Understanding Church in Emergent/Emerging Conversation

I find it fascinating reading various articles or comments on the links on emergent and emerging churches on my previous two postings. The links were from some people who were for and some who were against the emergent and emerging churches. What I am impressed is the amount of emotions stirred up over this ‘conversation’.

While reading the materials, it occurs to me that basic to the whole discussion is our understanding of the Church. I believer there are two possible ways to understand the Church. (i) The Church is God’s instrument in His redemption plan to bring about the new heavens and earth in Revelation; and (ii) the Church is God’s ultimate purpose in his whole action of creation.

(i) The Church is God’s instrument in His redemption plan to bring about the new heavens and earth in Revelation

There are several points we need to take note in this understanding:
· The Church is an instrument of God. Creation was distorted by the fall. The Church is here to fix things and put things right.
· Creation is the primary purpose of God.
· The Church is a part of creation. Culture is part of creation. Here one of the Church’s roles is to correct culture- hence Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture (Christ against culture, Christ of culture or Christ for culture). In other words, Christ against, of or for modernism and postmodernism.
· The narrative in the Old and New Testament is linear and progressive. It tells one story only, that of the redemption of creation. Here, prepositions are important because it gives understanding in the Church as an instrument in fixing the universe.
· Here the Church is seen as an instrument; i.e. the nature of the Church is in what she can or will do. It is the doing part that is important.

(ii) The Church is God’s ultimate purpose in His whole action of creation.

Here we have a totally different view of the Church:
· The Church is God’s chosen people (A Trinitarian community)
· The Church exist in principle but nor in actuality before creation.
· The whole purpose of creation is to provide the matrix in which God’s people are formed, informed and transformed. The development of a triune relationship.
· The Church though in creation is above creation. Hence the Church should not be subject to culture but be above culture (modernism, postmodernism). In fact the Church should have its own culture which will be considered countercultural in this world.
· The narrative in the Old and New Testament should be seem as how God deal with individuals, tribes, nations and countries so that a special ‘chosen people’ arises. God encounters are always experiential rather than prepositions.
· The nature of the Church will be in what it is, rather that what it does. The key is in what the Church is.

I wonder what the evangelical understanding of the Church is. And what about the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox understanding of what or who is the Church? How will that help us in the understanding of the emergent and emerging churches conversation.