By James Gómez in Misfit Faith — 13 Sep 2023

The Earlier vs Emerging Paradigm of Christianity

Contrasting two perspectives of the Christian faith

Last week, we compared the bad news vs. good news version of the Christian message. If you missed that article, you can read it at the link below.

I AM JAMES GÓMEZ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Are You Living in the Bad News or Good News Version of the Christian Message?

This week, we’ll take a trip to understand the paradigms behind the bad and good news versions of the Christian message. The names of Earlier and Emerging paradigms were not given by myself but by the late New Testament Scholar Marcus Borg in his book The Heart of Christianity.

It’s important to note that the Earlier and Emerging paradigms we’ll discuss have a rich history. However, the earlier paradigm has been the majority view in American Christianity over the last century.

Furthermore, the difference between these two paradigms is not a matter of a handful of doctrinal differences; instead, they are two comprehensive ways of understanding Christianity as a whole.

The Earlier Paradigm

If you grew up in America or were initially introduced to Christianity through American influences (evangelistic crusade, church, missionary work, etc.), you were most likely introduced to the earlier paradigm. At the core of the Earlier Paradigm are four features of the Christian life.

The Bible as a Divine Product: The Bible as a divine product means the Bible uniquely comes from God and is ultimately the revelation of God. The Bible is seen as infallible, inerrant, inspired by God, the word of God, etc.
Faith as believing is central: Understanding the Bible literally without error is hard to believe (God parting the Red Sea, a whale swallowing Jonah, and Jonah living to tell the tale, etc.). As a result, the expectation to believe without questioning requires faith.
The afterlife is central: The afterlife is prominent as both promise and motive; for the vast majority, it is why one should be a Christian. To make this point, heaven is the promise, and hell is the motive. A deepening relationship with God in the here and now is seldom a motive to enter the Christian tradition.
The Christian life is about requirements and rewards: The notion of requirements flows directly from the emphasis on the afterlife. If you have faith in the right doctrines, say the proper prayer, and profess to be Team Jesus, you’re good; otherwise…not so good.

A Few Other Considerations on the Earlier Paradigm

Before moving to the emerging paradigm, there are a few other details about the earlier paradigm worth noting. First, there is both a hard and soft form of viewing the Bible as a divine product. I won’t unpack those differences in this article, but if you’re interested in knowing more, let me know, and I’ll be happy to write a future article on the topic. Second, faith exclusively refers to ‘believing’ or ‘belief.’ The implications of this are:

“The preoccupation ‘believing’ and ‘beliefs’ has a crucially important effect: it turns Christian faith into a head matter. Faith becomes primarily a matter of the beliefs in your head. Of whether you believe the right set of claims to be true. (The Heart of Christianity, p. 26)

For reference, faith is used throughout the New Testament in five different ways. Only one of those ways is regarding faith as belief. The other ways are faith as assent, trust, fidelity, and visio (seeing the whole). Finally, and closely related to seeing faith as ‘belief’ is the earlier paradigm tendency to over-emphasize knowledge. This view is preoccupied with knowing too much and knowing it too precisely, removing almost all the mystery of faith.

The Emerging Paradigm

Throughout my time in ministry, the emerging paradigm was what I now realize I was most warned to stay away from. Being in fundamentalist and conservative spaces theologically and politically, this paradigm is regularly seen as the greatest threat to Christianity. The emerging paradigm has been known by many names over the last century—terms such as mainline, liberal, progressive, unbiblical, unorthodox, and my favorite heresy.

Similar to the earlier paradigm, there are four features of the Christian life:

The Bible is a human product: As a human product, the Bible is the result of two ancient communities: ancient Israel and the early Christian movement. As a human product, this view does not deny the reality of God. Instead, it sees the Bible as a response to how these two ancient communities responded to God.
Faith is an all-encompassing experience of the Sacred: Faith, as all-encompassing, takes seriously the reality that faith is primarily experiential and not intellectual. This is not to say there is no place for knowledge; quite the contrary, the emerging paradigm often takes more serious historical scholarship in understanding the world in which the Bible was written.
The Christian life is about this life, not the afterlife: The emerging paradigm places a premium on understanding “the way” of Jesus as pertinent to this life. Jesus is offering us new life through death to our old ways and rebirth to the new ways of Jesus today, not in some future afterlife.
The grace of God is freely given: Likely, the most scandalous statement of this view is that not even faith is a prerequisite to a relationship with God. As discussed above, faith, often defined as agreeing to a set of beliefs, is viewed as another work. God’s love for us on the cross was so grand and radical that it completely conquered all systems of requirements. God’s love for us comes before our worthiness, whether that worth is defined by correct belief or right actions; neither matters, as God already removed any barrier to a relationship.

A Few More Considerations on the Emerging Paradigm

I’m willing to wager more than a few people are asking, “If neither faith nor works is how someone enters a relationship with God, what is?” Honestly, this is a great question.

There are three ways one enters into a relationship with God within the Christian tradition. First, by experiencing life within the Christian tradition. Whether through a local church, Christian friendships, Bible reading, etc. By seeing what new life looks like, one begins to want and desire this for themselves. Second is baptism and the eucharist. Throughout church history, a person publicly declares their relationship with Jesus through baptism and experiencing Christ through the mystery of the Eucharist. Finally, their lives continue to grow in deeper relationships within a community that helps internalize becoming more compassionate and justice-minded in our daily lives.

Both paradigms seek to draw people into a relationship with God through Jesus. Furthermore, both paradigms agree to be Christian is to be centered by the God of the Bible. The emerging paradigm embraces and welcomes dialogue with modern scientific and historical scholarship to deepen our critical thinking and experience of God. The earlier paradigm assumes a closed system where what has been determined as orthodox beliefs (there’s that “believe” again) are closed issues, not open for discussion. Ultimately, what we believe is what we belove. The question is which paradigm leads you to experience the God you can belove.