An article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111704575355311122648100.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
And my thoughts:
On the one hand, I remain deeply grateful to folks like Brian McLaren. When I read the New Kind of Christian trilogy years ago, it helped me acknowledge frustrations with church that I didn't even know I had. It gave me a helpful vocabulary for articulating not only my discontent, but my ideals for the Christian faith. Additionally, people like Dan Kimball and even Donald Miller, to a much lesser extent, helped me begin to think about what church will/should look like as it intersects with postmodern culture. Thus, I remain indebted to the emerging church movement or whatever you want to call it.
On the other hand, if the emerging church movement involves a deconstruction of the modern church paradigm, there has to be something new constructed. Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to say the church should look backward, reflect on its 2000-year history, and remember and resurrect models and practices that fell by the wayside during the Enlightenment. Such an endeavor, however, could hardly be called "cool" or "hip," to quote the article. For example, McLaren, Lauren Winner, the new monastic people, etc., have written about the importance of the spiritual disciplines, which I never heard about growing up in church. Fasting, silence, solitude, spiritual reading, and contemplative prayer, however, are not cool or hip. Neither is downward mobility or serving the poor. Bono and the ONE campaign are cool, but trying to help the displaced residents of Tent City find appropriate shelter is not.
In fact, I would also say that these practices are not all that "relevant." Ours is a culture obsessed with efficiency, effectiveness, and results. The practices of the church do not always produce the fruit we'd like to see, and certainly not as quickly as we'd like to see it. The world would ask whether prayer, fasting, singing, confession, visiting a prisoner, giving a cup of cold water, living simply, etc., actually accomplish much of anything. To which I think the church's response should be, "Not our problem." Our task is not to be effective or even "relevant," as I think that word is commonly understood, although the good news will always be truly relevant as it addresses humanity's deepest needs. But it's not up to us to save the world. Our task is to be faithful to the calling we have received. In small, everyday ways, we seek to embody God's kingdom of love, peace, reconciliation, and justice.
One thing that this will always be is, to quote the article again, "countercultural." Not that we aim to be countercultural to be cool, but that being faithful to the gospel of Jesus in the midst of a fallen world given over to violence, materialism, lust, and pride will always go against the grain. Fasting is countercultural, as is hospitaility, loving enemies and even being willing to suffer at their hands, resisting the principalities when they claim to be gods, refusing to worry, self-denial, choosing to not serve money, putting others ahead of yourself, praying in a closet, or throwing a banquet for people that can't return the favor. Some people will be attracted and buy into our countercultural socio-political-economic practices because they recognize abundant life when they see it. Others will go away sad because they see how much you have to let go of in order to follow this Way. Others will deem us foolish and write us off very quickly as unrealistic and impractical. Others will say all kinds of evil against us because this good news threatens the status quo.
In any event, I agree wholeheartedly with the author that the draw has to be the person of Jesus and the message he brought. Gimmicky attempts to make any of this cool are just not compelling, and they run the risk of compromising the message we bear.
