!!??!! Major schisms in the NCO !!??!!

[Apocrypha]

[edit] History
There has been a strong bias in the US to ignore a history to the Emerging Church that preceded the US Emergent organisation, which began with Mike Riddell and Mark Pierson in New Zealand from 1989, and with a number of practitioners in the UK including Jonny Baker, Ian Mobsby, Kevin, Ana & Brian Draper, Sue Wallace amongst others from around 1992. Emergent emerged in the late 1990s.


[edit] Values and characteristics
A number of detailed international research projects have identified a number of themes to the values of the Emerging Church. These include the below.


[edit] International Research based values
A number of pieces of research including Gibbs & Bolger have identified a number of core based values in the international emerging church drawing on narrative action research, {E Gibbs, R Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Communities in Postmodern Cultures, (London: SPCK, 2006), 44-5. These include:

1. Who take the life of Jesus as a model to live (life as spiritual journey). 2. And who transform the secular realm. 3. As they live highly communal lives. 4. Welcome those who are outsiders. 5. Share Generously. 6. Participate. 7. Create. 8. Lead without control (unity in diversity). 9. And function together in spiritual activities.


[edit] Postmodern worldview
The emerging church movement arose as a response to the perceived influence of modernism in Western Christianity. Just as sociologists noted a cultural shift to postmodern ways of perceiving reality in the late 20th century some Christians also began to advocate changes within the church to respond to these same perceived cultural shifts. These Christians saw the contemporary church as being culturally bound to modernism and contoured their practices to reach a culture that no longer related to some of the common incarnations of Christianity. Emerging Christians began to challenge the 20th-Century church regarding its use of institutional structures, systematic theology, use of propositional teaching methods, a perceived preoccupation with buildings, attractional understanding of mission (trying to bring people into the church rather than improving their world), professional clergy, overemphasis on the facade of goodness and the perceived preoccupation of conservative Christians in the political process.

As a result, the emerging church believes it is necessary to deconstruct modern Christian dogma and avoid the use of jargon, called Christianese, that has become increasingly irrelevant to the prevailing culture. The emerging church accomplishes this by engaging in two-way conversations, or dialogues, rather than proclaim a predigested message and in this way leads people to Jesus through the Holy Spirit on their own terms. Many in the movement embrace the missiology that drives the movement in an effort to be like Christ and make disciples by being a good example. The emerging church movement contains a great diversity in beliefs and practices, although some have adopted a preoccupation with sacred rituals, good works, and political and social activism. Much of the Emerging Church movement have also adopted the approach to evangelism which stressed peer-to-peer dialog rather than dogmatic proclamation and proselytizing.[citation needed]


[edit] Postmodern hermeneutics
A plurality of Scriptural interpretations is acknowledged in the emerging church movement. Participants in the movement exhibit a particular concern for the effect of the modern reader's cultural context on the act of interpretation echoing the ideas of postmodern thinkers such as Jacques Derrida and Stanley Fish.


[edit] Narrative theology
Narrative explorations of faith, Scripture, and history are emphasized in some emerging churches over exegetical and dogmatic approaches (such as that found in systematic theology and systematic exegesis), which are often viewed as reductionist. Others embrace a multiplicity of approaches.


[edit] Generous orthodoxy
Some leaders in the movement publicly welcome open discussion with other religions regarding the definition of Christian faith.[citation needed] Others in the movement label the practice differently, calling the interfaith dialog a means to share their narratives as they learn from the narratives of others.[citation needed] Self-proclaimed emergent author Marcus Borg, for example, notes that individuals who have read the same Bible "literally" may have different accounts of the message of Christianity, which are often mutually exclusive. Borg claims that many aspects of people's lives, including their political beliefs and their surrounding culture can provide a "lens" that can distort the Bible and influence which parts of the Bible they take literally, and which parts they may ignore.[4] Some Emerging Church Christians believe there are radically diverse perspectives within Christianity that are valuable for humanity to progress toward truth and a better resulting relationship with God, and that these different perspectives deserve Christian charity rather than condemnation[citation needed]

Additionally, many participants in the movement assert that dogma has led to the tragic events in history such as the Salem Witch Trials, genocide occurring during the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and many other unfortunate events. Recognizing this, many Emerging Christians reject such dogmatism, preferring liberty in Scriptural interpretation on many issues deemed "non-essential".[citation needed]


[edit] Authenticity
The movement favors the sharing of experiences and interactions such as testimonies, prayer, group recitation, sharing meals and other communal practices, which they believe are personal and sincere over propositional, dogmatic presentation of the Gospel. Teaching in the Emerging Church tends to view the Bible and its stories through a lens which they believe finds significance and meaning for their community's social and personal stories rather than for the purpose of finding cross-cultural, propositional absolutes regarding salvation and conduct.[5]


[edit] Conversation
The movement's participants claim they are creating a safe environment for those with opinions ordinarily rejected within modern conservative evangelicalism and fundamentalism. Non-critical, interfaith dialog is favored over dogmatically-driven evangelism in the movement.[citation needed] Those in the movement do not engage in aggressive apologetics or confrontational evangelism in the traditional sense, preferring to allow persons the freedom to discover truth through conversation and relationships with the Christian community.[citation needed]


[edit] Missional living
Participants in this movement assert that the incarnation of Christ informs their theology, believing that as God entered the world in human form, adherents enter (individually and communally) into the context around them, aiming to transform that culture through local involvement in it. This holistic involvement may take many forms, including social activism, hospitality, and acts of kindness. This beneficent involvement in culture is part of what is called "missional living."[6] This approach leads to their focus on temporal and social issues, as opposed to a perceived Evangelical overemphasis on eternal salvation.[citation needed]

Emerging communities participate in social action, community involvement, global justice and sacrificial hospitality in an effort to experientially know and share God's saving grace. At a conference titled The Emerging Church Forum in 2006, John Franke said “The Church of Jesus Christ is not the goal of the Gospel, just the instrument of the extension of God’s mission”. “The Church has been slow to recognize that missions isn’t a program the Church administers, it is the very core of the Church’s reason for being.”[7]