- A recently released book that is an evangelical assessment of the emerging church - seems like essays from several Baptists and some other evangelical scholars like Darrell Bock.
- Dan Kimball commented about that book on his blog today and a little of his involvement with the emerging church movement. he points out that he doesn't really use the term anymore and what he had hoped would be that it would focus on evangelism.
- I've looked though this book and I think it helps express the range of those who have been called emerging. There is some healthy debate within this book. There is a wide range I believe.
Post some interesting links that you come across.
Dan Kimball may not want to use "emerging church" anymore, but I don't want to use evangelical any more. While I appreciate the Lausanne Movement http://www.lausanne.org/, I feel at times that by defining the minimum set we lose important things.
ReplyDeleteCase in point for the American flavor of evangelicalism are the Anabaptists who I have great empathy and respect for historically. The evangelical integration into politics drags/drug the lay anabaptists with them. This is a group that was historically adverse to government, I would posit that they then AMPLIFIED their peace theology into areas that mennos/hubmaier/etal would be embarassed to see to continue their distinctiveness for that reason.
Right now as Christians are beginning a conversation on political engagement again, I would say that the anabaptists have little moral authority having been drug into it, and given things like "non-violent atonement" are now viewed as close to heretical (and rightly so).
This is a HUGE LOSS to christiandom.
I've noticed people like Tony Jones and those with similar propensities who have an interest in keeping the name going keep using the term. emerging/emergent. Andrew Jones (AUS) has a great post why it's not viable anymore to use the term, esp in publishing. It's trended, and become quite meaningless. It seems the people really at the heart of bringing the gospel of peace/God's love aren't focused on terms (and theory, etc) but on actions, and meeting needs. Therefore, the terms fall away, or they start to find them useless.
ReplyDeleteI have a question about the term post-evangelical? What you any of you think about that word phrase?
Lisa, I think you're right. emerging/emergent is more of a lightning rod than anything else.
ReplyDeleteI have little interest in post-evangelical. I reject Evangelical in the 'political' sense that it has become known as.
However, I'm proud to be an evangelical in the historical sense laid out by people like Noll and Bebbington: bibical authority, the necessity of conversion/regeneration, and the importance of evangelism.