Tim—fantastic questions. And I think you will have noticed we certainly don’t all agree about what’s worth ‘standing for’…

Personally, I think the best example (to date) of a ‘post-modern’/emerging theologian who focuses on phrasing things positively is Stanley Hauerwas. To the best of my knowledge, he hasn’t identified with the emerging church, but he certainly has espoused a post-modern epistemology which avoids many modern pitfalls (though perhaps it has a share of its own?).

For him (and for me, since I largely agree with him), an ‘emerging’ Christianity (notice, I didn’t say the emerging Christianity)—which should just be called ‘faithful’ Christianity—involves agape love of God, self and others, but primarily of enemies. Pacifism, roughly speaking. For me, a call to ‘turn the other cheek’, and to overcome evil with good is at the heart of what Christ sought to teach his disciples.

A strong communal ecclesiology (with a strong boundary: baptism) in which the sharing of resources is practiced also seems central to me (Richard Hays and Ben Witherington are other [post-?]evangelical scholars who have emphasized this).

Finally, I would argue that a strong Kingdom-awareness (where Kingdom of God is absolutely separate and distinct from Kingdom of the world) is central to faithful Christianity. This alters and qualifies any involvement Christians can have in the world’s ‘politics’ (because the Kingdom life is its own kind of uncompromisable politics).

For all these thoughts, I’m heavily indebted to Stanley Hauerwas, John Yoder, Richard Hays, Ben Witherington and NT Wright (to a lesser extent).

Hopefully this helps underline what at least one person in the emerging church conversation thinks is worth underlining.

 Cheers,

 -Daniel-