Space, Multiplicity, and De/Reconstructing Resonance

Congregational singing has become problematized within the emerging-church movement. This movement is a self-consciously postmodern expression of Christianity that brings into question not only ideas of group singing but also of the congregation itself, intentionally deconstructing the boundaries, patterns, and norms that have typically served to define the congregational group. Nevertheless, music and sound remain important, if contested, components of emerging-church practices. Through fieldwork undertaken in a number of emerging-church groups, this chapter investigates the ways in which sonic material is deployed in nontraditional settings, and the different patterns of interaction that are set up between agents, spaces, and objects in these environments. In particular, this chapter draws attention to a move away from totalizing patterns of high-intensity resonant union, toward models that, in a variety of different ways, offer space for individuals to experience their own micro-resonant interactions as they engage in a range of different devotional activities.

‘I might be wrong’

For about ten years (1998-2008), Kester Brewin was one of the principal instigators of the Vaux community, a ‘vehicle for exploring radical theological thought and practice’. From these experiences and events, he wrote The Complex Christ: Signs of Emergence in the Urban Church (2004). Since then he moved on as a blogger, columnist, tedx-er, and writer. In 2016 he published Getting High: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the Dream of Flight with Vaux Publishing. Getting High is a fascinating reflection on an era dominated by the flight of technology (from the 1960s on), substituting for the eternal longing for the ultimate. But it is also a moving introspection into Brewin’s own life. Being the son of a preacher man, he was getting high on evangelical ecstasy as a young adult, before he became one of the influential figures in the emerging church movement. He ended up, however, ‘outside of what would be taken as orthodox belief.’ This paper discusses Kester Brewin’s ‘piratic’ thoughts on the church, based on his books, blogs, and columns. How did his ‘theological’ thinking evolve, and what does it mean for ecclesiology?

Book Review of Crossing Boundaries, Redefining Faith: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Emerging Church Movement

The Emerging Church Movement (ECM) has attracted a surprising amount of scholarly attention for a phenomenon notoriously resistant to definition and whose impact and size have been challenging to quantify. This edited volume, Crossing Boundaries, Redefining Faith: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Emerging Church Movement, seeks to be a touchstone of the best scholarship about the ECM to date. Across ten chapters with thirteen contributors, the volume succeeds, although it is not without its flaws. Most notably, the relatively small universe of congregations upon which the work in this volume—and broader ECM scholarship—is based raises the question of how to quantify the impact and significance of the movement, something this volume leaves unresolved. Nonetheless, there is little doubt that Crossing Boundaries, Redefining Faith—as a single volume—is the best assemblage of scholarship about the ECM thus far. This book makes obvious sense as a core text for any college or seminary course.

Western Protestantism in the Context of Postmodernity: Theological and Sociological Interpretations of Emerging Church Movement

The purpose of the article is to identify, analyze and summarize the main theological and sociological approaches to the study of the latest trends of the Western Protestant theological inquiry that takes into account the condition of postmodernity, based on the study of the researches of the Emerging church. As a methodological foundation of the research it is employed the interdisciplinary approach, as well as the comparative method, which gives the researcher the opportunity to fully consider the theological and socio-cultural features of Emerging Church. Scientific novelty. As follows from the analysis, there are various theological and sociological interpretations of the church. In particular, the phenomenon of post-modern religiosity is interpreted as a form of protest against the traditional evangelical Protestantism, as the movement of cultural and religious criticism, whose identity is formed by the deconstruction of narratives and discourses of traditional evangelical Christianity, as the autonomous Protestant tradition that applies postmodern forms of knowledge for rethinking of the Christian faith. Conclusions. A new phenomenon of Western Christianity has caused intense debate in the scientific and especially theological environment. Despite the availability of a wide range of interpretations of the new movement, the researchers acknowledge its religious innovative meaning, recognizing the potential of the Emerging Church to actualize the process of transformation of traditional institutions and practices of Protestantism so that it again would be able to enter into dialogue with society in a new socio-cultural situation.