The “Emerging” Story in The Emergent Church

By Larry DeBruyn

To the Emerging Church, the Bible is viewed as a record of people’s experiences with God. These story-narratives form part of The Story that is beyond human comprehension, the metanarrative. In and by itself, the Bible is not The Story, though it makes a significant contribution to it. The ongoing metanarrative exists above and beyond the Bible. So the Bible functions to invite and stimulate readers to involve themselves in The Story which when entered into, allows persons to come to know God in a fresh new way–like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Ruth, David, Solomon, Esther and the prophets–and become involved in the evolving metanarrative. Individual stories don’t necessarily, though they may, carry meaning in isolation from the stories of others. People from all faith groups–animist, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, etc.–are invited and encouraged to compare notes and enter the conversation as to how God has creatively and innovatively worked in their lives, the aggregate of which comprises The Story. As Eugene Peterson advocates,

We want a spirituality that is world-embracing, all-experience-encompassing. Our sense of life is huge–we are in touch with Asians and Africans and Slavs, with Native Americans and South Americans. We are finding out about the remarkable spiritualities in Australian bush aborigines and the people of South African Kalahari. How can we be satisfied to be people of one book?[1]

In part, this scheme of spirituality may explain why The Emerging Church speaks so adoringly about the narratives of the Scriptures, but does not equally embrace their didactic counterparts, because for them, doctrines, confessions, and creeds imply a fixity and finality to The Story. Thus, two young non-emergent authors write: “Defining the emerging church is like nailing Jell-O to the wall.”[2] Later, they observe: “The emerging church thrives on eschewing definition, of itself and of its theology.”[3] This is to be expected because for The Emerging Church, doctrines imply definiteness about belief and spirituality which they, in their postmodern bent of mind, disdain. Any claim of “definiteness” implies ”arrogance,” which then limits and impedes the conversation with devout seekers from other faith ”narratives.” For purpose of supplementing the evolving story of metanarrative with their faith journeys, emergents need their spirituality, as that of others, to be in flux, not final, so that in mutual “humility,” all might bow before the shrine of their personal “experience” and “narrative.”

ENDNOTES

[1] Eugene H. Peterson, Eat This Book, A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006) 44.

[2] Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, Why We’re not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be) (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2008) 16-17.

[3] Ibid. 78.

http://www.sliceoflaodicea.com/emerging-church/the-emerging-story-in-the-emergent-church