One thing that characterizes many in the Emerging Church is the amount of attention they pay to the kingdom of God. Note that the kingdom of God (the term used in Mark and Luke) and the kingdom of heaven (the term used in Matthew) refer to the same thing. This kingdom focus seems appropriate in the light of Matthew 6:33: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
Definition
According to Dallas Willard, the Lord’s Prayer provides a short definition of the Kingdom of God. “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” means that the Kingdom of God is where God’s will is done. God’s kingdom is in full force in heaven, but on earth, it is permitted to be partially absent.
The main teaching of Jesus was the kingdom of God. He proclaimed the kingdom to have come (Luke 11:20). This kingdom has been entered into by people (Col 1:13), and is in the midst of human life (Luke 17:21). It is then, a present reality we can participate in, and not just a future reality. Although the kingdom is here, there is also the truth that it is not yet. That is, the kingdom will be fulfilled completely at the second coming of Christ.
In the Emerging Church
There is a high emphasis on the kingdom of God in the Emerging Church. Some see this emphasis as being the single most agreed upon position in the notoriously diverse Emerging Church.
Jesus’ message of the kingdom, is held to not only to be the good news of personal salvation and a promised future in heaven, but also a call to be agents for God’s kingdom here and now. This involves not only the task of making disciples, but also working for peace, justice, and mercy in the world today. It is living for the values of God’s kingdom rather than for any of man’s values.
In practice, this kingdom focus involves a great deal of what has commonly been called social work. This is the fulfillment of the command to love our neighbors. Besides the idea of the kingdom of God, motivation for these practices is commonly drawn for the Old Testaments prophets. For example, take Isaiah 58:6-7:
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Criticism
Criticism of the Emerging Church’s focus on the Kingdom of God (from American Evangelicals) appears to come from two main areas. The first, are those who worry that the focus on the kingdom of God will produce a social gospel that minimizes or ignores the idea of individual salvation. The second set of objections come from certain quarters of strict dispensational premillennialism.
The first objection is a valid concern. As Tim Keller notes, churches have a hard time integrating both the individual (evangelism) and corporate (working for justice and peace) practices, although there is no particular reason why this should be. It probably exists somewhere, but I can say that I have not seen the neglect for individual salvation in the Emerging Church that so worries people. The idea that it is hard to hold to both the individual and corporate aspects is baffling to some in the Emerging Church, who wonder how that can be since the motivation to do both come from the same place, love of God and love of neighbor.
The concerns of some dispensational premillennialists are that the Emerging church’s focus on the kingdom of God amounts to postmillennialism, and that it leads to an errant hope that society on earth can improve. The optimism for social change (or at least the potential) in the Emerging Church does resemble that of postmillennialism. However, there is a wide diversity of views on the millennium in the Emerging Church, the main position is probably that of preferring not to take a position on the issue (other than to affirm that Christ will return).
Good post, I like the fairness by which you position the emerging church. Far from being an apostate movement as some hard-line reformer types and others who misunderstand claim it to be, it is really a movement of God that seeks holistic Kingdom demonstration without many of the dualisms that define the right and left in Christianity today.
Your post caught my eye, as I am teaching Matthew 10 (the Mission Discourse) tomorrow and the proclamation of the Kingdom is on my mind. As I read the chapter this morning, I was struck with an observation that seems pertinent to your post: While in the present-tense section (10:5-15) Jesus commands the twelve to proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven, he does not command this in either the future-tense section (16-25) or in the “whoever” section (26-42). These final two sections of the discourse assume that after the initial phase of the mission (before the resurrection?), we would proclaim Jesus, rather than the Kingdom. This seems to cohere with the teaching of the epistles.
Might this be another critique of the focus on Kingdom?
I wonder this because I tend toward Kingdom proclamation and the observation this morning has raised questions in my own mind.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Laura, that’s an interesting observation of Matthew 10. There are other passages to consider though, such as Paul telling the Colossians (1:13) “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” And it is the gospel of the Kingdom that will be preached to all nations (Mt. 24:14).
Also, Willard makes the case that the kingdom exists from the beginning. The Kingdom “God’s reign” was a central message of the Old Testament. Jesus’ message (which would still seem valid today) was that “the kingdom has come near,” that is, we can now participate in it in a fuller sense.
Jasen, Jesus did indeed announce that the kingdom was near (and therefore, it is near). Maybe it’s more a matter of proportion. I guess my concern, for myself and EC, is that we keep the proclamation in balance. Yes, Jesus announced, brought near, and will bring to perfection his Kingdom, but we learn of this in the gospels, which proclaim him.
For the most part, I see EC’s emphasis as a healthy and much needed correction. For too long, the preaching of truth was separated from the doing of truth. It’s just that we have such a tendency to swing the pendulum.
I guess I just don’t see this perceived lack of “doing of truth” in the traditional evangelical church, at least not in my experience. This protest is an exaggeration to make the EC sound new and hip, but really it’s merely a straw man. Unless you mean liberal agenda type stuff like social justice and the like (welfare, government takes care of everyone, that kind of social justice). Then yes, the traditional evangelical church is quite lacking in that area, and thank God!
Darius,
Could be my experience talking. The evangelical church I grew up in focused on knowledge to the extent that a pastor who wanted to start “doing the truth” was run out of the place. I followed, by the way (at the tender age of 19), but apparently the experience has warped my perception. I spoke a bit too much before thinking. I stand corrected.
well, perhaps we should define “doing the truth.” What exactly does that mean to you (and the EC)? Does it mean being a part of the community, reaching out to it and showing them God’s love by serving them? If so, then my Evan. Free church does that, and it is definitely not emerging (in fact, my pastor just said this week that the church would become Emerging over his dead body :)). If “doing the truth” is helping enact social change at individual, community, and political levels by promoting pro-life and pro-family measures and education, then my traditional evangelical church is at the forefront: it supports two crisis pregnancy centers in the Minneapolis metro area. If “doing the truth” is reaching out to disabled people and bringing them to church to worship and reaching out to recovering addicts, then count my church in.
I’m not mentioning this to brag on my church (though I do think very highly of where its leadership is leading it and am blessed to attend such a church) but to say that if the EC is based on a protest against traditional churches’ lack of “doing the truth,” perhaps many in the EC just haven’t looked closely enough. Painting with such a wide brush is irresponsible at best, and spiritually destructive at worst. After all, the Body is called to unity, one thing that the EC seems to forget in lambasting traditional evangelicalism.
I’m not part of EC (though I poke around at the edges). My current church is a nearly 100 year old Baptist church (not a likely candidate for EC). Therefore, I shall let EC speak for itself. As for me, I’ll ponder it as I run off to catch the bus, and get back at ya later.
Here’s my take:
Theology–AKA truth–is both content and practice. Practice includes behaviors and affections. The specific expressions of practice change with culture. What remains constant is trusting and following God.
Practice includes behaviors/affections of persons and communities. We follow Christ as individuals and as a church. It must be both. Practice also includes behaviors/affections in the church and the community.
I realize this is quite general. I’m not sure if the specifics are as important as balance: content and practice, individual and corporate, and inside and outside.
As I see it, that is “doing the truth.”
Yes, I agree. My only question is if the EC’s protest against traditional evangelicalism in this area is accurate. I’m sure there are evan. churches that neglect the “doing” part of the Kingdom, but no more than there are ECs that neglect the “truth” part. In my experience, the E. Free, Baptist, and non-denom churches that I have attended (none of which would be considered EC) did a very solid job of both preaching the Word (truth) and living it and encouraging their members to live it as well.
“no more than there are ECs that neglect the “truth” part.”
Case in point, here is Doug Pagitt on Way of the Master radio.
http://podcast.wayofthemasterradio.com/audio/podcasts/1007/WOTMR-10-22-07-Hour1.mp3
Pagitt is not only weak and/or ignorant in his theology, he’s clearly heretical in saying that there is no difference between the afterlife of a Christian and a Muslim.
Pagitt, since you’re all about reading each verse for itself, what does Jesus’ statement that He is “the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me” mean to you?
Pagitt is not about reading each verse for itself. What he rallies against in that interview is picking verses out of context and putting them together to form a theology, what he wants is to do a kind of narrative theology which, in his mind, would allow each verse to speak for itself how the original writers intended without having an outside theology imposed on it. To him, how the interviewer is interpreting scripture is doing it through a modern lens that no one who wrote it would have understood.
There is an ongoing thread on the discussion board about this interview. I think both of the people involved were awful.
“My only question is if the EC’s protest against traditional evangelicalism in this area is accurate”
It is accurate in some circles–maybe in the specific churches against which they are protesting. There are evangelical churches that are so concerned about accurate content in theology that they neglect the downtrodden in their neighborhood or who fail to speak up for justice, preferring rather to complain to one another about how terrible things are. On the other hand, most evangelical churches do not fit into this category.
So, I would say that the broad brush strokes against the evangelical church are unwarranted. Likewise, though, painting all of EC with the critique against specific individuals is unwarranted. I’m not sure EC is uniform enough for broad stroke criticisms of their theology. From what I’ve seen in my research, read in their writings, and heard in podcasts and conferences, they are all over the map. This being said, we ought to hold their feet to the fire, just as we would any brother or sister.
One of my primary questions at this point is, what do most ECs hold in common and how wide is the range of opinion within these commonalities?
What he’s doing is being a heretic, but that long ago became painfully obvious. He has no understanding of the most basic of Christianity, and to tie it back to this article’s topic, he has rejected truth for the sake of “doing truth.” How can one “do truth” if one completely ignores what truth is???
Good points, Laura, and I agree totally. The EC paints with a broad stroke, but hates it when they are painted with one as well. That is probably what they have most in common.