Progressive vs. Emergence Christianity: From Where I Sit (Phyllis Tickle)

Patheos -Progressive Christian Portal:  Progressive vs. Emergence Christianity: From Where I Sit

Despite the sharing of conversations, there still are some distinct differences between Progressive Christianity and Emergence Christianity.

… Despite that sharing of conversationalists, however, there still are some distinct differences between Progressive Christianity and Emergence Christianity, at least three or four of which should be mentioned even in so brief an overview as this one. For example, Progressive Christianity pivots on social justice. Social justice is, likewise, a major concern and hallmark of Emergence Christianity, wherever in the Latinized world it may be forming and becoming operative. The difference—and it is, to me, a telling one—is in the underlying approach to the issue.

In dealing with matters of social justice, the Progressive stance and course of action generally are first intellectualized, then politicized, and finally formalized. By contrast, the Emergence posture or approach is far more pedestrian and humble in both its articulation and its delivery. Emergence Christians will defend vigorously their position that as long as some act of social justice has been a matter of "our doing something for them," the act is fundamentally one of enlightened or informed self-interest, if not plain old commonsense. Social justice, Emergence contends, really is—really must be—an exercise in "us helping each other" in whatever way possible here and now because of the bond of commonality that is Christ in all of us. …

… Almost as remarkable is the way in which the operative approach to Scripture differs between the two groups. The Progressive stance, once again, is far more intellectualized than is that of Emergence. Born in a time of burgeoning Pentecostalism, Emergence Christianity and Emergence Christians are naturally inclined—increasingly so, in fact—toward the approach of communal discernment and direct appeal to the Holy Spirit for explication and direction. Such a stance allows Emergence to be more or less innocent of biblical literalism and far more inclined toward a kind of apophatic or Orthodox actualism.

Authority, for Emergence, is not yet firmly defined or ensconced, whereas for Progressives it tends to be fairly well rooted in situational, critical, and historical analysis. …