Zeal For Truth

This is the final part of the Changing Church series. For reference see: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.

Due to the size of this topic, the previous entries in this series have been all over the place. We began in the first part by identifying that a shift is taking place and pointing to some examples of that shift particularly in the Emerging Church. Then in part 2 we looked at how the historical church can be used as a critique of the modern church, and finally we have been examining some ways the evangelical church has begun to embrace its past; looking at its history (part 3), using creeds (part 4), and prayer (part 5). In this entry we will return to the to the beginning of the series and attempt to wrap it up by examining an underlying reason for this shift from an a-historical evangelical tradition to the embracing of a historical understanding of the church.

Reconnecting with Church History
Although there have been various efforts in the last couple hundred years to reconnect with church history, the current trend that we have been discussing has, for the most part, been the recent emerging church attempt. Why has the Emerging Church spearheaded such a movement? I believe there are two answers to this question.

The first was dealt with in the second post in this series; they use earlier church tradition to critique the current evangelical landscape. However, this is still only a surface level answer. There are many ways to critique the current evangelicalism without bringing in church history to the extent some in the Emerging Church wish to. Dissatisfied Evangelicals have critiqued the Evangelical churches philosophy, practices and theology often without really offering a historic critique. The deeper answer appears to lie in part with the postmodern worldview that the emerging church has (depending who you believe and look at) either adapted or is responding to.

The Post-Modern Issue
In a recent entry on this blog, Jasen discussed the relationship between post-modernism and the Emergining Church. Although it is difficult to understand what one means when they say “postmodern” these days, for the purposes of this entry I will define it simply as: “The lack of faith in meta-narratives” which follows Lyotard’s famous definition. What does this mean? Taken in a descriptive sense it means that people no longer believe in grand-overarching stories of the world. No longer for many people, particularly those younger, does communism or capitalism make sense of the world anymore. They are recognized as stories that try to make sense of the world, but can not be held universally true.

Christianity is a meta-narrative. It is a grand story that explains how the world works for everything and everyone, and because of this, it is facing a new attack. The point here is not to judge if the rejection of meta-narratives is correct, but to simply point out that this is a current challenge to Christianity. It is also not to judge if the response to this current attack on Christianity is correct. Christianity has always been under intellectual attack, and has always been devising responses. Some of these responses have done damage to the faith (consider the removing the mystical from Christianity in response to modernity), while others have often upheld it (the scientific research into Christianity also in response to modernity).

If people have begun to believe that there is no over-arching story of how the world works, but all stories are local, what are the Christian faithful to do? How are they to respond to this? There are two possibilities; one is to fight against post-modernist assumptions and show that Christianity is the only true and valid meta-narrative , or one can embrace the destruction of meta-narratives and yet try to maintain their Christian faith.

Moving Forward
If one chooses the second, as many (but not all) in the Emerging Church have done, how can they proceed? One way would be to make Christianity local. Remove it from it’s worldwide position and place it in the local context. This process was begun by Stanley Grenz (See his Renewing The Centre) who sought to make the local church the locus of Christianity. It is still unclear at this point what exactly the results of placing the local church at the forefront of Christianity will entail, but if one puts the focus on the local church, what is each church’s connection to the others? Placing emphasis on the local church disconnects it from the universal church which is how evangelicals view churches as connected.

A way to solve this, is to emphasize the historical connection between churches. This keeps Christianity local in context, but allows for meaningful connection with other local Churches around the world. Although some types of Christianity have done this throughout their history (think of Eastern Orthodox), the evangelical tradition has never emphasized its history as a way of connecting their local churches; it has always relied on a universal notion of the church to create unity.

This, I believe, is the underlying reason for the growing historical interest in the traditions of the church among evangelicals. The need to find a connection to the universal church has come to the forefront for evangelicals, and with the new challenge of post-modernism - evangelicals can no longer fall back to the common line that the universal church provides this connection. For a Christian movement that has never had a robust theology of the church, this new need to discover/create (depending on your view) this process will be slow and difficult. But it has begun and will move forward as long as people continue to lack faith in meta-narratives.