Can evangelicals afford to write off the emerging church? asks CAMERON MUNRO.

I sat in my office and pondered… 

I had just read Madeleine Collins' dissection of the Emergent Church movement in May's Southern Cross ("True confessions of the emerging church') and it raised some issues for me. I read Jim Ramsay's comments that the Emergent Church movement was "a shaking of Christian orthodoxy' and a "dress-up religion'. I digested images of ice cones slicked with red food colouring and barbed-wire crosses.  I cringed at the question that (perhaps unwittingly) placed "Bible-based Christianity' and the emergent movement in opposition.

Why? Because, in the end I do not believe that they are necessarily opposed. So I decided that I should get into action and see if I could start a conversation. I acknowledge that I am not an "expert', but then with the postmodern world the last thing you really want to set yourself up as is an expert

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I know that this may have alarm bells ringing for some of you, but in true Emergent style let's "dialogue' together to see if we can "imagine' an evangelical+emergent future.

As I read Madeleine's article, I could not fault much, but I wonder whether she has painted a caricature of the Emergent movement? Did the article present the norm or the exception?  In the end, who knows?, but I believe that the picture she painted does not need to be the only picture.

To understand the Emergent movement you must come to grips with where it is coming from. In the article, Jim Ramsay saw the Emergent movement as a "reaction to the polish of the mega-churches " the famous Rick Warrens and Willow Creeks. While this is true to an extent, I believe that the roots of the Emergent movement go further and deeper than that, deep into a significant shift in our culture (along with those of the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand).

While it is not possible to trace the movement to one person, event or place, a story may help in understanding its appearance and development. In the late 1960s Lesslie Newbigin returned to the UK from over three decades of missionary service in India. He found the Christian church in England had effectively lost touch with the culture in which it existed.  The culture had moved radically but the church had not. The Christian culture that Newbigin remembered had almost disappeared. The church could not connect with the unreached masses, not in India or Africa, but on its doorstep. 

Although most of us haven't been in India for 30 years, this is an experience that will resonate with many of us. Churches that seated 500 people now seat 20, or 40, or 80.  Sunday School programs that taught hundreds, or even thousands, of children the good news of Jesus Christ now struggle to attract 10 children regularly.

From the 60s to the present day we have seen a massive cultural shift. Some call our culture Post-Christian " we bear some of the basic outlines of a Christian culture, but it is fading fast. Things have changed " whether in our families, our communities, our cities or our world. 

Our society looks very different to society 50 years ago, but do our churches? The language young people speak has changed, but have the voices they hear speaking in the name of Jesus Christ? When we speak of God, of Jesus, can they understand us? I am not speaking of the children and youth raised in our churches (we have taught them to think) but rather the teenager who thinks that Mary and Joseph named their son using a swear word.

Is this because of our allegiance to the true gospel (we would like to think this), or perhaps because we have confused the gospel with our way of seeing and saying things?  Can we be true to "biblical Christianity' and yet accommodate our message to our changing culture?

On the other hand, Jim is right in seeing the Emergent movement as a reaction against the "mega-churches'.  Perhaps not against the gloss, but against the easy answers " "do this and your church will grow'; against the blind adoption of corporate management models into the church " "the leadership of the "Alpha Male"'; against the subversion of faith by individualism and consumerism " "Let me tell you what God can do for you'; and against a search for black and white, when our world has so much grey. The Emergent movement may well be a reaction against us.

Why does Brian McLaren feel the need to describe himself as a "missional + evangelical + post/protestant + liberal/conservative + mystical/poetic + biblical + charismatic/contemplative + fundamentalist/Calvinist + Anabaptist/Anglican + Methodist + Catholic + green + incarnational + depressed-yet-hopeful + emergent + unfinished Christian'? Perhaps he is having a poke at us who feel that we must define ourselves with increasing numbers of adjectives in front of evangelical in case someone may think that we are like "them'? Perhaps he is also saying that he is open to explore questions of living as God's people with anyone who names "Jesus as Lord'?

The Emergent movement is simply asking questions about how we live as God's people in a radically different environment. We may not like some of the answers they are giving, but can we afford to ignore, or write off, the questions?

Cameron Munro is the minister at Denham Court Anglican Church in south-west Sydney.  He is a graduate of Moore College (twice over) and is currently attempting a Doctorate of Ministry in Missional Leadership through Fuller Theological Seminary, California.