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Church in the Present Tense: A Candid Look at What's Emerging (ēmersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith)
Much has been written by practitioners advocating the emerging church phenomenon, but confusion about the nature and beliefs of those who identify with the emerging church still exists. Now that the movement has aged a bit, the time has come for a more rigorous, scholarly analysis. Here four influential authors, each an expert in his field, discuss important cultural, theological, philosophical, and biblical underpinnings and implications of the emerging church movement. Their sympathetic yet critical assessment helps readers better understand the roots of the movement and the impact that it has had and is having on wider traditions. The book includes a 60-minute companion DVD that provides a background introduction to the emerging church and video clips of alternative worship services. The DVD also contains interviews with emerging church leaders and observers, including Brian McLaren and Rowan Williams.
176 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2011
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94 people want to read
About the author
Scot McKnight
211 books545 followersScot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author or editor of forty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL. Dr. McKnight has given interviews on radios across the nation, has appeared on television, and is regularly speaks at local churches, conferences, colleges, and seminaries in the USA and abroad. Dr. McKnight obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Nottingham (1986).
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 8, 2012
In Church in Present Tense the editor brings together four authors (three and himself) of the Emerging Church movement to discuss four topics: philosophy, theology, worship, and scripture. Each author writes two chapters. Views of each chapter differ (particularly in philosophy), but it is not a response and critique, but rather, in typical emergent fashion, a coexistence of difference. The book had high and low points throughout the book. Corcoran offers a decent overview of "chastened realism." However, he only offers very simplistic, caricatures of other views. Rollins' essays are exactly what one would expect: Heidegger-via-Derrida-via-Caputo plus some medieval Christian mysticism. It was good, but nothing unexpected. Scot McKnight offers two very good essays, one on scripture as wiki-stories (open ended miniature stories about the transcendent "the Story"). He also offers a discussion on atonement theory in the emerging church. By far the greatest contribution of this book was Jason Clark's discussion of liturgy. Spanning two chapters, Clark traces the corrosive nature of consumer liturgies on the Christian life, and traces examples of how to counter these liturgies with ancient Christian practices such as the Church calendar, and a "short-term catechism." It should also be noted that included with the book is a cd with interviews and overviews of the emerging church movements which is an extremely helpful resource for those working in church settings. Over all, I would recommend this book if you are interested in post-modern or emerging Christianity. I would recommend parts of this book more broadly. Christians not interested in the emerging movement will still benefit from reading Clark's essays.
May 17, 2025
A COLLECTION OF BRITISH/U.S. ESSSAYISTS ON THE ‘EMERGENT CHURCH’
Editor Kevin Corcoran is a professor of philosophy at Calvin College. He wrote in the Introduction to this 2011 book, “The Christian church has a history… What we know as the ‘emerging church’ is no different. It too has a history. Its history begins in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. It was there, in London, that people… began what can best be described as ‘experiments in worship.’ These communities were self-consciously contextual, both culturally and geographically. The aesthetics of their worship reflected the gifts, skills, and talents of the human resources indigenous to its members, which included artists of various sorts, writers, social visionaries, and the like. These communities also exploited the emerging cultural resources known and daily used by its members, including technological resources such as new media and social networking resources that were just coming into existence via the world wide web…
“What we know as the emerging church in the United States began … in the late 1990s… the US emerging church movement began as a reaction against institutional church within evangelical Protestantism… the emerging church in the United States was from its inception concerned with rethinking and reimagining Christian theology as well as Christian practice. Despite these differences the emerging church in the United States and its British counterpart share the same animating principles and ethos.” (Pg. xi-xiii)
He explains, ‘those in the movement … emphatically promote tolerance and enthusiastically participate in dialogue—religious, political, and otherwise. Second, emerging Christians tend to be theologically pluralistic and suspicious of tidy theological boxes. They believe that God is bigger than any theology and that God is first and foremost a storyteller… Emerging Christians are also allergic to thinking that fixates on who is going to heaven and who is going to hell… Third, emerging Christians believe the church must change if it is to speak meaningfully to a postmodern culture… Fourth, participants in the emerging and altworship movements are passionate about the present. The gospel, they want us to realize, is about the here and now and not a ticket to secure a place in the there and then of heaven.” (Pg. xiii-xiv)
He notes, “It should be pointed out that the emerging church movement resonates not so much with a particular demographic… so much as … a particular PSYCHO-graphic (i.e., with people… who share a certain cultural aesthetic and cultural sensitivity). So it’s a mistake, I think, to suggest that the movement is a youth movement or appeals only to a younger generation. It is also decidedly not a movement peculiar to evangelical Protestants. It is popping up among people all across the denominational landscape… The emerging church is much like a flash mob that comes together in a certain place at a certain time and for a limited duration.” (Pg. xvi)
Peter Rollins states in his first essay, “In the incarnation we encounter a kingdom of prejudice. .. In an environment of homophobia, the voice of someone who is gay is not simply one voice among others that we must listen to. This voice represents the ‘privileged place,’ the place where God speaks. This voice… is an avatar of God’s voice… This particular voice… momentarily becomes a universal message that calls for liberation on behalf of all those who are excluded.” (Pg. 35-36)
Jason Clark argues, “If the church is to have any future, other than as an optional club within consumerism, if it is to turn to conversion and Christian identity, we must recover the notion that ecclesiology, the nature of church itself, is ‘an intrinsic part of the doctrine of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not an administrative arrangement for the sake of securing practical results.’” (Pg. 57)
Corcoran says in a later essay, “the kingdom has not yet been fully actualized or consummated. It is still a kingdom ON ITS WAY, even if it is also … a kingdom ALREADY COME.. Wherever you find people healing one another’s wounds, praying and working for justice and peace, railing against injustice and oppression, wherever you discover broken lives made whole and redeemed, there you are witness to the present reality of God's kingdom, there you are witness to the present reality of God’s kingdom. It is all around us.” (Pg. 65)
He adds, “many in the emerging conversation find what I like to call ‘christocentric universalism'---the belief that eventually ALL human beings are reconciled to God in Christ---extremely attractive. Some, sadly, may first need to experience the torments of hell, but eventually love will win, and ALL will be saved.” (Pg. 69)
Jason Clark reports, “Like so many other Christian communities, mine is developing in the employment of creative arts. We have audiovisual and liturgical teams who use music, videos, poetry readings, and drama to bring the ancient and the future together and to add to the resources of the liturgical life of our community.” (Pg. 86)
Peter Rollins states, “So if emerging collectives are exploring the theology of worldly Christianity around tables late at night, they are also beginning to develop and to rediscover innovative ways to help these ideas percolate into one’s social existence. Criticisms of emerging collectives often focus on their tendency to emphasize talking over action; as these nascent experiments in transformative art begin to grow, however, hopefully such criticisms will ring less and less true.” (Pg. 102)
Scot McKnight observes that “To worship is to enter into the Story by surrendering to the wiki-stories, both as biblical texts and as their faithful representations in our plottings. We listen to Moses and to David and to Micah and to Hosea and to Jesus and to Paul and to Peter, and we can scarce take it all in. But we listen, as we are called to do. In listening we are transformed, as the Story takes hold in our hearts through the various versions of the wiki-stories… and somehow, through the work of God’s Spirit, the Story itself is told and revealed.” (Pg. 122)
He says in the closing essay, “In short, Israel’s story longs for a kingdom where God is King and where Israel is God’s people in that kingdom. This, I submit to you, is exactly who Jesus is---Governor of heaven and earth---and exactly what Jesus preached: the Kingdom of God…. The gospel is to tell that story aloud and to point people to Jesus Christ as the Messiah and Lord.” (Pg. 139)
This book will be of great interest to those studying the Emergent Church movement.
Editor Kevin Corcoran is a professor of philosophy at Calvin College. He wrote in the Introduction to this 2011 book, “The Christian church has a history… What we know as the ‘emerging church’ is no different. It too has a history. Its history begins in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. It was there, in London, that people… began what can best be described as ‘experiments in worship.’ These communities were self-consciously contextual, both culturally and geographically. The aesthetics of their worship reflected the gifts, skills, and talents of the human resources indigenous to its members, which included artists of various sorts, writers, social visionaries, and the like. These communities also exploited the emerging cultural resources known and daily used by its members, including technological resources such as new media and social networking resources that were just coming into existence via the world wide web…
“What we know as the emerging church in the United States began … in the late 1990s… the US emerging church movement began as a reaction against institutional church within evangelical Protestantism… the emerging church in the United States was from its inception concerned with rethinking and reimagining Christian theology as well as Christian practice. Despite these differences the emerging church in the United States and its British counterpart share the same animating principles and ethos.” (Pg. xi-xiii)
He explains, ‘those in the movement … emphatically promote tolerance and enthusiastically participate in dialogue—religious, political, and otherwise. Second, emerging Christians tend to be theologically pluralistic and suspicious of tidy theological boxes. They believe that God is bigger than any theology and that God is first and foremost a storyteller… Emerging Christians are also allergic to thinking that fixates on who is going to heaven and who is going to hell… Third, emerging Christians believe the church must change if it is to speak meaningfully to a postmodern culture… Fourth, participants in the emerging and altworship movements are passionate about the present. The gospel, they want us to realize, is about the here and now and not a ticket to secure a place in the there and then of heaven.” (Pg. xiii-xiv)
He notes, “It should be pointed out that the emerging church movement resonates not so much with a particular demographic… so much as … a particular PSYCHO-graphic (i.e., with people… who share a certain cultural aesthetic and cultural sensitivity). So it’s a mistake, I think, to suggest that the movement is a youth movement or appeals only to a younger generation. It is also decidedly not a movement peculiar to evangelical Protestants. It is popping up among people all across the denominational landscape… The emerging church is much like a flash mob that comes together in a certain place at a certain time and for a limited duration.” (Pg. xvi)
Peter Rollins states in his first essay, “In the incarnation we encounter a kingdom of prejudice. .. In an environment of homophobia, the voice of someone who is gay is not simply one voice among others that we must listen to. This voice represents the ‘privileged place,’ the place where God speaks. This voice… is an avatar of God’s voice… This particular voice… momentarily becomes a universal message that calls for liberation on behalf of all those who are excluded.” (Pg. 35-36)
Jason Clark argues, “If the church is to have any future, other than as an optional club within consumerism, if it is to turn to conversion and Christian identity, we must recover the notion that ecclesiology, the nature of church itself, is ‘an intrinsic part of the doctrine of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not an administrative arrangement for the sake of securing practical results.’” (Pg. 57)
Corcoran says in a later essay, “the kingdom has not yet been fully actualized or consummated. It is still a kingdom ON ITS WAY, even if it is also … a kingdom ALREADY COME.. Wherever you find people healing one another’s wounds, praying and working for justice and peace, railing against injustice and oppression, wherever you discover broken lives made whole and redeemed, there you are witness to the present reality of God's kingdom, there you are witness to the present reality of God’s kingdom. It is all around us.” (Pg. 65)
He adds, “many in the emerging conversation find what I like to call ‘christocentric universalism'---the belief that eventually ALL human beings are reconciled to God in Christ---extremely attractive. Some, sadly, may first need to experience the torments of hell, but eventually love will win, and ALL will be saved.” (Pg. 69)
Jason Clark reports, “Like so many other Christian communities, mine is developing in the employment of creative arts. We have audiovisual and liturgical teams who use music, videos, poetry readings, and drama to bring the ancient and the future together and to add to the resources of the liturgical life of our community.” (Pg. 86)
Peter Rollins states, “So if emerging collectives are exploring the theology of worldly Christianity around tables late at night, they are also beginning to develop and to rediscover innovative ways to help these ideas percolate into one’s social existence. Criticisms of emerging collectives often focus on their tendency to emphasize talking over action; as these nascent experiments in transformative art begin to grow, however, hopefully such criticisms will ring less and less true.” (Pg. 102)
Scot McKnight observes that “To worship is to enter into the Story by surrendering to the wiki-stories, both as biblical texts and as their faithful representations in our plottings. We listen to Moses and to David and to Micah and to Hosea and to Jesus and to Paul and to Peter, and we can scarce take it all in. But we listen, as we are called to do. In listening we are transformed, as the Story takes hold in our hearts through the various versions of the wiki-stories… and somehow, through the work of God’s Spirit, the Story itself is told and revealed.” (Pg. 122)
He says in the closing essay, “In short, Israel’s story longs for a kingdom where God is King and where Israel is God’s people in that kingdom. This, I submit to you, is exactly who Jesus is---Governor of heaven and earth---and exactly what Jesus preached: the Kingdom of God…. The gospel is to tell that story aloud and to point people to Jesus Christ as the Messiah and Lord.” (Pg. 139)
This book will be of great interest to those studying the Emergent Church movement.
May 17, 2018
Features a collection of essays which think, ponder, and examine 'The Church'. Other books are mentioned. Occasional insight and occasional Bible verses.
Includes a DVD with interviews...and a RANT AGAINST COCA COLA?!
Includes a DVD with interviews...and a RANT AGAINST COCA COLA?!
February 20, 2013
Really looking forward to this read!! (OK...I'm supposed to say this...my professor is one of the authors)
Alright...after now reading some of this book, I can honestly say that this is good stuff! I have especially enjoyed Clark's thoughts on consumerism as a religion in competition with Christianity (chapter 3).
His quote, "...at the end of the day we end up 'consuming' mission rather than doing the dirty work of bringing about a concrete church and mission" is a call to action, not mere theologizing about the problems that ail our society today. This idea gets to the heart, I believe, of what Clark is saying to us, as well as what he is learning to apply through his life as a church planter in the UK.
When I met Dr. Clark last year, I immediately liked what I heard from him. He spoke of the importance of "practicing what we are learning." He introduced me to the phrase: Reflective Practice: Thinking about what we do, and doing the things we are thinking about. Theologians need to practice what they reflective upon.
The more time I spend under his instruction, the more I see him wrestling (in the best sort of ways) to put into practice what he is discovering through his continued studies of culture and theology. Truly, this is the mark of a great leader.
In Chapter 3, Clark asks an important question of his cultural context (near London). He says,
I started to wonder if, in a secular and consumer society where people think of themselves as nonreligious, they are in fact deeply religious. I found myself asking: what if the people we interact with are so deeply embedded in a religious system that they are unable and unwilling to convert to Christianity as an alternative reality? (emphasis his)
From this point, Clark moves along to define the parameters of a consumerist religion, ultimately examining the liturgical rhythms of modern life and how they reveal humanity's desire for order, and faith, and purpose in life.
Clark's final call is one of practice (this should not be surprising to those of us who know him)...how are we to live lives devoted to the Lordship of Jesus in the midst of a culture that is so focused on self? The answer for Clark does not lie in fleeing from culture, but engaging culture. He urges us to reorder our lives around the reality of Jesus rather than accommodating and fitting into the culture of consumerist religion. For all of us, this will entail thinking deeply, and acting accordingly.
Alright...after now reading some of this book, I can honestly say that this is good stuff! I have especially enjoyed Clark's thoughts on consumerism as a religion in competition with Christianity (chapter 3).
His quote, "...at the end of the day we end up 'consuming' mission rather than doing the dirty work of bringing about a concrete church and mission" is a call to action, not mere theologizing about the problems that ail our society today. This idea gets to the heart, I believe, of what Clark is saying to us, as well as what he is learning to apply through his life as a church planter in the UK.
When I met Dr. Clark last year, I immediately liked what I heard from him. He spoke of the importance of "practicing what we are learning." He introduced me to the phrase: Reflective Practice: Thinking about what we do, and doing the things we are thinking about. Theologians need to practice what they reflective upon.
The more time I spend under his instruction, the more I see him wrestling (in the best sort of ways) to put into practice what he is discovering through his continued studies of culture and theology. Truly, this is the mark of a great leader.
In Chapter 3, Clark asks an important question of his cultural context (near London). He says,
I started to wonder if, in a secular and consumer society where people think of themselves as nonreligious, they are in fact deeply religious. I found myself asking: what if the people we interact with are so deeply embedded in a religious system that they are unable and unwilling to convert to Christianity as an alternative reality? (emphasis his)
From this point, Clark moves along to define the parameters of a consumerist religion, ultimately examining the liturgical rhythms of modern life and how they reveal humanity's desire for order, and faith, and purpose in life.
Clark's final call is one of practice (this should not be surprising to those of us who know him)...how are we to live lives devoted to the Lordship of Jesus in the midst of a culture that is so focused on self? The answer for Clark does not lie in fleeing from culture, but engaging culture. He urges us to reorder our lives around the reality of Jesus rather than accommodating and fitting into the culture of consumerist religion. For all of us, this will entail thinking deeply, and acting accordingly.
Read
February 12, 2018This collection of essays on the Emerging Church is a fascinating look at the philosophical underpinnings of a controversial and popular movement.
Some of the topics covered:
Kevin Corcoran discusses emergents and philosophical realism, and what side of the fence they fall on. Peter Rollins has a couple of essays, and shares some interesting thoughts on the conflicting nature of accepting an identity in Christ while still retaining an identity that makes up a person. Jason Clark talks about consumerism and its effect on Christianity, focusing on the construction of one's religious identity by picking and choosing the aspects of spiritualism that one likes.
Other topics include emerging eschatology, liturgy in the emerging church, the difference in rhetoric and action, and Scot McKnight discusses the role of scripture in the Emerging Church.
This is a well-thought out work that covers many topics I've never heard discussed before. It comes with a DVD featuring interviews and speeches by the authors.
Some of the topics covered:
Kevin Corcoran discusses emergents and philosophical realism, and what side of the fence they fall on. Peter Rollins has a couple of essays, and shares some interesting thoughts on the conflicting nature of accepting an identity in Christ while still retaining an identity that makes up a person. Jason Clark talks about consumerism and its effect on Christianity, focusing on the construction of one's religious identity by picking and choosing the aspects of spiritualism that one likes.
Other topics include emerging eschatology, liturgy in the emerging church, the difference in rhetoric and action, and Scot McKnight discusses the role of scripture in the Emerging Church.
This is a well-thought out work that covers many topics I've never heard discussed before. It comes with a DVD featuring interviews and speeches by the authors.
July 29, 2015
This is a fantastic series of essays and introduced me to great thinkers like Jason Clark and Kevin Corcoran. At a time when my own 'emerging church' (as it was labelled early on) community has closed its doors, these essays have helped clearly frame some of the difficulties and pitfalls of similar communities. Corcoran's essay on philosophical realism was helpful in framing an appropriate response to stronger antirealism tendencies I've come across in various conversations. Clark's on consumer liturgies hits the nail on the head for the ways in which the church is called to form followers of Christ in contrast to the deforming effects of consumerism; with a follow up essay on some suggestions on how to do so. And finally, Scot McKnight weighs in on the use of Scripture and the importance of shifting from a 'salvation' culture to a 'gospel' culture. A challenging and fruitful read for anyone interested in a look behind the scenes of the place we find ourselves in.
March 1, 2013
Brilliant! Church in the Present Tense, gives us a deeper understanding of the emerging church in both theological and philosophical terms. Having these four scholars (Scot McKnight,Peter Rollins, Kevin Corcoran and Jason Clark) write "side by side" was a great mix of what is emerging in faith, church, Christianity. At times it conversation was bogged down in philosophical jargon but if you read and think deep and stay the course it is well worth it.
August 28, 2011
Interesting, although I find Peter Rollins, way, way, WAY too esoteric. I can't help thinking the IKON Community must be full of PhDs in philosophy.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews