MOLTMANN’S ECCLESIOLOGY & THE EMERGING CHURCH MOVEMENT
by
Timothy K. Snyder
A Term Paper
Presented to Professor Alan Padgett
Luther Seminary
As A Requirement in
Systematic !eology 4597: !e !eology of Jürgen Moltmann
St. Paul, Minnesota
2009
dedicated to the community at !e Netzer Co-Op...who know well the di"culties of being a ‘pilgrim people’ in a new world
and dared #nd their way as if there were no other choice.
Introduction
Unsurpassed in his intuition for creative theological thinking and his passionate contributions
to theology as dialog, Jürgen Moltmann is one of the most important theologians of the 20th century.
His work in re-collaborating eschatology not as a subtopic of the traditional theological disciplines but
rather as a lens through which all theology must be constructed, has been an important and lasting
development. A"er both !eology of Hope and Cruci#ed God, Moltmann embarked on a lengthy and
timely contribution to ecclesiology — the doctrine of church. If in !eology of Hope Moltmann
reframed eschatology as God’s hopeful future in-breaking and if in Cruci#ed God he provided a
meaningful corrective for dispensationalist optimism, then in !e Church in the Power of the Holy Spirit
we #nd that the church is theologically (and quite literally) placed between the dialectic of
eschatological hope in God’s future and present solidarity in the su$erings of the world. !at placement,
however, is extraordinarily challenging. !e sheer number of denominations, controversies and schisms
is enough of a witness to that dynamic. !e doctrine of the church is, in a sense, the church’s self-image.
How the church understands itself is a vital part of the way it will both participate in God’s future and
the way it will re%ect theologically. In recent years, there has been a growing conversation around these
two notions of identity and participation of the church. Over the past decade there has been a
convergence of theory and practice in what has come to be called “the emerging church movement.” !e
purpose of this essay will be to put this ecclesiastical movement in conversation with Moltmann’s
ecclesiology. In doing so we will how the theology of Jürgen Moltmann could help the emerging church
movement develop a more critically robust method for doing theological re%ection. !en, we will see
how the emerging church movement’s both compliments Moltmann’s ecclesiology and yet also falls well
short as a full expression of a postmodern church.
In the #rst part of this essay we will dive deep into Moltmann’s ecclesiology as developed in both
!eology of Hope and !e Church in the Power of the Holy Spirit. Both of these works o$er important
contributions to contemporary ecclesiology. At the end of this section we will explore how his
constructive theology might be understood within the postmodern context. In the second part of this
essay we will brie%y consider the development of the emerging church movement as a distinct response
— both sociologically and theologically — to our current cultural context. In the #nal section we will
place the emerging church movement in conversation with Moltmann to see how the two might inform
each other. !is section will include re%ections from the Emergent !eological Conversation held in
Chicago, IL in September of 2009 which hosted the most recent visit of Jürgen Moltmann to the
United States. A"er letting the two compliment each other, we will let Moltmann’s theological method
critique the movement and consider a way forward in response.
Having introduced the topic and having outlined the presentation that is to follow, I must now
acknowledge my own positioning and biases in this conversation. I explore these issues not from the
positioning of a casual observer but rather as a committed practitioner with in the emerging church
movement who is engaged in a full-time season of theological study. In the interest of full disclosure, I
bring to this conversation deep suspicions of my own in response to years of leadership service to a
mainline Protestant denomination at local, regional and national levels. My own experience within the
emerging church movement, however, has brought a fresh understanding of the church, vocation,
community and my own identity as a follower of God in the Way of Jesus. !is is all to say that the
correspondence between Moltmann and the emerging church movement presented here are in some
ways re%ective of my own biases formulated from my own experiences desperately attempting to be
church in a particular place, at a particular time and with a particular community desperately seeking be
the change they wished to see not only to save their own faith, but in deep hope that another way was
possible.
PART ONE: !e Ecclesiology of Jürgen Moltmann
!e !eology of Hope & “!e Exodus Church” !e question: how does ‘the Church’ participate in modern society?1 is an ever-permeating
question for the people who consider themselves followers of God in the way of Jesus Christ. In true
Moltmann fashion, we are reminded in !eology of Hope that the church can only rightfully understand
itself as an exodus church.2 !at is to say that the church must understand itself as a “pilgrim people”
who decide whether “Christians can become an accommodating group, or whether their existence with
the horizon of eschatological hope makes them resist accommodation and their presence has something
peculiar to say to the world.”3 Since the time of Constantine the church and its dominant host society
have been blissfully wed. But here Moltmann argues that the church must #nd its home somewhere else:
!is certainly means that the Christian religion is dismissed from the integrating centre of modern society and relieved of its duty of having to represent the highest goal of society, but that is not by any means the end of it. On the contrary, society can assign to it other roles in which it is expected to be e$ective. While it is true that in these roles it has nothing more to do with the #nis principalis of modern society, yet it can exercise dialectical functions of disburdening for the men who have to live in this society.4
In contrast to that dismissal, Moltmann understands three roles in which the modern society
expects religion to represent. !e #rst of these is as representative of the cult of the new subjectivity. !is
role is a “cult of the absolute” and it expects “that the materialist industrial system must be supplied
from ‘somewhere or other’ with a human foundation — a personal, individual and private humanity —
which is a match for this world.”5 Secondly is the role of cult of co-humanity, or in other words the ideal
1 Here the term “modern” might better be described as “contemporary.” Later on we will consider how modern has come to describe a particular era centered around epistemological certainty, scienti#c advancement and industrialization. In contrast we will consider then a “post”-modern situation as a cultural response to modernity. For this reason when I use the contemporary cultural situation I am not entirely speaking of the same situation in which Moltmann speaks of per “modern society.”
2 Jürgen Moltmann, !eology of Hope: On the Ground and !e Implications of a Christian Eschatology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 304.
3 Ibid., 305.
4 Ibid., 311.
5 Ibid.
of community. In modern society, however, this lacks the revolutionary bite as it did when expressed by
the gospel because in our day it has been integrated into the industrial system. And so while this ideal
certainly puts us in a relationship of some sort but “he is close to them, but he does not see them; he
touches them, but he does not feel them; he exists only in himself and for himself alone.”6 Lastly,
religion is expected to be the cult of the institution in which “a ‘bene#cial unquestioningness’ spreads
over life. !is kind of institutionalizing of o&cial, social life, certainly springs from the permanent need
of security on the part of man, who experiences himself of history as a ‘creature at risk’ and therefore also
endeavors to resolve the historic character of his history into a cosmos of institutions.”7
Yet, because of this dismissal of religion from the center of modern society, Christianity is freed
to be a resistance movement that re%ects the eschatological horizon which is both its constituting hope.
“!us Christianity is to be understood as the community of those who on the ground of the
resurrection of Christ wait for the kingdom of God and whose life is determined by this expectation.”8
In this new freedom, the church is charged with the task of be a community of callings, a community of
the priesthood of all believers that is called “into the world in our earthly calling in services,
commissions, and charismata towards the earth and human society.”9
!e Church in the Power of the Holy Spirit
In setting up the present discussion of the doctrine of the church, Jürgen Moltmann calls for a
dual self-criticism of the church today. !is self-criticism is grounded both inwardly —'that is to say
theologically — and also outwardly — that is to say sociologically. While Moltmann calls for this deep
self-critique, it is in the inward exploration that his own thesis becomes most agitating for the church
6 Ibid., 319.
7 322.
8 326.
9 331.
which calls itself the ‘church in the power of the Holy Spirit’. For Moltmann the doctrine of the church
requires, today, an inner renewal caused by none other than Christ himself.
!e entry point, then, of Moltmann’s ecclesiology is important to note. He does not start with
the creedal ‘marks’ and the traditional Protestant duality of visible and invisible are noticeably absent.
Just as true of previous contributions, Moltmann begins with the dynamic socio-cultural situation and
expresses the church today in terms of (1) the church of Jesus Christ, (2) !e missionary church (3) the
ecumenical church AND (4) the political church. In these four untraditional marks one can immediately
see that he is not concerned with old theories constructed for church leaders and theologians but rather
the very starting point is intimately concerned foremost with the those who are on “the receiving end of
the action.”10
In the church of Jesus Christ, Moltmann invites us to let the old question of what is the church?
sink into the background as we focus on a more pressing and urgent question: where is the church? Here
the subject is Jesus Christ — this is a christological ecclesiology. !e church is where Jesus says he will
be. In the missionary church, Moltmann re%ects on the develops within theology of mission to show
that only a missionary church is prepared for a self-understanding of the world-wide church. In the
ecumenical church one sees that barriers crumble and otherness is taken seriously in light of
eschatological hope and promise of the recent (in 1975) ecumenical dialogues. Finally, the church is
always a political reality. And so in the political church reframes (both in discourse and in modeling)
power towards the values of the kingdom of —'towards liberation, justice, social equality, and freedom.
How, then, are the identity and relationality of the ‘missionary church’ unpacked within
Moltmann’s ecclesiology? Identity is found in mission, in the church’s christocentric orientation, !e
weight of such a christological ecclesiology is found in what Moltmann calls the “messianic mission.” It
10 Jürgen Moltmann, !e Church in the Power of the Holy Spirit: A Contribution to Messianic Ecclesiology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 4.
is only in Christ that we #nd our vocation. !e church is called to proclaim the gospel, to heal the sick,
to liberate the captives, feed the hungry, care for the poor. !is call is a conversion to the future, a world
mission and an exodus event. To be converted to the future means that both our relations and the
conditions of our lives radically change. To be a world mission is to embrace a prophetic mission of
con%ict with all the powers of this world. To be an exodus church is to self-understand that it is a call
from exile into freedom. !e church begins at the moment of total rejection and abandonment
experience by Jesus on the cross. Consequently the church is a community of the cross and it is “as the
community of the cruci#ed Jesus the church is drawn into his self-surrender, into his solidarity with the
lost, and into his public su$ering. His su$ering is in this respect not exclusive but inclusive and leads to
compassion.”11 In conclusion, our identity, as the church, is found in a vocation of open anticipation,
con%ict, su$ering and yet freedom. !is identity can only be found only through the I-thou relation
experienced in community.
It is this idea of identity which makes relationality essential. Moltmann suggests that all doctrine
of the church must be relational ecclesiology. It is not enough, however, to say that we must be “in
relationship.” Rather, the gospel of Christ demand a particular kind of relationship. !e best framework
for understanding the relationship between the cruci#ed Christ and the church today is ultimate
through the quality of friendship. Friendship is personal and is only possible when based on openness,
loyalty, and yet freedom. Jesus can be seen as a “friend” in this sense time again. He is called a “sinner of
tax collectors,” he calls his own disciplines not servants but friends, and in his insistence towards this
framework for relationships he o$ers the very friendship of God. !is divine friendship is not a closed
group of intimate con#dants, but rather an expansive, open set of relationships.
Finally, in this identity and relationality of the church, it is important to consider then how the
church organizes itself. For Moltmann, this is no mere sociological endeavor because the particular
structures that make up the church constitutes the presence of the church as a statement of the faith of
11 Ibid., 92.
the community. He says, “!e church’s institutions are its traditional congregational forms can become a
stumbling block for many people, even if — especially if — they do not thereby make the things of
Christianity itself a stumbling block. People demand ‘the witness of existence’ — and rightly so.”12 As
such, Moltmann encourages (1) the recovery of leadership as charismata (gi"s of the spirit) and an
ordering that is re%ective of distinct but not divided community of the spirit (2) a simple ordering
re%ective of the gathered community around word, sacrament, and caring for the oppressed and
marginalized, (3) that those things which are central must be carried out by all (4) the befriending of the
entire fellowship and (5) a re-orientation of importance on the “grass-roots” expressions of the church
—'the local congregation/fellowship.
A Messianic Ecclesiology in a Postmodern Context
!us far the discussion has drawn out keep theological frameworks central to what Moltmann
terms a messianic ecclesiology — an ecclesiology that is relational, christocentric, and trinitarian in its
orientation towards the future. All theology must always contextualize for the sake of serving the people
of God. !e cultural developments between the time of Moltmann’s initial publication and today
demand a review and revision of his discussion of messianic ecclesiology for our own postmodern
condition.
!e shi"s of recent decades from the modern mind to a postmodern mind have been well
discussed elsewhere.13 For the sake of our current discussion, however, we will simply outline this
important transition as an interlude between parts two and three of this essay which will further unpack
how this postmodern condition has been a key catalyst to the emerging church movement. For this
discussion we will focus on the work of Stanley Grenz’s A Primer on Postmodernism not because it is the
12 Ibid., 290.
13 See !e Post-Modern Reader, ed. Charles Jencks (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992).
only, or even the best, introduction to this phenomenon, but because it is the de#nitive introduction
among key voices and leaders of the emerging church movement.
Gretz characterizes holism, communitarianism, and relativistic pluralism as central to the
postmodern consciousness.14 Each of these central characteristics are a rejection of what Jürgen
Habermas describes as the “Enlightenment Project.” Habermas argues that,
!e project of modernity, formulated in the eighteenth century by the Enlightenment philosophes, consists of a relentless development of the objectivating sciences, the universalistic bases of morality and law, and autonomous art in accordance with their internal logic but at the same time a release of the cognitive potentials thus accumulated from their esoteric high forms and their utilisation in praxis; that is, in the rational organisation of living conditions and social relations. Proponents of the Enlightenment...still held the extravagant expectation that the arts and sciences would further not only the control of the forces of nature but also the understanding of self and world, moral progress, justice in social institutions, and even human happiness.15
In other words the Enlightenment values of specialization (for the sake of human progress),
individualism (for the sake of moral progress and personal happiness) universal rationalism (for the sake
of a de#nitive foundation to the entire project) are each rejected by the their polar opposites. !ough
the diversity of perspectives concerning what is postmodernism? is a valuable discussion, what must be
said here is that “what uni#es the otherwise diverse strands of postmodernism is the questioning of the
central assumptions of the Enlightenment epistemology.”16 And so as a working de#nition throughout
this presentation we will speak of postmodernism as, “the intellectual and cultural expressions that are
becoming increasingly dominant in contemporary society.”17 To unpack this de#nition we will unpack
Gretz’s characterization of postmodernism.
Pessimism. !e postmodern consciousness has grown weary and pessimistic concerning the
Enlightenment belief in inevitable progress. !e emerging generation, says Gretz, does not share the
14 Stanley J. Gretz, A Primer on Postmodernism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1996), 15.
15 As quoted in Gretz, Postmoderism, 3.
16 Ibid., 7.
17 Ibid., 13.
common conviction among their parents and grandparents that the world is becoming a better place.
Any random #ve minutes in front of the evening news or any skim of the newspaper (or iPhone news
organization application) con#rms their intuitive conviction that “human ingenuity will not solve [the
global problems of violence, environmental degradation, or political polarization] or that their living
standard will be higher than that of their parents.”18
Holism. Because the postmodern consciousness sought to move beyond the rational dimensions
of truth, a strong assertion has developed for the individual not as a “dispassionate, autonomous,
rational individual” but as “‘whole’ persons.”19 !is value leads to the integration of mind, body and soul
in ways which the Enlightenment project saw no need for.
Communitarianism. Once the “autonomous” individual was rejected in favor the the “whole”
self, a greater awareness for the surrounding social environment and the community’s role in formation
and even existence became a natural development. Furthermore, “the conviction that each person is
embedded in a particular human community leads to a corporate understanding of truth...
[postmoderns] believe that truth consists in the ground rules that facilitate personal well-being in
community and a radical being of the community as a whole.”20
!e purpose of this interlude into sketching out an understanding of the postmodern
consciousness is to understand the epistemological origins of questions concerning the shape of the
gospel through the lens of the postmodern consciousness. George Marsden rightly argues that
Evangelicalism is a “child of early modernity.”21 Remembering this fact will be important to
18 !ough I would essentially a&rm Gretz’s characterization here, the recent emergence of Obama-politics certainly provides an interesting counterpoint or testimony to this development. !e millions of #rst time voters could certainly be observed as voting for the symbol of Barack Obama who espoused values of both modernity and postmodernity: hope, progress, community, relationality, diversity.
19 Ibid. 14.
20 Ibid.
21 As quoted in Gretz, Postmodernism, 12.
understanding the early development of the emerging church movement. Before that discussion,
however, we will explore Gretz’s critique of postmodernism.
For Gretz it is necessary to understand the postmodern phenomenon as Jean Francois Lyotard
does as a “postmodern condition.” !at is to say it is not merely a philosophical theory of which there is
a standing invitation to subscribe to, but rather it is a condition much like an illness or a disease. !e
postmodern “condition” is a place we #nd ourselves more than anything else. And so for Gretz the
question is a matter of the appropriate gospel-response. What parts of the postmodern consciousness is a
helpful addition to the understanding of the gospel and the life of faith? Which parts are not? !ough in
itself a very modern approach, it is a helpful #rst step. Gretz lays out places in which, in his opinion,
Christianity must stand their ground and places in which it can #nd common ground. For Gretz,
postmodernity has gone too far in its wholesale rejection of the concept of objective truth. He argues
that it “undermines Christian claims that our doctrinal formulations that state objective truth.” Without
universal truth to judge the validity of our interpretations, Gretz argues, we are stuck in a perpetual
battle of competing interpretations. !e postmodern rejection of metanarrative, as it is classically
understood as the unifying narrative through which all meaning can be interpreted, is problematic
because the Christian faith has claimed that the story of Jesus Christ is the metanarrative. On the other
hand, Gretz is convinced that Christians have too o"en accepted with certainty and without question
the Enlightenment understanding of knowledge. To this end he #nds common ground with the
postmodern consciousness and its hermeneutic of suspicion and critical re%ection especially concerning
the certainty, objectivity and goodness of knowledge.
Additionally, Gretz describes four contours of a postmodern gospel. !e #rst is a exploration of
a post-individualistic gospel. Speci#cally he suggests, “with its focus on community, the postmodern
world encourages us to recognize the importance of the community of faith in our evangelistic e$orts.
Members of the next generation are o"en unimpressed by our verbal presentations of the gospel. What
they want to see is people who live out the gospel in wholesome, authentic, and healing relationships.”22
Secondly, is the notion of a post-rationalistic gospel. In this way, Christianity is invited to embrace a faith
beyond propositions to be a&rmed but rather as a way of life. Furthermore, this leads to a post-dualistic
gospel. !is move is to reject the divisions of “mind” and “matter.” Sacred/secular, soul/mind, faith/
reason are more helpful when viewed as an integrated whole than as competing categories. Lastly is a
post-noeticentric gospel, or that is to say a gospel not built on a foundation of only knowledge. Here Gretz
advocates for a faith of both “activism and quietism.”23 !e goal of knowledge is not the end but rather
guides us into a more faithful engagement with the world. It is this engagement with the world that we
now turn to as we explore what implications this postmodern consciousness might have for our view of
the doctrine of church —'if the gospel itself must wrestle with this new postmodern consciousness, so must
the church.
When Gretz introduces postmodernism there is very little discussion of “the church”. So, I will
expound on what Gretz has begun by using his characterization of the postmodern consciousness and
his contours of the gospel in postmodern context to speak of a church in the postmodern context. It will
be obvious that much of what follows is in%uenced by Moltmann’s ecclesiology.
!e church in the postmodern world will embrace pessimism as a faithful witness to the kingdom. If
pessimism trumps certainty in human progress in the postmodern world, I want to suggest that this an
improved situation for Christianity and especially the church. Healthy skepticism of the dominant
scripts and ideologies of the societies in which Christianity must makes itself incarnate, is a step
forward. One might suggest this is even more important in our post-colonialism era of mission in the
21st century. On the one hand, it seems to me that there is theoretical danger in a pessimism that
reduces Christianity only to what it is against and it is this form of Christianity that most o"en removes
22 Ibid., 169.
23 Ibid., 173.
itself from the world out of some aesthetic commitment, this is certainly not Constantinian
Christianity. It seems that what has been more problematic is the tendency to overemphasis the
dominant world view when the church has bene#ted so much from its privileged place as the religion of
society — that is the religion of empire. It is for this reason that in a postmodern world, our call to be an
exodus church is not only a call to reject the roles of the cult absolutism, subjectivity and
institutionalization, but it is also a call to adopt its prophetic call. !e exodus church must align itself
with its prophetic beginning and call the dominant narratives what they are. !is will inevitably require
the church to raise up theologians of the cross who will “call the thing what it is,” to quote Luther. When
the church takes this vocation seriously, it will naturally develop a hope beyond optimism. Its pessimism
will be directed towards any organization, program, project or philosophical ideal which puts its hope in
anything other than Jesus Christ who through the Holy Spirit is making all things new. !e pessimism
of the postmodern church is not a default dogma, but it is a radical faith in the kingdom of God.
!e church in the postmodern world will embrace holism as a strategy for proclamation and
$amework for a faith that is primarily practiced. Moltmann rightly criticizes the church’s practice of
proclamation. Moltmann speaks of proclamation not in the narrow sense of its central performance by a
singular voice of the preacher (who is ordained or “set apart” by another order), but rather says that
proclamation is “all expressions of the church and of Christians made through language which have as
their content the history of Christ and the freedom of man for the kingdom which that history opens
up.”24 For the church in the postmodern world which creates a plurality of language including, but not
limited too, language as visual arts, music, poetry, spoken word, spiritual writings, drama, non-verbal
communication and intuitive communication, proclamation must become multi-lingual. Proclamation
through holistic “language” then invites the integration of the body, mind and soul into practices that
will be lived out both inside and outside the primary gathering of the community of faith. Such a
holistic sense of faith as practice will re-integrate the false dichotomy between the sacred and the secular.
24 Moltmann, !e Church, 206.
When proclamation means all the expressions of the church and Christians through holistic language,
members of the community will no longer have to culturally transport back and forth from their lives as
citizens of the world and participants in the faith community. Proclamation will no longer be reserved
for the section of the liturgy titled “Word,” but rather the “world will become %esh” again.
!e church in postmodern world will embrace a communitarianism that calls into question our
contemporary understand of “congregation” and will create communities in postmodern cultures. Today’s
primary communal expression of the church is the modern congregation. Moltmann is right when he
demands a “witness of existence”25 and we should expect nothing else from the already suspicious
postmodern church. !e modern congregation is a social organization birthed straight out of modern
industrialization with its organizing values of e&ciency, professional specialization, and perpetual
maximization of market shares. !e “parish” model shi"ed long ago and their primarily concerns are no
longer aligned with the local host neighborhood. But, the church in the postmodern world will call of
this into question. !e postmodern church will create communities which are small and manageable
with minimalism in mind, rooted deeply in friendships, and contextualized locally and yet globally
aware and connected. Such communities will have no interest in the hierarchies of clericalism and so I
suspect that they will look similar to the characteristics of base communities as described by
Moltmann.26
To sum it up, the church within a postmodern consciousness will take up the timeless task of
contextualization —'creating a witness of existence which takes seriously what it means to be the church
in this time, in this place and to these postmodern cultures. Such a serious contextualization a&rms
Moltmann’s messianic ecclesiology. !e church in the postmodern consciousness will construct
ecclesiologies that are relational, christocentric and trinitarian in their orientation towards the future.
25 Ibid., 290.
26 Ibid., 329. We will explore this idea in depth when we take a look at the research of Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger in Emerging Churches: Creating Community in Postmodern Cultures. !is research is the de#nitive study on communities in postmodern contexts in both the United States and the United Kingdom.
PART TWO:!e Emerging Church Movement
A Brief History of the Emergent Church Movement (1)
As is o"en true with the history of movements, the origin of what has been called the “emerging
church movement” is di&cult to pin down. Dates of course are a matter of convenience, but it is
important sketch a few important beginnings. In a sense the movement was already appearing in the
United Kingdom in the 1980’s alternative worship scene. !ese gatherings, as many as #"y or more, had
a strong self-awareness of their own postmodern consciousness and engaged heavily with pop culture.
Already at this point the Greenbelt Festival was underway providing an important convergence of
experimental ideas and new approaches to worship including highly participatory settings, decentralized
leadership (few paid), nonlinear liturgies and a keen sense of using visual arts as proclamation.27 In a
certain sense, the movement in the United States has its earliest days in the Gen-X church growth
movements and the new paradigms developed in the early 1990’s.28 !en, in the late 1990’s, the
“conversation”29 took on a more focused form as evangelical leaders gathered under the banner of the
Young Leader’s Network (a division of Leadership Network) and began to discuss the implications of
postmodernity and an apparent philosophical disconnect with contemporary culture.30 Soon the group
of leaders gathered together by Young Leader’s Network would become the Terra Nova Project and
#nally Emergent.31 In these formative days, the movement was primarily an Evangelical response to
27 See www.small#re.org for the most comprehensive online community of Alt. Worship collaborations. !e Greenbelt Festival is particularly well documented there by Steve Collins of the UK.
28 See Donald E. Miller, Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium (Berkley: University of California Press, 1997).
29 Many who self-identify as “emergent” see what is developing as more of a conversation than a movement. !e rhetorical e$ect is well noted and important especially for the early days. Over a decade later however, it is clear that sociology’s understandings of social movements and resistance movements can be applied more accurately. For an examples of this see Josh Packard, Organizational Structure, Religious Belief and Resistance: !e Emerging Church (Nashville: PhD diss., Vanderbilt University, 2008) or Dan Anderson, Church Emerging: A Missional View of Emerging Ministries In the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (Minneapolis, PhD research project, Luther Seminary, 2009).
30 Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Community in Postmodern Cultures (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 32.
31 Ibid. See www.emergentvillage.com.
postmodernity. Later on mainline Protestant denominations would gain an equally important voice
within the broader movement. At the turn of the millennium, a broad network was formed called
Emergent (both US and UK early on) which was the main organizing force behind the movement and
eventually organizers in the US would establish Emergent Village.
By the early 2000’s it was clear that that something truly new was happening across the Western
world from the UK, Australia, New Zealand and the US. !e conversation concerning the implications
of postmodernity was no longer just a conversation among academics. In addition to the philosophical
questions being raised, the renewed focus on a theology of mission for North America and the UK was
evident in the academy and in practice. Perhaps this was best made evident by the e$orts of the Gospel
in Our Culture Network (US) and the Church Mission Society (UK). Meanwhile, in the US, books
were being published, conferences were organized and many in both evangelical and denominational
traditions began experimenting. !rough out all this movement, there were always those who were
hesitant to adopt any label whatsoever (what’s more postmodern than that?) and yet there were also
those who felt like a broad characterization could be conceived of to describe the newness of what was
happening. !is is always the point when movements begin to take on diverging streams and the same is
true of the emerging church movement. Many of the evangelicals in the conversation insisted the
changes they sought were not theological but systemic, organizations and primarily concerned with
their method to engaging culture. And yet for others it was clear that when practice and theory where
integrated into the context of postmodern cultures, the convergence o"en meant signi#cant departure
from their own traditions. For the sake of this presentation, I will consider the research of Eddie Gibbs
and Ryan Bolger of #"y emerging churches in both the US and the UK a de#ning moment for the
movement. With the publication of Bolger’s doctoral dissertation (Fuller !eological Seminary) and its
re-worked version co-authored by Gibbs in Emerging Churches: Creating Community in Postmodern
Cultures (2005) the movement not only had credible research as its subject, but also a working
de#nition, a written history and also a robust set of theological implications. Gibbs and Bolger ultimate
de#ne emerging churches as practice-de#ned communities of faith in postmodern culture in which
three core practices give way to six others. “!e three core practices...are (1) identifying with the life of
Jesus, (2) transforming secular space and (3) living as community” which give way to six others, “(4)
welcome the stranger (5) serve with generosity, (6) participate as producers, (7) create as created beings,
(8) lead as a body, and (9) take part in spiritual activities.”32
In conclusion, the church in postmodern cultures may or may not be contained by the
de#nition of Gibbs and Bolger. Also the postmodern church certainly will not be limited by the
boundaries of the emerging church movement at all. What is clear, however, is that the shi" from
modernity to postmodernity will necessitate profound changes in both theology and in the practices of
Christianity. !us, the emerging church movement provides a helpful case study as to how the church
will engage the contemporary culture of postmodernity. In what follows we will explore both the
practices of emerging churches, as identi#ed by the research of Gibbs/Bolger, and we will also explore an
emergent contribution for thinking theologically in today’s context.
Creating Community in Postmodern Cultures
As mentioned, Gibbs/Bolger identify nine practices of emerging churches. Not all of the
communities researched had all nine, but collectively these nine practices give the most robust set of
intentional community practices. Here we will summarize the research #ndings around these practices
and we will focus of the words of movement leaders themselves to gain a picture of the signi#cance of
this grass roots movement.
Identifying With !e Life of Jesus. By this Gibbs/Bolger mean that “in a time of immense cultural
change and disconnect with the church, emerging churches retrieved the Jesus of the Gospels, but not
32 Ibid., 43-44.
necessarily the Christ of history.”33 Gibbs/Bolger focus here on how this core practice manifests itself in
an intentional focus on a kingdom-way of life which re%ects the way Jesus lived. Karen Ward, Church of
the Apostles (Seattle), says “!e cultural view ‘gets’ that Jesus was for the marginalized and the
oppressed. It is only the church that needs to be trained to look at Jesus again. !ey took a poll in my
area of Seattle and found that 95 percent of the nonchurched have a favorable opinion of Jesus, so Jesus
is not the problem. It is the church they dislike, because they do not see the church living out his
teachings.”34 !is practice o"en manifests itself in actions which make it perfectly clear that their end
goal is not the formation of an organization, but the very kingdom in which Jesus spoke of.
Transforming Sacred Space. As a particular response to the postmodern consciousness,
“sacralization in emerging churches is about one thing: the deconstruction of the sacred/secular split of
modernity...the idea of secular space, that is, of a realm without God...For emerging churches, there is no
longer any bad places, bad people, or bad times. All can be made holy. All can be given to God in
worship. All modern dualisms can be overcome.”35 Brad Cecil, Axxess (Arlington, Texas) says of his
community, “It has been a long journey for everyone. It is hard to repent from foundationalism...because
certainty is such a warm blanket in which to wrap yourself.”36 !is practice o"en manifests itself by
gatherings in non-tradition venues or through the intentional engagement with common community
spaces within their neighborhoods.
Living As Community. While seemingly ambiguous, this practice means that, “Because
emerging churches function as a community, the church service itself, if the community has one, may
just be a small window into their entire life together.”37 Kester Brewin, Vaux (London), says that “When
Christ said ‘wherever two or more gather,’ we believe that he meant that church was happening in those
33 Ibid., 48.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid., 66.
36 Ibid., 69.
37 Ibid., 102.
moments.”38 For this reason, it is o"en di&cult in the community’s rhythm of life to tell if any particular
gathering is central. Indeed, many have no central worship service.
Welcoming the Stranger. Another profound response to modernity can be found in the way
emerging churches practice hospitality. !us plurality is understood not as a threat to one’s orthodoxy,
but rather as a matter of hospitality. Sue Wallace, Visions (York, UK) says “!e most important is that
we provide a ‘safe space.’ !e worship space has to be safe for the vulnerable and not a place where
people are ostracized for their gender, race, doubts, disabilities, depression, or orientation.”39 Not only is
space important, but o"en times this means active participation not in evangelism but in being
evangelized by “the other.”40
Serving with Generosity. Nothing remains more presently oppressive to both the advantaged and
disadvantaged in late modernity/early postmodernity than an economic system of consumerism. Gibbs/
Bolger suggest, “Consumer churches promote self-interested exchange and thus violate an inherent part
of the gospel, that of the gi".”41 Brad Cecil is clear about this when he states,
It is our conviction that one of the reasons Christianity is so consumeristic is that we have prioritized the individual and have commodi#ed God. !e church must share some responsibility for this monster we have created. We have made Jesus out to be the ultimate consumer commodity. He is packaged in a convenient needs-driven format of the one-hour God experience that happens every Sunday morning. We are trying to %ip this and prioritize the community and work to make the culture a place in which the King reigns. Social service and activism are how we do this.42
Participating as Producers. “!e gospel makes possible full participation with God in the
redemption of the world,” says Gibbs/Bolgers, “We bring our world, our conext, our material reality to
39 Ibid., 121.
40 For example Ikon (Belfast, Ireland) has a “reverse evangelism” project and rather than an Alpha course to user others into Christianity they host a gathering called Omega, a twelve week process for those interested in leaving the Christianity they grew up with.
41 Ibid., 139.
42 Ibid.
God as an o$ering.”43 For many communities this means making signi#cant changes to leadership
expectations and what becomes part of the community’s liturgy (literally as “work of the people”). In
emerging churches it is o"en hard to tell then who is “in-charge,” small groups rotate in their
responsibility for the larger gathering and o"en times throughout the month the gatherings facilitate a
di$erent kind of participation.
Creating as Created Beings. Creativity as a value is intimately connected to full participation by
the whole of the community. Creativity is not relegated to those who are “artistic.” “!e urge to be
creative is not ego driven but rather arises out of a theology of personhood and community identity,”
says Gibbs/Bolger.44 An example of how this practice manifests itself can be found in that many
emerging churches write their own music, o"en together as a communal practice.
Leading as a Body. As already mentioned, emerging churches takes seriously how the
postmodern consciousness has real implications for leadership. Gibbs/Bolger argue that leadership sh#ts
in these communities away from the pastor-as-CEO and into the role of a facilitator or curator.45 Along
these lines, many emerging churches have no paid or ordained leadership. Many of them have explored
“leadershipless” forms of community and focus less on administration towards some organizational goal
(ex. “#nancial sustainability”) and more on creating spaces for their communal experiences. !ough
perhaps one of the bigger risks these communities are taking, the goal is clear. Church leadership is a
vital element of our witness of existence.
Merging Ancient and Contemporary Spiritualities. In their attempts to #nd a truly participative
faith, in their rejection of the sacred/secular divide, and #nally in their hospitality towards plurality,
emerging churches are reaching both back and forward for their spirituality. Gibbs/Bolger argue that
emerging churches re%ect the cultures desire for an eclectic spirituality and yet they provide an
43 Ibid., 155.
44 Ibid., 175.
45 Ibid., 192.
important corrective in rooting these practices in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. !eir practices
are also o"en rooted deeply within a particular tradition and corporately exercised.46
!inking !eologically: An Emergent Contribution
Alongside these communities of practice, the movement fostered a robust theological
conversation. !e emerging church movement has always been keenly self-aware that its praxis had deep
theological implications. !e movement in the US developed much of its theological thinking in the
organic conversations of Emergent Gatherings held annually in New Mexico, its Emergent Convention
held alongside the National Pastors Convention, more recently with its Emergent !eological
Conversation and publishing partnerships. !e Emergent !eological Conversation as an event has
quickly developed as an important medium for putting practicing ministers and noted theologians in
conversation. Recent conversations have hosted noted scholars Walter Brueggemann, Miroslav Volf,
Jack Caputo, and Jürgen Moltmann. What has come from this sort of intentional praxis is a particular
way of thinking theologically. An emergent contribution towards thinking theologically places a distinct
emphasis on deconstruction, friendship-based dialog and localized contextualization.
It is true as Stanley Grenz suggests that much of Evangelicalism is the child of modernity.47 !is
reality has played a signi#cant contributing factor to the way emergent theological thinking has put its
emphasis on deconstruction. It is accurate then to say that emergent theological thinking has
incorporated well the philosophical deconstruction of modernity in its most pressing questions. And so
at the center of this thinking we #nd Stanley Grenz and John Franke’s articulation of a post-
foundationalism theological method in which,
!e rules, however have changed...[and] the current fragmentation of theological discourse, which has emerged even within traditionally liberal and conservative circles, is in part the fallout from this change in the rules for theological discourse. Given the long-standing entrenchment of modernist
46 Ibid., 222-223.
47 Grenz, Primer on Postmodernism, 10.
assumptions, we should not be surprised to #nd that the postmodern challenge engenders suspicion and hostility among persons on both sides of the older theological divide.48
Here they have argued that both liberal and conservation theology are rooted deeply in foundationalism
and theology beyond such a method is precisely what emergent theological thinking advocates. Indeed
Tony Jones, former national coordinator for Emergent Village, draws on this rich dynamic when he
argues that there are three common responses to the Enlightenment project of modernity:
secularization, fundamentalism and a postmodern posture.49 !is postmodern posture is #rst and
foremost a deconstructive response to the foundationalism of both conservative and liberal theology of
modernity.
Miroslav Volf is describes how the social and political world operates through a process of
dividing the world into friend and enemies. We use force to hold enemies in check and we reward our
friends. However, the Christian faith has an alternative politic because as a Christian you want to
befriend your enemies precisely because God comes down to the world when the world is still God’s
enemy.50 In the process of seeking to think theologically in a post-foundationalism context, many
emergent thinkers who once found themselves #rmly in a particular theological camp, now #nd
themselves befriending “the other” in deeply meaningful way. In the US the movement has o"en self-
described itself as a “generative friendship.” By this it is clear that friendship is the basic relationship that
informs their task of doing theology, which always must happen in the context of community. When
theological dialog takes place in the context of friendship, especially surprising friendships with others
from very di$erent theological backgrounds, theology moves from propositional rhetoric to a
communal hermeneutic. !e emerging church movement has done better at creating spaces for these
friendships to form than any denomination, academic society or professional association.
48 Stanley Grenz and John Franke. Beyond Foundationalism: !eology in a Postmodern Context (Westminster: John Knox Press, 2001), 17.
49 Tony Jones. !e New Christians: Dispatches $om the Emergent Frontier (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2008), 39.
50 Miroslav Volf. “Religion and Violence,” Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippet (Washington: American Public Media, August 4, 2005).
!e emerging church movement has no particular confession or a set theological convictions
which might be used to de#ne its boundaries — much to the frustration of traditional Evangelicals. !is
is in part due to its insistence on deconstruction over constructive theology and in part due to its
commitment to friendship based not on common belief but commitment to the relationships itself. But
perhaps more importantly is an orientation towards thinking theologically in local contexts. Emergent
theological thinking tends to missionally orient itself towards neighborhoods and cities for its
theological source traditionally labeled “experience.” For the emerging church movement, their primarily
source of experience comes in their commitment to a local place, its local people, culture, arts, and
traditions. Such a geographic theological commitment is a based on lens of narrative theology in which
the setting plays as central of a role as do the characters, plot and form.
In conclusion, though the emerging church movement certainly has a contribution to make
towards thinking theologically, it ultimately falls far short of a meaningful, constructive contribution to
theology. It is not enough to simply deconstruct and distribute the task of theology to local settings. !e
world today is far to interconnected to not go the next step. !e contributions of the emerging church
movement here are surface-level at best and it would do them well to encounter one the best theologians
of the 20th century.
PART THREE:Moltmann’s Ecclesiology & !e Emerging Church in Conversation
Re"ections on the 2009 Emergent !eological Conversation with Jürgen Moltmann
On September 9-11, 2009 at First Presbyterian Church in Libertyville, Illinois friends of
Emergent Village hosted Jürgen Moltmann for three days of conversation with roughly one hundred
and #"y pastors. !e format of the time together is important to note. !ere was no keynote address
and no paper for Moltmann to present. Instead, there were several conversation facilitators and several
chairs on a stage. !e conversation was a staged one in that sense, but yet the audience looked on as the
facilitators had an organic conversation with him. Questions were posed more o"en out of life
experiences than theological objection. Mike Stavlund, a pastor from the Washington, DC area, asked
him about a quote from Cruci#ed God a"er sharing the story of losing his infant son in the middle of the
night. Moltmann responded with an a&rming nod, an a&rmation that Stavlund rightly understood the
deep apathy of God which he writes of in his theology of the cross and then he shared his re%ection on
the loss of his young infant brother. It was then that Moltmann said, “all the best theologians are
pastors.”51 !is was the atmosphere of the conversations: pastors in conversation with one of the most
preeminent theologians of our day, except from vibe in the room you would never know that’s what was
going on. !e 2009 Emergent !eological Conversation was no American Academy of Religion
seminar.
!e above describes the mood in the room throughout the three days, and yet here I will
describe three other signi#cant instances in the conversations that capture both the breadth and depth
of the event as it relates to the topic at hand. In a session titled “Justice and the Kingdom of God,”
Moltmann was asked about the connections between anticipation of the kingdom and resistance as a
concrete rhythm towards justice. Moltmann replied, “the church has two tasks: diakonia — serving the
least of these —'and the prophetic — transforming the environment in which we do diakonia.”52 !e
panelist who posed the question was Eliacín Rosario-Cruz, a Puerto Rican born community organizer
who lives and works out of a neo-monastic community house in Seattle. !e two then embarked on a
conversation about the connections between the base communities Moltmann experienced in
Nicaragua and the new monastic communities Rosario-Cruz networks among here in the US. !is
conversation embodied the relentless common thread between Moltmann and many of the emerging
church movement to insist on a rejection of individuality and a radical embrace of community.
Moltmann reminded the audience that “ in community we are rich and only in individuality is poverty
51 Jürgen Moltmann. “!e 2009 Emergent !eological Conversation,” (Chicago, IL: September 9-11, 2009).
52 Ibid.
dangerous.”53 Rosario-Cruz and Moltmann’s conversation represented a stream of the emerging church
movement in which monasticism and its values of a rule of life, a commitment to communal living and
vocation are being embraced in creative and new ways in cities throughout the US. Moltmann wrapped
up the conversation by saying “let’s pray for prophets and when it gets violent for peacemakers.” I suspect
in Rosario-Cruz we have at least one.54
Later on in our time together Tony Jones asked Moltmann quite matter of frankly, “What is the
church?” Moltmann drew on themes of “where is the church?” and also spoke of the important of dialog
with both Israel and other world religions in ways he speaks deeply about in !e Church in the Power of
the Spirit. But it was a follow up question concerning the shape of congregations in a digital and internet
cultural that sparked quite a buzz around the room. Moltmann passionately suggested that digital means
were of no help in building community. He argued that while digital forms are good for
communication, it is not su&cient for building community. “It’s missing the taste and the smell, the
feeling...this e$ects our communities.”55 Furthermore, according to Moltmann we need local, face-to-
face communities to sit with each other and practice the Eucharist. Considering the wide spread use of
technology among the emerging church movement it was a surprising moment in which several
genuinely took the remarks as an invitation to take inventory of what is lost versus its advantages of
e&ciency and speed.
Finally, it was one of those moments in which the room got a bit uneasy. Moltmann is well
known for intuitive and yet o"en over the top judgments. When asked to make several one-line
statements about signi#cant thinkers for today, Derrida was mentioned. Moltmann’s response was that
“post-modernity was another form of modernity.” If one listened closely they might hear snarky doctoral
53 Ibid.
54 See “Rede#ning Holy,” Sojourner’s Magazine (Web Only Content), accessed via http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0806&article=080601
55 Moltmann, “Emergent !eological Conversation.”
students in the back rejecting this analysis. Since these were one-line responses, the conversation moved
along until later that night of course at the pub. It was there that this criticism got unpacked and mulled
over. Some commented that Moltmann’s view was short-sighted and that his idea of contemporary critic
was Hegel and so he had no context for a positive/constructive postmodernity. Perhaps this is the case.
While such a statement seems to ultimately fall short, it did have a serious e$ect of many of the
participants who took this as a admonition to remember that at best we live in late modernity and that
postmodernity in its fullest sense is still coming to the surface.
!ese re%ections were on a quite literal conversation between Moltmann and the emerging
church movement. From these re%ections one can notice the beginnings of where some truly fruitful
dialog might take place. Moving forward we shall see how Moltmann’s theological method and how he
applies that method might o$er a way for the emerging church movement to develop a more robust
theological re%ection and contribution.
Emergent !eological Method & Ecclesiology: A Moltmannian Critique
Moltmann himself denies that he is a good systematic theologian. Indeed he has no three
volume set and no work entitled “systematic.” Altogether his method early on was to look at the “whole
of theology through a single focus.”56 Later on his method developed as a contribution to the whole of
theology. !is approach was even deeper a&rmed a"er his experiences in Latin America in which he re-
committed himself to the long-term theological problems which are always only provisionally dealt
with. What emerged from this process was two deeply held centerpieces of Moltmann’s theological
method — a commitment to praxis and doxology and an openness to dialog. Both of these centerpieces
o$er a meaningful critique to the emerging church movement.
!ere is no doubt that the emerging church movement understands praxis. In fact it is the very
convergence of action (especially experimentation) and deep re%ection that makes the emerging church
56 Moltmann, !e Church, xiii (Preface to the Paperback Edition).
movement a worth while case study. But Moltmann takes this orientation of praxis and goes further
until he has found doxology. In Moltmann’s eschatological reorientation of all theology, we are
reminded that from beginning to end, God’s saving action in the world is inseparable from doxology.
Praxis without doxology, argues Moltmann, is mere activism. !is is a serious critique for the emerging
church movement which has as of yet been able to be constructive. It is hard to make any sort of
doxological claim when the movement has self-limited itself to deconstruction. !e only way Moltmann
sees that this is possible is when action is pair with contemplation. It is only in contemplation that one
#nds the deep joy needed to make any further progress towards the kingdom.
Additionally is also true that the emerging church movement understands dialog. !e
movement has continually identi#ed itself as a conversation and has been open to conversations perhaps
to a fault.57 Yet this still falls far short of being theological and it is hardly the open friendship which
Moltmann calls for. For Moltmann this openness to dialog must not contain itself to the comfort of the
pubs over a lovely pint or relegated to the comfortable couches of the living room and cafes. But rather
this kind of openness is a call to hospitality and relationship with the poor and marginalized. !is
openness to dialog must be with the oppressed, it must lead to relationship and those relationships must
lead to liberation. It is not enough for Christians to critique the church. !e church must go further,
pick up its prophetic call to critique society and get to the hard work of transforming society for the sake
of the kingdom of God coming into the world. !e emerging church movement has —'whether
intentionally or unintentionally is irrelevant — done little to align itself as a resistance movement. It
may not be accommodating of the “established church” of Evangelicalism and modern
denominationalism but it certainly has not primarily seen itself in opposition to the dominant societal
values. !e movement has not been a strong enough voice for the oppressive society of late modernity
and it has yet to read the Bible with the poor. For Moltmann, this openness to dialog has consequences.
57 Bob Carlton, my friend and long time advocate of the emerging church movement, o"en says “the emerging church is like junior high kids and sex. Every one is talking about but no one is doing it. !ose who are, they’re messy and fertile as can be.”
Furthermore, when we take a serious look at the way Moltmann’s theological method addresses
the doctrine of the church there are at least three dynamics worth raising as additional critiques of the
emerging church movement. First, Moltmann’s messianic ecclesiology is rooted deeply in a trinitarian
orientation of the future. !is dynamic understands that the mission of the church is created in the
presence and power of the Holy Spirit. It is a pneumatological mission. While the non-Western churches
are focusing on a new wave of theologies of the Spirit, the emerging churches of the West have placed
little signi#cance on the role of the Spirit in either conversation or action. It is the creative work of the
Spirit which Moltmann understands to bridge the tension between faith in the church and experience in
the church.58 If the emerging church movement expects to make any progress towards a “Christianity
worth believing,”59 then it will embrace a pneumatic christology. !is leads us to the second dynamic —
a christocentric understanding. Moltmann is deeply aware of the way the church has avoided the cross as
a de#ning moment for the creation of the church. If the Evangelical church as a daughter of modernity
overly focused on the post-resurrection Christ, then the emerging church movement has overly focused
on the life of Jesus to develop its understand of Christianity as a “following of God in the Way of
Jesus.”60 !e result of both is the same — an avoidance of the cross. But it is precisely in the abandoned
and cruci#ed Christ that Moltmann understands the church to be of Jesus Christ. With the exception of
a few within the new monastic stream of the emerging church movement there is still no alignment with
the su$ering of the world. Without such an alignment there is no full expression of the church. Lastly,
Moltmann describes the contemporary church as the church of Jesus Christ, the missionary church, the
ecumenical church and the political church. We have already discussed what Moltmann means by the
former. Both his understanding of the missionary church and the political church o$er helpful critiques
of the emerging church movement. As the emerging church movement seeks to further develop its self-
understanding it would do well to consider how Moltmann understand the missionary church. !e
58 Moltmann, !e Church, 35-37.
59 to quote the newest catch phrase of Doug Padgit, a leading voice in the emerging church movement.
60 see www.emergentvillage.com.
church rooted in the missio dei leans on its “endowment with the spirit of liberty and the powers of
liberation [which] knows distinctions, but not divisions. !e all-embracing messianic mission of the
whole church corresponds to Christ’s messianic mission and to the charismatic sending of the Spirit
‘which shall be poured our on all %esh’.”61 !is is to say that the movement must move beyond de#ning
itself against other expression of the church and understand its identity #nally “beyond the church,
#nding its goal in the consummation of all creation in God.”62 In the political church Moltmann reminds
us that the church always exists in the social processes of reality including the political. !e
responsibility of the Christian church is towards the “critical ending of these unholy alliances made by
the church.” In its commitment to the contemporary cultural situation, the emerging church movement
has no sense of its political responsibilities. !is is an area all but ignored by the movement. Until it does
it will remain a movement of post-Evangelical, post-denominational suburbanites.
A Way Forward: Returning to a !eology of Hope
To disclose to [the world] the horizon of the future of the cruci#ed Christ is the task of the Christian Church.63
To conclude this essay we return again to Moltmann’s beginning. Moltmann began with hope in
God’s future for all of creation. !is hope “must bring about a new understanding of the world.”64
Despite the signi#cant critique that has been made of the emerging church movement’s theological
contributions, it is clear that its hope is in God’s future and its goal in this new understanding of the
world. !roughout this essay I have chosen to use the designation “emerging” — as participle form —
because it best illustrates the movement of the church forward towards God’s future. “Hope alone is to
be called ‘realistic’, because it alone takes seriously the possibilities with which all reality is fraught. It
61 Moltmann, !e Church, 11.
62 Ibid.
63 Moltmann, !eology of Hope, 338.
64 Ibid.
does not take things as they happen to stand or lie, but as progressing, moving things with possibilities
of change.”65 Whether or not the emerging church movement gets its own theology or practice “right” is
a matter of relative insigni#cance because as Moltmann says, all theology and reality is provisional. But
#nally what can be hoped for is a church that is emerging into the kingdom of God here now and yet to
come for all of creation. Finally, moving forward to the future of the church is to put our deepest faith in
a hope beyond optimism, in the promise of the triune God who will make all things new. May it be so.
TIMOTHY K. SNYDERChristmas Eve, 2009
Washington, DC
65 Ibid., 25.