What's "the emerging church?" The opensource theology blog defines it as "The church as it takes shape in a post-modern, post-Christendom, post-colonial, and post-evangelical environment".
A recent posting there, "What some pastors and theologians don't like about the emerging church ", lists 13 types of complaints of these pastors and theologians. The gist of the complaints seem to imply that they are what many would refer to as fundamentalists or very conservative Christians. What's the view from the rest of Christendom?
Some related links:
2 comments:
My main problem with the emerging church movement is its loose epistemology. God is who you want to shape him to be.
Rodney Sadler, Jr. has an interesting comment on "Re-envisioning Christ: The image of the invisible God". Everybody has an image of what Jesus looked like in their own minds, right? Just like us. right?
Well, not unless you are a middle eastern Jew.
What would have happened, Sadler wonders, if the images of Christ in Nazi Germany were realistically depicted? Would it have been as easy to persecute Jews? If 19th century American churches showed a Jesus with darkened skin, would that have affected how church folks treated African Americans?
Dan Clendindon at The Journey With Jesus, says our society has a lot of misguided but powerful metaphors for God.
We all tend to make God in our image, but that doesn't mean it's right. Various parts of Christianity have firm notions about what God's Word means. It means, of course, what they say it means. And if you don't agree, you're at best misguided and at worst obviously not a true Christian. That, too, is making God in our image. Humility is in order but sometimes in short supply in fellow Christians.
Anne Lamotte said, "You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."
We may be "children of God," but we should all try hard not to make God in our image. That caution applies to all of Christendom throughout all time since the resurrection.
A new face of Jesus
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