The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Emergent Church "conversation"

Dear Friends,

What have you heard or read about the Emergent (or Emerging) Church? They don't want to be identified as a "movement" according to one EC Website. Rather, it's a "conversation".

I listened to both Michael Horton's and Shane Rosenthal's interviews about the EC on Issues, Etc. (Links to both interviews are on the White Horse Inn Website.) One of the leaders of the EC conversation is Brian McLaren who was one of TIME magazines' 25 Most Influential Evangelicals.

Anyway, I heard the interviews and I'm in the middle of McLaren's book The Church on the Other Side and I've surfed to a dozen EC Websites...and still I'm asking myself, "Where's the beef?" Like Horton says in his interview with Todd Wilken, it's like trying to nail jell-o to the wall.

According to the WHI Website there will be an article in the next issue of Modern Reformation magazine about EC, and perhaps that will clarify what it is. As far as I can tell, the Emergent Church looks suspiciously similar to plain vanilla "seeker-sensitive" churches, with overstuffed chairs and the word "postmodern" sprinkled liberally thoughout the dialogue.

Relztrah

Check out this page. Also, D. A. Carson has a new book out called Becoming Conversant with the Emergent Church. The book is basically a print version of his audio critique of the movement. The book is fairly slow reading, though, as we attacks postmodernism in general too, and it gets philosophical.

For a more "here-at-home" reference, check out the recent thread on this Board here: Emergent Church.

In His Grace,

Ooops. I should have done a topic search before my post. I'll examine the previous comments regarding the Emergent Church.

Thanks,
Relztrah

I probably have a post on that thread Pilgrim put up there. Just about every post I've put up here I mention something about the Emergent Church because I've been dealing with it at my church for a couple of years now. My church has turned emergent because of our former pastor bringing it in. Your analysis so far is correct. My husband has come right out and called him (McLaren) a heretic. I unfortunately have read way too many emergent books because this was all openly promoted by our former pastor last year.

I'm almost done with D.A. Carson's book. It's pretty good in my opinion after reading so much of McLaren myself. What's interesting in Carson's book is that he mentioned Steve Chalke and his book "The Lost Message of Jesus". Now there's an outright heretic for you. Unbelievable! If you read Carson's book you'll read the quotes from Chalke. Chalke is Britian's "spokesman" there like "McLaren" is here. There are a couple of CDs from John MacArthur's Sheperd's Conference 2005 by Phil Johnson on postmodernism - the emergent church, McLaren too that I would recommend.

Also there is a website blog by Carla Rolfe (a Reformed Christian) who has decided to expose the many errors in the emergent church - http://www.emergentno.blogspot.com/

Also Tim Challies http://challies.com/ has done some writing and reviews on some of the emergent authors and also Bob DeWaay at Twin City Fellowship http://twincityfellowship.com/ has some critiques of McLaren. His critique of McLaren's "Generous Orthodoxy" was well said. He wrote exactly what I would write (if I were a good writer).

What does that mean? How do you change into something that has no definition? The EC bends over backward to defy pigeonholing, so really any group that rebels against tradition...any tradition...can call itself "emergent". Just slap the label postmodern on your church, replace the pews with overstuffed chairs and suddenly you're emergent.