Okay, I give up! I had high hopes for the emerging church, but just feel as if things have gone askew. It’s almost like there are various cliques within the movement and people are taking sides. In the end, not only does the emerging church choose to separate itself from the more-traditional (mostly it’s an issue with denominational churches) church, but now it is so split up in its various forms of worship and theology that I can’t see any way possible for anything to come to the forefront. If it were something as simple as Brian McLaren and Dan Kimball portraying their individual ideas of what the emergent church should be, and one of them survives then it may have some legs. It would be kind of like the HD-DVD vs BluRay or the Beta vs VHS debate. However, with hundreds of ideas and probably thousands of theological positions and worship styles, I just can’t see how anything can take root and grow. If something is done and division is the result, does it really honor God?
I admit that there are things that have arisen in the emerging church conversation that I truly embrace with a passion. However, I don’t do these as a response to something done by someone else that is negative. I do them because they are reminiscent of things that the early first century may have done. I believe God will use many churches to draw his people together, but at the same time I feel like there are certain Biblical truths that must accompany this. To be a leader in the church and believe truth is relative really seems wrong to me. John 14:6 clearly shows Jesus stating, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” If we can’t stand on this principle in the church, then what’s the point considering ourselves to be Christians?
Maybe the emerging church will metamorphose into something beautiful that will bring glory to God and see many come to know the truth of God & the atonement of Christ’s sacrifice for all. However, I just don’t know if through all the dust anyone can see clearly enough to forge ahead. It just seems like the whole conversation has resulted in a bunch of micro-movements destined to be forgotten in the confusion and bickering as people jockey for elite status as the leaders of the movement.
Here’s a video I saw about how PBS portrayed the emerging church last year. It left me scratching my head and wondering how much longer this will even be a topic of discussion:
www.youtube.com/v/IzZ14Sk9u9Y&hl=en
Related posts:
- First Century Church: is it relevant?
- Asian church vs. multi-cultural church, part 1
- Asian-American church vs multi-cultural church, part 2
- What the church and Starbucks should have in common
- what if 57% of people in your church didn’t believe in the Bible?
Tags: emergent emerging church
