Issue: Well, uhm, the ‘Emergent Church’.

CRN’s Take: If we perceive you are off the rails theologically, you are Emergent – whether you agree to that label or not (a la Erwin McManus, Rob Bell, Donald Miller and others).  If you are Emergent, you are sadly mistaken, an apostate bound for eternal damnation.  If you’re an Emergent Church leader, you’re doubly damned because you’re leading people astray.

My Take:

1) I am not emergent/emerging, despite disagreeing with Slice/CRN on a number of issues and despite my insistence on rejecting systematic theologies.

2) Using such a broad brush to paint a diverse movement like emergent/emerging is little more than bigotry on the order of racism, anti-semitism and misanthropy, and Slice/CRN’s words and actions would be constituted a ‘hate crime’ were their target a politically-correct “protected” entity.  (NOTE: I hate polictical correctness as a system, but I have observed it to be a overreactive backlash against, in some cases, legitimate insensitivity or injustice based on treating other people as objects who are less than human.)

3) CRN’s definitions of who/what is/are Emergent are so broad that any legitimate complaints lose their meaning because their target is so nebulous.  Primarily, this is promulgated by “Reverend” Ken, who first defines someone as “Emergent”, puts words in their mouths via isogesis and straw man theology, and then uses his false argument to broad-brush anything/everything “Emergent”.  I could pull together a slew of articles demonstrating this (and I have in the past), but one need look no further than yesterday’s ill-begotten diatribe against Donald Miller to see CRN’s pharisaical bigotry in action.

4) I see the EC movement – which is not tied to any one denomination, but has risen from multiple denominations, in many cases carrying on some of the theological baggage – both good and bad – from their parent denomination – as a response to a perceived loss of balance in the Fundamental/Traditional model and the Purpose Driven/Megachurch model.  I have written about this a few times, with the primary summation here, with the diagram to the right.  For me, the ideal place for the church to sit is smack-dab in the center, which – for a huge number of purists from each movement – would be uncomfortable and possibly confrontational.

5) Scot McKnight has done a much better job of defining and categorizing trends in the ECM (Emergent and Emerging) than I could ever do, and far more accurate than Slice/CRN has ever come close to approaching.  His WTS speech on the subject and his recent article, as well, are well-tempered and have a number of legitimate criticisms of trends in the movement.

6) I have issues with theological laziness/sloppiness in parts of the ECM, particularly when they attempt to define clearly sinful behavior as acceptable behavior for believers in Christ.

7) I have some serious issues with the political leanings of the ECM, in general, but I also see that the Fundamentalist/Traditional embrace of the Republican Party (whose candidates I have never voted against in 20 years of voting, to be honest) has led to a lack of accountability on the part of the GOP for seriously advancing legislation in line with concern to ‘hot button issues’, and has allowed the GOP to escape some accountability for their voting record on other issues which impact social justice.

I believe that it is the role of the church to care for the poor, the destitute, the oppressed and the imprisoned – not the government.  I also believe, though, that the church – by and large – has abdicated this responsibility.  I also believe that the church should care about proper care and stewardship of the environment and our natural resources, but I see too many churches take fatalistic views of these responsibilities, once again abdicating this responsibility to the government.  The resultant leftward political leaning of the ECM, I believe, is a misguided attempt to support these responsibilities via bodies that should not be given this responsibility.  However, the proper response to this is not to deride the ECM for its political sensibilities, but to reassert our responsibility and accountability to ALL kingdom work, despite its perceived ‘home’ in politics.

UPDATE (I missed this in cut/paste)

8.  There are a number of jerks in the ECM, just as there are a number of jerks in other church movements.  The number is probably equal, on a percentage basis.  So, in the same way that I don’t use Ken Silva to paint the entire SBC (or even the SBC in New Hampshire), I would expect that just because Joe Blow who is part of the ECM is a self-righteous nit-picker who looks down on Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, that doesn’t mean that the ECM is populated with all folks like Joe.  Posting a letter from a ECM member/sympathizer and then patronizingly sneering at the entire movement is bigotry in the same way that holding up Rodney King to paint all African Americans or Jeffrey Dahmer to paint all “poor white trash” Scots-Irish Americans would be bigotry.