The Future or Fad? A Look at the Emerging Church Movement

The Future or Fad? A Look at the Emerging Church Movement is an article by Scot McKnight, Karl A. Olsson professor in religious studies at North Park University in Chicago. The article is in an Evangelical Covenant Church denominational publication called The Covenant Companion. (Go to the February 2006, edition and click on the link for a pdf of the article.) I think it is an exceptional article. For more about McKnight check out his Jesus Creed blog. Here are a few quotes:

Not since the charismatic movement of the 1960s or the Vineyard movement of the 1980s has any movement in the church attracted as much attention, resentment, or confusion – and at the same time, seen such a positive reception – as the EM has during the first decade of this new millennium.

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Some would describe the EM outside the U. S. as a highly effective grassroots attempt to reach others with the gospel through local efforts, Bible studies, house churches, and social services. Any description that does not acknowledge the worldwide scope of this movement will fail to see that it is far more than an American sideshow among disaffected evangeclicals.

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D. A. Caron's recent book, Becoming Conversant with Emerging Church, misses the target because Carson criticizes the whole movement by focusing on one leader (Brian McLaren), one issue (postmodern epistemology – the theory of how one knows truth), and one problem (the postmodern denial of truth). The EM is more than McLaren, often not at all concerned with epistemology, and rarely (if ever) does it deny truth.

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Like any new movement, the EM – like the seeker church and the charismatic movement before it – has been seen as either the next big thing or as a threat to traditional Christianity. Neither of the these assessments rings true.

The EM is a post-evangelical group of young Christians who are doing what they can to get the church back in line with the kingdom vision of Jesus. My suggestion is that we listen and learn what the Spirit is saying to the church.

The reason I make this suggestion is that I cannot think of any denomination in the world more in tune with the heart of the EM: a missional gospel that seeks to live out the gospel in such a way that evangelism is what the church "is" as much as what the church "says." That, I think, is a Covenant as it gets. ["Covenant" is shorthand for the Evangelical Covenant Church.]