dissertation

162
While he uses metaphors exuberantly, he doesn’t specify the differences and points of
overlap between the source domains from which they are taken and the target domains
to which they are applied. 107 In addition, it is not always easy to discern exactly what he
is trying to convey. For example, while he is presumably hinting at the potential for
conflict that exists when people try to form a community, Friesen writes the following:
“Network ecologists are mindful of the connective space necessary for the process of the
catalytic conversation of potentially toxic energies that inevitably arise when lives bump
into each other.” 108 In our opinion, the metaphors in this quote obscure rather than illumine.
That being said, within EMC publications – including those of Friesen – we also
encounter helpful metaphors which are inspired by concepts derived from complexity
theory, including the theory of networks. 109
6.4.2 Ontological Issues
Margaret Wheatley ventures that organizations are not just like living systems, but that
they are literally alive. 110 Wheatley is often cited in the EMC, and this interpretation of
hers (and of other authors 111 ) is often appropriated as well, sometimes along with its
New Age connotations. 112 In this line of thought, organizations are spoken of in highly
idealistic and reified terms such as ‘living systemic wholes’, with intentions or qualities
such as ‘harmonious’, ‘caring’, or ‘soul’. This approach, however, risks covering up the
greed, envy, jealousy, aggression, power struggles and ideological influences that are as
much a part of human life as caring, loving and giving are. 113 Douglas Griffin submits
that the highly idealistic holistic philosophy behind many trade books on complexity
107
Cf. Angelique Chettiparamb, “Metaphors in Complexity Theory and Planning,” Planning Theory 5, no. 1
(2006), 77.
108
Friesen, Thy Kingdom Connected, 112.
109
Friesen rightly sees a connection between network theory and complexity theory. As Goldstein et al.
write, “Networks that combine scale-free, hub-type, and clustered periphery networks tend to be associated
with naturally growing, ‘self-organizing’ complex systems that are constrained by system-level demands
from the environment.” Goldstein et al., Complexity and the Nexus of Leadership, 160.
110
Cf. Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science, 85. The universe itself – in which organizations are embedded
– is living as well, Wheatley suggests on many pages of her book.
111
Cf. Lewin and Regine, “Businesses are not only like natural ecosystems, but also share some fundamental
properties, specifically nonlinear processes.” Lewin and Regine, The Soul at Work, 34-35. Richard Pascale
and his co-authors write: “‘Living systems’ isn’t a metaphor for how human institutions operate. It’s the
way it is.” Pascale et al., Surfing the Edge of Chaos, 7.
112
New Age type literature, for example publications of Ken Wilber, is not shunned within the progressive
wing of the EMC. Rob Bell, for one, advises thus, “For a mind-blowing introduction to emergence theory
and divine creativity, set aside three months and read Ken Wilber’s A Brief History of Everything.” Rob Bell,
Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 194n143.
Canadian minister Bruce Sanguin goes much further in his The Emerging Church: A Model for Change and a
Map for Renewal (Kelowna, BC: CopperHouse, 2008). In his specious proposal for a creation-centred, evolutionary
paradigm, Sanguin combines New Age thought, popular scientific conceptions of emergence, and
extremely liberal theological convictions. This emphatically non-evangelical author is, however, not representative
of (nor well-known within) the Emerging-Missional milieu.
113
Douglas Griffin, The Emergence of Leadership: Linking Self-Organization and Ethics (London: Routledge,
2002), 55.