(me)defining Anglimergent identity: An Anglimergent Fundamentalist?!

[Tim Mathis]

No, not really. I did however want to throw out a few of my thoughts in the theology section here about what seem to me to be the fundamental elements of Anglimergent identity at this juncture in history. Let me know what you think.

1) First off, we're liturgical/sacramental in orientation, and we affirm the three legged stool of Scripture, tradition and reason. By liturgical/sacramental, I don't just mean that we like structure and wine (who doesn't?), but that we affirm the underlying importance of the physical. That is, to use Alister McGrath's term, we believe in the 'Enchantment' of the world, that God is present around us, in what we do and how we act, and in the physical Eucharist that we eat on Sundays. By 'affirm the three legged stool', I mean that in some form or another, we believe that those are the proper and primary sources for the developing Anglimergent belief and practice--wherever that might take us.

2) In the same vein, we're Nicene Creed-centric rather than Bible or "gospel"-centric. Some of the evangelical wings of the emerging church conversation tend to find their unity in Scripture, while we find it in our common affirmation of the creed. (And our common dis-affirmation of the band Creed).

3) Like other elements of the emerging conversation, we are self-consciously post-modern when it comes to our epistemology. That is, we like to say "I don't know" a lot, because we've realized that we actually don't, and ultimately can't. We're part of a bigger dialogue with reality, and we never finally come to an absolute final 'answer' to any of our questions--particularly religious ones. Like Michael Polanyi and John Polkinghorne, I like to identify this approach as "Critically Realist" rather than "relativist", because it's not that we don't believe that ultimate reality exists--we do, and we call it God--but we just are realistic about the fact that we can't totally grasp it. "I still haven't found what I'm looking for...but yes I'm still running..."

4) Along the same lines, we're conversational in orientation. We don't fully trust dogma, so we try to network with other people with other opinions in the attempt to move closer to the truth. Tied to this, we call ourselves 'conversational' because we don't want to be labeled as a 'movement' or 'trend', although if you think about the definitions of those terms, that's what we are. I don't know what's so bad about that...

5) We're closet Anglophiles with secret crushes on Bono. Just thought I'd throw that in. But seriously, we do embrace the old (i.e., England) and the new (i.e. U23D) --hence we tend to identify as the 'new monastics', the 'new friars', and so forth.

6) We're trans-institutional, and communitarian. I don't like the term post-institutional, because I think that's a little bit over dramatic. We are, however, happy to cross institutional boundaries and disregard institutional requirements when we find it to be expedient. That's because we believe in the concept of the priesthood of all believers, and have a catholic spirit about the unity of the body of Christ. We're CANA, ECUSA, COE, non-denominational, etc. etc.

7) We have an ethical/missional/kingdom of God orientation rather than an 'evangelism' orientation. This is almost a cliche at this point, but it's true. We're trying to impact our communities in a way that is different from an Evangelical evangelistic model. We believe in building the Kingdom of God, loving our neighbors, and generally not being assholes (we also curse self-consciously as our petty little stand against traditional religious authority). We think the Christian message is important, but believe that it is integrally connected to a Christian way of acting. Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy aren't mutually exclusive.

[Karen Ward]

Cheers!
+ many of us like Belgian beers and Mac computers, being consumate artisans and devotees
of authentic beauty. In all things, enchante!

[Mike Croghan]

Wow! Good stuff from both Tim and Thomas. (And is it me, or does the noncomformist in Karen's cartoon look a bit like Shane Claiborne?) :-) I was going to quibble with the three-legged stool myself, but got busy and forgot. I'm not as much a sola scriptura sort of dude as Thomas - I think the role of the Bible as the word of God needs to be subordinate to the role of Jesus as the Word of God, and that everything in the Bible ought to be interpreted through the hermeneutic of the words and actions of Christ. But the Bible is our primary witness to the triune God, and thus (I agree with Thomas) is rightly the primary foundation of our faith. I've always thought that reason (as Thomas says) is more of an interpretive tool than a foundation - it's more like the rear end we use to sit on the stool than a leg of the stool itself.

I tend to think of my own three-legged stool as 1) scripture (the primary, "original" witness to Christ, and the "longest" leg of my stool), 2) community (the witness to Christ through my friends, which encompasses "tradition" as you extend our community connections back through time), and 3) experience (the witness to Christ through my own relationship with him). There's definitely an order to these "legs", at least in theory - with scripture being primary and my own experience (which is most subject to my selfish, sinful misinterpretation) being last, and I use reason to interpret all three - but reason is more like my butt than a stool leg. Or maybe it's one butt cheek, the other being intuition. :-) And the image of a stool with very uneven legs - upon which it's impossible to sit still for long - is very appropriate for my faith journey, BTW.

But anyway, Thomas, I'm glad you're here, and I'm glad you're representing a more-sola-scriptura-than-me (or Tim) point of view within Anglimergence. Good on ya!

[Mike Croghan]

Yeah, I kinda thought so, which is why I was groping around with phrases like "more sola scriptura", which admittedly is a bit nonsensical. Kind of like "more unique" or "somewhat pregnant" or something. :-) I like "prima scriptura" - good language.

[Becky Garrison]

Mike - Shane has longer dreds these days. Also, he does NOT like to be called emergent and he seldom even checks his email. So the odds of him being at any bloggers meeting would be slim to none. He also told me that Rob Bell doesn't care for the label as well. Seems anything that's hot gets branded as "emergent."

[Mike Croghan]

Man, that boy's just got to be different, doesn't he? ;-)

(Note the ironic winky face - I'm well aware that Shane is about the last guy on earth who's going to do something just for the sake of "non-conformity".)

[Aaron]

Tim, I apologize that I’m late to the conversation and wordy. I typed this and then, later, saw the conversation about the “three legged stool” was already happening, so I hope this doesn’t overlap too much. My two dollars (see the monster list below) is that I think the difficulty in trying to outline any distillation of elements means that for every element we include we are necessarily (though not intentionally) excluding others. Still, there’s no harm in trying and I think it can and will yield some important discoveries of identity for anyone who chooses to engage with your proposal. With that said, here’s my attempt to ‘riff’ off of your contribution to offer my important elements (or my personal “Anglimergent Canon,” if you will).

(1) I would personally say that the “three-legged stool” model needs to be revamped. In fact, I think you’ve already identified exactly why –it includes neither the heart nor the sensory (nor the liturgical, nor the sacramental). I know that your typical country club Episcopalian might bristle at this thought, but in my own life I’ve discovered that if I completely relied on the ‘big three’ (Scripture, tradition and reason) I wouldn’t probably have any faith, because I find they sort of distill God to a series of philosophical and historical propositions. In other words, my own faith is guided as much by my embodied intuition in the world and the reasonable reflection on those intuitions. And in order to get to God, I have to be able to take a leap which goes beyond where any of those three will allow me to go, including Scripture. So, I would take the ‘big three’ and add intuition, or embodiment, or some other term which captures the way I experience God in the world.

(2) I love the second element, if for no other reason then our common distaste for Creed the band. My personal Anglimergent identity embraces creedalism whole-heartedly (I have a blog post on the issue of creedalism and the emergent conversation), yet I’m not sure if I would go so far as to embrace the Nicene Creed whole-heartedly. I embrace it as an important document to Anglican history and tradition, but my emergent spirit wants me to dust it off for a new, relational generation. So I say creedalism, yes! But I also want to argue for careful, unending consideration of the ultimate effect of the language and theological commitments of our historical creeds (e.g. gendered language for God) in postmodern congregational life.

(3) I like your element number three a lot. I do think there’s a tension with the fact that any strong definition of the post-modern would probably reject any affirmation of an ultimate reality as simply an acknowledgment of another (though decentralized) metanarrative. But, of course, as people aligning with a religious faith we are left in a curious position of both acknowledging a greater, unified force and our inability to comprehend that force. In the same way, as Christians, we are left in the curious position of saying both “we don’t know” and “we privilege the Bible over other sacred texts.” So, perhaps we’re not purely post-modern, but undeniably paradoxically postmodern.

(4) Again, my Anglimergent identity agrees with number four. I think hinge, for me, again lies in the paradox of conversation. If we are truly conversational, then we have to be willing to listen and, consequently, risk changing our position on faith every time we enter into authentic dialogue with another. The question I’ve had (and probably will continue to have) is that emergent folk talk a great deal about “intentional conversation” as a foundational element in this sense of willingness to privilege the other, to listen to the other, and ultimately be transformed through dialogue. What I don’t hear much about is how this dialogue works with folks of other (or no) faith traditions. This is, for me, where the rubber meets the road. In other words, it’s one thing to risk transformation with a person of essentially the same faith. It’s quite another to risk it with someone of no faith, or another faith.

[As a side-note, my impression of the concern over being labeled a ‘movement’ or ‘trend’ has partially to do with concern over becoming what all radical movements eventually become – stagnant. I think (though am probably wrong) that it has even more to do with fear of labels which categorize things and make people start to see them as linear, bounded phenomena.]

(5) Yes and yes. I would simply add that in my identity, history becomes a dialogue partner meaning that things such as the creeds, hymnals, and all the formulas of our Anglican identity are opened up for exploration and conversation.

(6) This element is, for me, is one which I haven’t worked out and is going to be vitally important to the future of Anglicanism as an institution. I think you’ve brilliantly called it to our attention. There are two important points you raise, and here’s my take.

First, the question of the church as an institution. I think a distinction does need to be made here. My sense of ‘trans-institutional’ is that it implies a crossing or unifying many institutions. On the other hand, ‘post-institutional’ means quite the opposite: that institutionalization should be dissolved entirely. One of the sticking points between “Anglicanism,” on one hand, and “emergence” on the other is just this difference. Are we dissolving the institution or are we revolutionizing it? I think this will have to be worked out through history, but I would gather that of all the great elements you’ve pointed out, this is the one in which this group would differ the most. Also, I have no answer to this very difficult element, I think it’s just an important tension to continue to think through.

Second, the question of “the priesthood of all believers.” This is a biggy. In my mind, here’s the primary question: if we truly embody this concept, how does that affect our sacramental and liturgical theology? In other words, am I (a believer-priest) able to consecrate the host, proclaim the gospel during a service, or baptize an infant? If not, what is the difference between the agency of a believer-priest and an ordained-priest? And if there IS a difference does the claim “priesthood of ALL believers” still hold? Perhaps this is for another post, but I believe this question is a hornet’s nest waiting to be stirred in this post-modern world. If you don’t believe me, wait until the middle of a sermon on Sunday, then raise your hand and ask these questions. Then follow them with these questions: was Jesus ordained? How about Paul? (But make sure to have the car warmed up first).

(7) I couldn’t agree more. I wish that there was more talk about social justice in the “emergent conversation” which, by its categorical title, privileges talk over action. In my ideal Anglimergent world, orthodoxy and orthopraxy wouldn’t exist at all and would be replaced by dialogical authenticity. But again, Tim, I think you’ve hit on a really big concept here, which is what does God’s kin-dom look like? In my mind it looks something like radical egalitarianism. The issue I’ve always had with traditional evangelical missional models is that when I read the gospels, I recall a lot of moments when Jesus healed and then requested secrecy and very few times when he required orthodoxy before services were rendered. But I wish this issue of social justice carried much more of a sense of urgency, as you suggest. I suspect that part of the gift of our Anglican heritage is reminding our evangelical emergent friends that radical sacramentalism demands social justice. In other words, feed, clothe, educate and empower first - ask questions later.

(8) Okay, that was the easy part because you provided so many great things to think about. Now its my turn to add one or two, which are more like extensions of what you’ve already said. That being said, my Anglimergent identity is also constituted of:

(a) A focus on process over product. In other words, a continual awareness of the profound tensions, contradictions and paradoxes of my faith-stance. This will (hopefully) result in an ongoing reinterpretation of the assumptions and commitments of my faith, and a continual renewal of my actions in the world. In other words, what I say, what I do, and how I worship.

(b) A commitment to the value of other faith (or non-faith) traditions. In other words, a commitment to the belief that God is larger than Christianity and trying to find ways in which I can connect and learn from the authenticity of others in the world.

(c) Renouncing the sacred/profane divide. Niebuhr’s “Christ and Culture” is a classic on this issue, as you probably already know. But my Anglimergent identity leads me to believe that if I am acting authentically on behalf of Christ in the world, then everywhere I stand I am standing on holy ground. I can’t hide from the world, but must immerse myself in it.

(d) Ceaseless action for social justice in the world. I just wanted to reiterate this one. My Anglimergent identity leads me to believe that we must become active agents for God’s kin-dom in the world. Conversations are only as good as the effect they produce.

[Tim Mathis]

Hi Folks,

Sorry for posting and running, but I've been out of town for the week since posting this one. There has been a lot of great conversation around this, which I'm really happy to see. I can't go in depth on this stuff, b/c my brain is currently feeling fried after a weekend at a youth retreat, but here are a few comments on what's been said to this point:

1) Thanks so much for the appreciative comments on what I've said. Everyone likes an online ego boost :).

2) I'm particularly intrigued by Mike and Aaron's comments re: experience and community. I was raised Wesleyan, and Wesley--that radical Anglican--added 'experience' to the three-legged stool to make the Wesleyan quadrilateral. I don't really have a problem with that. I do think that the categories 'reason' and 'tradition' can potentially encompass the same sort of sentiment, but I wouldn't really make a strong argument against adding those categories to the stool.

3) Thomas, thanks so much for your respectful and intelligent commentary, and for voicing a dissenting opinion. For me, the heart of emergence is really being able to talk about these things honestly, and figuring out what we can learn from one another. If we can't then all of the talk about being 'trans-institutional' is just bluster. Like Mike, I love the 'prima scriptura' language, because it points to the continuum on which we all exist. I would argue with you about the reality of the 'stool', primarily because it is a good descriptor of the way that a lot of Anglicans--both in the US and abroad--have functioned and do function, but I don't disagree with your point about Hooker's original intent. (Incidentally, You hear echoings of it in Wesley's Bible-centered theology, which I am admittedly more familiar with than Hooker's.) I'm a stool man myself, but I'm not sure how ready I am to enter into the conversation about why you should be too. Illustrating the points about experience above, my story (and community) is really why I've ended up where I am today theologically, and that's hard to put in argument form. The one rationally stated question I would always pose is, if 'prima scriptura', then how does interpretation play in? That is, who ultimately decides what Scripture says and means, and its significance, and why should I take what they say on authority? That question, to me, gets to the heart of the present debate about whether or not Anglicans really have justification to kick one another out of (or choose to leave ourselves) the Communion, because so much of it centers on the way we read our Bibles.

4) And Aaron, great thoughts. I think I agree entirely with everything you said, even in dissent to my original post. Questioning the Nicene Creed is interesting, and certainly on the table. Your point number (6) is appropriately a little confusing, because it relates to a really difficult set of questions about what emergence is doing in the institutional churches. My hope and belief, really, is that emergence is revolutionizing the churches--their theology, practice and power structure. I tend to question whether there can be such a thing as a 'non-institutional' church, but the institution is in a constant state of flux. Emergence is directing our Christian stream in a course that is at least slightly different from our past trajectory. I think your points 8 (a)(b) and (c) are indeed key features of the emergent ethos. Point (8)(d) I'm also down with, but I'm not convinced that it cuts across Anglimergent streams significantly enough to be considered characteristic of the whole. That's a truth that I'd lament, but it may just be my cynicism and self-righteousness coming out. I'm going to add you to the ol' blogroll.

Tim

[Sara Miles]

Tim, very interesting...thanks for thinking this through.

A couple personal comments: I'd have to say I don't agree with the Creed-centric piece. If Anglican churches are trying to "emerge" into becoming spaces that welcome and evangelize strangers, then having people chant a pledge of belief in unison is not necessarily the most effective way to proceed. "Belief" is the least interesting part of faith for me, in any case. I'd say that a establishing a coherent and transparent liturgical practice-- where it's clear to newcomers as well to insiders what we're doing, and why-- is far more central than reciting a statement of belief.

I'm also way less interested in England as "the old"....I'd like to see us go really old-school, and look East, to far earlier, and more participatory, Christian traditions. And ditto with the "new"...I like a mash-up as much as the next person, and I KNOW God loves mestizaje, but we gotta find something newer than Bono to throw into the mix.

But "building the kingdom of God, loving our neighbors, and generally not being assholes" is pretty great.

Anyway, look forward to talking more....

[Paul Fromberg]

Tim,

Thoughts about your #2: "In the same vein, we're Nicene Creed-centric rather than Bible or "gospel"-centric."

Along with Sara, I'm a strong supporter of the exclusion of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan (say it three times - fast) Creed from the liturgy. Centering on the Creed strikes me as very not emergent:

1. It is a document that is designed to separate rather than to gather up the many pieces of Christ's
church.
2. It is a document that was developed by the Empire to homogenize the 4th - 5th century Church.
3. It is a document that holds God's Word as static.
4. It is a document that seeks to conform belief and hence action.

NOT that I'm opposed to any of that per se. However, it strikes me that the genius of anglimergent is the ability to hold everything in tension and in the light of God's revelation in Jesus Christ. I'd agree with Thomas that we are "prima scriptura" and with Mike that we understand the scriptures solely through the optic of Jesus.

I would say that if we have to center on a creed that it be the old Jerusalem Creed (Jesus is Messiah) or the old Roman Creed (the Baptismal Creed). Since these are designed to welcome in rather than to force out, they seem much more in keeping with this whole emergent thing.

My friend and mentor Rick Fabian said that if you have to use the N-C Creed in liturgy you "might recite it while marching around and waving American and Episcopal Church flags, while the church wardens tear up photographs of the Mormon Tabernacle: these gestures would express the custom's fundamental spirit, and employ beloved Episcopalian paraphernalia lately fallen into disuse."

And what exactly is wrong with the band Creed?

[Mike Croghan]

This discussion about creeds is very interesting. Liturgical use of the Nicene Creed is one of the elements that we inherited as part of our "Anglican DNA" from our former-and-now-again-TEC-priest founding pastor. We don't use it all the time, but we do use it with some frequency, and we wrestle with the practice almost as frequently as we use it.

Since the bulk of the folks in our church are from a low-church, non-denominational, conservative evangelical (and/or Reformed and/or charistmatic) background, our use of the creed represents something rather different to us than it might to a lot of Anglicans. A lot of our folks come from a world where every church has a detailed congregational doctrinal statement designed to divide the beliefs of that particular congregation (i.e., the right beliefs) from the flawed doctrine of the rest of the Body of Christ. Coming from that background, using the Creed represents, for us, a pushing of "doctrinal statements" all the way back to the 4th century, before even the East/West schism, and embracing a statement that, in theory anyway, "the whole of the Body" has embraced. We really do mean it to be a symbol of welcome and of solidarity with the whole Church in all its forms.

Trouble is, for the reasons Paul mentions and others, it's really a crappy symbol of that. And though we can be like Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass and claim that our symbols mean whatever we say they mean, that's pretty farging anti-missional of us. Unless we explain in detail every time we use the Creed our reasons for using it (which, believe it or not, we try to do much of the time), the average newcomer is no more going to figure out what we mean by the Creed than they are going to figure out what words like "narthex", "rector", "verger", and "vestry" mean in the average traditional Anglican church's Sunday bulletin.

We've been known to use other creeds instead (Apostles', Masai, Philippians 2, etc.), and many weeks our liturgies don't include a creed at all (we generally custom-design each worship service around whatever we're focusing on). This is something we discuss regularly (some of us truly can't *stand* the Nicene creed), and I'm feeling like it's something we ought to discuss again.

[Tim Mathis]

I've found the creedal pushback interesting--maybe not surprising though? Sara brought up the point the idea of liturgy as a uniting force, and I think that's really perceptive: after all, for Anglicans, it's the prayer book, stupid.

I think Mike summarized my thinking pretty well when he suggested that reciting the Creed is "embracing a statement that, in theory anyway, "the whole of the Body" has embraced. We really do mean it to be a symbol of welcome and of solidarity with the whole Church in all its forms." While it isn't a perfect statement of what we all believe literally, it's a symbolic pointer towards our unity with the rest of the global church, which also of course points towards our theological connection with the historical Christian tradition. I'm not sure I'm ready to jettison it as a symbolic statement, at least, though I don't agree with everything it includes or stands for. My reasoning: for a while now, I've considered myself sympathetic to a multifaith perspective, in that I think there is value in all religions, no one has a corner on the truth, and we shouldn't assume that we're correct on religious questions. (So I'd be happy with a Multifaith Creed addition to our liturgy.) However, I'm also of the opinion that theology is important, and that Christian theology is as central to Anglican identity as is Christian practice and Christian liturgy. I don't think of the Nicene creed as a sort of fundamentalist statement of what's essential in order to get to heaven, or to be part of the church, or even as "true" in a literal sense, but I do see it as a pretty good and succinct statement of historical Christian belief. I don't know how helpful it is to jettison any sense of unifying belief entirely, even if we don't all always hold to the same beliefs, or even if those beliefs are seen to be in a state of flux. It is a sort of baseline from where most of the Church has started though--a set of propositions that unify us, because they direct the questions that we are asking and the principles that we're attempting to live by.

I'd write more, but my wife is calling me to dinner...

Peace,
Tim

[Sara Miles]

Tim, I'd hope we can look more closely at the difference between what we mean by "the whole of the Body," and "the Church in all its forms." It's easy to fall into habit here...as when Episcopalians refer to "the people of God," meaning, "us." To the extent that something new is emerging, I think it will be helpful to not automatically conflate theology with ecclesiology. Or tradition with faith.

I understand God's Body to encompass all of creation...everything that was, is, and is to be. I believe that Christ plays in all people, without exception: not simply in those people who have affiliated themselves with explicit and institutional expressions of Christianity. The Church (like all of creation) belongs to God; but God (and thus God's body) doesn't necessarily belong to the Church.

Under His Mercy,
Sara