I was looking at the Emergent Church group on facebook,

[Critters2]

and was really disappointed to see quite a lot of homophobia on the discussion boards. I would've thought these would be people I'd find some commonality with. Guess not. Disappointing.

I've been UCC too long. I'm naive about how a lot of other Christians are.

[54anickel]

1. At first I was excited reading about the Emergent Church, stuff by McLaren and a couple of

articles in "The Lutheran" on the Emergent movement. Those articles were more about the "spiritual but not religious" crowd...the questioners...the journey vs destination folks.

I'm now finding a lot of it is based on "Evangelical" non-denominationals discovering/rediscovering liturgy, creeds, and the mystery of the HS. Not much change going on in their theology though. Still an "us against them" mentality.

I think Emergent is pretty tough to nail down, yet nearly everyone wants to claim to be a part of it.

Our church is looking to introduce an additional alternative worship to the standard Sunday AM liturgical fare. Someone recently renamed the group in charge to the "Emergent Worship Team" and along with the name change came an entirely new objective for that additional worship service. There's a drive to become more like the Evangelical water/tree named churches that are popping up all over the county.

I have no problem with the relationship part they are attempting to recreate, it's the theological contradictions that give me the jeebies.
I think they're watching TBN far too much!!!! :scared:

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. I, too, was excited by the Emergent Movement

and then realized after a few years it's relationship to the hate- and fear-based Evangelical movement is very much like Intelligent Design's relationship to Creationism.

Which is to say, it's the same couch, just different fabric.

They're taking the stuff that makes traditional and mainline Christianity good - mystery, spirituality, liturgy, the old music and hymns, and whatnot - they're "rediscovering" it, appropriating it (like the New Age idiots appropriate Celtic and Native American religious practices), spin it through their special "make sure it matches the culture" meaningfulness-annihilator machine which they send all their "theology" through, add some bells and whistles so it sparkles and will be attractive to people who think TV taxes the intellect too much, dress it up in a nice young white guy with a goatee and black thick-rimmed glasses (or else short hair and a polo shirt), crank out books and seminars and workshops at $800 a weekend or $150 a day, make DVDs and CDs of pre-approved worship music and videos and images at $500 a DVD to play on the $25,000 audio-video-system while the friendly guy in the poncho offers a Gregorian chant, and call it "Christianity for the modern age", which it is, because like so much of the modern age, it sparkles like the sun and promises everything, but offers little beyond a light-destroying abyss that soon becomes boring because of it's homogeneity, repetition, and lack of meaning.

The new car might look shiny and cool as hell, and you might be willing to drive it even though it handles like crap, vibrates, and the chair is uncomfortable, but after a few months, the brand, the shininess, and the coolness can't make up for the fact that driving it is a pain in the ass and not worth the effort.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. The Emergent groups, to my mind, wanted out from under the Evangelical thumb, but can't quite wrap

their heads around more liberal theology. Yet. Could be many of them will move on that way eventually. :)

But for now I think they will cling to what is still comfortable to them.


I came to this conclusion after reading the 8 points of Progressive Christians and contrasted them to the ones held by Emergents. Of course, I shouldn't generalize but I will say that I brought the Emergent version with me to my husband's church which is a conservative evangelical denomination, and they found it to be thought-provoking and interesting. Much of the progressive 8 would not have gone over so well.

Progressive believers: http://www.tcpc.org/about/8points_detail.cfm?id=16&point=7

By calling ourselves progressive, we mean we are Christians who...

1) Have found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus.

2) Recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God's realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us.

3) Understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus's name to be a representation of an ancient vision of God's feast for all peoples

4) Invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable (including but not limited to):

believers and agnostics,
conventional Christians and questioning skeptics,
women and men,
those of all sexual orientations and gender identities,
those of all races and cultures,
those of all classes and abilities,
those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope.

5) Know that the way we behave toward one another and toward other people is the fullest expression of what we believe.

6) Find more grace in the search for understanding than we do in dogmatic certainty - more value in questioning than in absolutes.

7) Form ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping one another for the work we feel called to do: striving for peace and justice among all people, protecting and restoring the integrity of all God's creation, and bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers

8) Recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of privilege.


Emergent Churches

1. Accept co-existence with different faiths gladly, not begrudgingly. It is not their fault if they are alive.

2. Dialogue presupposes commitment to one’s position, so it is surely not a bad thing to listen well. Dialogue should be congruent with confidence in the gospel.

3. We assume that the dialogue takes place in the presence of God, the unseen Presence. In such dialogue we may learn things, as Peter does in Acts 10–11. Similarly, Jesus learns from his interchange with the Syrophoenician woman.

4. Missional dialogue requires humility and vulnerability. But that should not frighten us, for when we are weak, we are strong. It is surely right, for instance, to acknowledge earlier atrocities committed by Christians, even as we remain careful not to disparage those earlier Christians.

5. Each religion operates in its own world and therefore demands different responses from Christians.

6. Christian witness does not preclude dialogue.

7. The “old, old story” may not be the true, true story, for we continue to grow, and even our discussion and dialogues contribute to such growth. In other words, the questions raised by postmodernism help us to grow.

8. Live with the paradox: we know no way of salvation apart from Jesus Christ, but we do not prejudge what God may do with others. We must simply live with the tension.

[Sal316]

4. As part of an emergent group here in Phoenix.....

I have to say there's much more "pro" than "con".

Speaking with these people, they're in a scary place in their faith. They're trying to "wrap their minds" around breaking with their own experience and history (re: Chuch) and learning to walk by faith, not by the direction of a pastor. They're also learning to think and reason and discover what scripture truly says, some, perhaps, for the first time.

It's a scary place for alot of them and there's going to be some growing pains. There'll also be some carryover of bad theology...but I would expect that to correct itself.

Phyllis Tickle postulates that every 500 years the church goes through a dramatic revolution..1517: Protestant Reformation; 1054: East/West Split, etc., and that the emergent movement has the potential to be this revolution. She also says we have to be careful with what the emergent group comes up with, because we'll be living with it for the next 500 years!

Right not, it's in the 'conversation' phase. People like to proclaim the death of the emergent movement because all its doing it talking. Well, it's going to take more than 5-10 years to change the last 500 years of the church's influence and theology.

Give it time, it's kind of exciting....and I truly believe it will be something wholly different than today's evangelical movement.

[Critters2]

5. If there's a dramatic revolution building in the Church, I think it'll come from Girard,

not from another conservative movement, but with even cooler praise music.

[Sal316]

6. What's sorta cool about emergent....

....is that it doesn't fit easily into any definition.

There's Baptimergents, Presbymergents, and Catholics are perhaps the biggest "group" of emergents out there.

Here's my group:http://emergingdesert.blogspot.com/2008/01/what-emerging-desert-is-all-about.html

It has nothing to do with "cooler praise music", tho we do have a rather diverse group as far as musical tastes go!

Emerging Desert welcomes...

...doubt

...conviction

...questions & uncertainty

...humility

...radical love

...diverse backgrounds

...people of all ages.

[Critters2]

7. But, it was clear from the facebook group that gays are not welcome.

Again, no different than other evangelicals. And now you tell me you don't even have cooler music? Geez, what's the point?

Oh, and I'm UCC. My church has welcomed the things you list for 50 years now.