Emergent

The Emergent Church, is a diverse and controversial spiritual movement of the twentieth century. Some people consider it blasphemous nonsense whole others think that it’s the church of the future.  Which is it? 

Some notable proponents of the Emergent Church as listed on Wikipedia under this heading are: Spencer Burke, Brian McLauren, Doug Pagitt, Leonard Sweet, Dallas Willard, and Karen Ward, all of whom regularly find their names in magazines like Christianity Today and being talked about on Christian talkshows and webspaces.  There are other "big" names as well; these re but a few.  According to Wikipedia, The Emergent Church began in what was known as the Willow Creek “Natural Church Development” movement, a movement that “seeks to deconstruct and reconstruct Christianity.” Generally speaking, the emergent model of "spirituality" is a lot like NEw Age thought, in that it is void of a mutually agreed-on set of beliefs. They refrain from doctrine, and seek merely to gather people together to talk about God and Jesus.

Many members of the new movement just plainly reject long held biblical doctrines pertaining to salvation and the reality of hell. There is a real move away from professing that Christianity is true and that God’s word is authoritative.  Brian McLauren, one of the more outspoken voices in the movement, said in a 2005 Baptist Press article, “Those of us in the west now ... realize that there were a lot of bad consequences of European and American people trying to tell everybody else how things are.” While being coy about definitive doctrines and biblical beliefs, these people want to remain religious, and of course “spiritually minded,” but they are not into converting people.  Placing no emphais on conversion, they do place importance on discipleship.They want people to think like they do.  It is as if they want people to follow them, but not Christ.

For example, McLauren, in his book, A Generous Orthodoxy, Why I am a Missional Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished CHRISTIAN (2004) says, “I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts. This will be hard, you say, I agree. But frankly, it’s not at all easy to be a follower of Jesus in many “Christian” religious contexts either” (p.260). 

Like visiting some strange foreign continent from the comfort of your living room via video, the emergent disciple never has to leave his or her false religious system and enter into the Kingdom of God theough the only door there is, the one he has established, JEsus.  They can do world missions, participate in great works of humanitarian aid and even make proselytes (a.k.a. disciples) who believe and say whatever they want to believe and say about Jesus Christ and the Bible, not to mention life, the universe and everything, and remain Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem and Jewish. Remaining where they are most comfortable, these people never have to don the proper equipment and this being the case, they may never have an encounter with the very thing that washes them white as snow or dresses them for entry into the real city of joy.

People wear their own preferred religion, their own religious ideas and sometimes they even like it, but a Christian is to put on Christ.  A Christian is to share God's thoughts, have the mind of Christ, to be conformed to his image and design and to believe upon the One He sent to seek and save the lost.  Religion, like a fig leaf, at least covers us with something, and proves perhaps that we know we have a spiritual need, something to show we are interested in covering our sin, but false religion is not the right attire for God's kingdom. 

God made a way to cover our sin, Christ.  With that in mind, to remain in one’s man created, works oriented religion, and think you are a disciple of Jesus who is "truth" and "life" is also false.  Keeping the old attire is appealing to the earthly part of us, and quite convenient when you think you want to have the best of both worlds.  Christianity however is not just another religious leaf to add to one's collection, it's a white robe of God's righteousness, and nothing of your own.

People must be converted.
(2 Corinthians 5:17; .(Matt 13:15; Matt 18:3; Mar 4:12 ;)