Is the emerging church good?
Ogyle asks the question:
Hmm, .. the EC is good ?? Essentially, the EC is “change from within”, but the change is corrupt. It’s essentially Hinduism in Christian clothing. The “centering” is achieved by emptying the mind via chanting a “sacred word” over and over for about 20 minutes.
But there are many other facets of the EC, besides “chanting” that should send up warning signals. Quite a number of good articles on the Emerging Church here.
Especially the one on Biblical versus Postmodern Thinking
Warning, … danger … look out !!!
Some others have already provided their responses in the thread, but I thought I would open it up for all and sundry. How do you define the EC? What do you consider its strengths and weaknesses?
September 28th, 2006 at 3:42 pm
Ogyle,
firstly, I don’t know what you’re asking for - are you asking for a catechism of the EC or something? You’re not ever going to get that, and that’s not because emerging church types aren’t orthodox Christians - it’s because, outside Emergent in the US, there’s no single EC entity, head, authority. It’s the same in Islam - there’s no single leader (in fact, there’s not even really identifiable leaders - people in the West think a sheikh is like a minister, but that’s not so). Did the early church have a catechism, a creed? Umm, if my poor knowledge of church history is correct, the Apostles and Nicean creeds came much after the birth of the church, and in somewhat dubious circumstances! (That’s not to question their contents - I hold to those creeds, but I think it is, at the very least, ironic, that they were birthed in such circumstances).
As for your final paragraph - yeah, “the truth hurts” as they say. But sometimes offence is caused by being just plain rude.
September 28th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
Ogyle - try Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerging_Church
I don’t agree with all of this, but that’s the nature of Wikipedia - anyone can write bits and pieces of it. Plenty of links to provide you with more reading material.
And why not try here:
http://emergingchurch.info/
http://www.vintagefaith.com/the_emerging_church.html
http://www.livingroom.org.au/blog/archives/what_is_the_emerging_church.php
http://www.alternativeworship.org/definitions_awec.html
I don’t have time to list them all now, but there are HUNDREDS of bloggers in Australia, NZ, the UK and the US (and elsewhere) that would be considered “emergent”. Read their sites and see whether you think they’re so heretical - but remember, the individual does not the movement make. There’s plenty of evangelicals out there that believe things I firmly disagree with and think are really dodgy, but that doesn’t mean the entire evangelical church is heretical or ‘worshipping other Gods’!!
September 28th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
You do not know the truth Oygle.
You want a creed, how about the apostles creed, I only know of one person in the EC that has a problem with that, and only a few bits. I will tell you what, why don’t you give me a creed that defines all of evangelicalism.
And while you are getting to that, why don’t you reflect on this:
the best person to ask about the EC is people that are at its core, not some critic that has an ax to grind and books to sell.
rev
September 28th, 2006 at 11:10 pm
To be fair, I have a problem with the apostles creed, but the problem comes out of my denominational tradition which is anti-creed (Campbell Stone movement) rather than any association with the EC. Which just goes to show that traditional church ideas can be as difficult to capture as those new fangled EC people.
Seriously Ogyle, I encourage you to name what it is about the EC that you are concerned about and I warrant that people here will respond to that concern.
My dad, after hearing a lot about post modernism told me he had decided to learn some more. So he showed me a book that he had bought from kooright named something like “why postmodernism is the work of the devil” and half tongue in cheek suggested he had a balanced view of the issue. I think some of the critique of the EC is like that.
September 29th, 2006 at 6:49 am
Have any of you ever smoked Pot? This is kind of like one of those pot discussions with a central theme, but no real point, encased in distractions…. I haven’t the foggiest of why anyone is mad at Ogyle, I think he/she is just asking for some definition of what EC is.
Here is how I see it. From Bec, I think EC is a social organisation that wants everybody to get along and remember that everybody is God’s little creature. From Rev, I think EC is all about becoming poor to show the poor that you care ( Who could critisize this) and Dan and Phil seem like the cerebreal types that say EC is a way of life that Jesus taught us to live, - kind of like Mormonism.
None of this is criticism, it is my actual impression of who you are about and what EC is. It isn’t correct at all as to who any of you are, really. Just my impressions from what I gather about EC. I’d like to know more about it, but it seems to be cloaked in secrecy as to whati it really is.
You folks ain’t in the masons are ye???
September 29th, 2006 at 7:32 am
Yeah Dan, you and Phil were the “person” I was thinking of.
rev
September 29th, 2006 at 7:45 am
[Having read a bit more about the Emerging Church, there seems considerable weight to the fact that the EC is a uniting of all religions and the denial that Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation.
Some interesting reading in the article - Emerging Church —A Road to Interspirituality through mysticism, plus other comments on the EC.
But of course EC advocates will say that is all nonsense, because of the belief that there are no absolutes. ]
Now I take these as attacks on a movement that I have given my life to. So it would be no wonder that I am angered by this as there is not one of these assumptions that is true about me, nor the emerging church “converstation” that I have been a part of for over fifteen years.
But I will say sorry to Oygle, I put you and Tbokar together in my mind, on this thread so my animosity was growing.
As to your conclusions about the emerging church Kevin, that was a very simplistic and not thought out response. I have talked about incarnation, not just for the poor, but for all people and subcultures. Dan and Phil practice the same thing and have said so. So does Bec. The three of them are a bit more liberal in their theology, but spot on emerging in their practice. The emerging church is about going to them, not calling them to you. And in the process of going to them, do not try to reinculturate them, but actually join and live in their culture, be a part of their reality, and don’t try and make an alternate Christian reality. In working that out, we will come up with all kinds of wonderful and creative worship, structure and methods. Let the mission define the church, and discipleship structure rather than the other way around.
rev
September 29th, 2006 at 9:22 am
Trying to define the EC is like trying to catch wet soap. As soon as you think you have it, it slips out of your hands again.
I have a good friend who has done immense study on the EC and read just about every book around about it (and I mean just about every book). He is doing post-graduate study on the EC.
It is interesting when I asked him the same question about how he defines the EC for his post-grad work, he said that he doesn’t. He simply takes communities of faith at their word. If they define themselves as EC, he considers them as such. Therefore, in this case, the EC is self-defining, which explains why it is so slippery to define, and so hard to pin down common characteristics. So any sweeping statements about the EC is not going to be relevant to a whole section of the EC…. Therefore is it relevant to try to make any sweeping statements about the EC at all?
September 29th, 2006 at 10:41 am
This is not a whole lot different than charismatic or even AoG chuerches can be. Some are run of the mill and then one day you run into an anomaly. I wish someone could define a charismatic church - their all over the place worse than EC I am sure.
Rev - simplistic yes well thought no, your right about that, but i said it was not correct assesment of what you are about. My experience with EC is strictly from what I gather on SP and the links you all give. I do read sonme Rob Bell… I don’t think he is EC is he??
September 29th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
I’m afraid that doesn’t cut the mustard with me - call yourself what you like, but just sitting in a garage doesn’t make you a car. I think there has to be a philisophical view that you see the world through before you can legitmitaley call your community emergent - I think there ahs to be a deep seted committment to being a church that is missional in it;s approach, ie -not sitting their expecting to get peopoe to come -but rater being prepared to go out and be with people where they are.
You can’t just rejig your music or service schedules, or even sit around on lawn chairs drinking cofee and using macromedia flash to give the gospel reading along with associated images - these are just moving the deck chairs on the titanic. A rejection of the viewpoint that we are the church and if we build it they will come mentality is required along with an acceptance of the church being a minority player on the world and even local stage.
I’m sorry but just saying your emergent don’t make you so and therefore your friend, as educated and intelligent as he may well be, is not heading down the track of any good academic research or paper. IMHO
September 29th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
In some ways Greg I agree with you. I was making an observation that my friend had interviewed, read and questioned many, many EC leaders and struggled to find what the common ground was between them all.
There are so many people, leaders and churches calling themselves “emerging” these days, making it very difficult to find out the common ground that makes them emerging. You have just defined emerging as missional and incarnational. There are other churches around that do just move the deck chairs around and then get on the “emerging church” bandwagon.
Since the emerging church has no central structure or defined philosophy, do we need to create one? I don’t think so. Which means we have to be prepared to live in the ambiguity of an undefined movement with people from all sorts of backgrounds and philosophies and theologies and ministries claiming to be a part of it….
It just means we can’t find our security or identity in a movement….
September 29th, 2006 at 2:06 pm
You mean…we might have turn to Jesus? It’ll never work!
September 29th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
Yeah I know it’s a long shot Greg - but one can only hope…..
Have a good weekend….
September 29th, 2006 at 4:45 pm
You too Wayne - I know from some of your posts that you are having a difficult time at the moment, so i pray that your weekend will be refreshing and relaxing for you. I’ve enjoyed and gotten quite alot from the things you’ve posted here (even the ones I don;t agree fully with! :))
October 1st, 2006 at 4:24 pm
Tim is doing some live blogging from the Desiring God Conference and is providing some good summaries of the talks by some of the perhaps more conservative and also the emergent voices such as Driscoll. Worth the read.
http://www.challies.com/archives/002114.php
October 2nd, 2006 at 7:01 am
“Christianity is only about this kind of Christ - Christ reigning supreme and unchallenged and unchallengeable over all of life’s enemies. We do not have any other message than this. Seekers and postmoderns don’t want to hear this, but the bottom line is that we don’t have anything else to give them. Our only message is of Christ as unique, central, indispensable and supreme. We need to talk together and think together about how we help people to come from where they are in our postmodern culture to this point where they see Christ as supreme. But at the end of the day we do not have a different Christ for the postmodern generation than for any other. Many have decided that this is very off-putting to postmoderns and have been offering a slimmed-down version of the gospel. Certain important truths may not have been denied, but were kept hidden out-of-view since these things would prove perilous to the church’s success. We are now living with the consequences of this. In America 45% say they are born again, but only 9% have even the slightest clue about the most minimal biblical understanding to what it means to live an ethical life as a disciple.”
See this is the kind of bullshit that really gets to me. I know plenty of postmoderns that are living lives of radical discipleship, studying the bible for all its worth and walking in sacrificial unity with Jesus. And I know plenty of mailine bible preaching modern churches that have the same problems with their discipleship. The emerging church isn’t changing Jesus, if anything we are seeing Jesus outside of the western dominated culture, and responding to the bible Jesus, stripped of all its western and Christendom baggage. FORGE has specifically focussed its intensives on the person of Jesus, and looking at Jesus as the center not only for our theology, but our ecclessiology. If Jesus is so central why does our church and our discipleship look absolutely nothing like His did? The emerging church is trying to rectify that! It is all about Jesus, the good news is, Jesus has great news for the postmodern culture.
rev
October 2nd, 2006 at 7:35 am
Rev, I agree 100%. what this guy is saying sounds like it’s really exalting Jesus, but, like all hardline calvinism, there’s a subtle distortoin at the heart of it. yes, of course Jesus is Lord of Lords and king of kings (I don’t think any serious christian doubts it) but he is also the one who demonstrated how very much God’s ultimate nature is love by laying down that Lordship and laying down his life. Radical discipleship is supposed to look like servanthood, not theological arrogance that comes from keeping a set of legalistic ducks in a nice straight line. …
these guys missed one of the basics, we can’t really exalt Jesus and exalt ourselves at the same time
October 4th, 2006 at 10:34 am
Hey have you guys ever seen this blog? http://www.sliceoflaodicea.com
Go have a read, and be either entertained, disturbed, or infuriated.
October 4th, 2006 at 10:57 am
She’s certainly on a trip…she even thinks that Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill in Seattle is an emergent leader!
EMERGENTCY
..a brief look at one of EC’s former/current leaders: Mark Driscoll
The Emergent Movement
The Emergent Movement has garnered much attention over the past year as it gains inroads into many avenues of evangelicalism. One of its most conservative and flamboyant proponents is Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA. Mark, for the most part, is orthodox in his claims, is obsessed with validating his “ministry-worth” with numbers, uses an attraction model for church growth, is known as “the cussing pastor” by his colaborers in the EC movement, thinks that Robert Schuller is a man who deeply loves Jesus and that Jack Bauer is a type of Christ, says his best homiletics class was attending a Chris Rock show, thinks that Seattle is the darkest place in the country to minister and tries to prove it by making the ridiculous claim that there are more dogs in Seattle than Christians (something that is even common to Wheaton, IL).
October 4th, 2006 at 11:09 am
an hows this one …I nealry choked on my milky bar and coke as I read this one:
She’s very forward thinking this one!
October 4th, 2006 at 11:36 am
I’ve read it a few times (purely for educational reasons) I think these guys are a reincarnation of the Pharisees (how’s that for a bit of syncretism?) If you don’t do church to exactly their theological blend, not only do they not like you, they’re convinced god hates you, and they’ve got to defend His good name against you. I think they truly believe that if Jesus were to come back right now they’d be the only ones he’d approve of. That sort of self-righteousness is truly scary, and a challenge to all of us to make sure that we don’t have any of that poisonous self-righteousness hidden in our own hearts …
October 5th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Any one from here attending the alt. worship workshop Nosh being held in Melbourne next weekend?
October 5th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
http://alternative.victas.uca.org.au/index.php/2006/09/25/the-nosh/ This is the link to information - unless you were lucky and new about it before it was advertised - you had no chance of getting in - they had a couple of wild cards available - but I guess they’re all gone
October 6th, 2006 at 6:47 am
hadn’t heard about it til now. I will not be able to make the whole thing but may try to get down to some of it. I have spent some time with Steve Collins in London, and it would be really good to see him again.
rev
October 6th, 2006 at 7:48 am
i’m going! i’m organising it (that’s my website, greg) … it is almost full, there’s one spot left due to a late cancellation. It filled really quickly, and we’re keeping it small deliberately. we’ll do it again next year… It’s an ‘un-conference’ - basically space to play.
if anyone wants to meet steve, we’ll be having dinner at the moroccan soup bar, and drinks at the North Star, both in Fitzroy next wednesday night. Let me know if you want details… my email address is cheryl.lawrie (at) vic.uca.org.au
October 6th, 2006 at 8:39 am
Well I wish I could get down to join in - it looks like something from which a whole lot of exciting ideas will emerge. I imagine you will be documenting the ideas (hopefully the ones that work as well as the ones that didn’t quite seem to - seomone else might be able to take it and do something with it and then share it back!
Good on you for doing this Cheryl - it’s excellent to see Australians seriously experementing with alt worship.
October 6th, 2006 at 10:06 am
Hi Guys,
Have ben AWOL for awhile….
Just returned back from my Tasmanian holiday, punctuated by visiting The Rev & his family (who were very kind & accomodating to a stranger) in Melbourne, where i visited his Church, before boarding the Spirit of Tasmania with my car & stopping of at Blackstump on the way back.
Whilst in Tasmania i visited “Poetina” the Christian Community village run by Fusion. It was a little bland but it’s only eleven years old & has room to grow.
I always find every time i take a sabattical that i get some sort of revelation. On this occasion, it was asisted by the Rev whom completely revamped my idea about what a Prophet would look like in a modern world. My Pentecostalised version of a people-pleaser whom would lay hands on a punter & proclaim “You will be a great Christian Leader & preside over a church of thousands” has been replaced by a socially dyfunctional, unpopular, prickly agitator whose role it is to unflinchingly challenge comfortable establishment.
It’s not a likable image. But an interesting & workable one in reality for me.
I myself do not fit this image. Although being a left-wing voting member of a minority, the truth is i am a professional negotiator & i catch my flies with honey. I do care what others think even if i wish i didn’t, despite truth factoring highly in my value system. This is my character. The Rev said i more closely fitted a Pastoral profile. No sweeping prophecies or church plants for me ;o)
Anyway, do people agree with the Rev’s interpertation of the Profile of a Prophet? Can we glue some scriptures to or against that interpertation?
Can people here give me examples of modern-day prophets? Bono? Mike Frost? Who are our real spiritual visionaries now? What is common amongst them?
Bono has just bought a mega-$$$ dwelling in New York & taken a mega-$$$ sponsorrship deal with Apple Ipod. Is he truly the personal philanthropist Emergents give him credit for? Is this the character of a prophet modelling future behaviour for the rest of us?
Do Dan & Phil wish to start a new thread on the subject “Identifying our Modern Day Prophets” or “Profile of the Modern Day Prophet”?
October 6th, 2006 at 11:41 am
I agree with rev’s description and I think that if you look at any of the prophets inthe bible you will find people who were misfits and unpopular - Elijah came from farming stock in the mountains of Israel, was laughed at by the local gang of young people (get on up the mountain you old bald m^%$*r F^%$%r…or words to that effect). Jeremiah got chucked down a well and left to die…none of them match the popularity of the people we so willingly call prophets of the modern era.
Bono a prophet - not even close - great singer, great story teller, great and inspiring person - but not a prophets shoestring!
Nelson Mandela - prophet to his time (not any longer his time has been). I think people like Mike Frost and Alan Hirsch may come close (neither would agree with the comparison). But the people who are prophets are the ones who cry out from the edges - they are not in the mainstream and they are not part of the system.
October 6th, 2006 at 12:06 pm
I’ve got a question that precedes the one about who is a prophet.
Why do we need/want to identify them? I’m a bit concerned by the need to label people, to put them in boxes - to label someone a ‘prophet’ or a ‘pastor’, or anything else can be a dangerous thing - it can put them on a pedestal, it can discourage critical analysis (ie not ALL things spoken by a prophet are prophecy!), it can be misleading, it can prevent people from recognising other skills…
Perhaps I’m wrong, but I am wary of labelling exercises. I’m not sure I want to engage in an exercise identifying our modern spiritual visionaries. Too often I see this as a way of reinforcing power, it’s a label whacked on those who are already recognised - and as Greg notes, prophets are probably on the margins and therefore unlikely to be recognised as prophets!!
October 6th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
Yeah but Bec, that’s what i’m kind of excited about, that Prophets are NOT where you’d expect to find them & may NOT pleasing to the eye or ear. I agree with you, i don’t want to reinforce the power of prophet wannabes already trying to expand their influence, i’m fascinated that a Prophet might be someone whom i bullied in High School, or whom pushes my buttons at work, though i don’t know why, or a vagrant who smells but has things to say if you can get past the stench.
I’m intersted in the concept of Prophet as one who challenges us out of our confort zones. Interferes with our assumptions & whom lives their talk in the future.
People we can’t stand, but we’re not sure exactly why…are they here to help us grow in some way we’re not consciously ready to admit….but we fel a stirring……….?
That’s what i’m talking about.
For me it’s a way of understanding & getting philiosophical about people who piss us off, but might have something for us moving forward.
Change Forcers.