Photo:Prayer Offered for the success of Detroit's new Hybrids. Other new religious hybrids are emerging around the mainline.
For those who thought the ‘Emergent’ movement came from beyond the seeker sensitive contemporary post-evangelical frontier welcome to the “Hybrid Emergents” who are donning the vestments and liturgies of the mainline church.
The Luthermergents feature such leaders as Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber who claims on the “Praxis Podcast” to be “unashamedly orthodox” and “devoutly Lutheran”. Nadia is pastor at the House for All Sinners and Saints; a Lutheran mission church in Denver Colorado, which advertises itself as, “liturgical, Christo-centric, social justice oriented, queer inclusive, incarnational, contemplative, irreverent, ancient - future church with a progressive but deeply rooted theological imagination.” The Luthermergent website also features a link to the Emerging Leaders Network which include links (as do some other emergent sites) to folks with the ’secret behind the secret’, namely channeling non-embodied spirits.
Luthermergent
http://luthermergent.ning.com/
The Presbymergents by comparison are a bit more subdued. Meeting for the first time in February, 2009, they reflect the urge to behave “decently and in order” by creating an organization and applying for a 501c3. In fact Bruce Reyes-Chow , PCUSA Moderator is listed as one of their bloggers. One key “mission statement” put forward by their coordinator, Drew Tatusko, a Princeton Seminary Grad (2000), reads, “Presbymergent are followers of Christ who seek continual reform of existing church structures through dynamic, open, and intentionally critical systems.”
The Methomergents seem less intent on the radical and more concerned with how the methodist system does and doesn’t work, what is the role of the next generation, and what it means to be a missional methodist.
http://methomergent.blogspot.com
The Reformergent’s are a bit more skeptical about their own emergence, seeing theological deficiencies in the emergent movement in their approach to evangelism and orthodoxy. Their blog site sees four primary values in ‘emerging’, namely: missional living, social justice, authenticity and unstructured ecclesiology.
http://www.reformergent.org/about/
The Anglimergent group reflects much the same diversity as their parents, stating their intent to “agree to remain friends and remain in conversation that is honest in acknowledging the differing traditions and practices in different Anglican church bodies within our communion, without falling prey to paralysis that prevents us from engaging one another and God’s mission.”
The anglimergents in the U.S. have their own Bishop Protector, The Right Reverend Gregory H. Rickel, Diocese of Olympia, WA. Liberal Episcopal figures such as Bishop Bruno and Phyllis Tickle are heavily involved in supporting this movement and several of the “Emergent” churches such as the “The Crossing” which meets at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Boston under the sponsorship of the Diocese of Massachusetts, are committed to “building a core of new leaders, young adults, people of color and lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgendered people.”
On the other hand a major conference entitled “Ancient Traditions, Anglican Futures An Emerging Conversation” to be held at Evangelical, Trinity School of Ministry in Ambrose, Pa, June 4 - 6, is also promoted on the Anglimergent site.
The question “Ancient Traditions, Anglican Futures” will address in June is, ” How do Anglican “insiders” welcome young evangelicals, post-evangelicals, and emergents who are attracted to the “Great Tradition”? How do inquiring “outsiders” perceive or participate in the distinctive anamnesia (memory) of Anglican worship and mission? How can the exchange between insiders and outsiders bear fruit in Anglicanism today? How will this emerging conversation stir the mind and heart of an Anglicanism in renewal?”
May 1st, 2009 at 6:50 PM
Increasingly the "New Emergents" sound like the "Old Liberals". They have no fixed core. One wonders why they consider themselves "Presbyterian", "Anglican" or "Reformed"?