Years ago, when the whole emerging/emergent thing was in its infancy, I was quite intrigued with what these guys were saying, as they echoed some of the same issues I was having with the evangelical church. As I’ve written here (and elsewhere), I’ve stopped being a fan. In fact, I consider many of the big voices of “emergency” to be simply heretics, being so “generous” in their “orthodoxy” that they have simply abandoned orthodoxy altogether.
Joel at The Christian Watershed has posted An Open Letter to the Emergent Movement in which he lists seven of his grievances with that movement. He writes
…to be quite frank, I no longer see the difference between the fundamentalism I came to loath and the Emergent movement I see before my eyes. I appreciate the call to justice, I appreciate pointing out the flaws of conservative Christianity, which has become and is becoming a dead orthodoxy, but my concerns with you far outweigh the positive aspects I see.
His list isn’t close to being a new “95 Theses,” but he makes some good points. To me, it seems they’ve just stopped believing in sin and in Jesus being the only way, truth and life. They have a gospel which is no Gospel at all; while they’ve left fundamentalist legalism behind (as Jeff points out), they’ve gone so far the other was as to leave the central points of Christianity.
But perhaps I’m just old-fashioned: I still like to say the Nicene Creed every Sunday.
Here’s a copy of a dialog that continued on my facebook page from this post:
My response:
“Deeds, not creeds!”
Horse manure.
Bull pucky.
Hogwash.
I’ll take one Nicene Creed over a thousand emergents.