I have written in the past on the emergent movement.  While I have never talked in much depth about their theology, I am quite interested in the sociological trends of places like emergent village.  I recieve their newsletter via e-mail and was again interested in the direction they are taking.  They are suggesting four shifts in priority that generally follow the organizational structure in our changing world:

1. Reduce and decentralize by getting rid of the national coordinator position (this means Tony will be moving on).
2. Re-emphasize the importance of the website as a central hub.
3. To decentralize by depending on grassroot organizations to plan events rather than emergent village to plan events themselves.
4. To Reconfigure the board

I do not consider myself an expert on emergent (I have not read enough of the author’s who call themselves ‘emergent,’ nor do I have the time to do so), but I have been watching the conversation for some years and have been greatly interested by the sociological trends.  All of their goals for the “new” emergent-village seem to be about less national presence and more presence as network node (perhapas the anti-federalists were right all along).  There is a term recently introduced to me by my blogging friend Nate called subsidiarity.  I am so excited by this word because it brings to term some of the ideas that have been boiling in my brain.  This concept suggests that matters ought to be handled by the smallest group possible.  It would probably have been the view of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy and probably embodies many of the grassroots organizations throughout United States history.  There is a good conversation going on about this idea at catholicanarchy (read the comments).  I want to quote one of the comments here:

I think (and I cant take credit for this) that locality is such a wonderful answer to capitalism & globalization. Wendell berry is the best critiquer of this system that I can think of. Why can’t people be happy with solving the problems and providing for the needs of their own communities? Everything is always mass produced and shipped all over whether or not its wanted/needed elsewhere. This is where advertising and the creation of perceived needs come in. What is really troubling is when we think about how this has come into Christianity in the form of evangelism.

Why join a subsidarity movement?  Well, as Christians we hopefully realize that the best way to work is through the local church as an expression of the catholic church (universal, not necessarily Roman Catholic).  Could we argue that God uses subsidarity?  He chose a particular people group in a particular place to be the expression of his love to the world.  The particularity of God in ‘choosing’ one group to, in turn, bless the wold holistically, seem to show subsidarity, or the idea that working through one group as a kind of tree that spreads its root deep, as his guiding principle.  As Christians, we need to remember that bigger is not always better.

Tony Jones, in his book The New Christians takes us on a ride through his understanding of the emergent movement and where it is going. I have only read the first few pages at amazon.com, but I would like to discuss what he says there as a discussion on the Emergent church. In his first controlling metaphor, Jones suggest that the church is like a pay phone. Pay phones used to be useful as a way of communication, but have become largely irrelevant as a result of the cell phone. He argues in a similar fashion that the church is no longer an effective form of communication.

Has the church become ineffective? Jones cites a Baylor University Study that suggests 85% of people attend some kind of church (he cites from page 6 on the attached pdf file, but does not go into great detail about the rest of the study). Because 85% of people go to church, Jones assumes that America must still be very religious (although we are not sure which America he is talking about…the study also cites that those between 18-30 are three times more likely to have no church affiliation). I would like to spend a moment here reminding people that statistics do not prove theories. We might say, there are a lot of people who go to church, therefore America is religious, but it is not that simple. America is a diverse nation, from diverse backgrounds. Look at how Baylor actually breaks down religion in America:

Unaffiliated: 10.8%
Catholic: 21.2%
Black Protestant: 5%
Evangelical Protestant: 33.6%
Mainline Protestant: 22.1%
Jewish: 2.5%
Other: 4.9%

I think it is interesting then that Jones say this in the book:

“The modern church–at least as it is characterized by imposing physical buildings, professional clergy, denominational bureaucracies, residential seminary training, and other trappings–was an endeavor by faith men and woman in their time and place, attempting to live into the biblical gospel. But the church was never the ends, only the means.”

Notice how Jones talks about the “modern church.” Is he talking about mainline protestants or evangelical protestants? Is he talking about Catholics or those who are unaffiliated? What place do black protestants have in this movement (have their been many black theologians in the emergent movement?). The book then goes on to talk about problems in the Anglican church, Episcopal church, and the Southern Baptist church as if because they all have problems they are all part of the same monolithic phenomenon. But the problems are not monolithic. They are all localized problems within particular denominations and I don’t know why or how Jones thinks he can speak to all of these denominations.

We need to spend more time in the local church and less time talking about the church universal. We have study after study coming out about the American churches, but the unsung heroes are the ones who are doing something at the local and regional level. The church will never be the church outside of the regional tendencies of particular places.  We can continue to make generalized statements about what “emergent” means, but I believe this expression can only be realized at the local level within the tradition of denominational churches.