Liveblogging the EMMC NatCon – 1

What objection do people have to the emerging church? Seriously, I don’t know what the objection is, and would appreciate if someone could outline it as objectively as possible.

People who make objections as vociferously as this one was made generally haven’t read the source materials and authors they criticize. It’s frustrating.

I mean, I could go into a room with them and probably affirm many of their objections. But objecting to (and labeling it as “From the deepest pit of hell…”) something because someone else told you it was bad seems to me a sort of cultish behavior in itself.

So there are no specifics given, just a list of names and authors that it is assumed we all think are ‘evil’ and we shouldn’t read or engage with.

I hope this kind of talk doesn’t go unchallenged. If there is a real criticism to be made, by all means make it. But do it coherently, thoughtfully, and prayerfully.

John Rempel » It was addressed very well by Pastors Ed Stoez and Bill Wiebe. Plus I’m working on a lengthy post about it. ;-)

I’m looking forward to reading your post about this. I did some reading today and agree with John Rempel – if there is criticism to be made go ahead and do it but respectfully.

I’m curious to see what the previous respondents idea of the emergent church is. I also think that the distinction between ‘emergent’ and ‘missional’ need to be made. I might be making presumptions but from what I have seen lately I think that we need to define some terms.

John Piper (unlike John MacArthur) has a handle on what these terms mean, and shows it in this post:

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/AskPastorJohn/ByTopic/38/2664_What_is_the_emerging_church/

Highlights:
Emergent seems to be a reaction—among younger believers primarily, 20- and 30-somethings—to several things. In my judgment it’s not a very healthy reaction, though I can understand why it might happen. [mk - in addition, Emergent is more or less centered around a specific site/organization - http://www.emergentvillage.com/ ]

Emerging might be used by some people—like Mark Driscoll—to describe a proper reaction that is taking place against some of the negative things going on in the church, but a reaction that doesn’t throw away the doctrines.

So be careful, when you’re talking emerging or emergent, to know which group you’re talking about.

The word “missional” is kind of the “in” word today. And a church that is missional tends to be a church where everything is thought about in terms of making an impact on people around the church who are not Christians. You design everything to think that way. And I think that is a good thing.
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I’m working on a post about this that I will try to get up today.

Piper is not the only one defining the term this way. Scot McKnight does the same (more or less) as do many others. In my experience, having watched, engaged in, and written about the movement, this is the way the terms are understood to be defined.

Defined this way, I think we can all comfortably call ourselves emerging. Yes?

Gin,

I don’t believe that they were trying to be disrespectful. They are passionate about something… they may not fully understand it but they have their convictions and I respect them for raising them.

I consider myself emerging. No issue here.

I’ve said it before; but for me my greatest issue is not the Emergent Church but liberal theology. The unfortunate thing is that many who classify themselves in the Emergent movement are attached to liberal theology. For instance in ‘Everthing Must Change’ Brian McLaren referes to God as Jesus’ angry dad in a sarcastic manner as if to say that what happened on the cross was cosmic child abuse and not penal substitutionary atonement. At promise keepers another emergent fella stated; “I don’t think that on the last day God is going to ask you, ‘Did you believe in the virgin conception?’.

These are the kinds of things that make me sit up in my seat. The best thing through all of this is I get use terms like penal substitutionary atonement and make people say ‘what is he talkin about’ and then they can check it out for themself.

The way I see it is this, times like this cause us to be discerning if nothing else, or at least I hope so.

Hi Michael. I appreciate your thoughts about the initial reaction to the proposed “core values” and the tone of that reaction. First, I agree with your analysis. I had forgotten about Piper’s usage of the terms “emerging” and “emergent”. Those seem to be good working definitions.

Second, most of the men, as I recall, who spoke against the core values in the first session are from the Saskatchewan region. Furthermore, somehow we in Saskatchewan (at least those with whom I had spoken in the days before the convention) wrongly believed that in that Friday morning session, there would be a vote to accept the core values as proposed. This was the reason for the perceived vehemence in our reps’ statements: many of us felt that if those core values were adopted it could force a crisis in the Sask region.

Third, there were/are a number of misconceptions floating around among delegates and attendees from Saskatchewan churches: that the core values bear the hallmarks of EC; that the timing of the “Great Emergence”/Tickle interview in the Recorder was not a coincidence, and a serious misconception about the EC itself. Nearly every layperson I had spoken with prior to the Convention had only read one or two books about EC (at least one being by Oakland).

Fourth, for my part, as an EMMC “outsider”, I have been concerned in recent months. One concern is about the Andrew Reimer essay in two parts published in the Fall issues of the Recorder. Our church’s leadership wrote a responding article and submitted it to the Recorder in March but so far they have chosen to not print it. Another concern was the recommendation of Tickle’s book to the Council at the meeting in Ontario. Another concern was the Recorder article containing a fairly critical response to John Neufeld’s messages at the SBC Leadership Conference. Another concern was the Tickle interview in the Recorder and the note that the EMMC is sponsoring the “Great Emergence” conference. These things that have caused me to be concerned were noticed by many other Saskatchewan members of EMMC churches. These things, taken all together, formed a perception of an EMMC “drift” that set off alarm bells in some of our Saskatchewan churches.

These alarm bells were still ringing in the ears of our delegates when the Convention got underway on Friday morning. In retrospect, the Saskatchewan region’s delegates, for the most part, overreacted somewhat. The tone to our statements was regrettable (though none of it was intended as a personal attack neither was it motivated out of hostility toward fellow EMMC-ers). I’m sure we all came away from our many conversations throughout the weekend, having learned that future dialogue must be characterized by love and respect and that things in the EMMC are not as bad as we feared. Nonetheless, it is important to recognize that in the things that our delegates said, and in the perspective they brought to the table, they were representing and reflecting the views of their churches.