You can't talk religion with me for too long with out hearing about the emerging church movement. I think it all goes back to my theory that the emerging church is the inevitable result of what happens when a bunch of Christians wake up one day and realize that the church that they grew up in is no longer able to deal with the world in which they live. That has pretty much described the church, as I've known it, for a long time now, so it's great to see that people take me seriously when I say such things. I just wish such ideas would have gotten more love a decade or so ago.

Of course, it's not all fun and games being an emergent Christian either. For starters, this is a movement, not a denomination, and as such it differs from place to place, church to church, and person to person. I could define it for you, but I'd just be wrong. You have to define it for yourself. The Baptist in me likes that, but the logician in me sort of cringes as the prospects of trying to think about something that defies description.

So here are two things I know about whatever is emerging as the post-”Christian” Christianity: They don't need me, and everything old is new again. I'm not saying that emergents have no place for old people like me, so much as that I am a dinosaur. I went to a denominational seminary back in the days when they had degree programs in Christian Education that were heavily subsidized by one specific publishing house and featured a lot of training in how to properly apply their concepts of education. Being the naturally uncooperative and arrogant person I am, I bristled at this. The best grade I ever got was for the class where I spent all my time criticizing the curriculum and once picked a fight with a representative from that publishing house. Despite this, I know that I carry a set of biases about what “Christian Education” is supposed to be, and how to do it. Even though I love to teach people how to break the system and do things their own way, I still was trained under a system that has, in some people's eyes, proved to be bankrupt. It's really hard to overcome that, and even though I agree with a lot of what I'm seeing, and may have proposed it over the last 20 years, I understand that people like me are not really all that necessary to the movement, and I need to check my professional training at the door. It's both humbling and exciting. Things that I used to be afraid to say, or got in trouble for saying, are now the norm. They're still exciting for me, but not so much for everyone else.

I know that “recovering” or repatriating ancient or different Christian practices is one of the more interesting trends among emergents. I have to admit that I love delving into the rich tradition of my faith and doing stuff that people might have done hundreds of years ago, or at the types of churches that I never would have attended before. Some of the “old” stuff that I might have thought was “boring,” at first glance, has turned out to be pretty interesting. Of course, I've just about been “Lectio'ed” so much that I can't bear to sit through another one, but there are so many things that we've forgotten over the years that we have a lot of “new” stuff to try. The big problem I have with this, though, is that sometimes people have a tendency to do different things just because they are different, and not necessarily because they will produce the results we really want from them. I know that this is some of my old-style “programmatic” thinking coming into play, but I feel a lot more comfortable engaging in practices that I know lead somewhere I want to go, or are somewhat effective in serving a particular purpose. Sometimes, you can get the impression that emergents, or, more tellingly, emergent wannabes, are too caught up in the freedom and wonder of doing something “different” to stop and ask why they are actually doing it. Worse yet, you occasionally see people who are so into doing or creating something different that they forget to do things that are needful, so you can end up with wonderful dialog about ow we are missing the point in the traditional church, but no so much on how the new ideas actually put the church in a position to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, or visit the sick. New ideas and spiritual freedoms are heady things, but it can also be easy to get carried away with them and turn into the ting that you most desperately want to not be.

I identify myself as an “baptimergent” Christian, and I love where the new/old thinking is taking us. Every now and then, though, it's nice to look up and ask where we are truly going. It is, of course, too early to know, but I hope to see clearly as I enjoy the ride.

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