One of the major shortcomings of the church has been in its inability to adapt to the surrounding culture.
Unfortunately, this weakness has been upheld as an ideal throughout the history of the Church. Our tendency to identify
perfection as something that is static and unchanging has its roots in Greek substance metaphysics, and has led to fixed
forms of ecclesiology that lack the fundamental adaptability to acclimate to our constantly changing environment. This
has been true of the church historically as it extended into the mission field, but it is even true within our own culture as
social and technological evolution cause society to drift beyond the kind of environment to which the Church was
originally native.1 Churches find themselves either rigidly and ineffectively opposing the culture, or succumbing to it.
Both reactions reveal an underlying and uncharacteristic2 impotence. In this paper, I will explore the concept of
emergence as a model of dynamic life in the church. It is my contention that by adopting a more dynamic
ecclesiological structure modeled after living organisms, we can facilitate the church’s natural adaptability to its
Far too little attention has been given to the effects that social, economic, and technological changes have had
on our ability to make and be disciples. If the church is locked into its “ideal” institutional form, it becomes the sole
responsibility of the individual to make the necessary sacrifices and changes to follow through on her commitment
There are many examples of social, economic, and technological impact on the lives of disciples; for instance,
we are critical of the lack of commitment many people have to the Christian community. It does not often occur to us
that it may indeed be more difficult for us to commit to fellowship today than it was 100 years ago. How has the
automobile contributed to the fragmentation of our social environment? Moreover, how has the shift from an
agricultural to an industrial economy changed the role of women in the family? How has the shift to a 24-hour economy
changed our social habits? How has the introduction of cell phones and pagers caused the boundaries between work
and home to blur? The church is not insulated from these changes, nor can we expect Christians, merely, to make
individual commitments to endure these trends as if the pressures of change have no effect on us. Technologies by their
very presence alter our environment, our worldview.3 These new challenges must be met with some sort of adaptive
1
Gerard Kelly explains how the church’s expectation of synchronism in an asynchronous culture is causing the church to loose touch with growing
numbers of people whose lifestyle and timestyle no longer fits the old norms. Retrofuture 72
2
If we are to take Matt 16:18 seriously, we must believe that the natural state of the church is not impotence.
3
Vaidhayanathan 19
response by the church lest we share the guilt of the Pharisees who laid heavy burdens on the peoples backs unwilling to
lift a finger to help (Matt 23:4). We can no longer afford to be blind to the effects these changes have on our lives and
Emergence
Actually, I stumbled somewhat sideways into the concept of emergence. The progression of my inquiry began
with an article by Eben Moglen4 professor of law and history at Columbia University and pro-bono counsel for the Free
Software Foundation. What intrigued me was Moglen’s argument against economic incentive as a necessary condition
for creativity upon which intellectual property rights is mostly based. His analogy of the internet to the process of
“incentives” is merely a metaphor, and as a metaphor to describe human creative activity, it’s pretty
crummy. I have said this before, but the better metaphor arose on the day Michael Faraday first
noticed what happened when he wrapped a coil of wire a-round a magnet and spun the magnet.
Current flows in such a wire, but we don’t ask what the incentive is for the electrons to leave home.
We say that the current results from an emergent property of the system, which we call induction.
The question we ask is “what’s the resistance of the wire?” So Moglen’s Metaphorical Corollary to
Faraday’s Law says that if you wrap the Internet around every person on the planet and spin the
planet, soft-ware flows in the network. It’s an emergent property of connected human minds that they
create things for one another’s pleasure and to conquer their uneasy sense of being too alone. The
only question to ask is, what’s the resistance of the network? Moglen’s Metaphorical Corollary to
Ohm’s Law states that the resistance of the network is directly proportional to the field strength of the
“intellectual property” system.5
My introduction to the concept of emergence was therefore somewhat obscure but in it, I perceived something that
seemed significant for the life of the church and that is this. Could it be that the headship of Christ and the guidance of
the Holy Spirit is an emergent property of the church, a community, which is gathered by the proclamation of the Word?
Is the resistance in the network directly proportional to the field strength of the Ecclesiological structure? Today, many
theologians are calling for a more decentralized form of church government. Some, like Rosemary Radford Reuther,
are exploring the empowering characteristics of basic Christian communities6, while others like Miroslav Volf are
articulating the polycentric nature of the Church.7 What if church government is not a necessity; what if it is an
expedient at best, and at worst an obstacle, to the life of the church? Most churches struggle with what is frequently
referred to as the 80/20 split, which divides the inactive and active members respectively. Leadership struggles
constantly with its desire to activate the laity. Reuther suggests that Clericalism, by definition, disempowers the people
According to Millard Erickson, attempts to develop a structure of church government that adheres to the
Erickson concludes that the only way for us to come up with a viable form of church government is to ask
ourselves what church government is designed to protect and promote, then to determine which form best serves these
values.10 He puts forward three as essential: the value of order, the priesthood of all believers, and the importance of the
individual.11 From our three main options, Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Congregational - Erickson chooses the
congregational form.12 Erickson gives little attention to his fourth option; the Non-Governmental form, practiced by
Plymouth Brethren and the highly marginalized Quakers, even though by definition, these would most closely embody
his stated values.13 On the one hand, he commends these groups for their accentuation of the Spirits role, however he
ultimately concludes that there is no biblical evidence to support the universal and direct work of the Holy Spirit, and
that these groups posit an unrealistic level of sensitivity to the Spirit for their members.14
I do not wish to single Erickson out for his assumptions. The majority of Christians have historically believed
that governmental structure is essential for the healthy functioning of the church and the only realistic expression of the
headship of Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Even churches that emphasize the priesthood of all believers,
and unmediated access to the throne of God find it necessary to advocate some type of church government15, but what if
they are wrong? There is a story about a shoddy computer salesperson, who is reported to have tried evading the
observation that his product had a bug in the system, by claiming, “it’s not a bug, it’s a feature”. In this case however
the observation may just hold true. Instead of looking at the lack of any formal pattern of church government as a
problem to be fixed, what if we saw it instead as the sign of the real headship of Christ, the direct reign of God. For
9
Erickson 1094
10
ibid 1095-1096
11
for biblical ref. see, Order: 1 Cor 14:40, Priesthood of Believers: Rom 5:1-5, 1 Tim 2:5, Heb 4:14-16, Importance of the Individual: Rom 12, 1 Cor
12, Acts 4:32, 15:22 (See Erickson 1095 for his reasons for choosing these passages).
12
One could argue that given his premise (the three values he chooses,) that his conclusion was inevitable. Perhaps an Episcopal or Presbyterian
theologian would have chosen different values and arrived at different conclusions. This may be true, but the undeniable fact is that these are biblical
values, however we prioritize them, and they must be affirmed and promoted regardless of ecclesiological suppositions.
13
Williams, Walter R. The Rich Heritage of Quakerism (Barclay Press, Oregon 1997). 89
14
Erickson 1004
15
Luther did not develop an ecclesiology, because the first generation of the reformation still expected to return to the Catholic Church. Calvin
developed an elaborate ecclesiology. McGrath 482
many Christians, especially those of the Free Church tradition the priesthood of all believers, the indwelling of the Holy
Spirit uniting all believers and unifying the church is the ideal. It is, however an ideal that is trumped by practical
concerns. Christ is the head of the church, but who will have the responsibility of making the decisions - really; the
Holy Spirit is the bond of peace, but how will we achieve unity - really. What if these practical concerns, could be
abated? Is the headship of Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit something we can directly live by; or must it be
Emergent Systems
Emergence is a new science, which studies the phenomena of how complex patterns “emerge” (in a seemingly
spontaneous way) out of relatively simple systems under certain conditions. In his book Emergence, Steven Johnson
describes the phenomenon as it developed historically through the scientific investigation of such seemingly unrelated
subjects as slime mold cells, cities, ant colonies, and the human brain. Johnson’s primary interest lies in what he calls
adaptive emergent systems. Adaptive emergence occurs naturally in and amongst biological systems like the human
immune system, slime mold cells, ant colonies, and human cities. It is the most promising area the research into
artificial intelligence. I believe in it we can find the resources for an ecclesiology which eliminates the resistance “in the
wire” of ecclesiological structure, allowing the church to function more like a living organism capable of adaptive
intelligence in its surrounding social context. In what follows, I will describe three overlapping characteristics of
systems that display adaptive emergence, bottom up structure, self-organization, and collective intelligence.
Bottom Up Structure
Slime mold is essentially a collective organism composed of many smaller single celled organisms, which
spend much of their time independent of each other. Under certain conditions however, they unite to form a single
entity, which we know as slime mold. This behavior is triggered by a chemical known as acrasin, (Also known as cyclic
AMP). Until the groundbreaking work of Evelyn Fox Keller and Lee Segal, it was believed that the aggregative
behavior of slime mold cells was regulated by certain pacemaker cells16 that gave the signal for the community to unite.
The problem was, these pacemaker cells could never be found. Keller and Segal proposed an alternate hypothesis based
on mathematician Alan Turing’s work on morphogenesis17, whereby simple agents following simple rules could
generate complex structures. They proposed that individual cells would emit varying levels of cyclic AMP, in response
to their environment; under certain conditions, greater levels of AMP were emitted, giving the call to other cells in the
16
This theory was proposed by B.M. Shafer in 1962. See Emergence 16
17
ibid 14
vicinity to converge and form the collective body. When the environmental conditions would change, the levels of
AMP emitted by the individuals in the community would drop thereby signaling their neighbors to break formation with
the group.
Does this apply to human relations; and more specifically the Church? Is any sign of this to be found in
scripture? I believe so; for instance, the bible portrays human response to the proclamation of the Word in the terms of
simple aggregative behavior. First and most notably people are compared to sheep. Sheep are herding animals, herding
is a simple aggregative behavior much like the shoaling of fish or the swarming of insects. Under certain conditions,
sheep gather into flocks. Shepherds make use of this aggregative behavior for the good of the sheep. In John 10:26-27
Jesus says, "You do not believe, because you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and
they follow me”. When the Word of God is proclaimed, there is a fundamental separation of the believing and the
unbelieving community, which happens all by itself. A central theme of Protestant understanding of the nature of the
church focuses on the presence of Christ resulting from the proclamation of his word.18 Martin Luther’s early views on
the nature of the church reflect his emphasis on the Word of God: the Word of God goes forth conquering and wherever
it conquers and gains true obedience to God is the church.19 This emphasis is still characteristic of the 20th century
theologian Karl Barth, who also held that the church comes into being in response to the proclamation of the word of
God.20 Much like the acrasin of slime mold, or the pheromones of ant trails; human speech along with other nonverbal
signals, comprise human communication. It is no small thing to note, that the most complete revelation of God comes
not in words alone but in the form of a human person.21 As the self-communication of God, Jesus becomes a sign to be
opposed 22 humanity is divided into those who embrace and those who reject this message.23 This fundamental division
creates the body of believers that comprise the church. This is communicated in I Jn 1:3 by the author, who says, “what
we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, that you also may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship
is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ”. The proclamation of the gospel creates and sustains community.
18
McGrath 489
19
ibid 481
20
ibid 489
21
Heb. 1:1
22
Luke 2:34-35
23
Matt. 10:34-36
Self Organization
The second characteristic is self-organization. One might be tempted to think, “Though such behavior is
possible in simple organisms like slime mold, it could not possibly be a significant factor in more complex, organized
behavior”. That assumption however, is wrong. Take for instance, the myth of the ant queen. A widely held
misconception is that ant colonies operate under the direction of a social hierarchy.24 This is based on the philosophical
assumption that complex social systems need a leader; however, no particular ant or group of ants can take credit for the
grandiosity of the colonies organization. No single ant has the mental capacity to comprehend the complexity of the
colony as a whole. Therefore, there are no city planers to designate where the colonies waste dump and cemetery will be
located,25 and there are no general managers, assigning tasks for the day based on the number of workers and the
physical needs of the community. All of these things are regulated by a relatively simple process of communication (i.e.
pheromone trails and frequency of social contact,) the ant colony as a whole thereby regulates its behavior through the
social interaction of its individual members.26 The experience of an individual ant or slime mold cell is limited to its
local interactions or “street level” knowledge. The same is true of human interaction on the massive scale.27 If we turn
again to the Gospels, we find Jesus is quick to dismiss disputes over prominence among his disciples. At least twice in
Matthew 18:1-4 and 20:25-2 he directly confronts their ambition. There is also a story in Mark 9:38-40 where the
disciples attempt to silence others “we tried to hinder him because he was not following us”. Jesus tells them not to
oppose them "For he who is not against us is for us” (Mark 9:40). We find no instance of control over a local church by
outside organizations or individuals. The apostles made recommendations and gave advice, but exercised no real
rulership or control.28
If there is no top down organizational structure imposed from the outside, what about the structure inside. Can
we feasibly do away with the clergy/laity distinction? In Acts 1:15-26 the disciples choosing a successor to Judas allow
the body to put forward a suggestion, rather than making the final decision, they decide to cast lots. The decision to
choose this procedure is significant because it could reflect the fact that the disciples did not feel they were in a position
to make the final decision where the body had not reached consensus. This however is the primary argument against
consensus models of decision-making and egalitarian as opposed to hierarchical models of ecclesial structure. There are
other indications that the ideal mode of decision-making was consensual. The epistles are not addressed to leaders but
24
Emergence 31
25
ibid 32-33
26
ibid 74
27
ibid 98
28
Erickson 1098
to the congregations as a whole. When the first deacons are selected in Acts 6, they are chosen by the whole church.
The whole church also settled the dispute over circumcision in Acts 15:22. In Acts 8:27-40 there is the story of the
Ethiopian who becomes a follower of Jesus and is baptized, he returns home – no official advisor, as far as we are told,
is ever said to have been dispatched. Furthermore, it would seem that the growth and spread of the church in this early
stage is not planned or strategized, by a group of leaders it occurs organically. The Gospel reaches Rome far ahead of
the missionary activity of any of the Apostles including Paul. The letter to the Romans shows us that the church
emerged from the proclamation of the Word spontaneously through the day-to-day actions of believers.
Collective Intelligence
Learning is not just about being aware of information; it’s also about storing information and knowing where
to find it. It’s about recognizing and being able to respond to changing patterns.29 Cities, says Johnson, have the latent
ability to act as a large information storage and retrieval device that connects the individual lives of human beings
whose population density has grown beyond the ability of individual agents or groups of individuals to regulate. This is
an emergent property that arose from the simple desire of people to aggregate together for protection. By bringing
together minds and putting them into coherent slots, ideas and goods flowed with unprecedented ease leading to a super-
productive cross-pollination that guaranteed good ideas would not die in rural isolation. Cities have an innate
intelligibility that makes communal life on a massive scale possible - effectively cities become the brain outside our
head. Conditions may not be ideal from the standpoint of the individual, but the overall success rate of the human
Hebrews 10:25 exhorts believers not to forsake coming together. Many theologians have begun to turn away
from individualistic notions of the spiritual life, toward a more communally based understanding. For instance,
Miroslav Volf makes the passage in 1Cor 14 central to his ecclesiology.30 The various gifts of the spirit are given to the
community for the sake of building up the community. This turn away from individualistic notions of spiritual life is
probably one of the most positive turns in recent times. In the practical section of this paper, I will explore some of the
ways we can begin to try to tap into the collective intelligence of the body.
Conclusion
29
Emergence 103
30
Volf 224
Believers today, search for a context in which they play an active role. If we go back to Erickson’s values, we
see that the “priesthood of believers”, and the significance of all members of the body would seem to answer directly
this human longing, and his third value, “order” makes it possible. Miroslav Volf writes,
People in modern societies, however, have little sympathy for top-down organizations,
including for churches structured top-down. The search of contemporary human beings for
community is a search for those particular forms of socialization in which they themselves
are taken seriously with their various religious and social needs, in which their personal
engagement is valued, and in which they can participate formatively.31
If we truly believe, along with Erickson, that there is no pattern imposed on us by scripture, then we must consider the
area of ecclesiology to be wide open to human creativity and reason, putting the best of our understanding to use in
creating ecclesiological forms that promote the kind of values that Erickson espouses. The modern study of Emergence
opens the door to the possibility of a more hands off approach to Ecclesiological life that empowers the laity by
downplaying or altogether eliminating top-down governing structures. I believe that by increasing the participation of
the so-called laity and increasing flow of communication among members of the body the church will manifest a
collective, adaptive intelligence that will be able to handle the rapidly changing social environment in a way a single
leader, or leaders could only do slowly, with imprecision, if at all. In the final part of this paper, I will look at some
In the Past decade, we have stopped analyzing the phenomenon of emergence and have started creating it.
Our day-to-day lives have become overrun with artificial emergence. We have begun building self-organizing systems
into our software, video games, art, music; it is beginning to inform our political movements and the structures of our
businesses.32 Of course, the progress from organization to organism cannot happen instantaneously, certain key factors
must be in place for an emergent system to work, they correspond to Johnson’s principles of emergence: Neighbor
Neighbor Interaction
You need a high level of communication and interaction for higher level of corporate intelligence and
adaptability to emerge. Modernist individualism has done much to erode the values of community. Many of us live in
total isolation from our neighbors; our churches have become more like social clubs than the communities they ought to
31
Volf 17
32
Emergence 21, 221 (ebay), 225 (the Seattle Protest).
33
ibid 22
be. We do not feel a strong bond to the people we worship with. This however, is not merely the result bad choices
made by individuals that can be changed by a mere act of will. It is a societal shift caused by the decisions of billions of
people over many years. It is unrealistic to expect individual people to stand against the force of such an overpowering
force. The church has a responsibility to explore changes to its cultural and structural life, to look for new and
innovative ways to network the members within their church as well as network between churches. Some have put
forward the incorporation of online communities into the ecclesiological structure as a solution to the problem34 but, as
Johnson points out there are drawbacks to online community that keep it from fulfilling the hopes of futurist
visionaries.35 Technologies can do much to increase the fluidity of communication, but they cannot take us all the way
to community between human persons. One way to address the social fragmentation of our day might simply be to
begin sharing a common meal together as believers did in the early days of the church. In the fast food generation
where most people eat out most of the time anyway, eating together might be one way to mend the social fragmentation
of our day. Our church, the Salvage Yard, has a common meal every Wednesday, hosted by one of our community
houses. I know of other churches like Elim Baptist who also share a common meal after their Sunday Worship Service.
With a little work, these could be transformed into a genuine service to the body rather than a social function. Another
thing to consider might be an open door policy, having the church building open beyond the hours of Worship Service.
Services like a Library, Spiritual Counsel, and meeting rooms could be made available to the community. Another
means of connection implemented by our Church is a Gifts and Needs Board, where the services and resources of the
Pattern Recognition
Human beings are much better at pattern recognition, than we are at linear and logical reasoning. This is why
the switch to an icon-based environment saw an explosion in the number of PC users. What had formerly been the
obscure domain of the few, suddenly became intelligible to the masses. I had mentioned how cities can become the
brain outside our heads. By taking information and putting it into coherent slots, we can exist in a kind of collective,
intelligent space. Again, modernism must be identified as the culprit for much of the traditional wisdom that was lost.
The reintroduction of narrative preaching, and the arts as a part of Christian life runs contrary to the modernist trend of
linear reasoning and iconoclasm. We must learn again to be a symbol making community. This goes beyond the mere
comodification of symbolism. The significance of art and story goes beyond its mere esthetic value. Ideally, it should
34
Retrofuture 73
35
Emergence 150
provide a way for the individual to contextualize her spiritual life, to find her place in the story as it were. We must give
greater thought to the structure of our corporate space; does it have meaning? Is it user friendly?
When we look at a colony of ants and determine that the biggest one in the center of the colony is the leader;
when we look at a flock of birds heading south for the winter and determine the one in front is leading the way – what
are we doing but simply reading our philosophical assumptions into the natural world? If emergence truly underlies the
adaptive structure of biological organisms including human cities then we must conclude that leadership itself is not
what we assumed it was. The reformation’s break with Catholic Hierarchy did not result in the rejection of strong top
down models of leadership. Leaders from Luther and Calvin right down to today see strong leadership as necessary to
guide direct and hold community together. Calvin so much as stated that people who advocate dismantling the top
down model of the church are plotting its destruction.36 Even emerging church thinkers like Brain McLaren cannot
conceive of organization without it. He states, “Systems are interactive in an organism – it takes careful design and
leadership to keep them coordinated.”37 When is the last time you told your immune system how to function or your
heart how to beat? This is the way machines work, not organisms. Organisms have built in redundancies and back up
systems, they are messy but they get the job done. From many statements he makes, it is apparent that McLaren still
History has shown us that even the most authoritarian models of leadership can at best exercise only indirect
control, it is the attempt to manifest direct control, which results in harsh and coercive policies. Emergence provides us
with the opportunity to take this insight and develop more liberating Ecclesiological Structures. Leadership, in fact, has
very little to do with direct control at all. Rather, leaders are innovators, with good instincts, the first to act, and the
ones who the body looks to most often for these very reasons. This is not the same as an office; a good leader in one
situation is not necessarily a good leader in every situation. Ideally, an emergent ecclesiology should have a consensus
model of decision-making. Where the headship of Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit is taken literally – the
broader the base of the decision making body, the greater is the certainty, and the less the possibility of influence of
personal bias. Course adjustments to the direction of the community should come in the form of cultural modifications
36
Calvin, John. Institutes 4:3:2.
37
McLaren, Brian. The Church on the Other Side 45-46
Theology and Spirituality
I have already stated in this paper, that emergence offers Christian communities the possibility of designing
ecclesiological structures that have a built in ability to adapt to the surrounding cultural context. I believe that we can
eliminate much of the difficulty experienced around so called “relevance issues” by tapping into the collective
intelligence of the body, rather than limiting the contribution of individual members and restricting formation of new
ministries under a strong centralized leadership. Our church’s can become social contexts in which people experience
genuine freedom.
An emergent ecclesiology would also answer the longing of the majority of people today who want a faith in
which they play a formative role, and where their contribution is valued. The Christian community could be a place
where the priesthood of all believers finds genuine expression, and where the headship of Christ and the guidance of the
At this point, I would like to answer some possible objections to the course I have laid out.
Q First, is adapting to the surrounding culture merely a way of accommodating the sin of the culture?
A I do not believe so. In the introduction, I stated that we have a philosophical pre-disposition to associate change with
imperfection. We cite verses like James 1:17, which states, that there is no change in God. Careful reflection on this
idea however must lead us to the conclusion some aspects of God must change, in order for God to remain the same
toward us. God changes the way he relates to us, in order to remain true to the eternal aspects of his divine nature. For
instance, God’s love is expressed in the act of giving, and God is a giver of good gifts; but not all the time – sometimes
love means taking good things away. The church too must constantly change in order to stay the same. If we value
community, we must adapt to counter those forces, which would erode it. It is not enough to ask believers to “renew
their commitment”.
A This was actually the point of this paper. To demonstrate that many things happen naturally without top-down
management. Consider your immune system, it adapts and responds automatically without the direction of the brain. If
you will recall my example with Paul and Rome, the church emerged there before Paul ever got their; most likely
carried back by believing Jews who were present at Pentecost, Acts 2:5&6. There will undoubtedly be much skepticism
around what I am saying, however, I hope that Christians will have the courage to begin working with some of the
dynamics of emergence, like increasing neighbor interaction, pattern recognition, and indirect control. Perhaps as we
begin to see a more empowered laity we can back off of the heavy top down models of ecclesiology and surrender to the
Bibliography
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Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology, 2nd edition (Baker: Grand Rapids. 1998).
McLaren, Brian. The Church on the Other Side (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, 2000).
Vaidhayanathan, Siva. The Anarchist in the Library (Basic Books: New York 2004).
Volf, Miroslav, After Our Likeness (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids: MI, 1998).
Williams, Walter R. The Rich Heritage of Quakerism (Barclay Press, Oregon 1997).