The History of Emergent Part 1

Along with a thousand other people, I was lucky enough to receive chapter one of The New Christians by Emergent Pope Tony Jones. I will begin a several part series that not only reflects on this book but my own brush with glory (Emergent and pre-Emergent). Of course I am going to bring my own solipsistic and self-referential opinion to this book, person and history. And so I begin.

Tony Jones is a friend of mine. He has been since 1999. Boom. And he is the point man (Pope) of Emergent Village. But I do not come to this book with a myopic friend opinion. Emergent and its history represent some of the greatest and worst experiences I have had as an adult. So honestly, there is a part of me who loves Tony and wants this book to sell a million copies. There is another part of me honestly that hopes the whole movement will fail. I am simply being transparent about my inner demons. But if you push me and ask me I will tell you that no other group of people (with some select exceptions) represent and articulate a Christianity worth listening to and learning from.

I devoured chapter one. And enjoyed it. It is a thoughtful, intelligent and lucid articulation of the state of affairs in the American church. If you take away your pre conceived notions of Emergent (or possibly Tony for that matter) and confront whatever fears you have about these revolutionaries, you will hear a rational voice that clearly cuts through the history of the American church and helps give a vision for hope that might actually give you some relief about the future of our faith in this country.

Lets start with the chickens. No lets start with the cows. Last week the Humane Society released hidden video taken of a Cow chop shop somewhere in our country. It was a brutal depiction of how poorly our meat (brown eyed cows) are treated on the way to being killed for our sustenance. One awful shot showed a cow or two being lifted and dropped from a forklift. The cows were alive!

I was horrified and texted my wife from my hotel in Boston. I decided then and there that I will only be purchasing and eating free range chickens and cows. I was disgusted, embarrassed and pissed off. As you read this you might be thinking what I am thinking. A little late to this discussion huh el mol? Yes. I suppose that I should have at least listened to PETA a little more carefully. Not that I want them to run our world or our meat factories for that matter, but I realized they have been speaking at least partial truths that many of us filling up churches on Sunday mornings should have been listening to and responding to.

God gave us the care of the whole earth and the animals in it. Before I go further on my soap box I need to clarify a few things. I own a mint green ford bronco and regularly hunt ducks and spent the bulk of my life hand making duck calls for folks to use in the field to lure birds over the decoys to shoot for entertainment. So I am indicting myself as much as anyone here and have contributed to the modernization that allows for much more efficient killing of animals. I am not saying that hunting or eating animals is bad. I am saying that there is a line that individuals and societies cross when they become so insulated from the realities behind how animals are treated either in the field or in a chop shop.

Because the American church has become so focused on the personal relationship with God through Jesus, almost everything else gets ruled out as not important (or to some “dangerously liberal”). Massive parts of the Bible are reconfigured and interpreted through our post-industrial lenses and we are given complete permission to exclude the treatment of animals, the treatment of human beings, the treatment of our earth in defense of some portions of the scripture (albeit important) that speak to the “spiritual” side of life that individual decisions are made of. I am here to say that both are important, individual decisions and systemic /collective decisions that we are all a part of but cannot always see as clearly.

If this post pisses you off then read Tony’s first chapter. I will even send it to you if you want. He does a better job saying the same thing through the eyes of chickens and much more.

viva la jones

el mol