Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

Gloriann McDonald
Central Michigan University
An Emerging Story:
How the Emergent Church Movement is Building a Bridge between Modern
Abstract:
and Postmodern Christianity
This paper addresses the Emergent Church Movement (ECM) and the effects of modern and
postmodern readings of scripture. To illustrate my understanding of the ECM, I characterize the ECM as a
“bridge” between modern and postmodern Christian thought. This bridge analogy is not to say that
Emergents are building a bridge to get modern Christians to the side of postmodern Christians, rather, its
purpose is to create a means for the flow of information between the two ways of thinking. To frame my
investigation, modernism and postmodernism are briefly addressed to contextualize the content of the
paper. Because the Emergent Church Movement is not a denomination but a “dialogue,” I use two authors
who fall under what I coin as the “Emergent blanket of endorsement.” While neither author would
necessarily label themselves “Emergent” leaders, both are endorsed by leaders of the Emergent Movement
and used in the Emergent dialogue. Using the works of Pastor Rob Bell of Mars Hill Church in Grand
Rapids and layperson and author Donald Miller, I analyze how each author views scripture and how it lends
itself to the Emergent dialogue. Using narrative theology and emphasis on the necessity for Christians to
become part of the “Christian story,” both authors offer an invitation to participate in re-framing scripture
for an increasingly postmodern audience. Through the analysis of Bell and Miller, this paper studies how
the Emergent Church Movement is changing the way that Western Christians view scripture (as well as
how its view is staying the same,) and how both authors are contributing to building a bridge between
modern and postmodern Christian thought.
Emerging Ideas: Introduction and thesis:
Times are changing for Christianity in the 21 st century. Information is more readily available,
technology is faster and more affordable and the world is “getting smaller” as travel is easier and people of
all religions and ethnicities are in closer contact than ever. How does an “unchanging” faith stand in a world
that is changing so quickly? According to The Right Reverend Mark Dyer, as quoted in Phyllis Tickle's
book The Great Emergence, the church is forced to hold a "rummage sale” (Tickle 20). In fact, according to
Tickle, the church has held a rummage sale for every 500 years of its existence, in which it examines what
should be kept and what should be thrown away in the area belief and doctrine. The most recent of these
rummage sales, according to Tickle, was the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s, where commonly held
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