernist religion. Who decides what is a "petty denominational distinction" and what represents the "high ground of commonality"? At some point in here, you've got to start vivisecting in the literal sense, since you can't remove portions of a tradition from the overall historical expression of that tradition without destroying some aspect of their meaning.
Posted by: erik | Saturday, June 19, 2004 at 09:21 AM
Ok, I came into this discussion a bit late, so I'm going to go back and make a few rambling comments on these earlier values.
"Unity" in the Church universal poses a lot of questions. Do the denominational/non-denominational divisions point to a body that is not unified? Is "unity" in the local church the bigger priority? Or are they equally important?
I've had the opportunity to be involved with a wide variety of denominations (in the past year, I have participated in ministry with Catholic, Church of Christ, Bible, Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist,etc. etc....even Adventists). My experiences with them have been in pursuing a common ministry goal, and it has been a delight to get to know them and their traditions.
One thing I believe to be true is that "unity" does not equal "agreement" on all issues or ideas. Looking at the definitions for the word "unity", one that stands out is: "a totality of related parts : an entity that is a complex or systematic whole". In that context, unity allows for complexities (i.e. some differences) in the context of relationship. Unfortunately the "systematic" part is pretty dysfunctional in much of the Body of Christ.
There are definitely things that some churches do that damage this idea of unity...friends who encourage us to leave our church to join their denomination, denominational arrogance that comes out in certain topics, exclusion of anything that does not have denominational approval (or exclusion of anything that comes FROM a particular denomination).
It has bothered me when I have sat in a particular church and known that I was not welcome to take communion with them. This is their choice by "tradition."
A comment on Erik's question about rejoining the RCC and rejoining that tradition. While it is very true that the church universal has a common history and tradition to a certain time in history, the RCC is hardly the same church it was at the time of the reformation. Many of the most valued Catholic "traditions" have come in the 20th century.
Erik's second question is very important. Does true unity mean finding one defined set of liturgy and doctrine? Establishing this type of defined set would seem to go against much of what the emergent church is seeking. "Unity" as a value gains significance to me when those with differences can function in unity toward building the Body of Christ. In any one denominational tradition you will always find differences (even in some of the most dogmatic groups there are differences).
Finally, in the missions context, I have also had the privilege to be part of a monthly missions organization luncheon, which represents a wide variety of denominations and organizations. These lunches have been an amazing time to learn about what is going on in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, among ethnic groups in the US, and more. The creative ways that people in this group are reaching out with the love of Christ in the world is astounding and encouraging. Missions definitely does not look the same now as it did 40, 30, or even 10 years ago. I think this group evinces unity of many different traditions, and gives me hope for unity in the church as well.
Unity should be a value of any church, and I think to the extent that churches are able to participate in unity with believers from different traditions, the body as a whoile becomes stronger and more effectively functional.
Maybe instead of a splintered, fragmented windshield, those pieces of glass can be colored and melded into a stained-glass image of the Body of Christ.
Posted by: Robert | Thursday, August 05, 2004 at 05:29 PM
Robert, rambling ensues :)
I'd completely agree that "'unity' does not equal 'agreement' on all issues or ideas." Nor should it. We should all hold our ideas, and the ideas of others, with open and humble hands. It's the prideful certitude to which I've seen fundamentalist friends cling that allowed them to reject others in broad strokes based on their failure to align with the party line.
We need to cultivate a Church (and churches) where we can disagree yet love, free from agenda. See Stephen Shields' "toward a praxis of theologial disagreement" here.
I've included this excerpt:
"I wish for something more. I am looking for the theological, ecclesial practice of genuine theological disagreement where gifted disputants vigorously seek to explore the presuppositions of their opposites. These charitable souls have learned the art of *provisionally adopting the stance of their opposite* in order to 1) understand the position with which they disagree and 2) take into serious account the possibility that their own position is in error."
Onward...
I do think the denominational schisms -- especially those of last five hundred years -- point to a lack of unity.
Saying that the local body's unity is to be prized over the whole Church's is to me like saying the foot's circulatory system maintenance is to be prized even as it is severed from the leg. The larger systemic unity is mandated, prayed for by Christ Himself, and shamefully neglected, usually over peripheral issues.
"A unity that allows for complexity" is exactly what I'm talking about. There are some essays at the end of Webber's "Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail" -- a few of them speak on this excellently. I commend this book to you if you haven't read it.
Here's where I take issue with your post: you write, "Does true unity mean finding one defined set of liturgy and doctrine? Establishing this type of defined set would seem to go against much of what the emergent church is seeking"
I rather see the emergent church as deconstructing Christendom in a very healthy way, peeling back the architecture of theology to its bare elemental forms: a faith which is unified because it is so distilled that it reaches common ground at the center. Each tradition (lower case 't') would still maintain distinctives, yet would all make effort to gather around the creedal lowest common denominator (of course, it's not low at all, but that's the limitation of words)...
I'm running out of brain cells tonight, but that's a start. it's not so much an enlightenment reductionism towards unity, but rather a postmodern deconstruction that exposes the elemental and celebrates the primitive classic Christian ideals, celebrates the creeds, celebrates the saints who hashes this out for our benefit ages ago...
that's all for now.
Posted by: soup | Monday, August 09, 2004 at 08:43 PM
Good anaology of the leg/body circulation. Unfortunately there are many churches that still prefer to prioritize their local body over unity with the Church as a whole.
A little clarification...my question about defining a "set" of tradition or liturgy is actually answered in your response much more clearly than what I wanted to say!
Related to comments elsewhere about parachurch ministries, I have always found it strange that I have experienced more of this type of unity (celebrating commonality and mission across traditional backgrounds) in parachurch settings.
Perhaps some (emphasis on some) parachurch organizations have served as a vehicle for bringing many people from different traditions together and fostered more of the deconstruction you describe. In most of these settings there has also been a common mission: something that takes priority over the traditional distinctives, so that people do find that common theological ground as well. Bringing this type of unity into the church will continue to develop as these types of interactions occur.
Posted by: Robert | Tuesday, August 10, 2004 at 11:10 AM
Yes, yes. And some of the emergent church's reaction against "parachurch" may be just semantics. We can start to look at the work AS the work of the Church, properly understood. We can recover the work of these organizations without all the hoopla, branding, identity and cult-of-personality (the Christian-as-celebrity thing I'm sure you know about), then we're on the right track. Not following Paul or Apollos (or Chuck or James or Charles or Dawson or Billy or John or Joni or Brian), but Christ.
Posted by: paul | Tuesday, August 10, 2004 at 11:17 AM
Agreed!
To wit, a quote from Leadership Journal's weekly:
"A postcard for an upcoming leaders conference intrigues me. The phrase "Be the Gen-X Church" has a red line drawn through it. Also crossed out are versions reading "Postmodern Church" and "Emergent Church." Finally, at the bottom, the card reads simply, "Be the Church." That resonates with me. It's time to move beyond the labels and architecture of the "future" church body and simply be the church today, in the many shapes and styles that minister to people today."
Posted by: robert | Tuesday, August 10, 2004 at 11:53 AM