Esse texto é um resumo do que está rolando nos EUA/Europa em relação ao termo "emergente".

Texto de capa da Next Wave de Setembro de 2008

By Brother Maynard

You have to read that title with a Mike Meyers beat poet voice like in So I Married an Axe Murderer (a true classic, directed by Thomas Schlamme of West Wing fame). I don’t know if we’re all “emerge-ed” now — I doubt it — but it looks like we’re dropping the name. Some of this appears to be distancing from Emergent™ and some looks to be simply distancing from labels that are confusing and misleading to some. Often people get a certain idea of what the term “emerging church” means, and the idea has a lot read into it that shouldn’t be there. No doubt some of the reading-in is caused by the poisoning of the waters by some critics who essentially critique a caricature rather than an accurate portrait of the emerging church itself. In some cases, I gather the caricature becomes so pervasive that some distancing from the term itself needs to take place. I hate when this happens with the really good terms.

We’ve reached that point now… Andrew Jones will stop using the term after a poll he ran came back 60/40 in favour of dumping the term. He gives a good statement from both sides to illustrate how the choice is a difficult one for him, and notes that he is remaining connected to organizations who continue to use the term. [Update: That’s an important note, and it would be where I’d stand as well. This kind of semantics are not a good thing to break relationships over. Still,] It’s also been noted that Emergent™ through the mouthpiece of Tony Jones has defined the emerging church as relating to Emergent Village, which further muddies the waters for those who are part of the emerging church worldwide but are not connected to Emergent Village. [Update: Tony doesn’t actually equate the two, saying that Emergent is but a part of the global emerging church. Nevertheless, he points out that that some people are using the terms synonymously. No wonder it’s confusing.]

Bob Hyatt takes a look and concludes he’s not quite done with the term “emerging church.” After recalling how some had suggested EV could change their name to avoid conclusion, he says, “Well, you know… the name remained. Too much had gone into building the brand, and the confusion not only remained, it solidified.” Emphasis added — and what does that tell you? He continues, “In fact, people began to speak of the ‘Emergent Church’ and far from looking to the churches that made up the movement, folks, critics in particular, began more and more to look at Mssrs. McLaren, Jones and Pagitt (as well as some others).” Bob is right to observe that people grew tired of being asked to defend the theology of others as if it were their own, and conclude, “I like and love those guys, but I don’t want to… I can’t own everything they write or say.” [Update: It seems to me that they probably don’t want to have to own or defend everything the rest of us might be writing or saying.]

Bob points to Dan Kimball’s post on Emerging and Emergent Distinctions, where Dan says it doesn’t matter to some (I believe “some” includes Dan himself, though he doesn’t say so in this post), it does to others, including Scot McKnight, who he quotes on the distinction between the two. Dan mentions that he is working with some people including Scot to form a new network, which Bob suspects may be a counterbalance to Emergent™. Not enough details have come forward to really speculate, but suffice to say it’s another, separate network. In the comment thread on his post, Dan Kimball says of this network,