1. 06-03-2008 16:50

Reformed Theologian, Emerging Pastor

After reading your article, I have to wonder if you have really any idea what the so-called Emerging Church is really about, or if you are going off on something based more on hearsay than actual experience or dialogue.  
 
For example, are you aware that their is a major difference between "emerging" and "emergent"? That guys like Brain McLaren and Doug Pagitt are cultural relativists and hardly represent the "Emerging Churches"? Are you aware of the vast number of churches that are Theologically Reformed, yet embracing the Emerging Church? 
 
Do you know what is the ultimate question being asked by Emerging Pastors? Do you know where the term "emerging" came from, where the movement had its genesis, who led the split in the early days when some in the movement began to compromise the truth? 
 
Have you read any of Dan Kimball's works? Have you seen the praxis of his church Vintage Faith? How sad that you feel it appropriate to pick him as the guy to target with your misunderstanding of the movement. He is one of the many guys who is a major voice that is actually an evangelical.  
 
I would encourage you to actually look at the movement apart from the men and women who are giving it a bad name and see for your self that we are trying to answer the million dollar question: "What does it mean to be a kingdom people in a post-Christian, postmodern world." 
 
Blessings, 
 
Matt

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2. 10-03-2008 16:45

Conversing with the Devils and Reclaimin

Dear Matt, first of all, thank you for your response. Next, the article was not written to promote, explain, or dissect the emerging or emergent church. I do not know the difference. As the saying goes, I can tell a skunk by its odor without ever seeing it. As to Reformed churches and the emerging church, I say so what. Just because a church calls itself Reformed, does not mean it is so. There are numerous Reformed churches that fall into the heresy of the New Perspective on Paul of N.T. Wright and his cronies, however, that does not make them Reformed. You did not say anything about Michael Patton or anything about the others. If these churches you obviously defend are not heretical , then please explain why they are not. We would be happy for you to enlighten us. Thanks, Biblecontroversy.com.

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3. 10-03-2008 17:56

pastor

I guess someone is there to reply . So, this will be a long post, I hope it is helpful. 
 
I know what you mean about the Reformed tradition. We are on the same team here. I am in the tradition of Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, as well as modern men such as DA Carson, Wayne Grudem, etc. 
 
There are many within the "emerging" movement who have become cultural relativists, really have abandoned the core truths of Christianity . 
 
As to the differences between "emerging" and "emergent" and the skunk analogy, the distiction is more important than you seem to realize and a failure to make that distiction harms the kingdom and the mission of God, especially when people read your posts and draw conclusions from your opinions.  
 
The "Emergent" men and women are the ones you and I would agree are rejecting Christianity. They have formed their own website (www.emergentvillage.org) and are really trying to "re-invent" the faith, bringing everything into question, not just our orthopraxy, but our orthodoxy. However, that is a small number of people within the unbrella of "emerging". 
 
As I stated in my original comments, the real question being asked is "what does it mean to be a Kingdom people, a church, in a post-christian, postmodern world?" The cold hard facts are that in America, the church is hemmoraging members, especially the 18-29 age range. I can tell you that here in the NW (Seattle area), only 6% of this age range attends any kind of weekly church service, and that includes the liberal wacko churches, so the number is really less than that. In a region of 5 million people. This demographic represents the people who will lead our nation into the future, lead our churches and raise our kids. And they are going to be doing it without Jesus even on the radar. We believe that is because Church as it is practiced now as an institution is more irrelevant than it has ever been. So we need to ask what forms need to change without compromising the "Jude 3" core truths. Men and women, followers of Jesus, are trying to figure this out, and answers are "EMERGING" (that is where the term originated). It is not a new way of doing church like Purpose Driven/Seeker-sensitive, it is not to make things cool and edgy so young people will bring their friends. It is simply a growing number of people dissatisfied with what Chrstianity has become and want to get back to the mission Jesus gave us in Matt 28, but realizing at the same time that what worked 5-10 years ago in contextualizing the gospel does not work now, though the message is timeless. 
 
An easy way to understand this movement is to think of it in 4 "streams". You have the "emerging evangelicals" who are your basic evangelicals trying to tweak the forms of our churches to make them more cool and relevant to our culture. They generally are younger churches, or "church within and church" type things. There are maybe a few minor points of theology we would not see eye to eye on, BUT THEY ARE ON THE SAME TEAM!  
 
Then there are the "house church" types who maintain that the real model of the church was small, loose knit communities of christians on mission together and that larger churches miss the point of Kingdom people in community. They generally are very experimental with their praxis, and their forms of church generally look much different than traditional contemporary evangelical churches. While I personally disagree with some of their biblical conclusions on the nature of the primitive church, THEY ARE ON THE SAME TEAM!  
 
Another stream is what I pastor in. That is the "Reformed stream" where we hold in a closed fist the Jude 3 truths of the faith and hold in an open hand everything else as it relates to the missio dei. We focus on multi-generational, multi-ethnic gatherings, hold our forms of praxis as very flexible based on the culture God has called us to (ie ministry would look much different in a retirement community and amongst chain smoking indie rockers), and planting other churches to minister the most effectively to a society which has rejected Christianity. Again, WE ARE ON THE SAME TEAM!!  
 
The final stream is the one mentioned above which has rejected the core truths of Christianity. 
 
So again, I would go back to my original thoughts and say that you really ought to understand a movement before you lump everyone in a movement based on ignorance. Especially since there are people who are reading this who will have their opinions be shaped by what you say and post. 
 
 
Since Christians seem to like to nit-pick each other over lesser things, we in our church planting network (www.a29.org), the Acts 29 Network, have concluded that you are right on in your ministry when you are shot at by both sides of Christianity. The liberal end thinks you are not doing enough to reach the culture, and the conservative end like yourselves have concluded that we are too worldly and apostate. All the while people leave the church, and God's vehicle for delivering the Gospel (the church in all its glory) becomes more and more irrelevant. Sigh. 
 
Matt

Guest

4. 10-03-2008 18:11

pastor

I typed my stats wrong on church attendance in the NW. It is 9-10% for all people here who attend any kind of church during the week, not just the 18-29 year olds. Of that 9-10% number, only 6% of the 18-29 year olds attend church.  
 
Dire straights.

Guest

5. 10-03-2008 21:33

Conversing with the Devils and Reclaimin

Dear Matt, yes there is someone here to answer your remarks. I wanted to go ahead and give a post to let you know I am coming. Your comments are appreciated, and I will give a detailed remark. Let me say at this time, utilitarianism and sola Scriptura are not compatible.

Guest

6. 10-03-2008 23:41

Conversing with the Devils, and Reclaimi

Dear Matt, I do not know if you know anything about Charles Dickens, Jeremy Bentham, and utilitarianism or not. Utilitarianism was a 19th-century philosophy of the greatest good for the greatest number. This philosophy evolved into what is called pragmatism in the 20th century through such people as William James and George Santayana. 
 
Philosophy, literature, and theology parallel and complement each other all through history. In my little scenario, just for supposition, we will let Charles Dickens be the representative of the spiritual/theological (if you will) and Jeremy Bentham be the practical/ecclesiastical representative. Jeremy Bentham was so practical and utilitarian that he proposed people should save and preserve (no pun intended here) the heads of their relatives to be enclosed in glass cases on top of posts in their driveways so that little "Mary" of the next-generation and following generations could see what "Aunt Maude" looked like. Charles Dickens pounded Jeremy Bentham for his utilitarianism. In his novel, Hard Times (pun intended here ecclesiastically), Dickens satirized Jeremy Bentham and his type for "facts, nothing but facts." Sadly though, facts are not necessarily truths. 
 
We are not trying to preserve the old church, the new church, the emerging church or any other church; but the Church of Jesus Christ and the Gospel. Paul told Timothy to preach the Gospel in season and out of season. It does not matter whether anyone comes to church or does a million zillion people. In fact, we cannot preserve any church. The Trinity; of the Father electing the people, the Son redeeming them, and the Spirit sealing them; only can preserve the Church of Jesus Christ. The eternal regeneration of the Son by the Father provides a Redeemer who provided an Atonement for God's elect only can preserve the Church of Jesus Christ. The Father and Son send the Holy Spirit to seal and preserve the church. 
 
Your facts and figures cannot save anyone. Your ecclesiology cannot save anyone. Man has become anthropocentric (man-centered) instead of being theocentric (God-centered). Our world revolves around God, and not ourselves. 
 
We are not here to study new movements, but to preach the Gospel delivered by the Saints. Paul said in Galatians that if anyone, even an angel from heaven, preaches a Gospel other than the one he preached may that person be anathema, be accursed, or in other words, go to Hell. He later in Galatians even stated he wished these people would even castrate themselves. 
 
In your closing paragraph, you were talking about the church becoming irrelevant. This is very erroneous and dangerous. You talk as though God were some kind of impotent being wringing His hands and worrying about someone neglecting or not choosing Him or making Him irrelevant. Redemption has been accomplished and applied. The battle is over. Christ has won the victory, and his church is victorious.

Guest

7. 11-03-2008 00:49

Conversing with the Devils, and Reclaimi

We are more on the same page than you are acting. 
 
Is God still using the Church? Absolutely. Will the church in America totally die out? Probably not. I say probably because I do feel that the church will have a form that is so totally different in the next generation that we today would not even recognize it. 
 
But I still go back to my original premise. If you were a missionary sent to, let's say, Tibet. A good, responsible, sober-minded missionary would tell you that you first need to understand the culture you are going into. You need to know what they value, worship, despise, etc. You need to learn about how they communicate, love, hate, play. You need to know how they structure their community, who has authority, etc. This is all what goes into being a responsible missionary. You would not use the same approach of sharing the Gospel to reach a rural Tibetan village that you would in suburban America. D.A. Carson has stated accurately that "there is no truth that can be communicated in a culture transcending way, but that does not mean that the truth thus articulated does not transcend culture". My sentiments exactly. 
 
That is all we are doing. We believe (as do many nations) that America is a mission field. We need to study the culture in order make sure that the Gospel message is not "Lost in Translation" Therefore, we need to realize that our culture has no clue what Jesus is about. We have three families who have been saved in our church in the last 4 months who are in their mid-20's, lived in urban Seattle, and had never heard anything about Jesus their whole cognizant life unless it was as a cuss word. That alone should give us pause and realize that the world has changed and our methods for communicating the gospel must adapt as well, without changing the core truths. 
 
We also can't forget that this concept of "incarnating" the Gospel was modeled by Jesus. He entered history not as a Republican, not as a European white male, etc. He came as a 1st C Jewish male, working class, and spent the first 30 years of His life living in the culture He came to before embarking on His mission. That is our model. "As the Father has sent me, so now I send you". 
 
While I agree that the "utilitarian" concept can be destructive, (don't have my Bible in front of me) I remeber that Paul was talking about how some were preaching the gospel for selfish gain, yet he rejoiced becuase for selfish reasons or not, the Gospel was moving forward. 
 
Blessings, 
 
matt

Guest

8. 16-03-2008 17:33

Conversing with the Devils, and Reclaimi

Matt, you are a fanatical nut.

Guest

9. 16-03-2008 20:52

Pastor

Sorry you feel that way.  
 
Like I said in one of my other comments, you are right on in the ministry of Jesus when the "conservative" end thinks you are a heretic and the "liberal" end thinks you are not enough of a heretic. I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this whole idea.  
 
Food for thought: who were the ones who had the biggest problem with Jesus' message? It was the religious people, those who had the letter of the law exactly right, knew the scriptures inside and out, etc. It was the common man who turned and followed Him and the religious ones who plotted to kill Him. 
 
I pray that you will be fruitful in laboring for the Gospel, preaching the Gospel, and living the Gospel, since it appears you have it all figured out, you should be seeing many come to our Savior. For that I will rejoice. 
 
This will probably be my last post as I find that we just won't see eye to eye about things. 
 
Blessings, 
 
Matt

Guest

10. 17-03-2008 19:58

Conversing with the Devils, and Reclaimi

Matt, you had better look at the name on the last post. I did not write it. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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