emerging church style sheets [1]

In this article ther is a really good overview of emerging church stuff and some good questions posed. Scott Bader-Saye, the author, raises some important issues andI'd like to reflect on some of them.
First off:
"Despite the undeniable power of these retrieved practices, one must wonder if the incense, candles, labyrinths and all the rest are being retrieved simply because they’ve become cool. Tangible, multisensory worship has a currency among younger generations, and this is all to the good. But if this recovery is linked only to generation and style, what will happen when styles change?"
I can't help feeling that this question is misconceived. It really seems to suppose that the interest in objects and a multisensory approach is a fad. I think that I want to argue that it is both more than a fad and that it has been to some degree theologised over [at least in alt.Worship circles which is where I am writing from]. But before I explain those further I think it is only fair to note also that such 'fads' were part of the church scene already and have been for centuries and that I take issues with the implicit norming of post enlightenmnet western Christianity's cerebralisation of spiritual practice, which again seems to underly the question. Perhaps it would be unfair to ask of this 'movement' soemthing that we don't also ask of others? Or at least offer the same critique. As it is part of the point is that the fads of modernist church are being recognised for what they are and the recovery of embodied and sensory elements is part of re-indiginising.

It is more than a fad because it is based in real cultural changes that are more than simply fashionable. We only have to take note of the turn to embodiment in psychology, medicine, philosophy and science to realise that the widening of what is valued about being human beyond the rational is taking place driven by scientific advances in understanding brain function and a turn also to a more holistic approach to life the universe and everything more generally, fed and nurtured by sciences of complexity and emergence. The somatic dimension of human being is here to stay in our cultural thinking for some time to come. It is true that just how this bodiliness is may vary but the underlying trend is likely to be around for some time.
And from the point of view of Christian theology the whole thing is reasonably well-founded too. It is based in incarnation which as a theme relates both to the project of inculturation and more pointedly to the recovered valuing of embodiment that I have just identified as a growing 'meme' in our culture. Part of that -as in more catholic theologies- is an appreciation of the use of the physical [and not just books] and ritual in corporate and personal worship.
There is a further protestant objection to this turn which is based in the suspicion of ritual and the physical on the basis of concerns about idolatry and compromising the mediatorship of Christ. I would love to tarry a while on that issue both as a linguist and a theologian, but it is beyond the scope of this little foray.
“I think the major problem is that you may be rediscovering the ancient as a new gimmick,” comments Webber. “If you don’t do the theological thinking that stands behind liturgy and sacrament and all the kinds of things that are part and parcel of the classical tradition, this will just fade out. It will have no staying power. The next generation is going to come along and do something different.”
Two things: at least some of us have been doing that thinking and we too are concerned tht some of what we are seeing may simply be 'me-too' style which is bolting on to a fundamentally unsympathetic and unreconstructed theology. Be that as it may, I think that there are enough around who are theologically and culturally well enough rooted for it to be more than a flash in the pan. However there is another part of me that is saying: "Why shouldn't the next generation do something different? Why are we looking to set up stuff to last for centuries when we're in a culture where these kinds of things just don't [last for eons]?" Is that a contradiction? No, paradoxical perhaps: the underlying cultural trend values embodiment, however the form that it will take may vary. And if it changed next generation then we'd have to respond to that as Christians ... what's the problem; that's what 'incarnation' -better inculturation- is about. Get over it.
"If a practice is reintroduced simply because it meets the needs or desires of a generation, it will only reinforce the modern penchant for novelty. One test for the emerging church will be whether ancient practices are retrieved as practices or simply as preferences" So we're seeting up the alleged penchant for novelty against a putative penchant for continuity? Is that what is being said? Surely the practices should serve the spiritual growth of the worshipper not the worshipper the practice [shades of what the purpose of sabbath is, I think]? The test isn't whether they are practices or preferences but whether people grow spiritually through them however long-lasting or temporary they might be in the life of the worshipper. perhaps that is waht is meant by contrasting practices with preferences? Dilettantism is a spiritual danger, to be sure, but only because it is an attitude that expects or looks for something that is not in the nature of the thing grasped and that is not just a danger for emergers.
Some of this criticism starts to sound like grumpy old men who've developed a theological vocabularly and aren't afraid to use it ... so I say: step away from the argument and apply it to your own traditions first, because for many of us serious about this stuff, that's where we started from.
the Christian Century