ON THIS PAGE Emerging Vs. Emergent What is The Emerging Church? Slippery Theology? The Emerging Church... A Protest Movement? Important Elements Pioneers in the Emerging Church Movement  What New World Are They Talking About?
Emerging Vs. Emergent To prevent confusion, a distinction needs to be made between "emerging" and "Emergent." Emerging is the wider, informal, global, ecclesial (church-centered) focus of the movement, while Emergent is an official organization in the U.S. and the U.K. Emergent Village, the organization, is directed by Tony Jones, a Ph.D. student at Princeton Theological Seminary and a world traveler on behalf of all things both Emergent and emerging. Other names connected with Emergent Village include Doug Pagitt, Chris Seay, Tim Keel, Karen Ward, Ivy Beckwith, Brian McLaren, and Mark Oestreicher. Emergent U.K. is directed by Jason Clark. While Emergent is the intellectual and philosophical network of the emerging movement, it is a mistake to narrow all of emerging to the Emergent Village. Emerging catches into one term the global reshaping of how to "do church" in postmodern culture. It has no central offices, and it is as varied as evangelicalism itself. [Scot McKnight, “Five Streams of the Emerging Church,” Christianity Today, February 2007, p.35. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/february/11.35.html]
What is The Emerging Church? "a label that has been used to refer to a particular subset of Christians who are rethinking Christianity against the backdrop of Postmodernism....” The emerging church or emergent church is a diverse movement within Protestant Christianity that arose in the late 20th century as a reaction to the influence of modernism in Western Christianity. The movement is usually called a "conversation" by its proponents to emphasize its diffuse nature with contributions from many people and no explicitly defined leadership or direction. The emerging church seeks to deconstruct and reconstruct Christianity as its mainly Western members live in a postmodern culture. [See Postmodernism] In the words of Ray Waddle 'Emergent' Christians Seek Spirituality "Emergent" folks are Christians who are impatient with rigid megachurch formulas and noisy doctrinal in-fighting. They want to nurture a "vintage Christianity" that promotes the love of Christ for the emerging (non-churchgoing) generation. They're hammering out a theology that's friendly to ancient faith practices (contemplative prayer, labyrinths, hospitality) in a postmodern world of quantum physics, 24/7 media and coffee-house culture. The assumption is this: The church-growth models that work for baby boomers don't work for young people today. Boomers who were alienated from traditional church warmed to new worship experiences that avoided churchy details (crosses, stained glass, silence). But many in the emerging generation have no impression of church either way. They weren't raised with church. (The U.S. is now considered the largest "mission field" of unchurched people in the English-speaking world.) Nevertheless, youngsters want spirituality, an encounter with the sacred. What they don't want is bland music and nasty theological debate. So Emergent worship evokes spiritual imagination (using candles, darkness, art work on curtained walls). It is interactive (some churches have couches, not pews). It engages the body (a Minneapolis congregation offers yoga and massage therapy). Emergent leaders value Holy Communion and Bible reading. They're willing to praise liberals (sometimes) for promoting biblical values of justice that conservatives denied for decades”.
While practices and even core doctrine vary, most emergents can be recognized by the following values: · Missional living - Christians go out into the world to serve God rather than isolate themselves within communities of like-minded individuals. · Narrative theology - Teaching focuses on narrative presentations of faith and the Bible rather than systematic theology or biblical reductionism. · Christ-likeness - While not neglecting the study of scripture or the love of the church, Christians focus their lives on the worship and emulation of the person of Jesus Christ. · Authenticity - People in the postmodern culture seek real and authentic experiences in preference over scripted or superficial experiences. Emerging churches strive to be relevant to today's culture and daily life, whether it be through worship or service opportunities. The core Christian message is unchanged but emerging churches attempt, as the church has throughout the centuries, to find ways to reach God's people where they are to hear God's message of unconditional love. . (Encyclopedia)
While some of the above statements sound very good, as do most statements of belief, the reality is a little different from what too many people perceive the Emerging Church to be. The core Christian message HAS been changed and many of the roads lead either to Rome and/or to dabbling in the Occult. See Revival Or Return To Darkness
Slippery Theology? Precipice Magazine describes itself as “an online Christian resource featuring information, dialogue and opinion about the Emerging Church” An article by the Senior Editor, Darren King answered some of the criticisms leveled at the Emerging Church, one of which is. I feel like you can never pin down the Emerging Church on what they actually believe. That kind of slippery theology seems dangerous, cowardly, and way too convenient in our politically correct culture."
To which King responded.. There is a very good reason why it’s difficult to pin the Emerging Church down on certain issues. Simply put, the Emerging Church is an evolving movement, a fluid conversation. It is not a denomination with an official doctrinal statement to refer to. In these kinds of conversations it’s usually helpful to differentiate Emergent, a specific group, from the larger Emerging Church conversation. Emergent is one community within the larger context of the Emerging Church… The EC crowd is not nervous when grey areas linger. Mystery is newly embraced in the EC. And this shift away from a blind emphasis on propositional truth seems, to me anyway, much more in line with early Christian faith and practice. Faith is a process. The Christian experience is a journey. We would do well to remember that for the early followers of Christ, faith was commonly referred to as “the Way”—not the destination. [Darren King. A Critique of Criticism: A Response to Reactionism Against the Emerging Church]
However as Roger Oakland so aptly asks… If Christianity is evolving, as this writer suggests, what is it evolving into? Whether or not one names this trend a “church” or a “conversation” is not the issue. What is important is whether or not the trend is based on sound Christian doctrine. As we have discussed in previous commentaries, faith in the Bible is not the basis for this “New Reformation”. Faith in the Bible is not being promoted; it is it under attack. Faith is being undone. Yes, it is true that the early church was called “The Way.” However, the church was called “The Way” because the members of the church were following Jesus, who said He was “The Way.” [John 17:17] Jesus also said the “Way” is a “narrow way” [Matthew 7:13] and the “only way” [John 14:6] to get into heaven. The Emerging Church way or emergent conversation or whatever name is used to describe this so-called New Reformation, in my view is a wide way that many are traveling and heading in the wrong direction. [Are Emerging Church Critics Too Critical? Commentary by Roger Oakland]
In the final analysis The Emerging Church is dangerously close to being the penetration of the church by the world view of the secular world. It is "a label that has been used to refer to a particular subset of Christians who are rethinking Christianity against the backdrop of Postmodernism....” However Postmodernism is a worldview that values spirituality, pluralism, the experiential, relativity, altruism, community, creativity, the arts, environmentalism, globality, holism, and authenticity. There is no truth, only truths. There are no principles, only preferences. There is no grand reason, only reasons. There is no privileged civilization, only a multiple of cultures, beliefs, periods, and styles. no single world view captures reality, no master story (or meta-narrative) underlies humanity. See Section on Postmodernism (The First Article in Particular) One comment on Scot McKnight’s blog said, in part “Misrepresenting or at least not giving equal voice to the mainstream/traditional worship structures that you criticize may not be “tom fakery” but it smacks of “tom foolery”. Traditionalists are probably doing somethings right, somethings that ought to be complimented, given thanks for, emulated and retained. If you are going to wholly define others on your own terms, without their dialogue, intended mostly to dismiss their contributions/ lifetime of worship as wrong, don’t be surprised or “cry foul” when they do it to you”.
The Emerging Church... A Protest Movement? Scot McKnight, professor in religious studies at North Park University and the author of more than ten books besides numerous articles is an advocate of the Emerging church. In his blog jesuscreed.org, he says that the Emerging Movement is “clearly a protest movement”, with “focus in what the Emerging Movement is protesting”. He goes on to list at least ten items the Emerging Movement is protesting, stating that “most would agree that it has its finger on some hot buttons”. And this may be true.. For example McKnight’s sixth, seventh and eight points are true in many respects.. “His Sixth, the Emerging Movement’s mindset is against marketing the gospel. It is the simplistic packaging of the gospel, so it is sometimes said, that causes so many problems in the Church today, so the gospel needs to be presented and performed in such a way that its rugged realities are clear in the summons to join in the work of God in our world today. Seventh, the Emerging Movement despises the idea that Church is what takes place on Sunday Morning, between 11 and noon. Sunday morning, if it is at that time or another time, is when the Church gathers to worship and share life, but the work of the Church is what occurs during the week as the local community of faith performs the gospel. Frankly, for many, stomach flu breaks out when they think of the ornateness and the elaborateness and the expense of Sunday morning services. Eighth, the Emerging Movement rejects the hierarchy and pyramid structure of many churches. Authority is in God — Father, Son, Spirit — and not in the pastor or the elders or the board of deacons. Scripture, it must be seen, is an expression of God’s authority and not an independent authority. The very notion that one needs pastoral approval for one’s calling or one’s promptings or what one is permitted to do many find unconscionably usurping of God’s authority.
However McKnight’s second point is “Whatever the Emerging Movement is, it is clearly a protest movement.... it denounces the divisions in the Church. Why there needs to be so many kinds of Baptists or free church types or so many others kinds of churches is becoming more and more incomprehensible to the emerging generation. If the gospel is what it is supposed to be, if Jesus prayed for us to be “at one,” and if we are supposed to be able to do things together, why not worship together? And, it denounces such divisions as much by raiding the entire Church tradition as anything else: increasingly the emerging generation finds things it likes in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions — things that were “no no”s to a previous generation.
I find this statement absolutely ludicrous. There is a REASON for many, if not most, of the divisions in the church… and this is usually because people have denounced and separated themselves from what they consider to be deviations from Scripture otherwise known as heresy. They have followed Scripture’s commands to reprove and rebuke (2 Tim. 4:2) and to earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3). the Emerging Movement forgets that in practically every epistle Paul issued severe warnings against theological error. He warned of Hymenaeus and Alexander’s blasphemy (1 Tim. 1:19-20) and of Phygellus and Hermogenes’ apostasy (2 Tim. 1:15) and of Hymenaeus and Philetus’ profane and vain babblings (2 Tim. 2:16-17) and of Demas’ love of the world (2 Tim. 4:10) and of Alexander the coppersmith’s evil (2 Tim. 4:14) and of the Galatian heretics’ cursed gospel (Gal. 1:6-8) and of the dogs and evil workers operating at Philippi (Phil. 3:1-2) and of the false teachers “whose God is their belly” (Phil. 3:17-19). There is no true Christian unity unless it is unity grounded in the gospel of Christ, nurtured through the teaching of sound Biblical doctrine. False unity is unity that is demanded and prescribed by religious leaders to their own ideas and organizations. This is the unity that the religious leaders of Israel wanted and that Jesus threatened. The Gospel is about God reconciling sinners (enemies) to Himself through the blood atonement. But even this cornerstone of the Christian faith has been altered by the Catholic church.. How then can there be unity, unless one ignores blatant perversions of the Gospel. [Also See True and False Unity] Additionally the Emerging Movement forgets that Jesus said that He came into this world to bring division. See Jesus and Division) McKnight’s third point says ... it sees cock-sure certainty as a cancer. I will touch on this origins for this tomorrow in my post on postmodernity, but the emerging generation does not find certaintist expressions as amenable as less certaintist expressions — even when the same thing can be said in different ways. Certainty denies the frailty of humans, the limitations of our own minds, the need for conversation and relationship and communal growth, and it sets itself up for collapse the minute a more complete grasp of knowledge is found”. (What is the Emerging Church? Protest. Scot McKnight. (Source.. www.jesuscreed.org/?p=512)
This comment makes little or no sense in the light of the fact that God has given us all the knowledge needed for salvation and to live our lives in a manner pleasing to Him while we are still on earth. If we can not be sure of what God Himself has said, then He has given us a useless book, which certainly does not provide a ‘Lamp For Our Feet’. A more complete grasp of knowledge will only be given at some future time when “we see in full” (1Co 13:12 ) Important Elements (Emphasis Added) So far, Emerging Church groups have typically contained some or all of the following elements: · Highly creative approaches to worship and spiritual reflection, as compared to many American churches in recent years. This can involve everything from the use of contemporary music and films to liturgy, as well as more ancient customs. The goal in this area is generally to make the church more attractive to the unchurched. · A minimalist and decentralized organizational structure. · A flexible approach to theology whereby individual differences in belief and morality are accepted within reason. · A holistic view of the role of the church in society. This can mean anything from greater emphasis on fellowship in the structure of the group to a higher degree of emphasis on social action, community building or Christian outreach. · A desire to reanalyze the Bible against the context with the goal of revealing a multiplicity of valid perspectives rather than a single valid interpretation · A continual re-examination of theology. · A high value placed on creating communities built out of the creativity of those who are a part of each local body. · A belief in the journey of faith, both as individual and community. Membership is often viewed as participation in the community of faith.
Because of the decentralized nature of emerging forms of church, as with many areas of doctrine, there is not a mutually agreed upon ecclesiology, or set of teachings regarding the role and nature of the church. The emerging church movement claims its role to be continuing the mission of Christ, but there is a deep level of respect and trust relating to different expressions that church as a body reflects in that mission. (Encyclopedia)
Pioneers in the Emerging Church Movement The emerging church movement is highly decentralized so in no sense does any one person act as a spokesperson for the movement however the following people are often recognized as pioneers and important thinkers: (In Alphabetical Order) · Spencer Burke, former pastor, founder of The Ooze website, "dedicated to the emerging Church culture" and which has "developed a community that captures the ethos of the emerging church movement" · Kyle Cheatham, founder and Pastor of Terranova in Georgetown, Texas] · Mark Driscoll, founder of Mars Hill Church in Seattle · Richard J. Foster, Quaker and writer on the religious life · Dan Kimball, founder of the Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, California · Brian McLaren, founder of Cedar Ridge Community Church near Washington, D.C. · John O'Keefe, founder of ginkworld.net, "an emerging/postmodern site exploring what it means to be a follower of the Jesus in today's world" · Doug Pagitt, founding pastor of Solomon's Porch in Minneapolis · Mark Pearson, founder of Cityside in Auckland, New Zealand. · Leonard Sweet, the E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Drew University, and a Visiting Distinguished Professor at George Fox University, and prolific author · Dallas Willard, Professor of Philosophy at UCLA
For a closer examination of what some of these ‘leaders’ think, say and believe GO HERE
What New World Are They Talking About In Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian, he says on page 16: "You see, if we have a new world, we will need a new church."
In the reviews of this book on Amazon, I found the following very accurate comment by Gary Bisaga. “what new world is he talking about? How is the world any different than it has been for at least 4,000 years of recorded history? People are still the same as they ever were: there is goodness in most everybody, evil in everybody, and varying levels of faith and trust in God. There are people who believe in the God of the Bible; people who believe in another God or gods; people who believe in no god at all; people who don't have the courage to believe one way or another, but simply to remain on the fence; people who want to know what to believe but are looking for somebody to tell them. (I am sad for those who end up talking to people like the author of this book, who essentially tells them to make their god in any image that fancies them for the moment.) There are wars, poverty, pestilence, prejudice, and hate. Sounds like the same old world to me. If there is no new world, as I think is plain, then there must be some other good reason for McLaren's rejecting what Christianity has always taught.”
There is! McLaren and the others like him are some of the ‘savage wolves’ who speak distorted things in order to “draw away the disciples after them”. Act 20:29, 30. | 
