Emerging Church Syncroblog: It's Like a Game of Ping Pong

There has been a lot of chatter around the interwebs lately regarding how the church emerging in this 21st century is a mostly white male phenomenon. On one hand, there is good reason for this discussion. Many of the bestselling authors and rockstar speakers still happen to be middle-class white guys with Evangelical roots, and it is easy to assume that the most visible players define the whole. Nothing against privileged white guys with big platforms, but most of us know that they are not the sum of (or the core of) what is stirring in the church these days...

...So on Monday April 19, I encourage you to post at your blog (or Facebook page) your thoughts about "What is Emerging in the Church."  - blogger and author, Julie Clawson

The Emerging Church Movement (ECM) is a phenomena of a kind of trend {or reformation, or pre-reformation?}  of rethinking and especially retooling of many of the sacred beliefs and traditional views about church forms and faith expressions in the current age we find ourselves in. Some consider the ECM a breeding ground of fringe heretics.  Others find the influential voices of the ECM to be annoying at best and downright dangerous at worst. Christians are very good - and very famous - for guarding doctrine as if they are holy relics full of mystical power.
I became fascinated with the ECM about five years ago. That's about the time I took the Red Pill.
Fellow blogger and Oregonian, Peter Walker, sums up very nicely the anxiety he trudged through as he, too, became engaged with what is known as The Conversation:

I think one of the most exciting realizations for me, six years into my participation with the Emerging Church, is that my fear of the EC being a slippery slope into liberalism was completely founded.  I have become a liberal.  And that was just about the scariest thing I could have pictured at the precipice, looking down into a chasm of deconstruction in 2004.  The reason that's exciting is that I am discovering, little by little, what vibrant faith looks and feels like on "the other side."  

I haven't turned into a deist, though I'm not scared of deism.  I haven't found atheism compelling, though I've had some great conversations with atheists.  And perhaps most amazing, I still love Jesus, and I still picture the same close, loving, intimate God when I close my eyes and pray - the same God I prayed to as a conservative Pentecostal!   (click HERE for Peter's full post)

Julie Clawson, the blogger and author who initiated this synchroblog about the ECM, mentions that there has been some wringing-of-hands lately over the white male dominated "Conversation" of the ECM.  Yes, there have been many critics who perceive that an almost elite group of authors and leaders get the biggest soapboxes with the best VIP perks to sell their version of the ECM whilst many other just as important view points and voices are kept marginalized.  It's that whole power thing that's been plaguing humankind since way back in the day. 


A popular blogger who goes by the online moniker, Tall Skinny Kiwi, has written extensively about the ECM. I like how he put it this way, a simplistic and definable sketch of what many have considered a great big ball of tangled up belief systems that have  unraveled in a windstorm:

But something bigger is going on. What has been defined as "orthodoxy" is being challenged by a new generation with a new approach and a new mindset. And although a particular man-made doctrinal construction may have been considered as "orthodox" by one generation, it will need to be reestablished by the next if it is to regain and maintain credibility and usage.  - Tall Skinny Kiwi

This little paragraph doesn't nearly capture the prolific communicator and thinker TSK is, so if you are a church nerd who adores history, etc.... be sure to prowl around his site for some great ECM history lessons.

So, I am totally at risk of pulling quotes from all kinds of bloggers and writers and yet forget my own. I want to keep this post at a reasonable length so I'll stop stalling and sort out what I think about the ECM and whether or not it's entirely dominated by white guys with fancy seminary educations.

Here's my dealio:  it's like a game of ping pong. My view point shifts each time I listen to someone from the other side of the net make their play. My head swings side to side, left then right, watching the little white plastic ball make it's way from one side of the green table to the other. Both players are good. Both have great style and great aim. But it's the ball that fascinates me; the little orb of lightweight plastic that sails across that net with all the finesse of a seagull soaring over a sea of blue.  {pardon my poetic leanings tonight. I just spent three glorious days at the Oregon coast!}

I hear what many critics decry as White Man Heroism (again!) as if the ECM is an Avatar'ish attempt at being Savior of the needs-to-be-rescued church.  And then I see the ball fly over the net to someone like Julie Clawson or Peter Walker who quickly switch out the little white ball for a mulit-colored ball and then they serve it with a swift swing of their ping pong paddle.  I know Peter and Julie a bit and think they are both insightful writers.  If they say that the ECM is not exclusively a White Boys Club then  I believe them.

I guess I'm not all that drawn in to take up a paddle and lob the ball around for a set or two on this one. In other words, I'm wishy-washy when it comes to having a firm opinion about whether or not the ECM is a white guy thing or not. I don't really pay attention a whole lot except for where something personally provoked me, and if my thinking got broadened ,well then I did not really care who the messenger was, just that I got the message.  And since I live in the US, where the vast majority of churches and seminaries as well as other institutions of power, that means that many if not most of the positions of power and influence are likely held by white guys with degrees. That's the context, in very broad strokes, of the context I find myself in. White guy, Black woman, Asian teenager, gay transgendered Pagan, however my Higher Power as I understand him/her wants to intersect my ears with a voice to pay attention to, is fine with me. I do not need Jesus to install an affirmative action plan.  The wind blows where ever it will, messing up outdoor ping pong games regardless of who's holding the paddle.

Ok. It's quite late. My three days of refreshment at the beach has messed up my circadian rhythm. Thus, the writing of this post in the middle of my Portland night. Figured it was better than trying to count sheep. Or ping pong balls!

***  If you find the Emerging Church movement intriguing be sure to check in at Julie's blog page. She'll be listing a blogroll of bloggers who have participated in this syncroblog, and surely there will be among them writers who will have something of substance to say that far outruns my ping-pong table metaphor.