They do alarm this traditional believer. This sounds like works oriented belief. Try as they might, they cannot strain that camel through the eye of a needle.
“They think it is more important to live and act in faithful ways rather than obsessing about what we should believe.”
Both are equally important.
“This concern for people and the world is not a stance related to any political party.”
They are liberal Democrats.
“This sounds like works oriented belief. Try as they might, they cannot strain that camel through the eye of a needle.”
What they fail to emphasize (maybe because they no longer believe it) is that works without faith are meaningless, just as faith without works is moribund.
IMHO, faith and works are both important attributes of the Christian life.
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.
yup!