What started with Presbymergent has since morphed into baptimergent, anglimergent, submergent (really baptisty/ they keep you under water longer), methomergent and moved on to AGmergent, luthermergent, reformergent and Covergent (Quakers) before getting to inclusivEmergent and the ultimate designation queermergent (which has gotten Tony Jones lots of crap).
After coming across the last 2 subgroups, I went out seeking the lesser know ones. So, here are some of the lesser known Mergent* groups...
for emerging churchers that still like the KJV (or guys with tats of 1611 KJV on their backs, along with Celtic crosses).
Relevemergent
the fine line between Relevant magazine, cool churches with smoke machines, killer bands and hot java, but little theology and the Emerging church conversation. These guys like being cool, but they like poor people (kinda). They will do whatever it takes to make Emergent cooler (get rid of the theology, all the talk about post-Colonialism and start dressing better). These people like Rob Bell, but don't really get Rob Bell (they just like the glasses and video).
ORmergent**
I believe God wants me to be rich, maybe.. so I can help the poor after increasing my territory and believing God gives back tenfold. These guys already have television show and network in the works. "Prosperity and poverty in paradox" is their motto.
get rid of the Burka and plug in the amps! Pray 5 times a day, but sneak in some Sufism and Judaism along with your own tradition.
just like Emergent with less Jesus (who they think is very cool) and more candles (seriously... amazing, isn't it?). Rob Bell is thinking of converting.
Orthomergent
For those that love tradition. I mean, LOVE tradition, yet embrace modernity. This is a very small group made up of converts to Orthodoxy from other traditions.
Buddhamergent
actually all members of Emergent are secretly in this group. Yup, you were right about us.
Pipermergent
Can you like John Piper and Brian McLaren? yes you can. You can believe the substitionary theory of the atonement is one of many, but the only one.
CCMergent
new magazine spotlighting Emerging Christian musicians like Cobalt Season, Derek Webb and the drummer from Jimmy Eat World.
Emomergent
for those that cannot stop whining about how bad the local church is and how no one will ever understand how much pain and suffering they have incurred through Evangelicalism and fundamentalism (and their girlfriend) and how even the house church and Emergent worlds are hurtful. They are easy to spot because they never take off the hoodie and you cannot see their eyes.
Scientolergent (or Emergentology***)
banned in Germany, popular with new Hollywood arrivals sick of Tom Cruise but embracing his teachings. They like the cliff notes version of Dianetics, hate Battlefield Earth and are into Beckmore than Chick Corea.
Mormergent
Were the teachings of Jospeh Smith meant to be taken literally? Was Moroni a literal angel or a guy in the woods? Should Mormons return to their ancient faith, but with more black people? Should their missionaries dress snazzier and what does Tony Jones have to say when he comes to BYU?
not to be confused with Mermergent
Mermaids and Mermen that attended Brian McLaren's Everything Must Change tour stop in Atlantis. They are considering a merger with Shamergent. Big fans of the Porpoise Diving Life.
members of the shadowy Christian political operation running our government that don't really believe in Empire... but still want to run one in the near future.
* a few of these are real
**OR stands for Oral Roberts, in case you did not know
***after this exercise, I ran across this. However, I refused to stop my list.
19 comments:
This is hilarious! Thanks for compiling these. I'm happy to hear about ORmergent since I've been doing my taxes. I just had a kid so I think God has done this to bless me so I can get more money on my tax refund. Yes!
really funny rick.
"...the ultimate designation queermergent (which has gotten Tony Jones lots of crap)."
One wonders If this was a play on words. 'One never knew, after all, now did one now did one now did one.'
VERY unexpectedly, I see you listed one of MY first hyphen-emergent groups: fundemergent. I bought that domain like 3 years ago when I was moving through the conversation and managing the tension of my fundamentalist roots and emergent. I was being more ironic than literal. I thought it could be some interesting space for some of us to discuss that tension and how to hold onto some of the important things from that past (ie: high view of scripture, necessity for believing rightly, etc...) in addition to sliding into some new things (understanding our hermeneutical posture toward scripture in light of the modern-pomo conditions, necessity for practicing rightly, etc...Never thought anyone would find it!
Maybe I should resurrect it after the exposure :) Well done list BTW...
-jeremy
Queermergent is a blog i created for a group of queer emerging/emergent Christians and queer emerging/emergent allies/friends discussing and learning about those in the LGBTQ community of faith and fostering a safehouse for open discussion, dialogue and conversation. It is NOT a space to preach , bash and lambast us who do not see being gay as a sin.
Warm Regards,
Adele
adele,
i am missing your point here. this is Rick's space so I don't know what you are talking about unless you are choosing to make assumptions about what this space IS about.
Pax,
Rick
Rick,
i am making no assumptions. i think you have misunderstood me. You reference my blog in your post and i have a right to comment about it.
My point was to explain my blog Queermergent, which was referenced in this post, and Daniel said, "One wonders If this was a play on words". i was merely explaining the ethos of the Queermergent blog. So, you don't have to take offense over something that was not meant that way.
Hope i cleared up your confusion. i do not understand your comment though.
Warm Regards,
Adele
Thanks for your response.
Just to let you know where I came from in my initial comment back to you: I asked a couple of friends about your comment (I do this because I can kiss tone) and they were also confused as to why you wanted/ needed to explain your group on a piece of satire in which your group was merely mentioned with every other hybrid group.
There was no commentary or negativity regarding your group so there was no need to tell me "It is NOT a space to preach , bash and lambast us who do not see being gay as a sin."
My intentions were to make light of the "hybrid" movement. Yours is included in that. My intentions were not to make any more or less light of queermergent than submergent or anglimergent. That is the aim of satire. Sorry if it was not funny enough.
So there was no need to explain yourself as to why you existed. No one here questioned your right to exist. It was merely listed, like Presbymergent and every other "mergent."
This is why I considered the comment presumptuous.
If you were confused (as I was) by Daniel's comment, it may have been better to enter into dialogue* with Daniel by:
1) addressing him directly(this would have led to no confusion on the aim of your comment).
2) asking questions as to what he was saying or meaning instead of telling all of us that "It is NOT a space to preach , bash and lambast us who do not see being gay as a sin." which uses language that I (and others I asked about it) saw as divisive and pointed (here, not on your blog).
I truly believe this was not your aim. I was not angry at your posting, just a bit confused by the tone I perceived, especially since I was not being mean.
So you know, this is a blog that does not take itself seriously (myself, as author included). I also do not take anyone else too seriously on this blog (including emergent or your group). I know this bothers some of those in the conversation. If you need that, I am sorry. It is not in my genetic make up (I take about 5 things in the world seriously and they are concepts). If I don't make light of all the seriousness in the world, I will get too serious and go mad at all the injustice (did that when I was younger). That is why this blog is called "cheaper than therapy."
______________________________
*my thought is thatdialgoue is much easier when we do not start with a negative presumption (eg. "it is NOT a place"). I believe you may need to set those parameters on your own blog, but it is not needed elsewhere, especially when people have NOT treated you in such a manner. In other words... stick with the "It IS" language and use the "Is NOT" language when it is deserved (which i am sure it is at times).
but on all of this... what the heck do I know? Seriously- not much. I am not worth taking seriously (that is for sure).
Sorry if I stressed you out. I tend to do that.
peace,
Rick
btw, "i can kiss tone" should read "i can Miss tone"
hopefully you found it as amusing as I did. thumb typing can be a chore.
Rick,
Sorry as i did not get that the entire piece was satire. Also, when i said it was not a place to preach and lambast at us i was simply summarizing the ethos of Queermergent and not saying anything about you or your post or your commenters. i was not assuming you all were doing what i stated the blog was not about. Sorry for any miscommunication on my part.
i just happened to come across your blog because my word press results listed your blog. i was just simply informing what we were about.
Thanks.
Warm Regards,
Adele
Also, i take no offense at satire and now see your intentions in the post. i took no offense and was only explaining based on the one comment. i should have addressed him and i am sorry. i have a great sense of humour and enjoy a good laugh. Again, the ethos was just to tell more about us and i see now how that may have come across to you but was not my intent. So sorry for the mix up.
Adele
Adele,
I do hope that your group gets the legs it needs to give support and find support from fellow Christians (of all stripes). I am sure you have taken hits from all sides in the process, which is never fun.
I wish we lived in a world in which a group like yours was not even needed (I feel the same about Emergent in general in some ways and the hybrids), where there was an acceptance of differences and opinions (if everyone held their own opinion lightly). Alas, we do not live in such a world.
But, then again, if we lived in such a perfect world there would be little need for much that Christ offers.
I hope the group is a safe haven and the jerks stay away.
pax,
Rick
Rick,
THANK YOU for your kind and encouraging words!
Keep up the great work here at your blog!
Warmest Regards,
Adele
Adele & Rick,
My comment was made with an amount of exformation, or information explicitly left out, viz. to accomplish a couple things without being crude and overt.
1) To point out the humorous choice of the word 'crap' in a parenthetical preceded by the term 'queermergent'. This is what one might call middle schoolesque, i.e. the humor is bound in certain sexual physiological realities that, while not exclusive to male/male sexual intercourse, is often brought up with disgust by shitheads. Of which, I am not one, nor do I believe is the author of this blog. And to fully disclose my self-indulgence, the jest was made per quod to set up, what is the true motivation w/r/t posting a comment.
2) I noticed that Rick had two David Foster Wallace books listed under 'books on the bedside'. Normally this would not have been enough to warrant a seemingly pointless comment but, as it so happened, I noticed Rick's 'People I know or Want to' list. The list not only contained eight personal friends but also my fathers name. So I thought: maybe this Rick guy is pretty frakking cool. I always love meeting DFW fans (his death tore my soul a new one and sometimes it is still hard to breath thinking about it).
I assumed, as a fan, Rick would quickly see the humor (and maybe he does/did) because DFW made brilliant use of such exformative techniques and was incredibly playful with his use of words (obviously I am not DFW) .
So ultimately I was saying, 'hey Rick, look at me. I am trying to be witty and if it works then maybe I will have someone to talk about DFW with me.'
Now, one reading this may be wondering, so where does DFW fit into your original comment, there is no mention of him by name?
This was intentional. I was fishing to see how far Rick's DFW depth went. The closing sentence of my comment, 'One never knew, after all, now did one now did one ...'** is taken from DFW's A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life which is the first page read from BIWHM. The theme of ARCHoPL is self-serving w/r/t my post because it deals with three people who are all being acutely self-conscious for acceptance or to keep stature. The latter being my motivation for posting (look at me, like me, let's talk lit).
**IYI DFW liked to play around with what he called Viciously Infinite Reductions (VIR) and would employ them then destroy them using classic inductions. What's funny about this sentence is that he is not employing VIR + induction to dismiss the epistemological idea: to know something one must know something (he writes about this in his book on Infinity). Instead he is cleverly making a statement about the difference between 'knowing' cognitively vs knowing emotionally/instinctually/spiritually (another thing he touches in the book on Infinity). Basically, he is using VIR as a statement that actually, in terms of Dialectics and applying induction, renders the statement false (a -->b; not-a --> not-b, etc). The thing is, we all know that the statement is true. So we are left with a paradox. And this is the POSTINDUSTRIAL LIFE that he is radically condensing - Paradox. The result of living in paradox (which DFW believed we did in our history more than any other) is displayed by the cute vignette that precedes the VIR sentence. If you want to read it, then go to my blog.
Oops...
Replace all variants of the word "induction" with the appropriate form of the word "deduction". It's late. :)
Daniel- I thought that was your intention (#1), but did not want to make any assumptions. I tend to cause trouble when making assumptions, some of which is intentional.
I would not consider my knowledge of DFW to be vast. I have read and enjoyed his work, even listened to some of his work on audiobook, because I enjoyed the way he read his own work.
I became a fan of his work as an essayist. I moved on to read some his short stories and took a terribly long time and paid too much in fines for Infinite Jest.
I have written about him on a few occasions on this blog, due to his brilliance, his insight into human foibles (without judgment or snarkiness)and his incredible humanity (and sadness). I have read maybe 4 works and a decent amount of published essays, enought to be a fan (but not enough to be an expert). I did consider him as the best pure writer of this generation (not my favorite, or the best to always read- but the great mind).
On him and others, I consider myself the jack of all trades, master of known type when it comes to writers. I have a wide palette but I am an expert on no one (as I can tell you are).
I am merely a guy that loves music, writing and film and likes to tell others about what I like, since no one I work with probably cares.
Thanks for stopping by. I looked at your flikr accound and realize you are Mike King's son. Or you just like getting into pictures with Mike or a guy that looks a lot like him.
Tell him Hi. We don't know each other well, just through some old Emergent stuff in the day.
pax,
R
Rick,
Mike is my dad. I am a salesman in the commercial printing industry. DFW is among my favorites. Others recently read that impress me: Franz Kafka, Steven Pinker, Steven Johnson, Rose George (writes wonderfully of shit), Thomas Kuhn, ...
I was drawn to DFW's essay stylings. His use of (detached?) third person narrative, his self-deprecating and yet sensitive (to the abuses of irony) style, redefined what one can do with prose.
I'll RSS.
:)
One more note: Viciously Infinite Reductions (VIR) is just plain early-AM brain retardation. VIR stands for Viciously Infinite REGRESS, not reductions, as I am sure you noticed and graciously overlooked.
Thanks for the link to Young Anabaptist Radicals. However, the real submergent hub is here:
The Common Root
That's the group formerly know as submergent. They changed their name after the realized the suffix was just too trendy.
There is one blog post on Young Anabaptist Radicals that gives some more background on the whole thing (not including the name change):
A submergent introduction
Funny post by the way. My favorite is the Familergent. Not really into empire, but could be convinced by enough prayer breakfasts...
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