Theology Thursdays

I would like to begin a new blogging series here…dedicated to considering how Christian theology works out in our lives and culture.
This is one of the things that I like to do…theology. I firmly believe, as do many, that theology isn’t theology if it is simply in the academic world. In fact, I think something that is very pastoral and life-on-life has been pushed off to those who read about it, have well sounding theories, or a systemitized box to hold it all in. It’s kinda like asking the former football player, turned commentator, about the game of football. He will have a lot of good information and necessary angles to look at things, but can he get out there and run the play or teach the team how to run it…will he see the struggles or simply demand that his ideas get done??

I am taking a theology class in seminary right now and our staff is reading a book about 5 emerging church leaders, so there is more than usual thoughts on my mind in this area. Let me share my professor, John Franke’s, definition of theology first (I did it from memory on the mid-term, but I’ll consult the notes just to make sure I get it):

“Theology is an ongoing, second-order, contextual discipline that engages in the task of critical and constructive reflection on the beliefs and practices of the Christian church for the purpose of assisting the community of Christ followers in their missional vocation to live as the people of God in the particular social-historical context in which they are situated.” (you can also find this in his book The Character of Theology)

With that as an introduction, my first theological post is going to be on something that has received much attention to date and will continue to receive more… The Emergent Church, Emerging Church, Emerging Conversation, Emergent Village, etc.

Wikipedia actually has a pretty good description, here is the beginning:

“…is a controversial 21st-century Protestant Christian movement whose participants seek to engage postmodern people, especially the unchurched and post-churched. To accomplish this, “emerging Christians” (also known as “emergents”) deconstruct and reconstruct Christian beliefs, standards, and methods to accommodate postmodern culture.” (you can read the rest here)

I have been following some of these discussions of “deconstructing and reconstructing” for at least 4 years here and like much of what I see! Surely there are some caution flags as with anything that we go into, but I believe that we in the North American Churches are going to need to be more like the missionaries that we send out to other countries… studying the culture, understanding how the truth of the gospel impacts that culture and communicating the good news in relevant 21st century ways!

Well, the definition said it was “controversial” and IT IS! Wow, is it ever, which is good to help process theology! But I do hope that we can be more characterized by what we stand for and support rather than what we are against. I came across some well done anti-emergent posters, themed like the traditional motivational posters, but jabbing fun at some of the perceived or real weaknesses or differences with those who are emergent minded. Below is one I enjoyed and a link to a whole lot more!

by Phil Johnson and the PyroManiacs

I’ll probably be using some more of these as I bring up other topics in Theology Thursdays!