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.
“It claims to be simply bible-centered, but what church has not?”
You mean like Episcopalians, modern Presbyterians, Methodists, many Catholics, many Anglicans, and some Orthodox, who claim other authorities as equal to or higher than scripture?
“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?”
I’d say they have about the same chance, or maybe better since there is no central point of poisoning the biblical message across many churches.
“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?”
There are already churches that have no problem with fornication, abortion, and even illegal drug use. Both in the denominational and non-denominational groups. At least in the bible-centered churches, you can appeal to scripture and maybe they will see that they went wrong (or just drop the bible-centered part of their beliefs).
Do you not approve of churches trying to reach the lost?
One can use this verse (Mark 9:40) to support fellowship between denominations that call on the name of Jesus, but NOT to deny bringing the Gospel to the lost - or to those of 'no faith', as the author puts it..
They have no love for the lost. Just love for the world and the praises of men.
Mark 9
37 Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me.
38 And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us.
39 But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.
40 For he that is not against us is on our part.
41 For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.
42 And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.
So somehow the 'emergent fellow' latches onto the 'he that is not against us is on our part' verse, and ignores the facts that:
A) The person who was not 'against us' was preaching the name of Jesus!
B) The entire context of this section is doing things in the name of Jesus and believing in HIM. This is a message to evangelize -- to bring the cup of the living water, in HIS Name, to His children (and since only HE knows who are HIS, we are to bring it where ever we are able).
To twist these verses to justify not bringing the Gospel to others is to cut off the water that we are to bring and it is to 'offend'(verse 42).
“Do you not approve of churches trying to reach the lost?”
Do you think the Episcopal Church is trying to “reach the lost”?
I don’t think the Episcopal church is what people think of when someone mentions “seeker sensitive”.
I have a big problem with liberal theology and doctrine that eliminates the core of Christianity. But, there are many ways to communicate the gospel, which include acknowledging the culture and thinking that the audience is in. The methods don’t need to affect your core theology.
No, but they would recognize it under the moniker "culturally sensitive" or "'intellectual' sensitive". Point being, they have modified the Gospel (initially the presentation of, then the core). This was done in order to "more effectively reach" the world for Christ by being more culturally relevant. Their primary look was at the world, then at the Scriptures. To strive to be relevant is a effort that never ends and takes a Christian organization further and further from the truth. The mainline denominations are living (or dying) examples of that. This is a slow process - in some cases taking 50 to 75 years to bear it's foul fruit.
A church can either pursue "relevance" or holiness - but not both.
"I have a big problem with liberal theology and doctrine that eliminates the core of Christianity. "
I am coming at this from the standpoint of someone who got tripped up by liberal theology and recovered. I see a LOT of liberal presuppositions in the Emergent Movement. In many case I believe the people involved don't even realize the poison that has been injected into their belief system. Case in point:
"Since emergents generally deny the perspicuity of Scripture they admit a plurality of its interpretations, emphasizing the effect of the modern reader's cultural context on the act of interpretation in contrast to the emphasis of historical orthodoxy on the primacy of the author's intent and cultural context."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerging_Church ( Wikipedia... I know... )
This is classic example of a fully putrefied liberal hermeneutic. If the objective message and authority of the Bible is first questioned, then set aside it WILL SOON BE REPLACED BY ANOTHER AUTHORITY of some type. In most cases that new authority will be some sort of spiritual "guru class" (i.e. think Episcopal priests) who thrive on the adulation they receive in response to their ever more progressive spiritual teaching.
"But, there are many ways to communicate the gospel, which include acknowledging the culture and thinking that the audience is in. The methods don’t need to affect your core theology."
In the NT, the call to righteousness is always based of objective historical fact --- i.e "God has done this or revealed this, therefore our response should be....".
To discard the objective nature of Christian truth because the "culture doesn't like it" is to basically throw away Biblical Christianity.
The manifestions are not the same as of 2007, but the source of the error is the same type. Watch how the Emergent Church goes - it is trailing what the ECUSA stood for by 25 years.
ECM=Postmodernism in sheep's clothing.
He may as well be one of the emergents considering the Mclaren-esque lovefest going on in this article.
yup!
Excellent summary. Love the graphic.
Another great assessment.
You got that right. Although I don’t know that someone like Jim Wallis is as insincere as someone like say, Nancy Pelosi and the ‘secular’ religious demoncrats. Jim Wallis seems sincere like all those naive animals in Orwell’s book who end up in the same predicament at the end as they were in at the beginning, while Pelosi and her ilk are the pigs who replace the oppressors.
Doesn’t make Jim wallis any less screwed up however. He’s an enabler of these oppressors.
yep. They noticed that a particular niche wanted mystical experiences and small churches of ‘dialogue’ but no firm stand on anything, so they gave them that. The next wave of seeker-sensitive.
exactly. And they might even argue that that is the case, not seeing that the theology is what stinks!
They're talking about homosexuality of course. "stranger" and "alien" now means "deviant sexuality." (and in many cases not even the person who may struggle with deviant sexuality, but the sexuality itself!)
And also bringing the message of good news included sin and the payment for it, as well as repentance and belief in Jesus — but not a Jesus we make up in our own head, the real one (defined by his attributes and his actions in history).
agreed. The church is overrun with wolves in sheep’s clothing nowadays, and all I hear from the sheep is “shut up, don’t be so loud, we’re trying to sleep! Those strange smelling sheep aren’t bothering anyone, we should welcome them and not hold their wolf-like odor against them! Now go to sleep!”
I think I read somewhere that Jim Wallis believes in religious pluralism. So much for someone reputed to be born again and yet naively believing in leftist garbage.
Funny that I got into a bitter debate the topic of the Emergent Church movement on another forum with a church’s youth pastor that holds sympathetic views towards the so-called “orthodox” faction within it (the non-McLaren faction) and he has got the screen name very similar to yours. He claims to be very much Reformed type of Christians, and yet he welcomes Rick Warren, seeker sensitive movement, and the Emergent Church movement with open arms. I had a field day bombarding him with MacArthur and DeMar etc’s takes on the movement and he went mad over the critiques.
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