Friday, January 19, 2007

Five Streams of the Emerging Church

It is said that emerging Christians confess their faith like mainliners—meaning they say things publicly they don't really believe. They drink like Southern Baptists—meaning, to adapt some words from Mark Twain, they are teetotalers when it is judicious. They talk like Catholics—meaning they cuss and use naughty words. They evangelize and theologize like the Reformed—meaning they rarely evangelize, yet theologize all the time. They worship like charismatics—meaning with their whole bodies, some parts tattooed. They vote like Episcopalians—meaning they eat, drink, and sleep on their left side. And, they deny the truth—meaning they've got a latte-soaked copy of Derrida in their smoke- and beer-stained backpacks.


Read the article

2 comments:

Matthew LaPine said...

My comment on the website:
I keep hearing that the emerging movement is more about reforming praxis than it is about postmodern epistomology. The problem as I see it is how can a movement that is floundering in epistomological confusion offer a more definitive answer to how we should do church? It might be said that "a chastened epistomology" is a virtue in and of itself, but then why did God offer such an extensive revelation? As a young man (24) I can FEEL the allure of the emerging movement, but I can't agree. All the positive church reforms in history have come from persistent study of the word of God making life and practice more plain, not less so. I think if you really study the gospels emergents are right to say that social concern is important. But between geting involved in my community and sharing the love of Christ, I'll be studying Greek and Hebrew at my seminary, not reading Derrida.

Leah Dietrich said...

McKnight expects me to believe he's affiliated with the emerging church and yet he uses five alliterated points - "Ps" at that! How modern! :)