Understanding the

Emergent Movement

Before I expound what I believe is a balanced approach to understanding why the emergent church was birthed and where some are headed, let me run up the flag pole a few disclaimers before the stake is lit and I'm skewered on the end of a pike. There are some within the movement who have slipped over the edge in their attempt to be edgy. Some have slid so far off the cracker that even many emergent teachers who are very expansive in their thinking have come out in correction. Maybe not the “God will boil you and your children and encourage all His children to laugh at your misery” type of correction, but to be fair it was printed correction with some open concern.

I believe the emergent movement began as a reaction to the stagnation and the sometimes shallowness of the evangelical church world. As a generalization you have one side on an ever increasing attempt to be relevant and recreate Christianity into a self help program with a tinge of eternity connected with it, and on the other side you see the battle gear laden warriors that protect the core of Scriptural truth while many neglect the weighty matters of Christlikeness. So fuzzy but friendly verses fundamental but furious. And what do you do when you are faced with that choice? Viola…the emergent movement.

Now in any movement there are excesses no matter how Biblical the intentions. In the great revivals of the past there were always excesses of emotion and sometimes teaching, so if indeed God can use some fresh anointing to break up the fallow ground it would be unreasonable to expect perfection and a seamless transition. The danger being leaving the safety of Scripture and sailing on the waves of subjectivism. Like the great disappointment of 1844 which started with a genuine learning about the Lord’s return but ended with a misguided date setting, so could the emergent movement start with a genuine desire for more of God and end with a subjectivism that deviates from Scripture altogether.

And that deviation is prevalent in some circles of emergent thought, some with overt deviations and others with an ulterior focus on world issues and streams of post modern thinking that render Scripture as a side issue. That direction can only lead to the dissolution of truth as we know it and an entirely new brand of Christianity with no sextant with which to set a course. Excitement and the thirst for new can easily replace the gospel truths and that is the danger that must be faced by the leaders in the movement or it will deceive an entire generation. And using the obvious self righteous viciousness of some of the fundamental crowd as an excuse for Scriptural laziness is of no value.

But understanding the general movement must be sifted through the prism of “why“. Are we so blind that we can be satisfied with criticizing without taking inventory of the overall powerless stagnation of the evangelical and fundamental world? Where are the prayer meetings that are visited by God’s presence in such a way as to elicit a wonder from our children? Where is the forbearing love among us that so demonstrates Christ’s love for His church that the world takes notice of such brotherhood? The orthodox church has fallen in such petrified love with their doctrines of paper, regardless of how true, that we have left the painful journey that seeks to live Christ in a tangible way. Some derive most of their spiritual energy and personal Christianity from the criticism of others.

And the tearless march of the doctrinal soldiers continues to massage each other with the assumed knowledge of Biblical orthodoxy but refusing to include an imitation of Jesus as orthodox. What is truth? Spiritual truth, Biblical truth. Is it just knowledge showcased in a vacuum or must it be presented within a context of faith? When the devil believes and trembles is he in possession of truth or is it just a shadow, a mirage without life?

We know God’s Word is truth, but how can that truth be communicated in a way which retains the power inherent within God’s truth? Is a printed page of the New Testament the same as an anointed preacher of the gospel reciting those same verses? Can God’s truth be presented in drama? Can His truth be presented in song? Can God’s truth be communicated through sign language? Object lessons? Movies? And most intriguing of all, how can God’s truth be presented through the life of a believing follower of Christ?

Now here is the question that has been going through my limited RAM. How do we live the Trinity? How do we live the virgin birth? How do we live justification by faith? How do we live the cardinal doctrines of Scripture? I mean how does your neighbor come up to you and say, “I’ve been watching you for six months and now I believe in baptism.”. We cannot live those doctrines, those things can only be taught by God’s Spirit.

But surely we can allow the life of Jesus to live through us and be used to draw people to ask about the hope that lies within us. Is this what some of the emergent leaders are saying? With some not denying the core truths of Biblical teachings, are they challenging the church to seek to live as Jesus did as a witness for Him and a magnet toward truth? Is there something to a revival of being like Jesus in the church itself? Our lives cannot save anyone, only faith in Christ can, but our lives can be the bucket in which the Spirit brings the message to people who up until they met you didn’t even realize they were thirsty. Have we lost that amid our own little cloistered group or more poignant yet, have we lost Him while being the church?

I find unsettling some of the things I hear from some of the emergent corners, but I find also distasteful the smugness that emanates from some of the fundamental corners. So one group moves away from the truth while others make the truth so unattractively self righteous that the result is basically the same. I believe God’s heart and desire is for the church, the body of Jesus Christ, to not only believe the right things but to display the right things. And all those right things can be summed up with one glorious word - Jesus. I am a believing follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, but I have a thirst to be so much more than I am now. Not just to know Him, not just to pass a doctrinal test, but to have Him so take control of my earthly life so as to project Himself in my mortal members and in my attitudes and in my emotions. Is that not what being a follower of Christ is all about, sharing the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ in the majesty of the message, accentuated by the fresco of our lives?

What we do is what we believe…everything else is religious talk,

of which there is plenty.