Posted on 05/03/2007 3:00:09 PM PDT by Terriergal
James L. Evans
An emerging Christianity is reshaping faith
Christians may believe that they are participants in a "faith once delivered to the saints," but the shape of that faith has varied greatly through the centuries. From the stately and ornate forms of Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, to the humble and plain worship of the Amish, Jesus is followed and revered in a myriad of ways. In fact, so great is the diversity of forms within Christianity, it may be more appropriate to refer to them in the plural — Christianities.
Even now a new form of the faith seems to be taking hold within the broad tradition of evangelicalism. Calling themselves "emerging Christians," or in some instances "the Emergent Church," a movement of mostly younger believers are re-shaping the traditional faith in ways that is creating excitement among some, and deep worry among more established Christian leaders.
This past February, Scot McKnight, a professor at North Park Seminary in Chicago wrote an article for Christianity Today in which he details the significance of this new movement within the traditional faith. McKnight offers this concise summary of the emergent Christian experience.
"Emerging churches are communities that practice the way of Jesus within postmodern cultures. This definition encompasses nine practices. Emerging churches identify with the life of Jesus, transform the secular realm, live highly communal lives, they welcome the stranger, serve with generosity, participate as producers, create as created beings, lead as a body, and take part in spiritual activities."
On the surface there does not seem to be anything in this list of practices that would alarm a traditional believer. But when some of these practices are discussed in detail, that's when the hand wringing begins.
For instance, one of the central concerns of the emergent Christian movement is the desire for their faith community to be all-inclusive — to welcome the stranger. This concern has resulted in high tolerance for people of other faiths. Emergent Christians have serious doubts about doctrinal ideas which hold that some are in and some are out — that is in or out with God.
Emergent Christians hear Jesus' words, "Whoever is not against us is for us," as a challenge to find ways to include rather than exclude others. This means, of course, that emerging Christians are not very evangelistic — at least in the traditional sense. For the most part we will not find them trying to convert people from one faith to another or from no faith to their faith.
Emergent Christians also tend toward a more liberal social view. They are concerned about the poor and about the environment. The emphasis here for emergent Christians is on serving and being generous. They think it is more important to live and act in faithful ways rather than obsessing about what we should believe. This concern for people and the world is not a stance related to any political party. For emerging Christians, caring about people in this world is their mission in life.
Conservative Christian leaders are beginning to view the Emergent Church with great suspicion. They see the movement as resurgence of old mainline liberal theology. But I believe they are mistaken. The social vision of the mainline church was rooted in European liberalism that developed along side the rise of systematic theology and a historical critical reading of the Bible.
The Emergent Church rejects that sort of theological agenda altogether. Instead, this group gets their liberalism from the founder of liberalism — Jesus himself.
May their tribe increase.
James L. Evans, a syndicated columnist, also serves as pastor of Auburn First Baptist Church. He can be reached at faithmatters@mindspring.com.
I think most of the alarm comes from not knowing why the emergent church exists, what it is rejecting in evangelical beliefs, and why the considerations are important for the younger and more liberally-indoctrinated groups that they are trying to reach.
The mainstream media does a good job of propagandizing against the church, and mainstream entertainment at best misrepresents both the catholic and protestant sides. The emergent movement is “post seeker sensitive” in that the old evangelism tools tend to not work for the new generation because satan has disseminated a good defense. So what do you do when explaining the gospel or sacrificial atonement does no good against the post modernism defense? You go for the gut of spiritual hunger. You present a welcoming community of believers and dodge all accusations of judgmentalism and dogmatism through being outwardly inclusive and open to any and all discussion. You present the spiritual in ways postmoderns understand, with candles, incense, and the older Christian mystic styles.
In all that, outsiders from the traditional backgrounds see the postmodernist welcome mat as an inward doctrinal problem within the movement. This is not the case. The traditional Nicene Creed is core doctrine for most if not all emergent churches. Hard parts of the Bible including the reality of hell were clearly presented in the fledgling emergent church I went to for a time. Homosexuality was even strongly considered a sin, even though the emphasis was on compassion and understanding to those in bondage to the sin. The message that Jesus is the only way was presented as those who had not heard had an excuse, but to the people the gospel was plainly presented to and that they rejected were not without excuse.
All that being said, there are some emergents who I believe have compromised the core of their faith and abuse the postmodern welcome mat of the church movement. Also the emergent church has a much larger percentage of new or pre Christians in attendance than a traditional church, which presents a challenge to have the community retain a core Christian doctrine.
I hope this helps.
This a So Baptist Church, probably one of those that have dual affliation with the breakaway Baptist.
Did you notice that most of their staff are women ministers?
An apostate church I am afraid!
“it is an important one to reach the increasingly unchurched youth in America.”
Not if it is corrupting the basic message of the gospel which from what I’ve seen and heard, it is.
“There it alludes to both the Southern Baptists and the Conservative Baptists.”
That’s Cooperative Baptist (the liberal wing of the SBC), not Conservative Baptist. We are dead set against the Emergent movement.
My experience was with an entire church. My biggest frustration was with the youth pastor because he was the one putting nonsense into my kid's head. I'll give you a taste of what I found as I looked through his "church" materials. Go to innerexplorations.com and get a taste of what I am talking about. Or go to explorefaith.org and read their theology. Visit theooze.com. This is an article in their Faith section. Go to centeringprayer.com and really read it -- be sure to visit the links page. Just read every emergent and emergent recommended resource website. That nonsense is all over the web. There is something outrageous at every site. It's not hard to find.
Now, mixed in the group are a lot of people who have just gotten carried away with a movement they find exciting and a social group where everyone gets a stage, applause, and even a pat on the back for being a lazy couch potato; they don't really understand how bad it is. Fasting, spiritual directors, "spiritual disciplines," yoga, TM, Buddha hairdos....all make them feel and look real spiritual (Matthew 6:16). Those people will hopefully see the error eventually. Maybe they will just get tired of talking about themselves and their latest out-of-body experience. Maybe a lightbulb will go off and they will realize that their own carnal imaginations are not so sacred after all, and they will remember the Lordship of Jesus Christ. They will remmember that to love Him is to obey Him, which takes studying Scripture so that they can grow in the truth that really sanctifies. It might be too late for their children and the youth who passed through this phase at their churches. But they were grounded in true doctrine in the past and they will return to it. They will have a lot of repenting to do, and a lot of grieving over those they led astray.
The leaders of Emergent -- McLaren, Tony Jones, and all the rest -- are another story. They teach a different gospel and I would have nothing to do with them if I were you. They face judgment for the heresies they are teaching.
Don't be led astray. Run the other way from Emergent.
Dan,
Heed what Ghost of Freepers past is saying. Read and study 2 Timothy 3, this emerging church movement is fallen away from the critical theological doctrines that are the bedrock of Christianity. Those websites are loaded with moral and theological new age relativism which take Scriptural truths and twist them. Remember Satan presents himself as an angel of light.
2Tim.3
[1] But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of stress.
[2] For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,
[3] inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good,
[4] treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
[5] holding the form of religion but denying the power of it. Avoid such people.
[6] For among them are those who make their way into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and swayed by various impulses,
[7] who will listen to anybody and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth.
[8] As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith;
[9] but they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.
[10]
Now you have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness,
[11] my persecutions, my sufferings, what befell me at Antioch, at Ico’nium, and at Lystra, what persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me.
[12] Indeed all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
[13] while evil men and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceivers and deceived.
[14] But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it
[15] and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
[16] All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
[17] that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
You are right...I misread he text. I guess I was in a hurry. I am not familiar with the Cooperative Baptists.
I’m not sure why you linked an article that got voted a 1-star in theooze, practically rejected by the membership of the site. The subtly occultic sites innerexplorations.com, explorefaith.com, and centeringprayer.com have no mention of the emerging church on the whole site. I’m not sure what you believe theooze is supposed to accomplish. It’s not a traditional evangelism site, and has both traditional and strange theologies represented in the articles.
But maybe you can add another site to your investigation of the emergent movement: http://www.vintagefaith.com/ . In particular, you may want to read the book featured on the site.
Emergent Church is Seeker Sensitive/Church Growth Movement Version 2.0
This is their vector:
the desire to be “relevant”.
Sit back and watch where that takes them.
The sad fact is that the leadership of the SBC embraced and endorses the Emergent Church movement. Frank Page is a huge disappointment in this regard, among several others. I wrote them last summer about this (here:http://tinyurl.com/329tb6) and have heard nothing in response.
I think all denominations tend to earthly things - it’s the way of all flesh.
Interesting, as though your garden-variety conservative flocks (e.g. Southern Baptist, Assembly of God, various reformed denoms) DON'T welcome the stranger.
This concern has resulted in high tolerance for people of other faiths.
Hmmm....Define "tolerance".
Emergent Christians have serious doubts about doctrinal ideas which hold that some are in and some are out — that is in or out with God.
Ahhh, now we're getting to the crux of the matter...It sounds to me like some (most?) within this movement want to deny that Jesus is THE ONLY way to salvation. Huge problem.
Regarding the sites I linked to, I was explaining to you what I found in the youth materials at the emegent church I had experience with. Why would I mention anything other than what I actually found? The youth pastor who used them is good friends with one of the emergent leaders I mentioned before ( won't be more specific) and they share resources. I could scan the materials and post them except that I am not going to give away any names. I will tell you that the sign at the church says they are Evangelical Free. They were so open-minded and inclusive that providing kids website recommendations to explorefaith.org was apparently no problem for them. Anything for a fellow mystic. That's where emergent thinking leads. It's about self-focus and self-worship. Doubt is grand and God is a mystery. Self, on the other hand, must be widely explored so that you can find that spark of the divine within you. You can thank Quaker Richard Foster for that influence.
Are you a mystic or are you not? At least admit that part. Is mysticism part of "vintage" Christianity?
Then there is this side of Emergent: movie obsession (bring in the couch, Mr. Potato Head). One church event was going to see Along Came Polly. Have you seen that? Think it is worthy of a Wednesday night service? One so-called rafting trip the "pastor" showed Saved and raved about it as he stated "the Bible is gray." (The students themselves tried to correct him, so don't give me any of those emergent excuses about trying to reach postmoderns.) He told the kids that the Bible wasn't accurate but it still had good stories to read. When the gospel was talked about, it was all packaged as "The Gospel Reloaded." Movies are Scripture in the emerging church. The pastor told the kids that his favorite line in Star Wars was "Only siths deal in absolutes."
At its best, the emerging church is about questions and criticism. They have no answers and don't trust the Bible. Probably not even the movie, The Bible.
“First Baptist” considers “Southern Baptist” a schism. It probably belongs to American Baptist Convention.
>> The Emergent Church rejects that sort of theological agenda altogether. Instead, this group gets their liberalism from the founder of liberalism <<
That would actually be, “the founder of all lies.”
SBA =/= SBC.
This is why I fear “nondemoninationalism.” It claims to be simply bible-centered, but what church has not? In its first generation, the hyperliteralism of conservatives disaffected from their original denomination suffices. But where to after that? Black and immivasion churches are also hyperliteralist, and often totally devoid of morality, because word meanings themselves are traditions. Tradition-nuetral would be one thing, but what I call “antidenominationalism” is huge, and often has the mentality, “if a tradition says A, the truth must be B.”
If tradition-based literalist churches succomb so easy to arguments for insisting the bible is OK with homosexuality, what chance to anti-traditionalist churches have? How long before someone convinces everyone that the word translated as “fornication,” for instance, has nothing to do with premarital sex? Or that no-where does the bible condemn abortion?
>> I think all denominations tend to earthly things - it’s the way of all flesh. <<
You should see how fast nondenominations go earthly, then.
Your experience with the emergent movement is very different from mine. Movies in a worship service? I haven’t even seen the ones you mention. The mystics you posted info about are occultic shrouded in a thin veil of christianism. The church I went to actively fought against that and members of that community were praying against the leaders of the church. I have met some new-age christianist people (who even claimed to be able to bend spoons with their mind), and I know to keep my guard up around them because they open themselves up to all kinds of spiritual ills. However, I do believe that there is “spirituality” in Christianity that is prevalent in the book of Acts, but either is no longer in the modern church, or simply overly de-emphasized to appeal to a skeptical culture. I believe there is a place for making clear the Holy Spirit, angels, and demons in the church since this culture seems to have more of a hunger for the unseen spiritual realm recently.
As far as theology goes, I am personally a modern. I believe a literal reading of the Bible is 98% of the time is clear truth and another 1% is understood through study of the original cultures to which the text was presented. I see some parts of scripture that there is no clear interpretation but are not central to Christianity. There are also well-known copy errors in the Bible, but they are also not central to Christianity. Postmoderns in the emergent movement *do* tend to believe in absolute truth, but that it is not clearly knowable. Therefore you get a lowering not necessarily of scripture but the interpretation of scripture through fallible humans. Here is where the Holy Spirit is supposed to make clear meanings to our minds and our lives. I believe that while a postmodern can mature as a Christian, they will through gaining a trust of scripture by experience in their lives rather than intense study to find truth within the Bible. Personally I have had my doubts about Christianity seemingly miraculously answered, I believe through the Spirit, simply by prayer and continuing to study the Bible.
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