You are not logged in.
The Emerging/Emergent Church <BR> <BR><a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/february/11.35.html?start=5" target=_top>http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/february/ 11.35.html?start=5</a> <BR> <BR>Excerpts about this phenomena: <BR> <BR><blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1><b>quote:</b></font><p>Post-systematic theology: The emerging movement tends to be suspicious of systematic theology. Why? Not because we don't read systematics, but because the diversity of theologies alarms us, no genuine consensus has been achieved, God didn't reveal a systematic theology but a storied narrative, and no language is capable of capturing the Absolute Truth who alone is God. Frankly, the emerging movement loves ideas and theology. It just doesn't have an airtight system or statement of faith. We believe the Great Tradition offers various ways for telling the truth about God's redemption in Christ, but we don't believe any one theology gets it absolutely right. <BR> <BR>Hence, a trademark feature of the emerging movement is that we believe all theology will remain a conversation about the Truth who is God in Christ through the Spirit, and about God's story of redemption at work in the church. No systematic theology can be final. In this sense, the emerging movement is radically Reformed. It turns its chastened epistemology against itself, saying, "This is what I believe, but I could be wrong. What do you think? Let's talk." <BR> <BR>... <BR> <BR>In versus out: An admittedly controversial element of post-evangelicalism is that many in the emerging movement are skeptical about the "in versus out" mentality of much of evangelicalism. Even if one is an exclusivist (believing that there is a dividing line between Christians and non-Christians), the issue of who is in and who is out pains the emerging generation. <BR> <BR>Some emerging Christians point to the words of Jesus: "Whoever is not against us is for us" (Mark 9:40). Others, borrowing the words of the old hymn, point to a "wideness in God's mercy." Still others take postmodernity's crushing of metanarratives and extend that to master theological narratives—like Christianity. They say what really matters is orthopraxy and that it doesn't matter which religion one belongs to, as long as one loves God and one's neighbor as one's self. Some even accept Spencer Burke's unbiblical contention in A Heretic's Guide to Eternity (Jossey-Bass, 2006) that all are born "in" and only some "opt out." <BR> <BR>This emerging ambivalence about who is in and who is out creates a serious problem for evangelism. The emerging movement is not known for it, but I wish it were. Unless you proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ, there is no good news at all—and if there is no Good News, then there is no Christianity, emerging or evangelical. <BR> <BR>... <BR> <BR>So I offer here a warning to the emerging movement: Any movement that is not evangelistic is failing the Lord. We may be humble about what we believe, and we may be careful to make the gospel and its commitments clear, but we must always keep the proper goal in mind: summoning everyone to follow Jesus Christ and to discover the redemptive work of God in Christ through the Spirit of God. <BR> <BR>... <BR> <BR>Political <BR> <BR>A final stream flowing into the emerging lake is politics. Tony Jones is regularly told that the emerging movement is a latte-drinking, backpack-lugging, Birkenstock-wearing group of 21st-century, left-wing, hippie wannabes. Put directly, they are Democrats. And that spells "post" for conservative-evangelical-politics-as-usual. <BR> <BR>I have publicly aligned myself with the emerging movement. What attracts me is its soft postmodernism (or critical realism) and its praxis/missional focus. I also lean left in politics. I tell my friends that I have voted Democrat for years for all the wrong reasons. I don't think the Democratic Party is worth a hoot, but its historic commitment to the poor and to centralizing government for social justice is what I think government should do. I don't support abortion—in fact, I think it is immoral. I believe in civil rights, but I don't believe homosexuality is God's design. And, like many in the emerging movement, I think the Religious Right doesn't see what it is doing. Books like Randy Balmer's Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America: An Evangelical's Lament (Basic Books, 2006) and David Kuo's Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction (Free Press, 2006) make their rounds in emerging circles because they say things we think need to be said. <BR> <BR>..<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote> <BR> <BR>With all this openness, lack of absolute truth, and other subjectivity, The Emerging Church is vulnerable to the New Atheist Crusatders. The Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris group who want to see the praxis of Christianity and when they don't, they condemn it, or try to pull it toward atheism. <BR> <BR>Of course this group is alwayw pulling or attempting to pull Christianity toward Atheism, but as the Systematics crumb or are unclear, a vacuum is created for all sorts of "ways to be saved" like "my kids are my immortality".
Offline
<a href="http://www.wayoflife.org/emergingchurchresources/index.html" target=_top>http://www.wayoflife.org/emergingchurchresources/i ndex.html</a> <BR> <BR>You think this isn't serious!! Watch the videos. Gain some understanding about the crumbling of the orthodow church for what.....?? <BR> <BR>Are you OVER SAVED???
Offline
<b><font size="+2">Study Shows Americans Leave Religion Due to Drift, Not Rupture </font></b> <BR> <BR>By Jacqueline L. Salmon <BR>Washington Post Staff Writer <BR>Monday, April 27, 2009 <BR> <BR>More Americans have given up their faith or changed religions because of a gradual spiritual drift than switched because of a disillusionment over their churches' policies, according to a new study released today which illustrates how personal spiritual attitudes are taking precedence over denominational traditions. <BR> <BR>The survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life is the first large-scale study of the reasons behind Americans switching their religious faith and found that more than half of people have done so at least once during their lifetime. <BR> <BR>Almost three-quarters of Catholics and Protestants who are now unaffiliated with a religion said they had "just gradually drifted away" from their faith. And more than three-quarters of Catholics and half of Protestants currently not associated with a faith said that, over time, they stopped believing in their religion's teachings. <BR> <BR>Pew Forum senior fellow John Green said that result surprised researchers, who had expected policy disputes or disillusionment over internal scandals -- such as the clergy sex abuse controversy in the Catholic Church -- to play more of a role in people's decision to leave a faith. Among former Catholics who became Protestants, one in five cited the sex abuse scandal as one of several reasons why they had left the faith. But only a small percentage -- 2 percent to 3 percent -- cited it as the lone reason. <BR> <BR>"It suggests that what leads people to leave their faith is that, somehow for some reason, it isn't meeting their needs," Green said. "Religion becomes less plausible to the person." <BR> <BR>The study is a follow-up to a Pew report on religious identity released last year that was one of the largest polls of its kind. Researchers recontacted 2,800 of the 35,000 adults they previously interviewed for that study for in-depth interviews on how many times, and why, they had changed religious affiliations. <BR> <BR>Researchers interviewed non-Christians, but focused their analysis on Christians, among whom they had large enough groups to permit close scrutiny, said Pew research fellow Gregory Smith. <BR> <BR>Researchers discovered that the "churn" among the faithful and formerly faithful was higher than first estimated. In this second round of interviews, they found that some people who currently belong to the same religion in which they were raised actually had tried a different faith at some point, causing researchers to raise their estimate of the people who have changed faith at some point in their lives from 44 percent to 56 percent. <BR> <BR>They also found that up to one-third of people who have left their childhood faith have jumped around among three or more other faiths. <BR> <BR>The results are a "big indictment" of organized religion, said Michael Lindsay, assistant professor of sociology at Rice University and author of a book on evangelical leaders. "There is a huge, wide-open back door at most churches. Churches around the country may be able to attract people, but they can't keep them." <BR> <BR>At the same time, the large and growing number of people who report having no religious affiliation are actually surprisingly open to religion, researchers said. Contrary to the popular perception that many have embraced secularism, a significant percentage appeared simply to have put their religiosity on pause. Having worshiped in at least one faith already, about three in 10 said they had just not yet found the right religion. <BR> <BR>"We tend to think that when people leave [religion] they leave," said Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University. "But a lot of these unaffiliated are unaffiliated for now. . . . It's not a one way street. It's not like after you've left a religious affiliation, you can't get back in."
Offline
"Getting back in..." is not the objective. Salvation is a personal matter not collective. You, Elaine miss my point of my posts. You tear apart with your posts the very fabric of how people can learn of salvation. Maybe that is an interesting current past time, but don't you ever consider the damage your position can have on whoever reads your old stuff, when you accept again what it takes to be saved??? Ever thought of that????
Offline