Ed Stetzer has written a brief article on the emerging church that is worth reading. In it, he distinguishes between three types of emergents: the relevants, the reconstructionists, and the revisionists. In dealing with the emergent church, I think it necessary to be careful not to paint with too broad of a brush. Key distinctions exist in the movement as it emerges (no pun intended). The further we go down this road, the more we will see these distinctions clearly made.
As I have read and studied some on the emerging church, his distinctions are borne out. The lines, as in most cases, may not be hard and fast. The categories may not be completely separated, but just as fundamentalists break down into several categories, so emergents do also.
Just as we fundamentalists don't like to painted with too broad of a brush, let's be careful not to paint others with that broad brush.
I think the revisionists are clearly the most dangerous. They are eviscerating doctrine in some cases, rewriting it or recharacterizing it in others. In some cases, not only should we be concerned about their orthodoxy. We should be concerned about their salvation. Can someone truly be saved and deny or question some of the things they deny and question? It would seem improbable, at beslt.
The reconstructionists seem interested in a recharacterization of the doctrine of ecclesiology. Many of them are going the way of house churches, a decentralized church structure, which is not exactly heretical, but I would question the need for it. (Of course, if fifteen fundamental churches in a city are running less then thirty people each as separate churches, we applaud them for the missionary vision. If those same fifteen churches were all "one church," meeting as house churches, wouldn't some question their ecclesiology?) But I digress.
The relevants are people with new and innovative ways to do old things. They simply want to be relevant to the culture. That is not a bad thing. In fact, it is a good thing. (More on that later.) In many of them, the message is orthodox. It is the methods that are changing. They seem driven by mission, and their use of different "language" (in terms of cultural forms) is intentional. Perhaps they are using forms that are unwise or inappropriate, but that is another discussion.
Much could be said about the emerging church, and much should be said, but I won't do it here. I would recommend Stetzer's article as a worthy read.
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2 comments:
That was a good article by Stetzer. Some of the leading emergent/emerging pastors need to come out in print with such distinctions. Until then, perhaps they deserve a broad-brush, especially if they do not denouce the more radical McLaren types who seem to be leading the movement due to the volume and controversial nature of their writings.
There is a new book coming out called Confessions of a Reformission Rev, by Driscoll, where my understanding is that he will try to make some of these distinctions. He also has a book coming out on teh Atonement where he goes after the emergent view of the atonement that denies substitutionary atonement (again, my understanding though I have not seen the books).
There is another book that is a sort of five views book that should be interesting in this regard. But I agree ... This distinction needs to be hammered on.
Steve McCoy talks about these books here: http://www.stevekmccoy.com/reformissionary/2005/12/confessions_of_.html
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