Emerging Chart

Hello friends.

So I have been wanting to post this for awhile, but have been limited due to my html deficiencies. I am reading An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, a great book by the way, which is a collection of essays from around the emergent world. One particular essay is written by Tim Conder called "The Existing Church/Emerging Church Matrix: Collision, Credibility, Missional Collaboration, and Generative Friendship." As the title suggests, Tim is talking about the ways in which the emerging church and the existing church can work together and communicate. In the chapter, Tim has created a fantastic chart to encapsulate the differences between these two organisms he is comparing. I have tried with little success to recreate that chart in html form for you here. The result is too big to fit on my page (and there are some other issues as well. I welcome html advice). Suffice it to say, I am left to articulate the chart in mere words, imprecisely placed (what's the point, right?). So, here goes (ho hum).

The chart has two columns, labeled Existing/Modern and Emergent/Postmodern, followed by rows representing a number of categories. Here it is, and hopefully it makes some shadow of sense.

Existing/Modern VS Emergent/Postmodern.
Ethics: abstract/absolute/transcendent vs corporate/contextual
Epistemology: abstract/absolute/transcendent vs corporate/contextual
Theology: systematic/propositional vs narrative/missional
Gospel: eternal salvation vs present reign of God in this world
Mission: defined by personal, spiritual needs vs defined by God's redemptive agenda
Biblical Interpretation: propositional/dependent on theological systems vs contextual/narrative
Leadership:positional/hierarchical vs relational egalitarian
Spiritual Formation: linear/cognitive/personal vs nonlinear/holistic/communal
Basis of Community Formation: boundaries formed by doctrine/confession vs boundaries shaped by ethical and missional commitments

I'm not sure about you, but I think better when I have a visual, an organized framework to help me mentally absorb info. Does it help you? What are your responses to the chart? Would you agree with Tim's assessment?

Here are my responses:

1. The first one, ethics, is bound to make fundamentalists squirm. To suggest that ethics are anything other than absolute and never changing is heresy to some. However, it is undeniable that at least some (most?) ethics are contextual or corporate. Jesus even hints at this when talking of the early church ("binding and loosing" is thought to mean allow or disallow, "when two or three gather in my name" is in the context of church discipline, and these suggest that the early Christians are contextually and communally deciding the ethics of their community). Now this can certainly get dangerous if taken to an extreme, but let us not make it say something it is not or jump to extreme conclusions.

2. Spiritual Formation as communal is also a breath of fresh air as I've noticed it in the emerging church. I spent my first years as a Christian in the largely individualistic evangelical "community." I am a fan of "sharing faith" with others in community, and I'm glad to see that becoming stressed more and more. By the way, I think the small groups movement in evangelicalism is, at least in part, a longing of Christians to be less individual and more communal. However, to truly transform, some major shifts in how evangelicals view spiritual formation need to happen.

3. I love the Basis of Community Formation. Emergents embrace the reality that we cannot agree on all of the minor (or even the major) points of theology. But, perhaps we can all agree in certain elements of practice (i.e. social justice, reducing poverty, communion, prayer, mission etc.).