I like Mark Driscoll. He sort of represents to me all the good things about the Emerging Church. He also bugs me at times. This sermon demonstrates what I love and dislike about him and his ministry. It is a sermon on the Emerging Church and he begins by defining some terms. But that is the entire problem with Emerging/Emergent Church language: it is all new and undefined! So Mark starts out defining what a “traditional” church is. Again, another undefined term that Mark defines according to his understanding. Is it accurate? Well, I suppose it accurately explains Mark’s understanding but I’m not sure that “traditional churches” were that monolithic. Mark say that about “gen X” later in the sermon.

Post-modern Christianity shouldn’t be identical to post-modernism. It should express the truth of Christ risen from the dead in a way that post-modern thinkers can come to believe.To be fair, Mark is just trying to size up the situation for his congregation. He admits that he’s not sure what a lot of the stuff he lists is all about and that he grew up Roman Catholic. Okay, that’s cool. But one of the things that aggravates the Emergent and “traditional” conversation is just this kind of stereotyping. Brian McClaren is a champion at doing that. Read his book Generous Orthodoxy and you’ll find tons of examples.

So the whole Emerging/Emergent Church thing seems to largely be a reaction to a stereotype rather than a reaction against the real church as it is/was. Driscoll rightly criticizes the Emergent folk for throwing out too much in order to not be like “them” whoever “them” is/was. Post-modern Christianity shouldn’t be identical to post-modernism. It should express the truth of Christ risen from the dead in a way that post-modern thinkers can come to believe.

So here’s my takeaway. Instead of coming up with new names for new movements in the Western church, how about if we just try to be the church in our Western culture? Isn’t there room for churches that use pipe organs and churches that use electric guitars? Doesn’t our culture look like that? Provided we keep our doctrine straight, isn’t there room for churches where guys wear short-sleeved shirts with ties and other churches where they wear t-shirts and jeans? We don’t need to stereotype and then criticize “them” in order to form “us”. That isn’t very often true and even less is it helpful to us or them or the people we want to see come to know Jesus.

Favorite quote from the sermon: “You can’t debate anymore; people’s feelings get hurt and then they blog.”