Very sadly, i had to leave the Emmaus get together after a few hours last night due to something i ate earlier at dinnertime on the way up to Emmaus which caused me diahrea , sweats, and a headache. Fortunately, I lived only 45 min. away. But they are going to give me a raincheck to go on the next scheduled Emmaus Walk in a few months time.
However, based on what i did experience for the first few hours, I did not see anything that caused concern or be anti-biblical or dishonoring to God in the least.
To your point of 'giving yourself to the Emmaus Walk' ; they did verbalize this last night to the entire group along with the statement of getting all you can out of the spiritual experience God has for you . The very purpose of Emmaus is to bring you closer to God in relationship with the added benefit of drawing closer to the Bretherun in attendence , so again... i fail to see the validity of your assertions.
As far as secrecy is concerned ; dont Christians who are are evangelizing another to be saved apply some level of secrecy by reserving to tell the Person that the Christian Walk is going to be made up of carrying Ones cross thru daily spiritual battles , that there will be times of disappointments and personal struggles, and possible abandonment of vital family relationships instituted by Another ? Dont Christians exhibit secrecy in this regard ? Is it correct to term this sort of secrecy being disengenuous or having cultic overtones to it ?
Questions for You :
a. Can you give specific examples of how churches have been harmed by Emmaus including actual links to people claiming such ...who have, themselves, been on the Emmaus Walk ?
b. Have you personally been on the Emmaus Walk ? Did you have a distinctive bad experience during this walk with another(s) ? Was there any form of betrayal involved in your bad experience(s) ?
c. If you have been on an Emmaus Walk, how would you change certain things about the Walk to be more biblically acceptable in your view ?
TY. Dave
Hi Dave, I'm sorry to hear you were sick and hope you get better soon.
I didn't expect you would see anything wrong after the first few hours so that doesn't surprise me. The problem with the statement giving yourelf completely to Emmaus is very obvious. Despite what they told you, they don't want you to question anything that goes on, just accept it as part of the experience. And it is primarily an emotional rather than teaching based experience.
I have not been on a walk but that does not discount me having my opinion or doing research into it just as I haven't been to a Mormon meeting but can decide it is wrong from the literature.
I do however personally know people who have had a terrible time at Emmaus and who have felt pressure to go when they didn't want to. I am not going to go into details because that is up to them but suffice to say there is common ground with my own points.
I haven't posted enough on this website to provide you with links to forums where people talked about their experiences (good and bad) but try searching for rr-bb.com, topix monticello forum and orthodoxchristianity.net to start with.
Your point about the secrecy doesn't really make sense to me. Before I gave my life to the Lord, I was hearing about the cost as well as the salvation. The Bible is an open book and there is nothing hidden from one and not another. The secrecy has led to problems both for me and my wife where, despite being Bible believing Christians, it has been difficult to break through the "Emmaus barrier".
If pilgrims came back from their walk and told us what they learned, and witnessed to their blessing from God, then that would be normal. But having a fantastic experience and then keeping it quiet because you don't want to spoil it for someone else makes no sense at all when it comes to God's Kingdom.
One potentially dangerous aspect of Emmaus is the fact that pilgrims join a community outside of the local church. The expectation is for pilgrims to be spiritually accountable to the Emmaus Community by meeting in regular groups. Some of these groups are even called accountability groups. To me this is saying Emmaus doesn't want pilgrims to just leave the weekend and go into their churches and live what they learned. They want to keep them in Emmaus while working in the churches. Why?
I am not out to stop people going to Emmaus, but I am out to stop the secrecy and the pressure applied by the Emmaus Community for people to go. One poster on the topix forum said that Emmaus is about Emmaus evangelism and not Jesus evangelism. That is a point I agree with. Some pilgrims seem eager to promote the Emmaus experience instead of pointing to Jesus. That is a common complaint where Emmaus is run. I'm not alone in this so I know I'm not just grinding my axe.
One again, I hope you are felling better and wish you blessing in Christ.
