Emergent Revisited

My oh my, where do I begin? What an amazing blessing this conference has been! This post could very well be 20 pages in length if I were to adequately respond to all that has gone on here in the last 48 hours. As expected, my opinion has altered slightly since my last post, although "nuanced" is perhaps a better word. I was corrected in my critique of cohorts, and am planning on attending one soon. There was so much great dialogue on both sides of the debate, so much that I want to address, but I'll restrain myself from "being in the judge's seat" as TallSkinnyKiwi put it. I accept that criticism from him knowing how my brothers and sisters can be at WTS, but as Mark Traphagen noted, there are many of us here who are simpathetic to much of the EM and I for one am excited to see how the evangelical church can assume what I consider to be invaluable assets of this movement. For me this would, of course, attempt to maintain the Reformed theology while incorporating the missiology and cultural sensitivity so prevalent in the EM (I don't consider this to be an impossible task!)

One issue that my friend and fellow student Keely raised concerning all this is one I found to be of great importance. It seems that all the current leaders of the EM are all very theologically educated in various backgrounds (again, I can't say this is universally true, but it is for all the leaders I've encountered so far). TallSkinnyKiwi even notes his appreciation of being able to step back and look objectively upon his Reformed history. This, brothers and sisters, is an invaluable gift. We must all look upon our past traditions with scrutiny and constantly measure that against the unchanging truths of Scripture. But what about the people who come to Christ under the EM? What objectivity do they have? I'm afraid the next generation of EM will find itself ignorant of the rich heritage of the variuos historical traditions and simply avoidant of anything dogmatic. To put it metaphorically, I see them being raised on whipped cream by men and women who were fed with beef but didn't like the plate on which it was served. Is this a fair observation? I'd love to hear some thoughts from the EM folk on this.

All that said, I simultaneously feel a great bond in Christ by mere virtue of the Missio Dei, what God is doing globally through the EM as well as the traditional church. I thank God for all the diversity of His Church and the fact the we are all brothers and sisters in Christ with actively passionate hearts for serving Him. My hope is that here iron shall sharpen iron and we will seek to draw upon the rich assets of our respective approaches to missiology, ecclesiology and what it means to be in the world but not of the world. My goodness, what better theme to discuss on a site dedicated to the life of the sojourner! May God bless us all in our sincere endeavors to make it all about Him and not about us.

A Sojourner