Andrew started a conversation on the parallels between the emerging church and web2.0. I think the similarities are interesting in that they are symptoms or manifestations of the environment they are coming from and how the web2.0 evolution might shed light on things to come for the church. Here is my attempt to articulate some fuddled, hazy thoughts on the subject.

I think a lot of what we see with web2.0 might be another cycle of control and release that has been happening with technology– particularly with software and the web. The web started off as collaborative enabling environment in academia that quickly found itself becoming influenced by commercialization and by hierarchical or cathedral models of control. At the time, the hierarchical/cathedral model is how software was done. This was to some extent broken down by the opensource software movement. That same movement had a lot of influence on the web (apache & Linux/*BSD). But the web was also leveraged commercially through hierarchical structures (Netscape, Microsft, AOL). I think a lot of what we are seeing now is the enabling or equipping of a backlash. Technologies that though they may be commercialized, enable and equip users to create the environment and experiences that they want from the web (google, social software, web2.0/*). It is looking more bazaar like.

I think the emerging church is a similar event in that it is a reaction to the hierarchical model of the church (imagine cathedral) and the longing for more authenticity. From the wiki, the emerging church is described, in part, as a “reaction to the influence of modernism in Western Christianity.” It is participatory, interactive, and questioning. It is more organic, decentralized, and open. It encourages and leverages the voices of many. It is skeptical… and people are skeptical of it. I think it too is more bazaar like.

So where does this leave us? I think both are reactions to modernism and maybe taking this one step further, they are both reactions to the influence of structures of hierarchy and power. But I think too that the similarities only go so deep. Although they are both moving and evolving in the same context they are very different entities that evolve at very different paces. The web has evolved at a blistering pace during it’s lifetime. It wasn’t that long ago that we got our first email account using our boot-from-a-floppy PC. We now have gmail with 1GB+ of storage, del.icio.us, blogging, and everything web2.0 that is powered by 1 billion+ transistor chips (possibly the most complex thing built by man). The church (or its collective conscience), though it moves and changes, doesn’t move that fast.

My thought is that those of us struggling with and in the emerging church should perhaps look at understanding what has happened with technology and the web as a glimpse into how reactions to modernism will effect the way people interact with the church in the years to come. It might be a glimpse into the future.

I hope some of this made sense. For a fun alpha view of the relationship between the emerging church and web2.0, see this post. Here is a related entry. See also Johannes’s post. He has some good thoughts on the subject.