I wanted to let everyone know that in addition to the Dave Tomlinson thing on February 19th, up/rooted.west will also be gathering this month, on Monday, February 13th from 7-9pm in the Beamer Center at Wheaton College for those of you who can't make it all the way downtown or who just want to get together more often this month.
I've tentatively decided that we'll discuss the relation of the emerging church and politics. It's true that a lot of emergent folks also tend to be more progressive politically, but is this a necessary connection? Are issues of social justice inherent to the Kingdom of God themes that are increasingly at the center of the emerging conversation, or should we steer away from those kinds of discussions for fear of alienating and turning off people who might otherwise be sympathetic to the emerging church? If Emergent as an organization becomes too identified and intertwined with groups like Sojourners will that close off the conversation to people whose conservative leanings are more central to their own beliefs?
Let's talk about it! We can get into specific political issues or just talk about the more general relation of faith and politics, whatever you all prefer.
See you there!
Mike Clawson
up/rooted.west co-coordinator
2 comments:
I so hope not. I so hope it doesn't become a movement of politics. Already we see words like "social justice" and "progressive" meaning liberal things. But I see these as conservative things... And I am very much intersted in the emergent church. Why does it have to be liberal=good conservative=bad in the emergent church?
Should the emergent church become a movement of political idealism, I fear it will lose meaning. This has already been done, and it alienates people. It need not, because church and politics mix about as well as oil and water.
mike,
this is a great discussion and place to jump into.
mtr,
I agree that to identify the emerging church (or Emergent for that matter) with a particular political interest group would be a big mistake. However, I disagree that church and politics mix like oil and water. The church should definitely enter into political matter, in fact the church has its own political agenda of sorts. But politics as conceived through the system of voting and lobbying in Congress, well, that does then get tricky.
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