Comments on: The New Christians…

By: Mike Morrell

Mike Morrell — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 04:23:18 +0000

Oops! The Church of the Apostles I’m referring to is the Episcopal/ECLA/Emergent hybrid coordinated by ‘urban abbess’ Karen Ward of Anglimergent.

By: Mike Morrell

Mike Morrell — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 04:20:29 +0000

Great post, and great questions. I’d say two things:

1.) Many–nay–most emergents don’t ‘outright reject’ the distinction between clergy and laity; it’s upheld, believe me. Now don’t get me wrong, emergent pastors are some of the best and nicest people you’ll ever meet–I say this sincerely. They’re my friends. But they ‘reimagine’ far more theology than church practice. Of course, I’m biased–I’ve been part of an intentional house church community (one or another) for the past ten years. We’re quite egalitarian–more ’starfish’ than ’spider’ for sure. Of course, our downside is we reimagine church structure but don’t challenge too much theology. It’s too bad.

but

2.) I really respect the Episcopal church. I love Church of the Apostles and Br. Karekin and Sara Miles…I think you guys have tons of potential. But I wonder if you couldn’t maybe tweak your core substructures, make them more starfish-like? Y’know, ecclesiology must change or die? Make liturgy once more ‘the work of the people’? I dunno, probably too late at night (on the East Coast) to be thinking such thoughts…I’ll close by saying that I just started reading Wm Countryman’s Living on the Border of the Holy: Renewing the Priesthood of All. Looks promising. I hope to find a place where house church and liturgical kiss.

By: Fr. Ernesto

Fr. Ernesto — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:14:39 +0000

I fear that an Emergent-style event in a mainline church would be like an old Greek mask over the reality. To go back to another generation, guitar Masses in the 1960’s were all too often that same type of attempt.

Mind you, I am Latino. I have NOTHING against guitars in the Mass. I am speaking of the attempt to merge “with-it” and Mass. I am not speaking about instruments in the Mass.

Emergent, by definition, is a challenge to current structural ways of relating. There is a desire to replace current structures by alternate structures (open source vs hierarchical). So, would this be something like Bill Gates putting a Linux interface on top of Windows?

By: Huw

Huw — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:00:56 +0000

You make my point very well: I *love* the experimental liturgy of a certain place in SF. I *equally* love the emergent folks… but I don’t think they would go well together. Now, my ideas about how to mix the “Didache” liturgy in an emergent context are, I think, valid. But There’s really no way to pull a BCP Rt 2 Emergent…

I think the result is the horridly “with it” experience called the U2charist which is even being pushed by some “Anglimergent” folks. One rolls ones eyes, realising that U2 is for GenX (40 somethings) the same as the Beetles were for Boomers - and no, I don’t know anyone under the age of 30 who even listens to the stuff (forgive my anecdotal evidence).

Correction: Not Beetles. GODSPELL!
Second Update look at this discussion between Anglicans… which kinda validates all the things we’ve hit on.