Why the Mission Needs the Marks of the Church
by R. Scott Clark |
Introduction
Doubtless, one of the most significant movements within
evangelicalism at the moment is the “Emergent” or “emerging
churches” movement. The adjectives “emerging” and “emergent”
designate different wings of the movement. Generally, the
“emergent” wing is more radical and the “emerging” wing is a
little less radical. Just as frequently, however, in the
contemporary rhetoric from both wings of the movement no
distinction is made and this essay will speak of the
“emerging movement” (hereafter, EM). Like their older
evangelical brothers and sisters, the EM also rejects (at
least elements of) fundamentalism and revivalism. In their
place, they are constructing a cross-traditional, eclectic
synthesis. Christianity Today writer Andy Crouch describes
the approach to worship and theology of Mars Hill Bible
Church (Grandville, Michigan) as simultaneously “echoing and
subverting a fashion-driven culture of cool.”1 This hip
veneer covers an intentional theological synthesis. As
pastor Rob Bell puts it,
We’re re-discovering Christianity as an Eastern religion, as
a way of life. Legal metaphors for faith don’t deliver a way
of life. We grew up in churches where people knew the nine
verses why we don’t speak in tongues, but had never
experienced the overwhelming presence of God.2
An eclectic approach to Christianity, with somewhat
different results, also marks Brian McLaren’s A Generous
Orthodoxy, in which he describes himself simultaneously as a
“missional, evangelical, Post/protestant,
liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical,
charismatic/contemplative, fundamentalist/Calvinist,
Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, catholic, green, incarnational, depressed-yet-hopeful, emergent, unfinished
Christian.” 3 Authors Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger characterize
the EM thus:
Emerging churches are communities that practice the way of
Jesus within postmodern cultures. This definition
encompasses nine practices. Emerging (1) churches identify
with the life of Jesus, (2) transform the secular realm, and
(3) live highly communal lives. Because of these activities,
they (4) welcome the stranger, (5) serve with generosity,
(6) participate as producers, (7) create as created beings,
(8) lead as a body, and (9) take part in spiritual
activities.4
Scot McKnight gives his own list of 5 characteristics. The
emerging churches (which he distinguishes from “emergent”
churches) are “prophetic (or at least provocative). They are
“postmodern,” “praxis-oriented,” “post-evangelical,” and
“political.”5
The Problem of Defining “Missional”
If the EM is hard to define, it is even more difficult to understand
what Emergent leaders mean by the word “missional.” Perhaps no
single word in the EM is used more than the word “missional.” No
single word is more central to their identity and purpose and yet it
is not easy to find them defining the word “missional.” They often
use it as a crucial qualifier for their understanding of Scripture
or the Christian faith. For example, on his blog, Scot McKnight has
been publishing a series of studies called “Missional Jesus” wherein
Jesus’ life and ministry are analyzed in “missional terms,” with the
result that Jesus appears quite similar to the EM. Judging by their
characterizations of the adjective “missional,” the two seem to be
used as synonyms. In other words, if one will be genuinely
“missional” one must agree with the EM theology. Further, if we
compare the basic attributes of the EM’s self-description with the
accounts given by scholars of pietism, they are virtually identical.6
Thus, in other words, to be identified with the EM is to be
missional, and viewed historically, the EM is simply a contemporary
way of re-stating Pietism. For all the new rhetoric, what we have
is, at bottom, an argument between those who value religious
experience as the highest good and those who, while valuing
religious experience—I call to the stand the Heidelberg Catechism,
William Perkins, and John Owen—value an objective theology, piety,
and practice above subjective religious experience.
What are confessional Reformed Christians to do with these movements
and particularly with this adjective “missional”? This essay argues
that we must do two things: First, if we are to apply it to
ourselves, we must challenge the prevailing EM definition of “missional.”
Second, we must recognize that the Reformed theology, piety, and
practice presents a clear alternative to the EM definition of
“missional” because, unlike the EM, Reformed theology has a doctrine
of the church, which confesses that it is in and through the church
that the Triune God is accomplishing his mission. For us to say “the
mission needs the marks,” is to say that without the visible,
institutional church, there is no mission. In order to have a proper
definition of what it is to be “missional” we must have a proper
definition of what the
church is.
First, the definition of the adjective “missional.” There is some
controversy in the EM over whether the word “missional” is being
“co-opted” by folk such as we who are not entitled to use it.
Covenant Theological Seminary professor Anthony Bradley asks whether
the term “missional” was being “hijacked” by traditionalists of
various sorts. He raises the question whether “missional” types need
another adjective to describe themselves.7 He complains about the
fact that “Church Growth” guys are now using the term. He cites a
document by Tim Keller – who actually provides something of a
definition of “Missional”8 — and says the term is being co-opted by
“the traditional/seeker/program oriented ‘ministries’ driven
church”.9 The problem, he says, is that none of these folks are
genuinely “missional.” He asks, “Can you really be missional if your
personal relationships are confined to the Christian shire? If your
church has no non-Christians attending? If adult baptisms of the
unchurched aren't a regular occurrence, if the church is not serving
the needs of the local community, etc?” The folks at “Reformergent”
define missional as:
Social action, community involvement, and sacrificial hospitality is
primary in lifestyle living. There is once again an interest in
being light and salt in a broken world. This involves primarily
politics and culture. Although the emerging church sometimes lacks
an emphasis on evangelism as part of missional living, there is
still value in their approach to how we can be ‘in this world, and
not of it.’ 10
They give three marks of what it means to be “Emergent” and “missional.”
Those marks are a concern for “social justice,” “authenticity,” and
an “unstructured ecclesiology.”11
Footnotes (on this page)
1 Andy Crouch, “The Emergent Mystique,” Christianity Today, November 2004, 38.
2 Ibid.
3 From the cover of Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 2004). For a critique of McLaren’s attempted
synthesis see R. Scott Clark, “Whosoever Will Be Saved: Emerging
Church? Meet Christian Dogma,” in Post-Conservative Evangelicalism:
An Analysis and Critique ed. Gary Johnson and Ronald Gleason
(Wheaton: Crossway, forthcoming).
4 This is condensed from Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger, Emerging
Churches: Creating a Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 43–44.
5 Scot McKnight, “Five Streams of the Emerging Church,” Christianity
Today, February 2007, 36–39.
6 For a more extensive treatment of this phenomenon and a
confessional invitation to the citizens of the “Emergent Village” to
visit Geneva and Heidelberg, see R. Scott Clark, Recovering the
Reformed Confession (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, forthcoming).
7
http://bradley.chattablogs.com/archives/060218.html
(accessed 5
October, 2007).
8 “adapting and reformulating absolutely everything it did in
worship, discipleship, community, and service--so as to be engaged
with the non-Christian society around it”
http://download.redeemer.com/pdf/learn/resources/Missional_Church-Keller.pdf
(accessed 5 October, 2007).
9
http://bradley.chattablogs.com/archives/060218.html.
10
http://www.reformergent.org/?p=4 (accessed 10 October, 2007).
11 http://www.reformergent.org/?p=4
(accessed 10 October, 2007).
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