SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE: Spirit moves them: The philosophy within the emergent movement: ‘It’s time for us to take back Christianity’

By Jane Clifford
FAMILY EDITOR
June 21, 2008

It’s not often that you can go out for an evening and enjoy book readings, musical theater and a spiritual message – all in the same place. But that’s exactly what happened for those who showed up for “The Church Basement Roadshow: A Rollin’ Gospel Revival” Sunday night at Christ Lutheran Church in Pacific Beach.

Three guys – Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt and Mark Scandrette – play six characters in their 90-minute show, which is a provocative way to sell their books and reach an audience hungry for more. The show opens with them as 1908 revivalists – Preacher A.L. Withee (Scandrette), Big Brother Duke (Pagitt) and Professor A.W. Hawthorne (Jones).

“We’re growing a constituency among people who feel disenfranchised, but long for a spiritual path,” Scandrette says.

“Our philosophy is, it’s time for us to take back Christianity,” Jones explains. “It’s not the property of ordained people. It’s not the property of seminary master. It’s not the property of elite people with diplomas. It’s the property and purview of all of us.”

To that end, emergent churches don’t have services; they have gatherings.

“In the early church, everyone sat around, they brought food and had a potluck meal and someone would say, ‘Hey, look, we got a letter from Paul. Let’s read it and discuss it,’ ” Jones says. And the conversations began, and interpretations expanded understanding, Jones says, and faith grew and people went out and did their best to live the way Jesus did, ministering to the sick, the poor, the people looking for God in their lives.

“I would describe it as a network of friends and colleagues who are all committed to being in conversation with one another about being a people of God in the world today,” says Erin Martinson, outreach pastor at Christ Lutheran.

The three friends explain on their Web site why they chose to re-create the atmosphere of a revival.