Greg the explorer sent me a link to this article which seems concerned to put several nails in the coffin of the emerging church:

In the UK, a nudist beach mission has just finished in Wales. Graceway, a church in Auckland, New Zealand, encouraged its members to ‘pray with your hand around a cup of coffee’ as a way of experiencing the Spirit ‘as warmth in your spirituality’.  In Canada, a church called Worship Free House doesn’t offer sermons – but does install art.  

According to prominent evangelical church leaders, all are symptomatic of a dangerous protest against biblical orthodoxy. While The Da Vinci Code puts the gospel on trial, the emerging church questions established biblical teaching throughout church history by offering what they says is a more authentic expression of Christianity. 

“Some believe [emerging churches] to be the greatest challenge to mainstream churches since the birth of the Charismatic movement,” says Andy Peck, assistant editor of the UK’s Christianity+Renewal magazine in a recent article. “As some churches struggle to grow they will welcome emerging church thinking with open arms. ”Labels are useless to describe this alternative Christian movement, which has exploded out of the UK and the US and is now expanding into Australia. 

Proponents like to talk in terms of ‘connecting’, ‘sharing’, ‘re-imagining’. They say the movement is not one as such but rather a ‘conversation’ within Protestant Christianity. They say labels are unhelpful to their cause. It is perhaps easier to define what the emergent movement is not.  “This is not biblical theology,” says Canon Jim Ramsay, Director of Sydney Diocese’s Evangelism Ministries. “It’s a shaking of Christian orthodoxy.”

Punch ‘em in the goolies!!  Singled out for criticism (implied or otherwise) are people like Cheryl, Steve (or Graceway, anyway), Darren and of course big bad bustling Brian McLaren.  Interestingly, the only person on that list who has never commented here is Brian McLaren.  He should get his act together.  Or alternatively, he should stay away so that he doesn’t contaminate us with his non-orthodox Christianity.

Of course they are particularly worried about a Wales naturist beach mission, described here in an article published on April Fools’ Day, complete with founders Adam and Eve and a Sir Pent who invites Eve to pass some fruit to Adam.  Clearly the site which published the article, emergingchurch.info is evil, as it has the temerity to list signposts as a link!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 9th, 2006 at 2:36 pm by dan and is filed under challenges for the church. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.