The US contemporary Evangelical church planting community is large and influential. The movement has a global international reach through books alongside video, sermons and resources that can be downloaded from the internet. This thesis investigates that body of work, which it calls the scape, from the perspective of an international user. Using a hermeneutical spiral, it engages in four tasks. The Descriptive Task provides morphology for the movement, which it calls the Second Generation, describing it as five streams. It takes two, the Neo-Reformed and Neo-Seeker streams, as representative of the movement as a whole. Their missiology and ecclesiology are then described. The Interpretive Task then considers the movement's history within American Protestantism alongside their origins in the Church Growth, megachurch, and Emerging movements. It analyses the influences of personal background, the US political scene, and American culture. It posits that these influence the movement in ways of which they are not aware. The Normative Task then enters Second Generation missiology and ecclesiology, as described, into a conversation with a dialogue partner, the Fresh Expressions of Church movement, bringing what is seen as important theological normative understandings, followed by evaluation that proceeds from the process. The evaluation follows a stated thesis, that the movement stresses a truncated missiology over ecclesiology to such an extent that their original missional intentions could be subverted by other factors . It argues that Second Generation praxis thus tends towards the individualistic, and the thesis argues that consumerism and homogeneity are consequences. For the international scape user, it is suggested that these factors will be difficult to discern. The thesis moves to the Pragmatic Task where new praxis is provided that may aid the movement to counter the problems posited. Directions for further research are suggested and the future of the movement is predicted.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:673836 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Eagleson, Lee Henry |
| Publisher | Queen's University Belfast |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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