What is the emergent church? what is good about it?
- Thread starter TheLearner
- Start date
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
It's such a vague term that it's hard to say much with certainty. It appears to be anything that does not conform to the traditional denominational church idea. In that case, I'm part of the emergent church. I detest labels. My goal is the real church as revealed in the New Testament, where love and unity rule. We aim for the fellowship to be the body, where each person is valued and each is enabled to express the gifts and calling that God has given him or her. If that's emergent, "guilty as charged" (just kidding).
Denominations are man's idea, not God's. I'll be glad to see denominations scrubbed, but even if they are, the present church structures are still unscriptural. The name might change but the structure does not.
Denominations are man's idea, not God's. I'll be glad to see denominations scrubbed, but even if they are, the present church structures are still unscriptural. The name might change but the structure does not.
One of the biggest Church Body faults are keeping up with governmental standards and labels. Yes, Christ said He created governments to keep His creation in check and Paul tells us we are to obey the Government until it stresses to disobey God. And we are there right now in this very moment as the United States government is assigning new labels to same sex persons, creating rules that emphasize equality, and putting pressure on the Church body to adhere to these new Laws.
A Church Body once was able to deny employment to someone living the [same sex] lifestyle due to difference of beliefs. The new Laws override such idealism and forces the Church Body to hire based upon simply being a human being looking for employment who can infiltrate the Church Body and spread their deceit and demonic viewpoints.
Clearly, the sexual same sex act is an Abomination unto God, but we can no longer preach as such. So we are entering that point of time where do we follow the Holy Spirit's lead in what God wants taught, or do we ignore God and preach a [safe] message to keep out of jail?
The Modern Church has entered a Realm where we've not really been held accountable by government. But we are there now. And only God knows how this will play out.
The real question however is the only one that matters. Are we going to OBEY God or the government?
A Church Body once was able to deny employment to someone living the [same sex] lifestyle due to difference of beliefs. The new Laws override such idealism and forces the Church Body to hire based upon simply being a human being looking for employment who can infiltrate the Church Body and spread their deceit and demonic viewpoints.
Clearly, the sexual same sex act is an Abomination unto God, but we can no longer preach as such. So we are entering that point of time where do we follow the Holy Spirit's lead in what God wants taught, or do we ignore God and preach a [safe] message to keep out of jail?
The Modern Church has entered a Realm where we've not really been held accountable by government. But we are there now. And only God knows how this will play out.
The real question however is the only one that matters. Are we going to OBEY God or the government?
I agree with Gideon, I feel that I am part of the emerging church. I differ from him in that he is following what is revealed in the new testament, and I am following what is revealed in all scripture. I see it as written by an eternal God, with each item that God reveals about himself and his policies eternal, never changing This is a challenge because in the old testament God revealed himself by using symbols and when Christ came those symbols given in stone andwe literal rites to explain the spiritual were given through the holy spirit into our hearts. We are under the new covenant, now.
If we read every word of the old testament as truth, we must understand the symbols and be able to see Christ throughout. It requires seeing the sacrifice of blood as symbolic of the sacrifice of Christ's blood, of the wars as showing how God hates sin, of the stoning as showing what is important in our walk with the Lord. It is impossible to read without the holy spirit helping us understand God, but if we want to know the God who created us, and know what Christ fulfilled, I think we need to know all of scripture as from the eternal God.
There have been three important times when God changed the wrold and did a mighty work in our world to bring scripture to us. The first was when God had Constantine accept Christianity and stop the persecutions of Christians. The second was around 1500 when the printing press was established, Luther took power away from the Catholics, and a translation of scripture was made available to Christians. The third is around 1945 when Hitler was finally stopped, Jews began returning to the holy land, and the world understood Jews were not people to be shunned. This brought on an acceptance of the old testament as scripture from the Lord and a foundation of the new testament.
In 1500 there was a terrible outcry against the new idea of God that Luther started, and there is a terrible outcry against the acceptance of the old testament. Some took the new ideas to extreme in both cases. But God is there in all movements, and where God is there is good that comes and the good is never with the extremes but in the balance.
This is really something to think about. We will be tested. It isn't only obeying the government when the government asks us to disobey the Lord, but the question of what is more important to us----our eternal life or our life on earth.
S
SophieT
Guest
nothing. nothing is good about it. there have been some long and hot debates about it here...but not for quite a while
it seems clear from some of the comments above, that some people do not actually know what the emerging or emergent church actually is
The emerging, or emergent, church movement takes its name from the idea that as culture changes, a new church should emerge in response. In this case, it is a response by various church leaders to the current era of post-modernism. Although post-modernism began in the 1950s, the church didn’t really seek to conform to its tenets until the 1990s. Post-modernism can be thought of as a dissolution of "cold, hard fact" in favor of "warm, fuzzy subjectivity." The emerging / emergent church movement can be thought of the same way.
The emerging / emergent church movement falls into line with basic post-modernist thinking—it is about experience over reason, subjectivity over objectivity, spirituality over religion, images over words, outward over inward, feelings over truth. These are reactions to modernism and are thought to be necessary in order to actively engage contemporary culture. This movement is still fairly new, though, so there is not yet a standard method of "doing" church amongst the groups choosing to take a post-modern mindset. In fact, the emerging church rejects any standard methodology for doing anything. Therefore, there is a huge range of how far groups take a post-modernist approach to Christianity. Some groups go only a little way in order to impact their community for Christ, and remain biblically sound. Most groups, however, embrace post-modernist thinking, which eventually leads to a very liberal, loose translation of the Bible. This, in turn, lends to liberal doctrine and theology
For example, because experience is valued more highly than reason, truth becomes relative. Relativism opens up all kinds of problems, as it destroys the standard that the Bible contains absolute truth, negating the belief that biblical truth can be absolute. If the Bible is not our source for absolute truth, and personal experience is allowed to define and interpret what truth actually is, a saving faith in Jesus Christ is rendered meaningless.
Another area where the emerging / emergent church movement has become anti-biblical is its focus on ecumenism. Unity among people coming from different religious backgrounds and diversity in the expression of corporate worship are strong focuses of the emergent church movement. Being ecumenical means that compromise is taking place, and this results in a watering down of Scripture in favor of not offending an apostate. This is in direct opposition to passages such as Revelation 2:14-17, Jesus’ letter to the church of Pergamum, in which the Church is warned against tolerating those who teach false doctrine.
source and more to read in that article
in summation: throw out your Bible and feel your way through theology...in fact, change it to suit yourselves
there was a popular book written by someone named Rob Bell (2011 publishing) called 'Love Wins', in which he states that everyone will be saved...also known as universalism.....when the Bible states plainly that is not so. But Rob, has decided that God is too loving and kind to hurt anyone so everyone 'goes to heaven'
Only good thing about it is that people might stumble upon a bible in those churches and find their way out of those dens of iniquity and worldliness.
That is what the Pharisees said about Christ when Christ came. We are to test everything with the holy spirit and with scripture.
S
SophieT
Guest
That is true! Some of these "seeker friendly" churches readily admit they are not necessarily for saved Christians. Let us hope and pray that those who seek the truth find it in the Person of Jesus Christ.
I wouldn't call this "emergent" necessarily. It might be, but to me the clearest indication of an emerging church is their approach to Bible interpretation. Typically emerging churches don't have expository teaching or preaching. They don't set out to learn the meaning of the text the writer intended to convey. The scriptures to them don't have any inherent meaning and the purpose for their meetings is to discuss what the scriptures mean to each person.
I do applaud what you posted at least about the true mission of the church.
It seems to me that if there is something new emerging, it must be based on new facts discovered. It can not be something new that emerges from facts that are known. The new facts that have been discovered is found in the dead sea scrolls. They have turned up the oldest scripture yet discovered, closest to the original. The very fact that our scripture today has not changed much from the original is a "new" fact that has given man the idea that our scripture is truly God's word. This in a world that has laughed at God giving the over 600 commands to be taken literally. Under the new covenant, we are to see what is given in our hearts, or what the spiritual meaning is of those commands. This is new.I wouldn't call this "emergent" necessarily. It might be, but to me the clearest indication of an emerging church is their approach to Bible interpretation. Typically emerging churches don't have expository teaching or preaching. They don't set out to learn the meaning of the text the writer intended to convey. The scriptures to them don't have any inherent meaning and the purpose for their meetings is to discuss what the scriptures mean to each person.
I do applaud what you posted at least about the true mission of the church.
Anything new that comes must be based on facts, and those facts are in understanding the old as from God.
Whenever a "new" belief system emerges onto the church scene, it needs to be fully scrutinized like the Bereans checked Paul's teaching.
Here, one only needs to investigate the well-known leaders of this movement to see the truth, because if its leaders are heretical, the movement is also. The top leaders of this movement definitely are.
The reason I say this is because the movement itself is hard to explain, so it's easier to check out its leaders instead.
If the tree is bad, so is the fruit on it. Bad fruits are like birds of a feather; they flock together with other bad fruits..
For the past 1900 years men and women, Believers and non Believers, have literally combed every passage known to the Canon and associated with the Canon. We've had multiple idealism's pertaining to every meaning and revelation. It is true, that once in awhile something like a word or two or maybe even a phrase can change in meaning, because those using the Septuagint are not aware that Greek sometimes did not have [exact] words for the Hebrew Letters/Characters when translating from the Hebrew Tanakh [why I use the Tanakh]. And it has caused some misinformation to be falsely preached/taught. But those are rarer these days.
But I am curious to know what your meaning is here to what I've quoted from your post?
What is possible that could be new that we today are understanding that even 1.500 years ago they missed?
I mean, from my own perspective and viewpoint, I have seen Paul's Letters being misused as a license to sin, but that's been an issue for the past 300 years. I've seen interpretations falsely claiming we are smaller (g)ods because we have the One True God living within us. I've seen people using gimmicks like crystals to claim prisms have something to do with God. And even today, we have Major Denominations [allowing] same sex Preachers/Teachers/Leaders within the Body of Christ. We have Universalism teaching the God is going to allow everyone, know matter if you DENY or ACCEPT God will be awarded Heaven after they die. We've even had Preachers claim that God put a RANSOM on them if a certain amount of cash flow was not reached. We have Seeker Friendly Churches that avoid the Condemnation of the Holy Spirit and allow their Congregation to be full blown sinners. We have Churches preaching Yeshua and Satan were Brothers. We have Churches preaching the Ark Angel Michael is the Messiah and true Savior of God. We have Churches that are clearly demonic oppressed full of the Kundalini spirit. We've basically seen it all. And that does not include the Abomination called the Catholic Church.
So please enlighten me here, what is possible that from the Apostles, to the Church Fathers, to Modern Day Believers, what have we missed that is NEW and Emerging?
I guess if there's anything good about it, it would be that it challenges us to be more humble. As Gideon300 noted, many of the ways we've become accustomed to doing things are man-made and we must humble ourselves and reconsider doing things God's way. But we mustn't throw out the baby with the bath water.