Saturday, June 13, 2009

'Emergent Church' v. Fundamentalism

By the Rev. Howard Bess
June 13, 2009

Three weeks ago I wrote a column about the emergent churches in America. I wrote the column as a report, not as an opinion. I credited Professor Scott McKnight of North Park University in Chicago and cited his eight characteristics of the emergent church.

Read on.
Posted by at

1 comment:

Steve Meikle said...

What a pity that fundamentalists are deemed to be fundamentalists on the ground that they actually believe what the literal and authoritative Bible actually says. Nothing could be further from the truth. Oh, they trumpet loudly the inerrant word of God but do not believe what this Word says. For if a person believed in a God who loved and who forgave them they would be kind, merciful and patient, etc. They are not, therefore unbelief masked by legalistic comnmittment is all they have, and legalism is condemned by the Bible itself (Romans and Galatians).

But the emergents are to be truly pitied. They have rejected the very doctrines the fundies themselves do not believe. which is to say they turn Jesus into some hippy guru: a nice man, an impotent man and a dead one. The emergents have cast literal biblical belief as a straw man. For if literal biblical belief is something other than what is called fundamentalism then it may well be, and indeed is, I assert, somegthing wonderful.

The fundamentalists are arid hypocrites too afraid to admit their unbelief of the Bible to repent of it, but the emergents are naive dreamers with even less to offer, so I reject them both. For ignoring the nature and fact of sin the Emergents cannot possibly follow Jesus despite their rhetoric

I speak as a survivor of fundamentalism, I had the crisis, the breakdown over years, but i did not flee the God of the Bible, I learned to reject the straw men my chruch taught me and now am more than ever convinced that the Bible is the literal and authorattive Word of God. The voice of the Emergents I will simply ignore, as I ignore the voice of the Fundamentalists.

Mon Jun 29, 09:32:00 PM 2009

Post a Comment