[From Intro and 1.0]
Jason Clark has some good thoughts regarding the criticisms of Dr John Hammett.
Assessment of the Emerging Church : John Hammett I brings into question the primary source material - a book by Dr. D.A. Carson
Assessment of the Emerging Church : John Hammett II is pleasant to read and informative.
Also, Kevin Cawley was at the conference and called Hammett's lecture a "noble response to Emergent's (capital E) "Response to Our Critics".
Kevin is referring to a document published by Emergent Village earlier this year, a document that I was asked to put my name on and did so happily - Although I am not officially connected with Emergent anymore, and do not serve on any of their boards, I have been supportive of their efforts since the late nineties when they were Leadership Network's Young Leaders Group. Emergent (Village) is a missional, ecumenical group of leaders making a way forward for the American church. Since they are drawn from many backgrounds, I will not agree with all of them at every theological turn but we find ourselves missiologically on the same page. They are one of the very many emerging church organizations and networks in USA. BUT . . they are not THE emerging church in USA.
I am currently involved in countless networks and movements in about 30 countries that are reaching out to and starting churches among the emerging culture. Some of these groups use the word "Emerging Church" to describe themselves . . and some do not because of recent controversies and misunderstandings.
So . . . I will do what the one of the Australian emerging-missional church networks did with Carson's critique - declare that it is "irrelevant" for their own camp, and yet gracefully and diligently see if there is something that can still be gained from the critique.
And I think there is.
Coming up next in 3.0
[Update: The original title for this series was "Emerging Church Hammering". Out of respect for John, because it did not fairly reflect his intentions towards the emerging church, I have edited the titles]
