The Emerging church is blamed for being too white, too young and too mono-cultural and lately for being too dead. The most scathing critique is that there are few if any minorities involved in the movement. The first time I heard this was when D.A. Caron, one of the leaders of the Gospel Coalition, remarked that Crawford Lorritts said something like this to him regarding the Emerging Church movement during the 2007 Gospel Coalition conference,
"Of course there's a sense in which from the point of view of the African American community, the Emerging Church movement is basically a movement of rich white kids who have their dad's platinum cards and can thus pay for their journey along the road."
The audio can be found here
If you want to hear Crawford's quote as stated by D.A. Carson it begins at about the 12:00 minute mark.
Lately, Soong-Chan Rah has written in his book, The Next Evageliscalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity about the Emerging Church being too white and even more recently an article from Sojourners Magazine gave Dr. Rah a chance to write (along with a student at North Park Seminary) more detail on is perspective. Chances to respond were given to Julie Clawson and Brian McLaren, to spokespeople from the Emerging Church family. The article can be found here
In the article Rah and Mach researched the emerging church's ethnic orientation and Dr. Rah had this to say,
"At the time the emerging church was coming into vogue, I was pastoring a multi-ethnic, urban church plant in the Boston area. It seemed that every brochure for nearly every pastors’ conference I received featured the emerging church. As I began to attend some of those conferences, I noticed that every single speaker who claimed to represent the emerging church was a white male. A perception was forming that this was a movement and conversation occurring only in the white community."
So why is that seemingly true? Why are there so many white guys and girls in the Emerging Church movement? Some would say it is because the EC is a reaction against modernity's influence on the conservative from of Evangelicalism - the search for certainty (which is not Christian but human) through Biblical exposition and propositions. Some would say it is a long overdue re-alignment of the Gospel with social justice. Why the re-alignment - apparently because of the theological witch hunt that many conservatives went on in decades past to protect the Gospel from Liberation theology, the World Council of Churches' dismal failure and the Social Gospel. The result being that social justice and mercy ministries were relegated to the place of little importance or a tool to get people saved - which was the real deal.
Recently in a conversation that I was having with two African American students on campus at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, I asked them why they thought that the Emerging Church movement wasn't as prevalent or even known in the African American community. They were surprised to hear about some of the aspects of it but when I asked more pointed questions, one of the girls laughed and said in so many words, "We have always been the emerging church. Social justice has always been a part of who we because the social needs of our communities have always been right in front of us - that's how you do the Gospel."
Most African American communities skipped the invasion of modernity into every aspect of their culture and thereby didn't need to be post-modern because they were largely never modern (with exceptions of course). So what bearing does that have on Crawford's earlier remark and did Dr. Rah do enough research into why some whites are drawn to the elements of the Emerging Church movement as opposed to why large swaths of other ethnicities aren't? It is frustrating that whatever white males do can always stink with the stench of imperialism instead of understanding how white people form their cultural identities alongside everyone else. Imperialism is an issue but it isn't the greatest contributor to the distinctives that make up a people group's cultural identity (though it can play a part).
Epistemology, the study of how we know what we know, is much more the issue at hand rather than the color of skin. So how do we do multi-culturalism responsibly without making blunders along the way (which is ultimately impossible but we can do a better job)? If multi-culturalism is good are there any mistakes to be made along the way and have we made some already? What are the mistakes of this ideal push for multi-culturalism? I will discuss that from a First Nations perspective in my next post.
"Of course there's a sense in which from the point of view of the African American community, the Emerging Church movement is basically a movement of rich white kids who have their dad's platinum cards and can thus pay for their journey along the road."
The audio can be found here
If you want to hear Crawford's quote as stated by D.A. Carson it begins at about the 12:00 minute mark.
Lately, Soong-Chan Rah has written in his book, The Next Evageliscalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity about the Emerging Church being too white and even more recently an article from Sojourners Magazine gave Dr. Rah a chance to write (along with a student at North Park Seminary) more detail on is perspective. Chances to respond were given to Julie Clawson and Brian McLaren, to spokespeople from the Emerging Church family. The article can be found here
In the article Rah and Mach researched the emerging church's ethnic orientation and Dr. Rah had this to say,
"At the time the emerging church was coming into vogue, I was pastoring a multi-ethnic, urban church plant in the Boston area. It seemed that every brochure for nearly every pastors’ conference I received featured the emerging church. As I began to attend some of those conferences, I noticed that every single speaker who claimed to represent the emerging church was a white male. A perception was forming that this was a movement and conversation occurring only in the white community."
So why is that seemingly true? Why are there so many white guys and girls in the Emerging Church movement? Some would say it is because the EC is a reaction against modernity's influence on the conservative from of Evangelicalism - the search for certainty (which is not Christian but human) through Biblical exposition and propositions. Some would say it is a long overdue re-alignment of the Gospel with social justice. Why the re-alignment - apparently because of the theological witch hunt that many conservatives went on in decades past to protect the Gospel from Liberation theology, the World Council of Churches' dismal failure and the Social Gospel. The result being that social justice and mercy ministries were relegated to the place of little importance or a tool to get people saved - which was the real deal.
Recently in a conversation that I was having with two African American students on campus at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, I asked them why they thought that the Emerging Church movement wasn't as prevalent or even known in the African American community. They were surprised to hear about some of the aspects of it but when I asked more pointed questions, one of the girls laughed and said in so many words, "We have always been the emerging church. Social justice has always been a part of who we because the social needs of our communities have always been right in front of us - that's how you do the Gospel."
Most African American communities skipped the invasion of modernity into every aspect of their culture and thereby didn't need to be post-modern because they were largely never modern (with exceptions of course). So what bearing does that have on Crawford's earlier remark and did Dr. Rah do enough research into why some whites are drawn to the elements of the Emerging Church movement as opposed to why large swaths of other ethnicities aren't? It is frustrating that whatever white males do can always stink with the stench of imperialism instead of understanding how white people form their cultural identities alongside everyone else. Imperialism is an issue but it isn't the greatest contributor to the distinctives that make up a people group's cultural identity (though it can play a part).
Epistemology, the study of how we know what we know, is much more the issue at hand rather than the color of skin. So how do we do multi-culturalism responsibly without making blunders along the way (which is ultimately impossible but we can do a better job)? If multi-culturalism is good are there any mistakes to be made along the way and have we made some already? What are the mistakes of this ideal push for multi-culturalism? I will discuss that from a First Nations perspective in my next post.
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