Emerging church, Bell, Mclaren, etc.

[speakout]

who likes them ?

Wha hates their doctrines?

 

[Xenon]

To me, it looks like a movement where people gather together to find the truth outside, rather than inside, the Bible. Post-modern thought, interfaith dialogue, and a new way to "do" church suggest that they're trying to meet people where they are. However, they don't know where they're going in the first place. If they're trying to figure out who God is based on everyone else's personal belief, then they're in real big trouble.

 

[alfrodull]

To me, it looks like a movement where people gather together to find the truth outside, rather than inside, the Bible. Post-modern thought, interfaith dialogue, and a new way to "do" church suggest that they're trying to meet people where they are. However, they don't know where they're going in the first place. If they're trying to figure out who God is based on everyone else's personal belief, then they're in real big trouble.

Isn't the point that there are some things we can't know? That everyone experiences him differently?

To be honest, I haven't read much on the movement, but I agree with much of what I have read. I think they are at times too cavalier when it comes to rejecting traditional aspects of worship--there is a rich symbolism there that still has value--but at the same time I admire them for having the foresight to change with the times and rework what isn't effective in their ministry.

 

[Thunder Peel]

I'm bothered a bit by this idea that Christianity somehow needs to be "updated" and "reinvented". God's Word is still just as powerful and real today as it was thousands of years ago; the problem is that many of today's churches are more concerned with spectacle and entertainment instead of digging deep into the scriptures and giving believers the knowledge and tools they need to live a God-centered lifestyle.

I'm also tired of these movements trying to label God and put Him in a box. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said "Jesus Was A Liberal", as if God can really be confined to a political party or agenda. GOD IS GOD and moves beyond our modern conventions and ideas. Much of what I see with the emergent church is this idea that "anything goes" and we should just say and do whatever we want, as if there are no boundaries or factual doctrines that need to be followed. The few times I've visited churches like this I was unimpressed; they basically take worship and turn it into a circus where people can run around and make a scene while claiming that it's worship. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for free worship but there also needs to be a sense of respect and reverence for who God is and what His presence entails. This hippy philosophy about Jesus and God in general just comes off as pretentious and I don't see how it does anything constructive for the cause.

I understand where these people are coming from and I think they mean well, but instead of trying to water-down Christianity I wish they would simply spend more time getting back to the basics of the Christian faith and teaching believers the solid truths held in the Bible. Christianity doesn't need to be updated or changed; it works just the way it is and if we would preach these truths and share our testimonies I think we'd make far more progress.

 

[DanC922]

'Emergent' would be the correct term in reference to Bell and McLaren. I don't like their doctrine and ideas at all, as many range from very unhelpful and dangerous to outright heretical. They question essential doctrines for the sake of questioning, and have dismissed some very important Biblical doctrines, and created some crazy unBiblical ideas of their own. We need to be relevant with methods, but unmoving in Biblical Truth. 'Timely methods, timeless Truth' is the phrase we should stick to. Unfortunately emergent teachers often believe truth needs to be made more relevant as well, and that ends up destroying the most important thing we have.

'Emerging' is a much different idea that embraces what I said above, and is a strong proponent of 'timely methods, timeless Truth.' Examples of 'emerging' are Mark Driscoll and much of the Acts 29 church planting network.

Many use the word 'emerging' as synonymous with 'emergent', however, so it's much wiser to examine the actual doctrines and methods in question in light of Scripture, as names can be confused and misapplied very easily.

 

[Qyöt27]

The underlying problem is that people have taken to referring to any and all post-modernist critiques as 'Emergent' or whatever your preferred term is. The reason that's so misleading is that narrowing it to that sort of view of what the Emerging or Emergent Church is misses the point that it's just as diverse as some of the other previous movements that have occurred, such as the First Great Awakening, Reconstructionist churches, or Protestantism as a whole.

There are those which go really out on a limb with their theological viewpoints, and there are those that stick close to traditional mainline Protestant thought (because for the most part, the movement originated in contemporary mainline and old mainline Protestant churches, not Evangelical or Fundamentalist churches - so it's no wonder the latter two view it so negatively in the first place, even moreso for those emerging groups that are more open to post-Vatican II Catholicism). Even within those that stick close to tradition, there are low evangelical-leaning groups and almost Neo-Traditionalists which prefer high services and solemnity.

The thing that they have in common is in the approach, which is much much more focused on seeing the problems that have been wrought over the past 200 years (from both 'modernism' and the extremism that permeated into the fold during the 20th century as a reaction to that perceived 'modernism') and attempting to move beyond that, much as the oft-quoted maxim says, "Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary, use words". Some see it as moving toward the idea of simplicity, others see it as reconnecting with the older churches without also adopting their divisiveness.

Inside any of those three basic groups I outlined, you can have recognition and acknowledgment of cultural differences, religious differences, and so on. Some probably do go right into syncretistic practice, but I don't think that's anywhere near the norm. Overall, if I had to characterize it, it's a move away from the very Eurocentric or Americentric thinking predominant in the Western/American Church. I mean, there is an uptick of interest in Eastern Orthodoxy in all this as well, and that in itself represents something of a move away from Western patterns.

 

[speakout]

But is that not the new age?

 

[Qyöt27]

Is what new age? Christianity is not always linked to Western cultural norms, nor is it at all required to be. IMO, the insistence of the medieval Church to tie Christianity in with Aristotlean thought was absolutely devastating - because it distorted cultural paradigms so thoroughly that the 'assumed reading' of Scripture no longer reflected what it was when written. And that's proven to be bad on multiple occasions since.

 

[DanC922]

The issue is that post-modernism it is based on human interpretation based on feeling and desire. Humans are sinful at the core, and this idea of interpreting Scripture in light of us creates doctrine that is not Biblical. It's the decades old "existence precedes essence" existentialism rehashed with a new name. Scripture must interpret Scripture. We don't need new interpretations of Scripture, just Biblically-sound and culturally-relevant methods of applying Scripture. The emergent movement, in general, wants to not only have relevant methods, but have relevant Scripture, which is not Biblical. Methods may not be timeless, but Scripture is. We must read Scripture in light of its original application, and apply it relevantly based on that. Scripture interprets culture, not the other way around.

 

[speakout]

Is not christian culture to be the one in heaven?

 

[Qyöt27]

The issue is that post-modernism it is based on human interpretation based on feeling and desire. Humans are sinful at the core, and this idea of interpreting Scripture in light of us creates doctrine that is not Biblical. It's the decades old "existence precedes essence" existentialism rehashed with a new name. Scripture must interpret Scripture. We don't need new interpretations of Scripture, just Biblically-sound and culturally-relevant methods of applying Scripture. The emergent movement, in general, wants to not only have relevant methods, but have relevant Scripture, which is not Biblical. Methods may not be timeless, but Scripture is. We must read Scripture in light of its original application, and apply it relevantly based on that. Scripture interprets culture, not the other way around.

A) The definition being used for 'post-modern' changes to contrast whatever is in vogue at the time - at one time it was a reaction to French Impressionist art. Or more specifically, to indicate a reaction against what 'modernism' did. People use it as some kind of dirty word because they only choose to see one definition of it, when there is no single definition. You ask several different people and you'll get several different answers, some more extreme in their view than others; some may not even be talking about the same field, considering the origin of the term is from architecture.

B) Existentialism is in no way inherently anti-Christian. Don't mistake Heidegger and Sartre for existentialist thought as a whole. Whole fields of study (Scriptural and historical-social) concerning the juxtaposition of Man's existence to God in a Christian context exist, and informs Christian existentialism just as much as those same avenues inform Christian humanism. It's just that it happens to be more realist because it focuses on the fact that the choices we make determine how we react to what we experience, and interact with our faith.

C) 'Scripture must interpret Scripture' and 'Scripture interprets culture' sound very much like literalist statements. The problem with that is, the churches that this movement originated in are not - or at least, mostly not - literalist or Inerrantist (some may not even hold to Sola Scriptura), and the movement itself is neither. This is purely a criticism from the standpoint of Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism, not tradition. Interpretation of Scripture can't be boiled down to such catchphrases or easy-to-swallow morsels, and just because someone doesn't agree with X prescribed view prevalent in such churches doesn't mean they are somehow Postmodernist in their thinking. Orthodoxy is a lot larger than what Evangelical or Fundamentalist churches claim it is. As far as I see it, those churches were formed as an overreaction to modernism, and however we choose to define postmodernism in regard to theology, it's a reaction against them in turn - the difference is that those movements are/were tangible and broad in scope; the modernism they were reacting against 100 years ago or more wasn't.