It's Sunday morning at the Jammin Java cafe in Vienna, Virginia. A group of people have gathered in the back - to pray. The sticky floors and low lighting are not exactly inspirational. But this is no ordinary church. It's a new kind of worship that has sprung out of Evangelical Christianity and is being called the Emerging Church.
星期日早晨，维吉尼亚州Jammin Java咖啡馆里，一群人聚集在咖啡馆里面祷告。黏糊糊的地面，灰暗的灯光无法让人感到振奋。但是，这不是一个普通的教堂。它因为采纳了从福音派基督教发展而来的新式敬拜，因此被称为新兴教会。这个教会的名称是“同一桌”。
This particular group calls itself the Common Table. Mike Stavlund, one of the organizers, cradles his baby in his arms as he talks about why dozens of people are gathered here.
迈克·斯塔夫伦德是组织者之一。他一边怀抱他的婴孩，一边解释几十个人来到这里聚会的原因。
"I think people are seeking a personal interaction with the Christian tradition," he says, "so they want to have something they can participate in, something they can feel free to understand and misunderstand."
他说：“我认为，人们寻求的是能够和基督教传统有个人的接触。他们要的是一种能够参与其中、而且有理解和不理解自由的信仰。”
Only a generation ago, Evangelical Protestants were flocking to so-called megachurches with congregations that numbered in the thousands. The worshippers were fundamentalists, including Evangelicals, who view the Christian Bible as the literal truth. The churches were often led by a charismatic pastor who gave fiery sermons against abortion or homosexuality.
福音派基督徒和其他基要派基督徒认为，圣经是千真万确的真理。仅仅二、三十年前，他们还涌入上千人的教会。
Now, a new generation of Evangelical and other Christians is seeking a more personal experience with a different political tone. They are meeting in more intimate settings, like the corner cafe, and no one is told what to believe.
但是，新兴教会的作法完全不同。在“同一桌”教会，没有人被告诉应该信仰什么。
On this particular Sunday, worshippers discussed civil rights. They wrote confessions on papers that were read out anonymously.
在这个星期日，敬拜者谈论的是民权问题。他们把忏悔词写在一张纸上，由祷告小组领袖匿名宣读。
"I'm haunted by race issues," one of them said. "I stumble over words whenever I meet black people."
Stavlund says it's okay to question anything - even the most basic tenets of Christian belief.
斯塔夫伦德谈到，他们可以对任何事情提出质疑，甚至基督教的基本教义。
"To me it feels like an honesty, when we have doubts to say we've got doubts, when we've got faith to say we've got faith, but in all of it to be able to be accepting of everybody else," he says.
他说：“对我来说，这是一个诚实的问题。我们有疑问，就承认自己有疑问，我们有信仰，就承认自己有信仰，但是，还要能接纳所有其他的人。”
Many Common Table members are just starting families and searching for a way to practice their faith differently from how their parents did.
“同一桌”教会很多成员刚刚开始组成家庭，并在寻找一个与他们父母不同的信教方式。
Having a woman lead the service is one way Common Table is different. After administering the sacrament, Amy Moffitt says that rightwing politics turned many people here off to megachurches.
由妇女来带领聚会就是一个不同之处。艾米·摩菲特说，右翼政治驱使这里的很多人脱离了超大型教会。
She grew up in Virginia when the Christian Right became influential in Evangelical Christianity.
"When I think of the politicization of this church, I think of the political structure of the institutional church that inevitably leads to power struggles and issues around money. And what's really important to me in the Emergent Church is that we avoid that," she says.
“它使人们失去兴趣。我想到教会的政治化，就想到机构教会的政治结构，它最终会导致权力斗争以及金钱方面的问题。新兴教会对我来说非常重要的一点就是我们回避这个问题。”
Still, the Emerging Church movement is treading on ground that traditionalists call unorthodox, if not heretical.
但是，新兴教会运动所走的路即使不被传统派看作是异教，也被看作是非正统的。
Rob Bell, an Emerging pastor from Michigan, has drawn criticism over his new book. It argues that people of all faiths can go to heaven - something many Americans believe but Evangelical theology rejects.
一位新兴教会的牧师因为在一本新书中称所有信仰的人都可以上天堂而遭到猛烈抨击。虽然很多美国人都相信这一点，但是福音派神学反对这个观点。
Mark Caleb Smith is a political science professor at the conservative Christian Cedarville University in Ohio.
马克·加勒·史密斯是俄亥俄州传统基督教斯德维尔大学的政治学教授。
"If I had to guess, I would say you're going to start seeing splintering among Evangelicals, and people are going to start to choose sides," he says. "And if you know your church history, this isn't unusual."
他说，人们会开始选择站在哪一边。但是如果了解教会的历史，就知道，这并不是什么非同寻常的事。
Indeed, Christianity in America has a long history of schisms, and there are hundreds of Protestant denominations.
美国的基督教确实有很长的分裂历史，基督教新教有好几百个不同的教派。
But young Americans are increasingly shunning them. One study found that adults aged 18 to 29 who say they don't identify with any denomination have more than doubled in the last two decades.
但是，美国年轻人越来越回避参加这些教派。一项研究显示，18岁到29岁的年轻人中，表示不认同这些教派的人过去20年增加了两倍多。
One of the authors of that study, David Campbell, at Notre Dame University, says he expects American Evangelical Christianity will adapt to the younger generation, though Emerging Churches will not necessarily be the next big success.
"Just as the Megachurch as we know it today recreated what it meant to belong to a church and gave people a sense of community in a period where other civic institutions were failing, there's going to be some style of religion - maybe it's this Emerging Church, maybe it's some other movement - that will reach these young people." |