Social Justice and the Emergent Movement (part 1)

These days, whenever talking about social justice, the emergent movement/conversation is inevitably brought up — thinkers like Brian McLaren are readily mentioned and many implications have been made about the parallels between “The Just Life” conversation and the “emergent” one.

In a recent comment to a previous post, “md” fleshed out the immediate connection in pondering:

“…I wonder if there is a difference between what the emergent church is calling ‘living missionally’, and what you’re referring to here as social justice…? It sounds like ’social justice’ is a community/personal activeness that stems from a missional lifestyle. The most obvious point of difference, I can see, being social justice’s intentionality to pursue healing and peace, rather than doing so within the confines of the immediate context. Living missionally comes to mean an evangelistic/discipleship/compassion ministry outpouring, to be bolstered by a global perspective offered by intentional social activity.”

“md” also provided this link to the “missional” end of the conversation you might find interesting: http://smerickson.modblog.com/?show=blogview&blog_id=440900

“md” is absolutely right about the connection — the emergent conversation’s ability to rearticulate the “sojourner” and “resident alien” mentalities greatly aids/parallels the new American missiology that is required to embrace what we are calling Christian social justice. Mature thinkers in the emergent circles have grown past the semantic renaming of Christian principles and have begun to cast a vision for what discipleship is all about– living missionally.

I see what I consider to be the two great movements in the western Church, “emergent” and “justice,” beginning to align side-by-side if not merge all together. I believe that the emergent conversation might just have the potential to become the missiology that the justice movement has lacked and that the justice movement may provide the sense of purpose the emergent conversation has been searching for.

Now, many of you know that I have spent a lot of time with postmodern (now emergent) thought/ministries and that I have a lot to say about as well as mixed reactions to what is called the “emergent movement.” Admittedly though, I have refrained from getting too deep into the emergent connection at this point — however, soon I would like to share with everyone my thoughts on what I see as the “golden key” question: What do Social Justice, the Emergent Church Movement, Incarnate Ministry, and the concept of Social Capital all have in common?

Worthy of interjection here is the observation that “postmodern” and now “emergent church” trends continue to take people to more and more varieties of religious experiences. As more specialized/personalized styles of worship continue to be sought out the church may recognize “biblical justice” as the great equalizer, one powerful enough to continue to draw people into community around it’s common causes. Communities committed to justice will always thrive as healthy segments of the Church. Communities only interested in the latest worship styles will be doomed to flux and potential collapse. Service has always been the great equalizer.

More developed thoughts on this in the future.