An interesting post by Micheal Patton on the differences and overlaps between evangelicalism and emergent church. Its also available as a PDF. It is nuanced and has some interesting diagrams to illustrate his thinking. In the following diagram we see that Patton sees some overlap between evangelical and emergent.
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Verse:
John 3:16; Jn 3:16; John 3
Keyword:
Salvation, Jesus, Gospel
With Operators:
AND, OR, NOT, “ ”
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This was an interesting post. It caused quite a bit of debate when it came out. Tall Skinny Kiwi, who is something of an emerging church guru responded here and his response is interesting. I think his distinction between emerging and emergent is slightly bizarre. I would see Emergent as one network within the emerging church. I think it is telling that he sees Carson as being at the centre of orthodoxy. (and Driscoll is just Carson in jeans surely
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By: Jonathan Taylor on August 10, 2008
at 8:25 pm
I noticed that Carson was in the centre. But from my reading of the paper it is the centre of conservative evangelcialism and not orthodoxy….He lists the tenants of orthodoxy and Wright & McKnight would fall into this.
. Driscoll is Carson in jeans but I don’t imagine Carson advocates Ultimate Fighting…. Some food for future conversations at Pipe Club I think.
By: jonswales on August 10, 2008
at 9:28 pm
Heh, slow down, read Patton’s portrayal of the emerging-gent landscape and I think you see that at least from the diagram, and as I recall from the text, emergent is not co-existent with the essence of evangelicalism and vice versa. The whole point of Patton’s analysis is that Emergent is liberal and Emerging is Evangelical, or so it seemed to me. Check it out.
All the best in Christ our Lord,
Richard W. Wilson; St. Louis, MO, USA
By: Richard W. Wilson on August 11, 2008
at 8:10 am
Thanks for the comment Richard. I agree that his reading is
emerging=evangelical
emergent= liberal
I would probably agree (tentatively) with his assessment here but soem other comments are neceessary.
1) Emergent is a slippery term. If someone says they are emergent it does not neccesarily mean than are liberal as they may well be using the term differantly. i.e. Driscoll is in a book called ‘listening to the emergent church’.http://www.amazon.com/Listening-Beliefs-Emerging-Churches-Perspectives/dp/0310271355
They are obviously using the word emergent in a differant way than Patton.
2) How would this diagram look if the continuum at the bottom went from modern—> postmodern rather than orthodox–> liberal. For in my opinion those building on a modernist epistemological foundation and those with extreme post modern views are unorthodox. N.T Wright would check in this diagram as neither modern or postmodern with his critical realist episetmology, as would McKnight.
By: jonswales on August 11, 2008
at 9:48 am
Yes, I agree that Patton has decided to define the terms in that way, but I’m not sure things are so simple. Although the term Emergent is often used of those associated with emergent village, sometimes emergent and emerging are used more or less interchangeably. Scott McKnight describes himself on his blog as a ‘friend of emergent’ and he is hardly a liberal.
By: Jon Taylor on August 15, 2008
at 3:01 pm