Emergent?
I took another one of those web quizes (thanks to a link from Blogopotamus), this one to find out my "theological worldview" within Christianity. I came out as "Emergent/Postmodern." Here is the description:
You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.
My score was the same, though, on "Classical Liberal." Not surprisingly, my score on "Fundamentalist" was zero!
The "Emergent/Postmodern" description from the quiz does seem to fit me, as long as we define "evangelism" as sharing one's faith, not imposing one's beliefs on others. I do feel alienated from traditionalist theology, but I love the traditional worship of the Episcopal Church.
I'm a little confused, though. I thought "Emergent" was a new strain of evangelical theology, and I do not consider myself to be evangelical. I was referred to once as an "Emergent" by a "comments" poster on Trev Diesel's blog, but when I asked what it meant, I didn't get an answer. Can someone enlighten me? What the heck is an "Emergent"?
Take the quiz here: What's your theological worldview?
You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.
My score was the same, though, on "Classical Liberal." Not surprisingly, my score on "Fundamentalist" was zero!
The "Emergent/Postmodern" description from the quiz does seem to fit me, as long as we define "evangelism" as sharing one's faith, not imposing one's beliefs on others. I do feel alienated from traditionalist theology, but I love the traditional worship of the Episcopal Church.
I'm a little confused, though. I thought "Emergent" was a new strain of evangelical theology, and I do not consider myself to be evangelical. I was referred to once as an "Emergent" by a "comments" poster on Trev Diesel's blog, but when I asked what it meant, I didn't get an answer. Can someone enlighten me? What the heck is an "Emergent"?
Take the quiz here: What's your theological worldview?
posted by Darrell Grizzle | 4:58 PM
8 Comments:
Fascinating Darrell. I too am one of what you are, an emergent post-modern Or so the story goes. Now I thought the "modern" period was very early in the twentieth century so I was hoping to be at least post post modern if not hypermodern. As with most forced choice questions I'm sure the results say more on the subject of the person setting the options than they do about those who take them.
It's the old story. Just because we invent rulers we think that inches actually exist and that that somehow attaching a number or a relative position to them we have fixed that supposed reality in some sort of knowable space. Classification and measurement have brought us a long way but have also opened up many a blind alley.
And as for emergent. Haven't a clue, unless it means retrieving oneself from the aforementioned blind alleys, and then I"m all for it.
I thought that the emergent movement was a strain of evangelicalism too, but there seem to be Anglicans at CDSP and Seabury-Western who are interested in it. Can't add much more than that. Let me know if you find out anything interesting...
I got Emergent/Postmodern, too, which is funny, since I said I mildly disagree with all the statements that say old churches can't be relevant. :-) I don't quite get what Emergent is, but most of what I've seen has good politics and bad theology. I don't like Barth or neo-orthodoxy, which seem to be pretty strongly tied to Emergent, so I'm not sure why I got that instead of classic liberal.
Darrell, Emergent is a movement within the church - yes, one born out of Evangelicalism. It's tied in closely with the "characteristics of Postmodernism" (if there really is such a thing) such as experiential knowing, mystery, pluralism, etc.
The home-base of the movement is here: http://emergentvillage.com/Site/index.htm
It's a pretty ambiguous entity. Basically a bunch of evangelicals trying to reform.
"experiential knowing, mystery, pluralism" are all good things, in my humble opinion. Thanks for the link, Trev. A fascinating and eclectic site! I was especially impressed by the reading list: Walter Brueggemann, Jurgen Moltmann, N. T. Wright, Wendell Berry...
By pluralism do you mean that most people in the Emergent movement no longer believe Jesus is "the only way"?
It is interesting that the term "emergent" has a strong technical link back into biological evolution, as in emergent species. It does seem to imply that those using the term accept some sense of an evolving spirituality or indeed an evolving Christianity.
Ha, no they still believe Jesus is the only way. I submitted an article to The Ooze that they refused to publish because it wasn't "Christian" enough. (They didn't say that, but I know that's why).
Speaking of, that's another excellent emergent site: www.theooze.com
Modern liberal here. Tied with Emergent Postemodern followed by Classical Liberal.
BUt I had some questions that I couldn't answer because there were no answers that matched me, so I had to just put neutral.
I think I don't fit the categories any more.
And questions about importance (like Barth) are tricky. I think he was hugely important and I disagree with most of what he said. So imprtance and affirming him as someone I'd follow are two different things.
And while I don't love the traditional church, I don't think there's any chance of it dying out either.
Flawed quiz in that way.
I like Spong but he doesn't speak for me either!
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