Posts Tagged ‘emergent’

I Can’t Believe I Missed It!

Posted June 8, 2009 by Charles
2
death-of-emergent

A "Hopeful Skeptic" is what I'll be regarding Nick's book, if I ever dare read it.

Apparently Emergent died while I was busy with other things for the last few months. I can’t believe it! I guess I’ll do my best to keep up with the post-mortem. Well, it’s post-mortem for a few, and in the opinion of Paul Glavic, those few should “get over it”:

I don’t think Emergent Village – or general emergence, for that matter – is fizzling out. I think it’s becoming more mainstream (not to be confused with mainline), and thus has lost its subversive feel. I imagine this annoys some who had followed the emerging conversation because it was subversive and not because of its theological and ecclesial implications. To that I say, “Get over it.”

Since I graduated from college I’ve been curious as to where all of the young, passionate emergents were. I didn’t see any in Dallas or Tulsa. Sure, it’s the Bible Belt, but for a movement so explosive, it wasn’t making much impact anywhere around me.

Eventually I met Mark Riddle during an interview process. It was nice to talk to a prominent name in the movement a bit (we didn’t really hit on any real emergent topics, but it was an undercurrent of our conversation), but I wasn’t really moved. Mark’s a smart guy, but there’s no meat to the philosophy…it’s empty calories.

Read more

Category: Church

Is Emergent All Sizzle and Speculation?

Posted December 18, 2008 by Charles
4

sizzle-feature

[There are a lot of people who think I'm uncharitable to the Emergent Movement in many ways.  I don't mind the sentiment, and I'm happy to debate it with you.]

The outspoken members of the Emergent movement – those who are interested in and effective at getting the word around – talk endlessly about the monolithic “emerging generation” and it’s concerns. They talk about what youth and young adults will and won’t be attracted to, or interested in. They talk about what the church will have to do to survive, because if it continues as it is, it will be pushed to the fringes as modernism crumbles. They have centered their positions, their existence, around one thing: they know where culture is going. They know the future.

They won’t tell you this. They’ll point to surveys, books, social and religious trends, and most often they’ll turn to anecdotes. They’ll look at what is starting to happen in small pockets around the country, and tell you that this is what is going to happen. They’ll weave things together and make arguments that sound convincing, but all the while you know something’s wrong. Then it might hit you that they’re predicting the future.

Now, before I move on, I have to say that they might be right. All of their predictions about society and culture, the future of the church, and particularly the futures of evangelicalism and other conservative theological movements might come true. I’m just a little skeptical.

I don’t know what’s behind the speculation. I don’t know if it’s true belief, reasonable expectation, or just hope. I’m sure there’s a mixture of all three, and some I haven’t thought of. But what’s happening in the movement, just as in much of society, is that the speculation is taking the place of reality.

What just a few years ago was simply an idea of what might be the future of our culture is now said to be the reality of our culture. So many in the Emergent movement began adjusting their practice and theology to entice the members of this new society. Now, in an incredibly short span of time, the ideas and positions of just a few years ago are deeply entrenched ideologies.

Consider this post at Pomomusings.com (154 comments and counting) titled “The Bible & Homosexuality: Enough with the Bible Already.” Read more

Category: Theology

Emerging Theology, Liberal Politics

Posted October 7, 2008 by Charles
2

Collin Hansen at CT writes about the very apparent “Left-Left” connection. The connection is there he says, but not “inevitable.” He names several who, as Mark Driscoll claims for himself, are (or were) theologically conservative and politically and socially liberal.

The subhead asks, “Does one lead the other?” I think the answer is yes, but it’s hard to say which. I’ve known quite a few people who held liberal views of society and politics, and felt uncomfortable with the conservative beliefs they’d held.  So they became emergent or progressive Christians.

I’ve only known a few who were really guided by their liberal theology. It seems too often that politics comes before Jesus.  I catch myself from time to time saying things in a political conversation that make me cringe as the sentences are still forming. At that moment I can choose to make my theology meet my politics, or make my politics meet my theology.  It’s a struggle.

H/T JT

Category: Politics, Theology

Liberal Religious Dogma

Posted August 28, 2008 by Charles
0

Finally a post that isn’t in the Politics category:

But liberal religion has a dogma and it views the contemporary world through the eyes of this dogma. The dogma is all the more potent in coloring opinion because it is not known as a dogma. The dogma is that the world is gradually growing better and that the inevitability of gradualness guarantees our salvation.

Reinhold Niebuhr, Christian Century, April 22, 1926

I’d say that the same applies to the dogma of “tolerance”.  The ironies of this dogma are that (a) its advocacy typically involves a caustic intolerance for conservative ideas; and (b) it ignores the fact that tolerance requires some disagreement.  It’s not really tolerance if I agree with you.  It’s only tolerance if I disagree with you, but tolerate you (not necessarily your ideas). I hear a great deal about this “tolerance” from friends who identify with Emergent strains (yes, “strains” – like a virus) of the emerging church.

But this idea of tolerance falls right in with the mistaken notion of progress. It moves contrary to the gospel, and the command to contend earnestly for the faith.

Category: Church, Theology

Common Ground

Posted February 16, 2008 by Charles
6

common-ground-diner.jpg[Disclaimer: This post may make me seem divisive, but I don't intend it to.]

Why is the progressive Christian movement – led in part by Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, Tony Jones, and others – so obsessed with finding common ground? I’m hearing it everywhere.  Common ground between Christianity and Islam, between evangelicals and “post-evangelicals”, orthodox and neo-orthodox, traditional and emergent…. It seems to be the answer to everything.

But is common ground really that important? In a lot of situations people say, “the things that unite us are greater than those that divide us.”  But is that really true?  Are the things that unite Christianity and Islam greater than the things that divide us?  Are the things that unite the theologies of Mark Driscoll and Rob Bell greater than those that divide them?  I guess it depends on your perspective.

If you feel, as some do, that the heart of Jesus’ message was changing this world in the here-and-now, the answer is yes.  If you think of salvation as liberations from physical constraints like poverty, oppression, and emotional scars, the answer is yes. But if you think that the message of Christ is bigger than here, and more lasting than now, the answer gets more complicated. Read more

Category: Church, Theology

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