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  • Icons:A Case Study in Spiritual Borrowing between Eastern Orthodoxy and the Emergent Church
  • Dann Wigner (bio)

In the summer of 2011, while visiting an emergent church for a research case study in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I witnessed the following setup for corporate worship activities. The church met in an unfinished office building with a large open space with unadorned concrete walls, pillars, and exposed wiring. In the central portion of this space a variety of seating was provided: pews, folding chairs, easy chairs, couches, and school desks. Lyrics for songs and notes from sermons were projected on the bare wall behind the main speaker. On one side of this main seating area, a sectioned-off zone was designated as an art station, and the other side was a prayer station. The art station had chairs and tables covered with butcher paper. Crayons, Play-Doh, markers, and scissors were provided. Also, in this area, two easels were set up with blank canvases, a variety of paint colors, brushes, water, paint thinner, small wooden mannequins, old National Geographic magazines, and artwork completed in previous services, including one loosely interpreted portrayal of an icon. This area was separated from the main seating area by a six foot high votive candle divider, and lamps were provided for additional lighting. The prayer station was also separated by a votive candle divider. On this side, there were many candles, a chair and desk with prayer cards, a "surrender box" for prayers and struggles, a box of facial tissue, a suggested written "forgiveness prayer," a kneeling bench, a prayer journal, and an Eastern Orthodox icon prominently displayed. I was struck by the juxtaposition of a non-religious, multi-purpose space with the prominent place given to religious icons, encapsulating the epitome of traditional Christian ritual practice. This juxtaposition is a concrete, physical example of spiritual borrowing.

Spiritual borrowing is the process of transplanting a spiritual practice that arose in one religion to another religion. For instance, spiritual borrowing occurs when Christians engage in Buddhist meditation or Neo-Pagans utilize prayer beads. Borrowing can range from single practices to theological tenets on up to a complete fusion creating a new religious movement, such as Santería. Here I am investigating a far subtler example of intra-religious borrowing from Eastern Orthodox Christianity by the nascent emergent church movement. Sociologically speaking, the examination of spiritual borrowing [End Page 78]


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Our Lady of Tenderness 285. © 2004 by Clyde Rausch, OMI.

[End Page 79] consists of close scrutiny of two inter-related processes: (1) the appropriation of a particular practice from one religion to another, and (2) the reinterpretation of the purpose and theology of the borrowed practice to fit within its new tradition. I investigate this process through the specific example of the Eastern Orthodox icon as appropriated and reinterpreted by the emergent church. My results show a complex relationship between belief and behavior in which the use of icons is viewed by the borrowing group as neutral containers to be divested and invested with theological content as needed.

I follow a phenomenological methodology in this case study situated in an overarching qualitative framework for sociological study. To begin, a few brief definitions and categorizing remarks follow. First, this case study is qualitative rather than quantitative. Succinctly stated, "Qualitative data deals with meanings, whereas quantitative data deals with numbers."1 The difference in data gathered extends to a difference in conceptual logic with regard to analyzing that data. Specifically, quantitative data lends itself to deductive reasoning in which a researcher begins with a hypothesis and then either proves or disproves it on the basis of the specific data collected. Qualitative research and analysis approaches data from an inductive perspective, allowing inferences to rise out of many detailed observations.2 Qualitative research encourages the development of categories from examination of data collected rather than developing categories prior to examination of collected data. As a result, conclusions are returned that are not intended to be demonstrable, repeatable, and generalizable; rather, their aim is to produce "thick description" through use of a relatively small sample for the purpose of allowing outsiders to comprehend a "culture from...

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