Emerging Church Stuff

Worthy: Converging Church - Mike looks at the various streams
Fishing the Abyss on the difference between 'traditional' and 'emerging'
Guidelines for Criticizing the Emerging Church by Michael Spencer
Latest 'Heretic': Bob Hyatt, newest editor for Next-Wave which is possibly the greatest emerging church online publication ever.
[fyi - Bob is NOT a heretic]
Recent Critics: John Mark Reynolds and Darrell Bock
Blast from the Past: Emergent Criticism from 2004

Technorati Tags: emergent, emerging church

Comments

[bob hyatt]

Hey! Thanks Andrew... I appreciate the vote of confidence!
Got anything I can publish for November???
:)

[andrew (tallskinnykiwi)]

yes - an article entitled . . .

"The erroneous teachings of Bob Hyatt and why we should COME YE OUT of Next Wave and BE SEPARATE!"

I will send the first draft when i stop weeping long enough to finish it.

[Charlie Wear]

Hey Andrew,
I will cherish your compliment about Next-Wave for a long time...:)

[iMonk]

Thanks Dawg. Heretics Rule.

[Philip]

Hi Andrew.
I read the blast from the blast in regards to 'criticism' of the emergent church. A few of the writers lumped in the growing house church movement (for want of a better name, I call it organic) with 'Emergent Church'. I am interested to know what you think in regards to them being the same thing? For me being basically involved in full time networking within the organic / house church movement, this emergent stuff is quite alien in regards to different questions being asked, expression, theology, language, even dare I say it types of people. Interested if you could point me to any conversations happening about this sort of thing.

[Brandon Cox]

After having researched the "emerging church," I've come to one conclusion. No matter how a Christian may attempt to be discerning and offer criticism of some very popular ideas among EC leaders, they will always be met with the response that EC is "not a movement..." We are commanded to be discerning, to rightly divide the truth, and to expose error when we find it. It is undeniable that there is a "movement." There are conferences, books, and blogs to promote EC ideas, but when criticized, it's every man for himself.

Just as in the case of the swelling tide of hyper-Calvinists, when a point is argued, leaders will say something like, "Well, you're arguing with the wrong people... EC is not a 'movement' after all..."

The fact remains, gross error is spreading like the measles among "emerging churches" and in their "conversation" with the secular world about a "developing theology" or "re-thinking the church" they open themselves up to a deviation from orthodoxy (truth).

I'm sure I will be mischaracterized as mischaracterizing the emerging church movement (which, of course, is not a movement), but it must be okay for Christian leaders to be discerning and to stand as shepherds, guarding their flocks from error. Isn't this one of the stated purposes for leaders in Acts 20?