An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches

An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches. By Ray S. Anderson. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2006, 236 pp., n.p. paper.

Numerous on-going discussions concerning the emerging church and its association with postmodern culture are taking place today. Several books concerning the emerging church focus on the practices of various churches within this movement, but few set out to describe or define a theology for emerging churches. In An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches, Ray Anderson has attempted to present such a biblical theology.

Ray S. Anderson is senior professor of theology and ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA. He has written over twenty books, including Living the Spiritually Balanced Life, The Soul of God, and Theological Foundations for Ministry. He is also the contributing editor for the Journal of Psychology and Theology and has had articles and reviews published in many journals, including Princeton Seminary Bulletin, Calvin Theological Journal, and the International Journal of Systematic Theology. Anderson enters the emerging conversation as an "interlocutor" with a background in practical theology who was "provoked" by those within the emerging church movement to provide "a creative and constructive theological paradigm for the emerging church movement" (pp. 10-11).

Anderson states his thesis as follows: "The Christian community that emerged out of Antioch constitutes the original form and theology of the emerging church as contrasted with the believing community at Jerusalem" (p. 20). Working from this thesis, he defines "emergent church" as "the first-century emerging church at Antioch, including the various churches that came into existence through Paul's ministry based in Antioch" (p. 10). He then defines "emerging churches" as the diverse churches that are attempting to operate within contemporary (postmodern) culture.

After his introduction, Anderson explains that the differences between the churches in Antioch and Jerusalem were not merely geographical; they were theological. The Jerusalem church based its theology on religion and was "committed to historical precedent, crippled by religious scruple, and controlled by a fortress mentality" (p. 25) In contrast, Paul and the Antioch church based its theology on revelation: Jesus continued to reveal himself, his will, and his mission to the church through the Spirit.

Anderson divides the book into nine chapters, with each chapter distinguishing between an aspect of the church in Antioch and an aspect of the church in Jerusalem. In chapter two, he contrasts the confessional nature of the Jerusalem church as represented by Peter's confession "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God," with the Antioch church that "dependted] on a personal knowledge of Christ" (p. 43). The church in Antioch recognized that its Christianity must be embedded in truth and in the person of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. In chapter three, Anderson guides emerging churches toward the Spirit, not just spirituality. This follows from his conviction that the church in Antioch relied on the Spirit rather than the structures of the church in Jerusalem. Chapter four describes how the Antioch church focused on the "right gospel" as opposed to the Jerusalem church, which cared more about polity and its tradition within Judaism. In chapter five, Anderson describes how the church in Jerusalem sought to build the kingdom, while the believers in Antioch experienced and expressed the kingdom in their lives. In chapter 6, he suggests that Barnabas encouraged Paul to become the resident theologian for Antioch. He then contrasts Jerusalem's emphasis on obeying the law in the Word of God with Antioch's emphasis on seeing God work through them. Similarly, chapter seven portrays the Jerusalem church as attempting to keep the letter of the law, while the Antioch church lived the law of love and the law of the Spirit. In chapter eight, Anderson applauds the Antioch church for living as a community of the Spirit, not for seeking the gifts of the Spirit. He states, "Gifts of the Spirit are not for the purpose of making the Spirit visible but to make the body healthy and fully functioning" (p. 160). He maintains that the Jerusalem church, on the other hand, focused on recognizing the gifts of the Spirit. In chapter nine, Anderson says that emerging churches, like the emergent church of Antioch, are about mission, not just ministry. He suggests that Jerusalem majored on ministry instead, to the detriment of Jesus' commission. In the final chapter, Anderson contends that the Jerusalem church looked back toward Moses and the historical Jesus, while the Antioch church was eschatological, looking forward "to know Jesus of Nazareth first of all as one coming to [them] from the future rather than from the past" (p. 204).

I offer the following points of critique: First, Anderson presents a definition of "emergent" that is different from the accepted definition of the word within emerging churches. Within the emerging church movement, the term "emergent" suggests a connection to the Emergent Village and its website: www.emergentvillage.com. Emergent represents one part of the emerging church movement. In Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), Gibbs and Bolger (colleagues of Anderson) describe the rise of "Emergent" toward the end of the 1990s: "[Plostmodernity continued to be a main topic for the Young Leaders Network, which morphed into the Terra Nova Theological Project and which later became Emergent" (p. 32). Because the term "emergent" is already defined within the emerging church movement, Anderson's re-definition may lead to confusion. In fact, the title An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches led me to misunderstand this book as presenting the theology of the Emergent Village and those associated with that group. While Anderson clearly explains his definition of "emergent" within the book, he would have caused less confusion by using a different term.