dissertation

viii
2.2. Historical Roots of the Emerging Church Movement 33
2.2.2 Emergent Village and the Wider Emerging Church Movement 36
2.2.3 A Network of Grassroots Ecumenism and Innovation 37
2.2.4 ‘Reactive’ or ‘Proactive’ 39
2.3 The Theological Spectrum in the Emerging Church Movement 40
2.3.1 ‘Relevants’ 41
2.3.2 ‘Reconstructionists’ 43
2.3.3 ‘Revisionists’ 45
2.3.4 A Spectrum of Views 46
Figure 1. Three Streams of the Spectrum within the Emerging Church Movement 46
2.3.5 Convergence with the Missional Church Movement 48
2.4 The Nature and Task of the Church 49
2.4.1 The Nature of the Church 50
2.4.2 The Vocation of the Church 53
2.4.3 Convergence with the Missional Church Movement 55
2.5 Critical Discussion 57
2.5.1 Negative Rhetoric 57
2.5.1.1 Positive Rhetoric 60
2.5.2 What Kind of Trinity? 61
2.5.3 What Kind of Community? 63
2.5.3.1 Communitas 64
2.5.3.2 A Theological View on Community 66
CHAPTER 3. LOOKING UNDER THE SURFACE: ‘PARADIGM’
IN THE EMERGING-MISSIONAL CONVERSATION 69
3.1 Introduction 69
3.2 The Use of Paradigm in the EMC 70
3.2.1 Three Levels of Paradigm 72
3.2.2 Paradigm Shift(s): Favoring Change 73
3.2.3 Paradigms: Incommensurable, and Heavily Defended 75
3.3 Critical Discussion 78
3.3.1 Communication Breakdown 80
3.3.2 From Macro-paradigm to Ideology 81
3.4 Concluding Remarks 84