The ‘Emerging Church’ in America: Notes on the interaction of Christianities

Yesterday evening I spent a couple of hours discussing the Emergent Church with Dr. James Bielo, who is a professor of anthropology at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Over a couple of glasses of beer, we discussed everything from the personal involvement in the Emergent conversation, to the culture, social aspects and anthropology of the Emergent conversation.

We had a great time; better yet, James agreed to share his take as an anthropologist (thoughts and notes) with me and the readers at large. They are combined in an articled titled The ‘Emerging Church’ in America: Notes on the interaction of Christianities, which is very much worth a read. With James' permission, I am making the PDF version of this article available below. Please assign citations and credit as requested in the article: James S. Bielo, The ‘Emerging Church’ in America: Notes on the interaction of Christianities, Religion (2009), doi:10.1016/j.religion.2009.02.007

In my opinion, this article is likely the most detailed academic study of the Emergent/Emerging Church to date (at least that I am aware of), and it offers some fascinating insight into both how to Emergent Church is being perceived by "outsiders" and critics, but also how Emergent Christianity is evolving and progressing in light of criticism and interaction with the rest of Christendom.

If you are interested in more of Dr. Bielo's work, you can take a look at his book titled Words Upon the Word, An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study; my copy is on its way.

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The ‘Emerging Church’ in America: Notes on the interaction of Christianities

James S. Bielo*
Department of Anthropology, 164 Upham Hall, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056, USA

The ‘Emerging Church’ is an American-born movement that dates to the late 1990s. It is fundamentally a movement of cultural critique in which the primary interlocutor is the dominant tradition in the United States, conservative Evangelicalism. In this article I address the phenomenon of Emerging Christianity based on historical, literary, and ethnographic analyses of Emerging Church advocates and critics. In particular, I argue that four points of dialogue characterize the status of Emerging in the United States: ‘post-foundational’ theology, ‘ancient-future’ worship, ‘missional’ evangelism, and a general posture of ‘deconversion.’ Ultimately, I present the story of the Emerging Church for its significance to two broad theoretical questions. First, how do new forms of religious identity come into being? And, second, for those working in the ‘anthropology of Christianity’: what happens when Christianities interact? In response to these questions, I stress the Janus-faced quality of Emerging Christianity and its reliance on the categories, narratives, and vocabulary of conservative Evangelicalism in constructing its thorough- going cultural critique.

Download the entire article in PDF format here.


14 Apr, 2009 | Virgil
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Comments


by BD - 27 Feb, 2010 - 09:04:13
hey,

interesting topic. Do you have a link to the full Bielo article? The link above does not work, and I would really like to read all of it.
Thank you!

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