fishers, surfers and casters

In my thesis I present a model of discursive analysis of identity, that is built on the sociocultural linguistic theory of identity and interaction developed by Bucholtz and Hall (2005). Their theory is based on the premise that identity is not static, and ill-defined by social categories, but is rather emergent, i.e. comes out of, and moves around, contexts of interaction. The formation of identity is the setting of oneself in relation to others. For Bucholtz and Hall, it is a discursive project, a system of naming connections to and disconnections from ourselves.

In this system of relationality three levels of naming are identified. The first is the level of text: naming beliefs and values that are in common with others, or are distinct from others. They may include shared stories and experiences. The second is the level of speaker, which is mainly identification of some common ground with other people. This may include the fact they are in similar spaces, or follow similar discursive practices. And the third is the level of structure: naming the sources of authority or institutions that create connections.

Applying this model to my survey of emerging church bloggers, I’ve identified three levels of tension in their quest to discern a common religious identity. I can only name them as tensions. Blogging interaction is not constrained by formalised membership process or adherence to any fixed set of principles or ethics. Bloggers bring diverse and unique experiences to the conversation, and listen to a variety of distinct and unequal voices from both within and without the study sample. What remain are assertions of comparisons and contrasts contained in reflections of religious experiences, conversations with readers and responses to other bloggers.

Orthodoxy-heresy tension

As I’m writing this post I find that Pete Rollins’ new book is called The orthodox heretic, showing this tension is well known in the emerging church conversation. In the face of Christian institutional practices and doctrines, bloggers express a sense of marginalisation. Popular movies illustrate religious life more than a Sunday sermon or contemporary worship music. Conversations with prisoners, atheists, and those rejected by their congregations offer more inspiration for theological reflection than local church programs. So bloggers welcome the term heretic, describing one who embraces doubt when religious truths clash with apparent facts, and reject doctrine and piety that debilitate themselves and others from living faithfully.

Yet, when meeting religious pluralism and secular humanism, bloggers hear the call to assert some Christian fundamental beliefs. These include the story of the resurrection and the image of the Triune God. It appears not an project of evangelism, or of reasserting a Christianity within the culture of bloggers’ experience, but more an endeavour to locate a common point of difference from other faiths, from which solidarity may be sought. For bloggers orthodoxy is based on an understanding of the Christian witness at the emergence of the apostolic writings, a period recalled (whether factually or mythically) as pluralistic in culture and religion, where Empire values clashed with Judaic nostalgia and bureaucracy, and where Christianity was subversive and counter-cultural. Parallels between this period and the entrance of postmodernism in contemporary culture are acknowledged.

Inclusion-exclusion tension

“If you come, you’re in” appears to be a popular emerging church axiom. There appears no condition of entry into the conversation, no ritual or marker by which one can claim membership in the group. A similar impression my be drawn from the sample of bloggers. In interaction with commenters, bloggers welcome responses from and conversations with non-Christians and anti-Christians, and are reluctant to filter comments from spammers and flamers. In cross-blog associations, bloggers are opposed to using symbolic objects that connect them with a definable group (e.g. “friend of emergent” logos), and are reluctant to adopt the term “emerging church” in self-description (though some like the term “missional”). The network of links made from one blogger to another shows the sample is more a collection of small groups, based on conversations about particular ideas, or offline connections, than a cohesive group. So while tags and searches may identify their sites as emerging church blogs, bloggers generally consider themselves on the edge, or outside, of any sense of emerging church community, or reject the notion that there is one.

It is easier for bloggers to set themselves against certain descriptions of religious identity than alongside them. They are not “churched”. They are not “mega-church”. Yet even these notions are up for debate. Some bloggers attend Hillsong events, and some talk favourably of traditional congregation-based ministry. Blogging allows members of the sample to present a identity that sits within a fluid and expanding network of connections, rather than a static group. Bloggers are able to “remain on the edge” of discursive endeavours to define and locate them.

The tension of words

Members of the sample have used the blogosphere as a space to reassess terms such as liberal, postmodern, Baptist, emerging, evangelical, traditional, Protestant and missional. In this space, bloggers endeavour to remove themselves from the institutional structures that define these terms and create borders and distinctions. Bloggers do share, however, a certain level of formal education, and have access to academic resources that allow them to engage in theological discourse. Writing is highly valued among the bloggers in the sample, and the opinions of many are drawn from the same range of published works. Bloggers point to a library of books from which an emerging church theology and missiology may be sourced.

Bloggers are keenly aware that academic discourse excludes voices from the emerging church conversation, and that those bloggers who can engage in it are given greater authority than others. They try to bring other forms of information to attention of readers, such as other websites, music and art, and the sites of less-know bloggers. Yet, since it’s easier to reproduce words than other media in a blog, the blogosphere tends to favour writing. Bloggers that are considered good writers are by-and-large given more attention, and those that can offer well-versed criticisms of other writings can attract comments and links.

For bloggers in the sample, religious identity is not fixed, but emerges out of tensions that are exposed and played out in interaction with commenters and through hyperlink-based networks with other bloggers. Bloggers find their place, not in the resolution of the tensions, but in the act of identifying and engaging them.

I’ve read Joshua Moritz’s take on the emerging church. Moritz paints, I think, a fair picture of the emerging church, and even defends in against critiques like Carson’s. For an article in a theological journal, it refrains from judging the movement from a checklist of criteria about what is good church and what is not, and seeks to gain an understanding of the worldview its members may have (though mentions Brian McLaren a little bit too much to make me think he knows any other emerging church “leaders”) and bring to the contemporary faith question.

But Moritz does offer a criticism of the emerging church that I would like to comment on. He asserts that while the emerging church rhetoric seems against systematic theology, it falls into the trappings of the discipline in its conversations:

It would seem that the vast majority of Emerging thinkers who reject systematic theology are faced with the same conundrum, in that every in-house Emerging discussion over theological matters that I have witnessed so far – be it in books, on blogs, in sermons or in lectures – has transpired predominantly via prose. In this way Emergents make constant use of the language and categories of systematic theology while at the same time denying its legitimacy and denouncing it as irredeemably modern. If one it to take seriously the Emerging Church’s focus on praxis informing theology, I would ask why this should be the one exception. [...]

[...] If we cannot speak of God how can we assert so confidently that none of our categories apply to God? I fear that some Emergents might be wandering down the road of Nominalism while insisting they are Critical Realists. The rejection of modernism notwithstanding, theological and philosophical incoherency is still not a virtue – even among the most hard-lined postmodernist philosophers. (p. 33)

I have to hand it to Moritz – it is a fair observation. Emerging church blogs (for example) do tend at time to delve into sophisticated diatribes about many issues that a large number of us would fine academic and perhaps inaccessible. However, though a fair observation, it doesn’t make it a worthy criticism of the emerging church at large.

Firstly, his knowledge of emerging church thinking is limited to “books, blogs, in sermons or in lectures” where he sees discourses akin to the systematic theology we find in bible college. Well, d’uh. If you’re going to look at books, lectures, sermons and even blogs, you’re going to get that kind of prose. It’s the nature of writing. Writing is linear, logical, rational and propositional. emerging church writers are going to write like a systematic theologian, because they’re writing for an audience that wants to consider emerging church theology by reading. If Moritz wanted a statement of emerging church theology by listening to music or visiting an art installation or mission project then he would read something altogether different.

Secondly, I think the emerging church, by and large, is not biased against systematic theology as much as it has reservations about the place of systematic theology in the contemporary church. As Mary Hess puts it well, “systematic theology leaves people out of the conversation” and its the systematic theology conversation that bears its great weight in thinking and talking about God in the church. For “Emergents” (Moritz’s term, not mine), systematic theology may inform the church’s present and future, but it does not make systematic theologians the church experts, the first go-to for advice and decision-making. If other media can carry other types of thinking about God and church and discipleship and faith and etc then “Emergents” will embrace them, in order to listen out for other voices and bring them to the conversation.

What do you reckon?

Okay, I’m not sure if it can actually be called a rule of etiquette for emerging church bloggers, but it’s something I’ve noticed (with some delight) is a practice among bloggers. The use of some profanity, images of “the buddy Christ”, jokes such as “What Would Jesus Brew?” all show a slight irreverence in their talk about religion. I think this practice represents a few principles for emerging church bloggers:

• A desire to include in the conversation those who don’t go to church, and are even anti-church
• A belief that pious behaviour and Christian behaviour are not the same
• A belief that secular culture has much to say about Christian belief and practice

A couple of posts back I talked about the quest for authenticity in religious identity for emerging church bloggers, in an online environment where old etiquette rules have been removed, yet where new ones are surfacing. One of the most obvious communicative practices I have come across in my study of emerging church bloggers is what I call “the downplay”.

In line with stereotypes of the larger emerging church movement, bloggers I’ve studies are nearly all professional/student and have some degree of university education. Most have a theological qualification and some formal ministry training. Yet bloggers devalue their own training and education in conversations (though not those of others) to the point of self-deprecation. They do it a variety of ways:

1. Labelling their own opinions and propositions in posts and comments as “rants”, “random thoughts” or “musings”. These labels also appear as the titles of categories and tags, and titles or in subtitles of blogs themselves.

2. Using words and expressions such as “IMHO” (in my honest/humble opinion), “Not that I’m an expert but”, “I reckon” and “Just what I’m thinking about at the moment”.

3. If they do make a claim to some knowledge or expertise about a subject, it is based on claims of experience in church life or ministry, rather than education.

I think this etiquette practice represents two ideological stances. It firstly stands for the emerging church’s distaste for hierarchy. Though emerging church bloggers do not deny the benefits of good theological training, or are less than grateful for the opportunity to enter higher study, they do not want to set themselves apart from those without it. Secondly, it shows an interest in the private over the public. While posts and conversations may be centred around public issues, and bloggers recognise a public audience, they prefer a personal perspective. For them, any reference to qualifications represents a formal and public image, that masks a more private or inner perspective.

Update: As Rob mentioned in his comment below, emerging church bloggers are not the only bloggers who recognise this etiquette. Before Facebook and Myspace, blogs were a popular social networking tool for teenagers, and Bortree (2005) has noted in her study of such bloggers that ingratiation to others in teenagers’ network involved some suppplication, including downplaying their “coolness” in comparison to other people. Among these bloggers it was cool to think you weren’t cool.