Lighthouse Trails Research (Link) (May 30, 2009)
It was Shakespeare who said a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. In the case of the "new spirituality" that has pervaded so much of Christianity, emergent church by any other name is just as harmful. While some are saying they are not "emergent" but are emerging, the overall beliefs (and mission) of each--emergent and emerging--are the same.
A perfect example of this can be found in Mike Erre's book, Death by Church: Rescuing Jesus from His followers; Recapturing God's Hope for His people. Erre is the teaching pastor (and "lead theological architect"1) at RockHarbor Church in California and was the featured speaker at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa (Calvary Chapel's mother church) on Friday May 29th for a large youth rally called Movement 2009.
RockHarbor Church says it is not an "emergent church" but rather is an emerging church. What exactly does it mean when a church says it is emerging but not emergent? From their point of view, they mean that they are not like some of the hard--core emergent leaders such as Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, and Tony Jones. These men were part of the original late nineties group (birthed through Bob Buford's Leadership Network) who went by the name of "Emergent." Today, McLaren has renounced the biblical view of atonement, calling the doctrine of hell and the cross "false advertising for God." Jones and Pagitt have also clearly crossed the line from biblical to New Age type teachings. Thus, when a church, such as RockHarbor Church, says they are not emergent, they mean they do not agree with some of the more extreme views such as McLaren's view on salvation. But these churches will often readily say, "We are an emerging church." They say that means they are merely being relevant to the culture so they can reach the post-modern generation.
On the outside, it can sometimes appear that these "emerging churches" are just as orthodox as any other Bible-believing church. Online doctrinal statements and many sermons will sound no different from a Bible-based church. But more often than not when the outer layers are peeled back from these "emerging churches," a mystical-based, kingdom-now, panentheistic view of "God" is revealed. And this, dear friend, is no different from the view of "God" that the Emergent leaders (McLaren, Jones, Pagitt, etc) hold to as well. And this is why we say emergent and emerging are in fact kindred spirits--and they are going in the same direction, even if at times, it appears they are on different paths.
Recent Comments