CHAPTER II
HISTORY AND CONTEXT OF THE EMERGING CHURCH
organizing. These people create organizations where they can avoid bureaucracy and democracy, hierarchies and co-ops, feminist organizations and capitalist organizations. It is not the choices that bother them but the act of choosing. Just as the proliferation of rational bureaucracies created demand for something diametrically opposed to them- alternative organizations-the dominance of institutionalized organizations has spawned the rise of its own counter movement-the resistant organization.
In chapter 1 I drew on existing theories of institutionalization in order to discern where a resistant organization is likely to be found. In this chapter, I apply those insights to the field of religion and describe the catalysts that compel such an organization into existence before describing the general case study for this dissertation, the Emerging Church, in detail. I begin by discussing the development of the megachurch as the “trend of magnitude” in contemporary U.S. religious culture in section 2.2. Throughout this chapter and this dissertation I will discuss both mainline denominations2 and the more conservative megachurches as comparison groups because they both represent dominant models in the religious landscape and are thus both being resisted by the Emerging Church. The mainline, liberal denominations have clearly succeeded on a cultural level as many of the values and ideologies supported by these denominations (e.g.,
individuality, democracy, tolerance, pluralism, freedom) have been adopted by wider American society (Demerath 1995). However, the more conservative megachurches have
2 By “mainline” denominations I follow the accepted use of the term laid out by Roof and McKinney (1987) in their book American Mainline Religion: Its Changing Shape and Future. They define mainline churches as “the dominant, culturally established faiths”
(Roof and McKinney 1987:6-see chapter 3 of their volume for a more complete
discussion). Also, see Steensland et al. (2000) who have conducted statistical analyses in an attempt to update the taxonomy of religious groups and have generated a specific list
succeeded at a much more immediate, grassroots level, attracting scores of members as the liberal, mainline denominations experience consistent decline. These churches which offer a relatively “strict” ideology engender much more commitment and thus dominate the field of religion in much more structural way (Demerath 1995). As we have seen in chapter 1, new organizations in this field can expect to face isomorphic pressures on both a cultural or institutional dimension and a technical dimension. Thus, the Emerging Church must effectively resist both of these institutionalized models. I will spend much of the time in this chapter discussing megachurches for two reasons. First, the story of the decline of liberal Protestantism has been covered extensively by sociology of religion scholars elsewhere (Demerath 1995; Finke and Stark 1992; Wuthnow 1988) while the story of the megachurch has received considerably less coverage making a detailed explanation necessary for a general audience. Additionally, I discuss the cultural rise and membership decline of liberal mainline denominations as it applies directly to the
Emerging Church in chapter 6. Second, while many of my interviewees had extensive experience with mainline denominations, they repeatedly explained to me that they view the Emerging Church as a response to the failures of the megachurch movement. In the section that follows I examine the relevant countertrends spawned by the megachurch movement. In sections 2.4 and 2.5, I describe how these responses came together to form the Emerging Church.
Before moving on, however, I want to make two final points. First, this
dissertation is not an examination of the Emerging Church. Indeed, such a thing as the Emerging Church hardly exists. Instead, the data for this dissertation is drawn from several congregations which consider themselves a part of the Emerging Church. The
point of this chapter, then, is to explore the common social and historical factors that compel the rise of Emerging Church congregations in general at this point in history.
Second, this is not an attempt at comprehensiveness so much as accuracy. I do not make any claims to have identified every single event or social force which gives rise to the Emerging Church. Indeed, at this early stage such an attempt would likely have little, if any, merit or value. Instead, I endeavor to explain accurately those events that were brought to my attention in the course of the study through theoretically informed observations and interviews. Thus, this chapter is a combination and extension of my fieldwork and the relevant theories of the changing religious landscape in late 20th century U.S. society, but it is not a complete survey of every religious event of the last 30 years which might have impacted the development of Emerging Church in some way. So while the decline in confidence of religious and other institutions is discussed, the
ordination of homosexual priests and pastors is left out. No doubt this latter topic plays into the formation of the Emerging Church to some extent, but assessing the particular role of this debate is beyond the scope of my data and would be pure conjecture.
Similarly, I engage in discussions of issues that are identified as important by my respondents but perhaps do not match up well with existing theory. For example, in the discussions of the catalysts of the Emerging Church I discuss the role of the internet and popular postmodernism. Although the importance of these might be debated in academic circles, they are routinely cited by my respondents and other researchers of the Emerging Church as key forces in the development of the Emerging Church and my observations substantiate these claims. I have done my best to link these insights to existing research on the effects of the internet and postmodernity, but I make no claims at formal theory as
this is not a treatise on the effects of new communication technologies in a changing culture. Instead, I investigate such phenomena from a practical level, discussing how they are perceived by and impact people in the Emerging Church in general and my respondents in particular.