Talking about music is like dancing about architecture… Rotating Header Image

What is an “emergent”?

Sep 24th, 2008
by Michael Krahn.

emerge-bottles-index.pngSomeone just emailed me this question: “What is an emergent?”

This is a sincere question from a friend of mine who is not a church attender who honestly knows nothing about the Emerging Church conversation.  He is quite Biblically literate, philosophically deep, and a great artist and aspiring luthier to boot.

How would you answer his question?




Posted in: Church, Emergent Church, Emerging / Emergent Church, Emerging Church, Friends, Theology.

← →
  • Matt

    You might be a redneack…er… emergent if…

    -Political concerns are poverty, AIDS, imperialism, war-mongering, CEO salaries, consumerism, global warming, racism…
    -If you talk about the myth of redemptive violence and the myth of certainty
    -If you lie awake at night having nightmares about all the ways modernism has ruined your life
    -If you search for truth but aren’t sure it can be found
    -If you loathe words like linear, propositional, rational, machine, and hierarchy and use words like ancient-future, jass, mosaic, matrix, missional, vintage, and dance
    -If you like your theology narrative instead of systematic
    -If you want to be the church and not just go to church
    -If you long for a community that is relational, tribal, and primal like a river or garden
    -If you believe who goes to hell is no one’s business and no one may be there anyway
    -If you believe salvation has a little to do with atoning for guilt and a lot to do with bringing the whole creation back into shalom with it’s maker
    -If it bugs you when people talk about going to heaven instead of heaven coming to us
    -If you disdain monological , didactic preaching
    -If you use the word “story” in all your propositions about postmodernism

    - a partial list from Kevin DeYoung

  • http://michaelkrahn.com/blog/2008/09/21/brian-mclaren-what-is-the-gospel/ Brian McLaren: “What is the Gospel?” – Michael Krahn : The Ascent to Truth

    [...] ***RELATED POST: Have your say: What is an “Emergent”? [...]