emerging mosaic

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I remember learning the song soon and very soon when I was a little kid coming up in the church. I remember discovering the sentiment in it was used by white Christians to placate blacks during slavery telling them that their reward, their release from oppression,  would come soon, in the next life, at the end of eternity.

Now I hear it again from the emergent conversation. Scott McKnight has an interesting post about conversations he is having with emergent leaders types (all white and male with the exception of a spouse) at the National Pastors Conference. He reports from his conversation that they are serious about theology and the intersection of

All this group of folks care about is theology …..They’re really into the intersection of theology, culture, and praxis.

When someone (Rick of new life emerging) commented as I have that the conversation was lacking

“conversation” from minority voices– like African Americans or the feminist perspective. (Yes, I know how white dudes roll their eyes when confronted with this reality) This seems mainly like an evangelical group who is “high” on the next best thing.

He was tagged as griping. Can you say "shut down the conversation." Another commenter said this

I can understand the frustration with the seeming fruitlessness, the overemphasis on talking, the lack of diversity, etc. But things take time.

I remember hearing this just wait two years ago when I first started raising these questions. Soon and very soon. Now I’m not trying to take on Scott or any of the other emergent leaders he mentioned. They are clearly more theologically sophisticated than me. But as person of color trying to emerge into Christian practice beyond the modern and postmodern hoopla I am stuck with these questions:

How long before it isn’t griping to call the emergent conversation to account for its stated values?
How long before we see real evidence of the intersection between theology and praxis? I mean beyond candles and worship stuff.
How long before it is time to expect something more than talk?

I hear a rising chorus of Soon and very soon and I say

How long emergent? How long?

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Chris Monroe over at Paradoxology has posted some of his lunch conversation with George Barna who said

the emergent movement (when compared with the "revolutionaries" he had been studying) was rather insignificant

Is it possible that after all the hype in the media and news coverage the impact of the emergent movement/conversation will be insignificant? If its true is there anything to be done about it? What’s the measure of significance that Barna uses? What’s the measure of significance that those of us in the emerging church conversation use? (fair to say that my measure is praxis)

These are some lingering questions I have from this post.

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