My concerns with Emergent.

Over the past few years I have made an effort to understand some of the trends in modern Christianity. Not too long ago I had a mindset that if something had the label of "Christian" then it was good to go. I am not sure when it happen, but at some point a within the past few years I started to learn more about these trends and what they are all about. First, there was church growth, which has been around for quite a while with Robert Schueller and of course, Bill Hybels and Rick Warren, who took Schuellers concepts and have marketed and packaged them for any church to utilize. Then I learned of Word of Faith, blab it, grab it, I knew a lot of the teachers in this movement from TV and while I didn't care for them too much, I couldn't put my finger on why I didn't like it. It was sometime last year that I had a conversation with someone about it and I decided to look into it for myself. Finally, there is the emergent, as I mentioned in a previous post, I really like their sense of community and the personal love for other brethren. Now, here is where I lay out my concerns. Let me preface this first by stating that I understand that there are two sides here a liberal and conservative side I do not confuse the two. I also want to state that I am not bashing anyone personally, I do not know their hearts therefore I will not judge them in that sense. I will put up for debate some of the comments and actions that I witness.

Being the culture to reach a post modern culture. Meaning, swearing, drinking and accepting the postmodern concept of not knowing truth. I mentioned this before but, I think the Bible is clear that we are set apart; we are not of this world. Does that mean we need to be weirdo’s? No, I just think we need to be careful not to show too much conformity. I have heard the whole missional talk about speaking their language and how missionaries do it. Jesus hung out with sinners, right? Yes, however are any of us Jesus? Are we sinless or are we sinners that can be influenced by other sinners. We should be trusting that God and his scripture will change culture and not that Culture changes God's Message.

Experience Focus, we all need to experience God, right? Well, I have to ask, should our faith in Christ be on experience or should it be more on the truth of scripture? In a future post I am going to discuss some of the ways that Christians are experiencing God. Contemplative Prayer, Yoga, Labyrinths, Prayer Stations are all new ways that Christians are trying to experience God. For those who don't know a lot about this stuff Google it and research for yourself.

Minimizing the importance of scripture. The Post modern world that we live in says no one has absolute truth. As a result, the EC has taken this and says that everyone interprets scripture in their own way. We try to find what scripture means to anyone that is reading it and because we all have different backgrounds and experiences in life then the same scripture can be interpreted hundreds of different ways. Therefore, no one person can speak authoritatively on scripture. Instead of asking what does this scripture mean to you, maybe we should say what does God mean by this scripture? The fruit of this is the throwing out the baby with the bathwater; everything seems to be up for debate. We have people claiming to be evangelical, yet disagree with all the cardinal doctrines that the evangelical movement has stood by for several years.

Let's carefully examine what we read and what others recommend. I used to think that if I trust a person then I could trust anyone that they trusted. Try to examine both sides of a movement before accepting it.

Please share opposing views.