Examining tensions within the emergent Christian church

Five years ago, the emergent church was not in our religious vocabulary. We were aware that something significant was happening among Christian churches that was new and unprecedented.

Young people were leaving churches in huge numbers. Most were leaving with no intention to ever return. However, many of those who were leaving were reforming themselves into small groups that are being identified as house or home churches. Their gatherings are marked by both worship and vigorous discussion. Discussions are far ranging, but typically focus on Jesus, the rural rabbi from Nazareth.

The emergent church has not just entered our vocabularies. Emergent churches are statistically significant, are being researched and spokespersons are arising and giving public voice to the movement. Emergents are sincere believers; they are also questioners. At or near the top of the questions being debated by emergents is the meaning and significance of the death of Jesus from Nazareth.

This is not a new debate. Students of the history of theology recognize that theories about the significance of the death of Jesus on a Roman cross were a major discussion among the early Church Fathers and among the leaders of the Protestant Reformation. While the meaning was debated, no one questioned that Jesus died for the sins of the world. Neither the Apostles’ Creed nor the Nicene Creed make any mention of the meaning of the death of Jesus. They simply state that he died, was buried and rose from the dead. The debates that took place over the centuries were within the framework of the churches’ creeds and orthodoxies.

A dramatic change began to take place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in America. As a reaction to liberalism, American Protestants began formulating the fundamentals of the Christian faith. Defining the fundamentals was a tool to identify those who were in and those who were out. Arguments came to a significant head between 1910 and 1915 at Princeton Theological Seminary. Out of debates at Princeton five fundamentals were identified. One of the five was the substitutionary atonement of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

According to this understanding of the death of Jesus, all of humankind is under a death sentence because of sin. God himself has pronounced this death sentence and his holy integrity cannot be satisfied without executing the death penalty. To give humankind a way out, God in his mercy sent his son into the world for the specific purpose of dying for the sins of the world as a substitute for us all. While the Roman Catholic Mass and the Protestant Communion service are open to such an interpretation, the demand of God for a substitutionary atonement has never been stated in such rigid, unrelenting terms as it was in the Princeton statements.

The Princeton fundamentals became the basis of 20th century American Christian Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism.

In the American emergent church there is a clear movement away from Fundamentalism. The emergents that I know do not want to be identified as liberals. They see themselves as a movement to reform Evangelicalism. Central to their pursuit is the desire to learn more about the life and teachings of Jesus. There is new motivation to study and understand the aphorisms and parables of Jesus. They are finding a Jesus that was fully engaged with everyday life and who, in fact, was crucified by Roman authorities as an insurrectionist. In the study of the life of Jesus, people are finding a man of love, peace, reconciliation and service. They do not find a shred of violence in him.

The corollary of this is that in emerging churches, they are questioning the violent side of God that is part and parcel of substitutionary atonement. I strongly suspect the meaning of the cross will become the battleground of Christian theology in the next decades.

Places of Christian worship are dominated by crosses. The cross is the logo of the Christian church. The Roman Catholic mass and the Protestant Communion celebration are vital and central to Christian worship. These are celebrations of the death of Jesus for the sins of the world. Our understanding of God is at stake as we discuss and argue the meaning of our Communion celebrations.

In our communications age, the younger generations are saying, “We have to talk about this!” Our churches are seemingly not yet ready to discuss the meaning of our worship ceremonies and our most prominent logo and the very nature of God.

Brian McLaren has become a significant voice in the emergent church. His most recent book is titled “A New Kind of Christianity.” The subtitle of the book is “Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith.” The reader can agree or disagree with McLaren’s conclusions, but rest assured he is asking the vital questions.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister who lives in Palmer. His e-mail address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.