Geez Magazine, YWAM & Emerging Church
I recieved by Winter edition of Geez Magazine today and eagerly (though nervously) flipped through it. A few months ago I sat for an interview for this issue, which is provocatively entitled “Let’s get Evangelical”, focusing largely on our ministry as YWAM here in Winnipeg. The article, called “Where the evangelists are” by J Unrau, recounts the authors search for old school, door-to-door style Evangelicals in Winnipeg. His journey starts at local churches in the city, then turns to our ministry, finishing with an email dialogue with a Winnipeger serving with YWAM in Australia.
While tongue-in-cheek, the article is fair, if too brief, in its treatment of each ministry. It did get some details about YWAM wrong (for example, it confuseded to our Discipleship Training School (DTS), a 5 month spiritual and missional formation program, with our Mission Adventures program, which is more short term urban possibilities for teams. In one quote, he says of our ministry, “The main focus is on living in an urban community and being exposed to the problems prostitutes, refugees and poor youth face”. This frames our relationship to our community as primarily built on the negative challenges of the neighbourhood in a somewhat paternalistic stance. Rather, I would say we seek to live as a true neighbours, sharing as much as we can, the good and bad of life there. Outside of that, it was a fair portrayal.
In another article in this issue, entitled “An evangelical body, broken for you… into six convenient types”, Anna Bowen gives quick overiews of different expressions of Evangelicalism (as she sees them): Fundamentalist (or Conservative Evangelicals); Pentecostal Charismatics; Liberal Evangelicals; Emergent Church (or Vintage Church); Social Justice Folks; Christian Leftists (or Progressive Reconstructionists). Each group was flanked by a description and an image of an “Evangometer”, where the degree of Evangelicalism is measured. As you might guess, from he beginning of the list to the end, the degree decreases, with Fundamentalists reaching 100, Emergent settling at 50 ad Christian Leftists hitting 0 (which should disqualify them from the list, no?).
While Bowen affirms that these are generalized and over-lapping groups, the fact is that the a few paragraphs cannot represent the complexity of any of these groups. In some cases, I feel she missed the boat significantly. For example, here is what she wrote for the “Emergent Church (or Vintage Church)”:
The shift into what some would call the postmodern age has uprooted these Christians and sent them scrambling to find new ways to make their Christianity “relevant” (a key but sometimes nebulous term).
The issue for Emergent types is to assert Christianity in a time when binary ideas like heaven and hell, Christian and non-Christian, spirit and body, male and female are being challenged and seen as too dualistic. Emerging Christians value individual stories more than ascribing to one grand overarching and possibly oppressive “metanarrative.” This allows emergent church Christians to have a new openness to different ways of interpreting the Bible – everyone’s perspective is relevant and should be expressed.
As with so much post-structural and postmodern theory, the emergent gospel tends to come from the top down, drawing analysis from academic discourse surrounding postmodernity. Adherents tend to be internet savvy and have a heavy presence in the blogosphere, which could be deemed inaccessible.
I am not sure if it is the definition itself (which I find significantly off the central mark) or that it would be used as one of the groups (as I think it is too broad and complex to be in the grouping), but I found myself frustrated with the outcome of the article.
Along with my magazine came a subscription renewal notice. Geez Magazine is a creative, challenging and provocative publication that I have recommended to many people. That being said, I have found it, at times, needlessly antagonistic, unhelpfully critcal of America, shallow in its engagement with socio-historical material, and perhaps most disappointing, it sometimes seems to be written only for those who already agree with them. I do not mean to be harsh, as I think it is a great edition to world of publications. However, I will not be renewing my subscription, choosing to purchase on an issue by issue basis.
Anyone disagree and care to weigh in? Please let us know.
