An Evaluation of Emerging Churches on the Basis of the Contextualization Spectrum (C1-C6) - Gregg Allison

A quotation from Ed Stetzer on the Emerging Church, which is essentially an attempt to provide a typology of contextualisations of church in post-modernity, along the lines of the C1-C6 spectrum.  Where do you think you are?

Greg Allison presented a paper, titled “An Evaluation of Emerging Churches on the

Basis of the Contextualization Spectrum (C1-C6),” to the Evangelical Theological Society on

November 17, 2006. Allison takes the categories I wrote of—Relevants,

Reconstructionists, Revisionsists – and applies them to the spectrum of contextualization.

The place of beginning for Allison was the contextualization spectrum posed by John Travis

(a pseudonym) in 1998 published as, “The C1 Through C6 Spectrum: A Practical Tool for

Defining Six Types of Christ-Centered Communities Found in Muslim Context.” He writes,

At the heart of my proposal is the conviction that the emerging church phenomenon

is, in part, a contemporary attempt at contextualizing the gospel and the church of

Jesus Christ in a changing (postmodern) world. If this is the case, then the emerging

church phenomenon (1) bears some similarities with contextualization efforts carried

out in the past, and (2) manifests a spectrum of embodiments that are contextualized

from a lesser to a greater degree.

Allison may well have captured the missiological interest in the Emergent Church.

The abbreviations of the C1-C6 were modified by Allison to reflect the application

to the British and North American contexts. The spectrum offered by Allison suggests the

following distinctive characteristics, which may be applied to the Emergent Church. I will

discuss Allison’s modification represented by Cm1-Cm6 where “m” represents “modified.”

Cm1 represents Christ-centered communities that would be described as

traditional using outsider language. The use of the terms insider and outsider in this context

relate to the peculiar culture surrounding a given Christ-centered community. Therefore,

outsider language would be those talking about life and faith in “churchy” terms, the

language of Zion. For example in Allison’s matrix a Cm1 faith community would include

churches where some people may be very entrenched in a postmodern worldview but use

language outside that (postmodern) culture. Allison writes,

These churches are very traditional and reflect traditional Christian culture, liturgy,

activities, etc. A huge cultural chasm, especially because of (but not confined to)

linguistic distance, exists between these churches and the surrounding community.

The Cm2 category describes a traditional church using insider language. This level of

contextualization may pair with the Relevant category in my taxonomy and in the “to”

spectrum for those wishing to engage postmoderns as noted by Doug Pagitt. These people

use language from a postmodern worldview, but the religious vocabulary is still distinctively

Christian.

Contextualization in Cm1 and Cm2 categories comprise predominantly traditional

forms. A shift begins to occur at the Cm3 level. Those in the Cm3 category exhibit a

Christ-centered community using insider language and religiously neutral insider cultural

norms. Religiously neutral forms may include folk music, ethnic dress, artwork, etc. The

aim is to reduce the foreignness of the gospel and the church by contextualizing to biblically

permissible cultural forms.

If Cm1 and Cm2 reside in the Relevant category, then the Cm3 level most certainly

describes this group. These people engage in postmodern culture—it is the water in which

they swim. It is the lens through which they see the world. At the same time, they are only

using certain permissible cultural forms. They are careful about issues where there might be

confusion. Allison places Mars Hill in Seattle, where Mark Driscoll is the pastor, and

Apostles Church in New York City in the Cm3 category.

The next level, Cm4, moves further. These people form Christ-centered

communities using insider language and biblically permissible cultural forms as well as

postmodern forms. Each of the first three levels refers to believers as Christians. In this

group, the common Emergent idiom “followers of Jesus” or “Christ followers” is prevalent.

This level may parallel the Reconstructionist category which I created and the “with” focus

noted by Pagitt. Those in this category are deconstructing and reconstructing in postmodern

culture, being careful in most cases to use only biblically permissible forms. Many

conservative evangelical mission agencies (including the International Mission Board) view

Cm4 as the limit of contextualization. Allison places Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz,

where Dan Kimball is the pastor, in the Cm4 category.

For myself and many evangelicals, the next two levels cross the line into overcontextualization.

The Cm5 level forms Christ-centered communities where participants see

themselves more as postmoderns who are Christians rather than as Christians living in a

postmodern milieu. Allison places ReImagine in San Francisco, led by Mark Scandrette, in

the Cm5 category.

The high end of the spectrum, Cm6, encompasses small Christ-centered

communities of secret underground believers. Allison notes Cm6 communities “eschew

many/most of the activities, attitudes, traditions, even doctrines of the Cm1-Cm5

communities.” Allison places Monkfish Abbey in Seattle and IKON in Ireland, mentioned

earlier, in the Cm6 category.

I think I am somewhere between CM3 and CM4 on this scale in the way that I think and approach contextualisation in post-modernism.  i wonder if anyone has attempted to create a spectrum like this for churches trying to contextualise in inner-city communities in the UK?