More heresy brought to you by the emergent church:
1. Commitment to God in the Way of Jesus:
We are committed to doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God. In the words of Jesus, we seek to live by the Great Commandment: loving God and loving our neighbors – including those who might be considered “the least of these” or enemies. We understand the gospel to be centered in Jesus and his message of the Kingdom of God, a message offering reconciliation with God, humanity, creation, and self.
We are committed to a “generous orthodoxy” in faith and practice – affirming the historic Christian faith and the biblical injunction to love one another even when we disagree. We embrace many historic spiritual practices, including prayer, meditation, contemplation, study, solitude, silence, service, and fellowship, believing that healthy theology cannot be separated from healthy spirituality.
PRACTICES:
* As Christ-centered people, to understand the gospel in terms of Jesus’ radical, profound, and expansive message of the kingdom of God.* As people seeking to be formed spiritually in the way of Christ, to learn historic Christian spiritual practices (disciplines), and to use them for the development of character, integrity, and virtue which flow from true communion with God
* As participants in the historic Christian faith, to be humble learners, to stimulate learning in others, and to give priority to love over knowledge, while still valuing knowledge.
* As lovers of God and God’s truth, to seek wisdom and understanding, which are the true goal of theology, and to engage in respectful, thoughtful, sacred conversation about God, world, and church.
After reading that, consider everything the ODMs have said about the emergent church. Sort of makes you wonder what they think orthodoxy is.
32 Comments(+Add)
A lot of real good stuff there. But some not so good. Not real heavy on the Scriptures, no mention of the gospel (except the “kingdom” variety not the death burial and resurrection variety), and the Roman Catholic Church is not part of the true visible church even though there may be saved people still worshiping there. Not a clear mention of the Great Commission and the salvation of the lost.
Most of what would be objectionable would be what is ommitted and the general nebulous nature of its presentation with an emphasis on humantarian works and very little on conversion.
“Most of what would be objectionable would be what is ommitted and the general nebulous nature of its presentation with an emphasis on humantarian works and very little on conversion.”
Rick hit the nail on the head. Of course the MO of .info is the omission of info, especially when referring to the “watchdoggies”
What is quoted above is mere blather.
I will match my “fundamentalist”
( that is anyone who reads and believes in the Bible, by your definition) church against any of the emrgent yahoos when it comes to both solid orthodoxy, and therefore equally solid orthopraxy.
Chris P,
Sadly your time away from CRN.info did little to lessen your anger or increase your honesty.
Oooh, a church-on-church duel…
“Gentlemen, choose your weapons!”
I choose a pose-off a la Zoolander…
Oh, and while I realize they didn’t use the traditional language of teh western church, anytime you talk about reconciliation to God, you’re talking the gospel.
Rick,
This is quite heavy on scripture. Just because they don’t give you the book, chapter, and verse, doesn’t mean it’s not there. They are using words that some people may not be used too, but condemning them for that is like condemning a person for speaking in a different language than you, or even for using different slang terms. I heard a young white kid use the word “tight” a few months ago. My gut reaction was to judge them and tell them to change their vocabulary. That’s akin to thinking the words, “cool,” “awesome,” and ” sweet” shouldn’t be used. Fortunately I stopped myself from looking like (and being) a stuck up, egocentric jerk.
Chris P. – Do you honestly believe that? Come on. Tim Reed and myself both preach in conservative bible believing churches. Churches that are historically known for taking the hard line. We are just trying to do it with grace. Get over it. And by the way, I am a fundamentalist. A lot of churches and Christians have missed the fundamentals of the Way.
“Not real heavy on Scripture” isn’t exactly a condemnation. I did not see the place of Scripture, I was not looking for a chapter/verse expose as much as I was left to wonder where Scripture stood in their journey to truth.
If the “way of Jesus” is feeding the poor and helping the oppressed then many religions have the way of Jesus. But if the way of Jesus is feeding the poor, helping the oppressed, and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ then I am with it.
People do not hate you because you help and feed them. But when His name is used, many times we will be persecuted, not becaue we look for persecution, but becaue the cross of Christ elicits hatred on its own. Ask Paul. Was there a mention of the cross in their statement, I’ll go back and look.
No mention of the cross which renders it a non-Christian statement of faith.
Well, it doesn’t claim to be a statement of faith anywhere. It talks about the Gospel, and there is no Gospel without the cross. I’ve never read anything from anyone associated with Emergent denying the cross or the resurrection.
Rick, these are values and practices, not a statement of faith. “A message offering reconcilation with God,” “affirming the historic Christian faith,” “formed spiritually in the way of Christ” (think of Jesus’ command to take up our crosses for that one). I don’t see the problem.
And the reason not to mention the cross is…?
Plus, like others have said about other ministries websites, you really can’t expect everything on one page (especially a page that isn’t trying to lead somebody to Christ or be a statement of faith.) So your initial comment of what they leave out is irrelevant.
Beats me, I don’t mention the cross in a lot of things I write. Sometimes it’s because the readers have it elsewhere, other times it’s because the readers are know what Christ did for them. Sometimes it’s simply because the context doesn’t call for it. Why don’t you ask them?
Values = orthodoxy
Practices = orthopraxy
Both = statement of faith.
“We are commited” = We believe
“We embrace” = We believe
“We understand” = We believe
It is disingenous to represent that as something other than a statement of faith about their values and practices. I just do not understand why the cross, the centerpiece of Christianity, is not one of their values and is at least represented in their statement. Man, and I realize that whatever they said would be OK with some but I see a moving away from the cross of redemption.
Paul said if he would stop preaching the cross he wouldn’t be persecuted. We have stopped preaching the cross, many times not even mentioning it.
I believe I commented on this already, but this page doesn’t purport to be preaching. You are right, there are and will always be people who move away fromt he cross. Either in word or in deed or both. (Some look at emergents and see them moving away from the cross in word, I don’t really know enough to agree or disagree, I’m just talking about what I see now. I personally look at many ODM’s and see them moving away from the cross in deed. Their actions towards others do not reflect a life that seeks to become like Christ.) It is deeply disheartening to be aware of people who once held to the faith but forsake it for something else. But those things are not the issue here. They cannot be the issue from this page in and of itself.
“I don’t mention the cross in a lot of things I write.”
Me too, Christian. But if I am going to write a statement of beliefs and practices I may leave out eschatology, I may leave out Arminianism, I may leave out baptism, I may leave out a lot of things. But I would not leave out the cross. The propensity to immediately excuse such concern as “beats me” just exposes a bias toward a movement or its teachers that provides a generous grace that isn’t afforded others who would find a concern.
When the defense/criticism is consistently vociferous in one direction it reveals an inherent bias.
You know Rick, when you look at statements like “[we are] affirming the historic Christian faith” and you call it crossless, it might say more about what you think about the historic Christian faith, than it does about the content of the writing.
Rick, you can say that about me? Really? Cause I didn’t think I’ve written enough to make that judgement. I’m only being generous with emergents because I do not know more. I am unfamiliar with anything greater than what I have seen. And what I have seen holds true to Scripture. The same cannot be said for what some ODM’s have done. Things they have written have been particularly anti-scriptural. I personally will afford them grace in many things, but not in an attitude that is damaging to the Kingdom of God.
Well, they don’t mention photosynthesis in it either, so it probably means they don’t believe in it.
I don’t think they’re trying to avoid the cross at all. The gospel, historic Christianity, the Kingdom of God – they all point to the cross.
Rick, you’re probably, right – we probably are biased. I know I am. I’ve read a lot of the books and listened to a lot of these people, and I’ve not seen or heard them deny the cross. In fact I’ve seen and heard it affirmed over and over again. So, yeah, I’m biased I guess.
My last comment was unfair, and probably wrong, but I think your statement shows an uncharitable attitude towards emergents, one I think you wouldn’t display towards a traditional group of believers who posted soemthing like this online.
Edit:
I apologize to you for it Rick. I forgot that most important bit.
Ha, ironic (because Rick did what he accused me of doing.)
I love irony.
” but I think your statement shows an uncharitable attitude towards emergents, one I think you wouldn’t display towards a traditional group of believers who posted soemthing like this online.”
Have you seen my comment on the Hannah post? Have you read my open letter to Ken a couple of years ago? Have you ever read some of my posts where I strongly take the ODMs to task?
I did not mention any “emergents”, the entire article was about that one statement whose authorship is the Emergent Village. Who wrote it?
Disagreement = uncharitable
Agreement = charity
OK, now I see.
rick,
who thinks the ODM’s are a “traditional group of believers?” I really hope not…
Rick,
As Mandy said, ODMs are not traditional groups of believers. Think more along the lines of if this were an interfellowship group of Methodists meeting to have a conversation rather than an online conversation held at a domain with the word “emergent” in it.
That description varies with the interpreter. My point was I have shown the same disagreeable “uncharitableness” with a wide range of doctrinal positions and methodologies. Is there any room for non-name calling disagreement? How strong before its too much? I haven’t heard anyone object to my description of Mrs. Schlueter.
See, everything is palatable if it remains in a pasture where we don’t graze or even wish to. In reality, everyone professes an open conversation but all have certain parameters which when breached elicit personal attacks. That’s not a real and open conversation, that’s probation based upon an unpleasant or unacceptable viewpoint.
Actually, it’s a monologue using different voices.
Rick,
Then why are you still allowed to openly comment here?
No one’s trying to shut you up, I’m just observing that if a group which you generally thought well of posted a statement in which it affirmed the historic beliefs of the church you’d probably not be criticizing it in the way you have.
“I’m just observing that if a group which you generally thought well of posted a statement in which it affirmed the historic beliefs of the church you’d probably not be criticizing it in the way you have.”
Isn’t that the point? I didn’t say I was being moderated, I’m saying the converstaion veers of course. If I agreed with some statement, I wouldn’t criticise. Yes, I agree with that.
Rick,
You consistantly bring up good points regarding our propensity toward defending those we agree with to a fault. And I’m in agreement.
We are more prone to give those we know and love the benefit of the doubt.
Shalom
And humble and loving and caring and compassionate… but those don’t really matter… as long as you are right…
I see that YOUR orthodoxy does match your orthopraxy… as Jesus stated, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
But if YOUR orthodoxy has not room as proven by YOUR orthopraxy I will consider that YOU are more right than any man alive… or have ever lived… or died and raised again.
But I do believe the bible states “No one is righteous, not one.” so I do wonder if truth is known by your or not? So I wonder if your orthodoxy is that you are always right as you assert, then God is a liar.
“Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.”
And you do that so well Chris P… so well in deed.
iggy
another good thing to read is:
http://emergent-us.typepad.com/emergentus/2005/06/official_respon.html
any critique of the posted statement really actually misses the point.
It’s not meant to be a statement of faith, it’s meant to describe the existence of a relational network of people working in ministry from a wide variety of backgrounds.
nothing more…