In our last blog post we introduced the concept of the Emergent or Emerging church, we looked at some comments from a conservative pastor, John MacArthur. Today we will explore some more the movement that is the Emerging Church.
One problem I have with John MacArthur's comments is that he lumps everyone together in the Emerging church and condemns them. The issue is more complicated then that. There are several different streams of the Emerging Church, and while some should be shut out, well, there may just be something for us to learn from them at the same time.
Today, lets unpack this theological buzzword, "Emerging Church" and see what it is really all about.
A great place to start is from a Pastor up in Seattle who was in on the ground floor of the movement and knows it well, his name is Mark Driscoll and he is the Pastor of Mars Hill. Even though you may not agree with every stance Mark takes theologically, (women in ministry, etc.) he still preaches the bible and has some great things for us to learn from on this topic. Mark has been around the Emerging Church since day one and since he knows it so well, he is a great person to have define for us what it is... because of that I have chosen to use his definition of the Emerging Church and its four branches to help us better understand the movement.
Pastor mark describes the Emerging Church Movement in four branches:
Emerging Evangelicals, House Church Evangelicals, Emerging Reformers, and Emergent Liberals.
Here is a quote from a sermon by Mark Driscoll titled: Religion Saves. + nine other misconceptions. The Emerging Church.
"What the first three lanes have in common is theological orthodoxy. They are not interested in reconsidering major Christian doctrines such as those that view the Bible as God’s Word, God as triune, Jesus as God and the only means of salvation, humanity as sinful, all sex outside of heterosexual marriage (including homosexuality) as sin, and heaven and hell as literal, conscious, and eternal... [The fourth lane] Emergent Liberals, ...are not theologically evangelical and who are the most controversial."
What we can learn from the Emerging Church movement is that there is more than one side to this movement and up to a point there is much we can learn and apply to our own context today. Lets look at them one at a time.
- Emerging Evangelicals
This is a group that holds to a view and interpretation of scripture that we would consider to be in harmony with "The Church". For example, They believe in the Divinity of Christ, The Virgin Birth, The Sinless Life of Jesus, The Crucifixion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus on the Third Day... Classic Christianity, like us.
Emerging Evangelicals don't want to change the fundamentals, they just understand that the "methods" of communication MUST change with the times. The "content" never changes, but the method can and should change. They are all about being relevant. The know that to stay in the conversation we need to have a good website, relevant understandable preaching (from the Bible), dress in a casual way, talk in a casual, understandable way, use Facebook and Twitter to communicate.
This is a group that has come out with books like: Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller or They Like Jesus But Not The Church, Dan Kimball.
- House Church Evangelicals
Now these guys are theologically like the group above, they just want to reconstruct the church to what they consider to be a more "Biblical" model. They want to do away with pastors, (like me, Ha!). They meet in homes. They do not have any crazy or liberal theological views.
Of course we believe that our model of church today IS Biblical, we have a large group Sunday morning gathering and then meet in small groups in homes and out of homes...
That's OK if they want to get back to the roots, honestly it kind of reminds me of the Friends denomination in a way, when they started, no head pastor, the priesthood of every believer was the emphasis and Open Worship... all good, just different.
This group has some books like: The House Church Book: Rediscover the Dynamic, Organic, Relational, Viral Community Jesus Started by Wolfgang
Simson
- Emerging Reformers
This group is also theologically like the others, conservative in nature. They hold more to a Calvinist view, No women pastors, Eternal Security... they are our brothers and sisters, (we are Wesleyan-Armenian by the way) Like the first group, they want to be relevant in the culture, this group would not for instance re-pad all of the church pews that they bought last year to maximize the comfort of congregants... they would much rather see those resources used to serve the world and bring the message of the gospel in a relevant, understandable way.
- Emergent Liberals
These are the last and most different from the mainline church today, some would even argue that these may not even be Christian and border on Cultish.
This group states that everything is not only open for discussion, (that is OK and even good) but for interpretation and debate.
They would say that it is OK to be Gay and be a Christian, they would say that it is OK to be homosexual and be an ordained minister. They question the Virgin Birth, The Divinity of Christ and Hell.
ALL of these topics are OPEN for discussion and teaching, we talk about them ALL Sunday morning and in small groups. The only problem is, they are not open for a "New Interpretation".
We would not consider ourselves or the other three groups to be in harmony with this group in any way shape or form.
They are all about the "discussion" or "conversation" and that is great... they just never stand for anything at all. If you tried to pin them down on an issue, they would either not answer the question or answer from a liberal theological perspective.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
We should always be careful not to pass judgement too quickly and throw the baby out with the bathwater, poor baby anyway, and whose baby is this?
No comments:
Post a Comment