Emergent Church or Divergent Church? August 24, 2006

I am “pickpocketted” this discussion from World Magazine’s blog and want to start this discussion (if anyone is out there)….

What do you think of the Emerging Church movement? The Baptist Press (see article) quotes leaders such as Southern Seminary president Al Mohler who call it a threat to the Gospel. Mohler writes, “Unwilling to affirm that the Bible contains propositional truths that form the framework for Christian belief, this movement argues that we can have Christian symbolism and substance without those thorny questions of truthfulness that have so vexed the modern mind.”

Analysis: What is the “Emerging Church Movement?” August 24, 2006

an interesting summary of some of the major points of emergent church by a Baptist State consultant…fair and summarily gives some points…take a read. Petery

By Chad Hall

BSC Communications

Read any number of ministry magazines, web sites or books these days and you’re likely to come across the terms like emerging church, emerging leaders, emerging ministry, emergent, and other strains of the word “emerging.”

Some people hail the emerging church movement as the second-coming of the Protestant Reformation, while others rail against it as a form of liberalism and watered-down Christianity in an age of anything goes. Still others see it as a passing fad or the reincarnation of the Jesus Movement of the 1960’s. People all around the world, including N.C. Baptists, are responding to, participating in, and reacting against this movement that cannot be easily described.

So what is all the fuss about? As a Baptist State Convention consultant who works with innovative and emerging issues, I’ve been watching the emerging church movement for six or seven years. As the moniker implies, the movement is constantly morphing, showing different sides of itself, and taking on new faces and voices. Following are a few snapshots of the emerging church movement that might help you know and understand it a bit better.

The movement is chaotic (more…)

Leaders call ‘Emerging Church Movement’ a threat to Gospel August 23, 2006

Mar 23, 2005
By David Roach
Baptist Press NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–A recently developed way of envisioning church known as the “Emerging Church Movement” deals carelessly with Scripture and compromises the Gospel, according to a prominent evangelical scholar and a Southern Baptist seminary president.

But Brian McLaren, one of the movement’s leaders, told Baptist Press that such criticisms are unfounded and that the Emerging Church Movement is “seeking to be more faithful to Christ” in the current postmodern cultural context.

In a book entitled “Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church,” which is scheduled to be published in June by Zondervan, theologian D.A. Carson defines the Emerging Church Movement as a group of people who believe the church must use new modes of expressing the Gospel as western culture adopts a postmodern mindset.

“At the heart of the ‘movement’ … lies the conviction that changes in the culture signal that a new church is ’emerging,'” writes Carson, who serves as research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill. “Christian leaders must therefore adapt to this emerging church. Those who fail to do so are blind to the cultural accretions that hide the gospel behind forms of thought and modes of expression that no longer communicate with the new generation.” (more…)