# Emergent Church **Summary.** The Emergent Church was a movement of the late 1990s and 2000s that sought to rethink church practice and theology for a postmodern culture. It questioned inherited evangelical certainties and experimented with worship, community, and how doctrine is held. ## Substance The movement had no single structure or creed. It grew through conversations, books, and networks such as Emergent Village. Associated figures include Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, and Tony Jones, among others. Common emphases included: - Skepticism toward rigid systematic certainty, favoring a more provisional, questioning posture. - Attention to narrative, practice, and community over propositional belief alone. - Engagement with postmodern thought about language, culture, and truth. The movement drew sharp criticism from more conservative evangelicals, who saw it as loosening doctrinal boundaries. As a distinct label, "emergent" faded by the 2010s, but many of its questions and figures carried into what is now often called [[Progressive Christianity]]. ## Why it matters in this wiki This wiki tracks the journey from charismatic and evangelical formation toward progressive Christian expressions. The Emergent Church is one of the bridges in that history. It gave many people a first vocabulary for questioning inherited certainty while staying connected to Christian faith and practice. ## Related - [[Progressive Christianity]] - [[Brian McLaren]]