Thursday, February 19, 2009

The Emerging Church

Recently, a fellow pastor and friend gave Greg a DVD to watch. It included information about "the emerging church." I do a lot of reading and had come across the term but wasn't overly familiar with the implications of what was meant by it. Until I watched this DVD (and off the top of my head, I can't remember who produced it), I had never given much thought to this being an issue within the Church at large. To be honest, I took it to be simply another of many church growth movements. Now, I'm not so sure.

This is what Wikipedia has to say about the emerging church:

The emerging church (sometimes referred to as the Emergent movement) is a Christian movement of the late 20th and early 21st century that crosses a number of theological boundaries: participants can be described as Evangelical, post-evangelical, Liberal, post-Liberal, charismatic, neocharismatic and post-charismatic. Participants seek to live their faith in what they believe to be a "postmodern" society. Proponents of this movement call it a "conversation" to emphasize its developing and decentralized nature, its vast range of standpoints and its commitment to dialogue. What those involved in the conversation mostly agree on is their disillusionment with the organized and institutional church and their support for the deconstruction of modern Christian worship, modern evangelism, and the nature of modern Christian community.

Okay, on the surface the latter part of that definition is okay. I understand people being disillusioned with the organized church. We meet so many church goers who only claim Christianity and yet who don't even attempt to live by the tenets and principles of Christian life as Jesus taught them. But the first section of this definition concerns me...

a Christian movement... that crosses a number of theological boundaries: participants can be described as Evangelical, post-evangelical, Liberal, post-Liberal, charismatic, neocharismatic and post-charismatic.

Sounds to me like the emerging church has no idea who they are!

What really concerns me, however, is what the same article says further down in a quote by Mark Driscoll:

In the mid-1990s I was part of what is now known as the Emerging Church and spent some time traveling the country to speak on the emerging church in the emerging culture on a team put together by Leadership Network called the Young Leader Network. But, I eventually had to distance myself from the Emergent stream of the network because friends like Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt began pushing a theological agenda that greatly troubled me. Examples include referring to God as a chick, questioning God's sovereignty over and knowledge of the future, denial of the substitutionary atonement at the cross, a low view of Scripture, and denial of hell which is one hell of a mistake.

I hope that you realize the issues with this approach to our faith. While there may be much good to what the emerging church is trying to do, removing the sovereignty of God and the authority of Scripture is not only not good, it's eternally dangerous.

I don't pretend to have all the answers and insights into this movement, its practices or its leaders, and while I do believe the Church needs to make some changes - we need to be living our faith, not just talking about - please be wary of anyone who would distort the message of the Bible.

As I've done in the past, I encourage you to test the spirits to be sure they are of God (1 John 4:1) and to take the authority of God's word (2 Timothy 3:16 ) over the opinions and beliefs of man (or woman). Search it out for yourself and ask the Holy Spirit to guide you into all truth (John 16:13). That's one of the things He does best.

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