The emerging church movement : an exploratory case study of its environmental and political attitudes

Graduation date: 2013To date, no investigation of the Emerging Church Movement has made an effort to examine the environmental and political views of its members. Despite the vast research on the politics and environmental opinions of American evangelicals, little is known about where the majority of members of the Emerging Church Movement are on the political spectrum or how they view environmental protection and climate change issues. As an exploratory case study, this thesis advances our understanding of the Emerging Church Movement by considering these issues and how the movement influences its members. Using interviews and participant-observation, this thesis utilized qualitative methods to analyze and compare the environmental and political views of emerging church members against those of traditional evangelicals. There were three main findings from this research: (1) members of the Emerging Church Movement are more politically moderate than their evangelical counterparts; (2) social action calls were heard in church services rather than political action calls; and (3) environmental protection, though seen as important, did not appear to be a prominent issue in the Emerging Church Movement. The findings from the research suggest that there were both differences and similarities among the views of emerging church members and traditional evangelicals. The methods and practices employed in this study present a usable framework for future research, while the findings prompt new and interesting questions for future research on the nascent study of the Emerging Church Movement