I think this post is one I will keep up for about three days as I do want people to think about this and hopefully comment on it.
Wonder if you are a "Jesus follower," attend an emergent church, and then decide you really don't wish to help the poor anymore? Or really have more pressing problems in your life that need more attention than the environment? What would emergent pastors say? What would they do? Would they scold you? Throw you out of the church? Be patient and wait until you come back to your senses? Lecture you? I would love to see/hear this scenario.
My point is that emergents are no less legalistic than any other "hafta-do-or-don't do this and this-to-be-holy" group. But they think they are. I hope someday that many of their followers will say, "I need to tend to my life because I have been so concerned with the poor that I don't know if I am coming or going spiritually." And since I have no atonment foundation for acceptance by God, I need to stop and find out what's REALLY going on here. Maybe they will finally question their emergent masters and ask them why important Biblical things were withheld from them? And maybe they will ask why a works program was put IN PLACE OF a justification by Christ's work program. That should be interesting. And, wonder if they find out that the poor are still poor after all of their efforts?
I will sit back and watch and be available to these sad young adults who will be searching for people and churches who will put the horse before the cart. In other words,
Justification........and then Sanctification......and THEN....the Social Gospel. And hopefully the gifts and miracles will not be left out either. Pentecostals and Charismatics! Wake up! This is a golden opportunity for you to introduce the young adult to God's REAL mystery and experience. But first, you C/P's have to get your own house in order and get back to your historic faith statement beliefs.
A Prayer Request & Thanks
1 week ago
7 comments:
Great Post:
I think about two things after reading that post
(1): The old saying 'The more that things change, the more they stay the same"
and to quote a line from the Who's classic song 'Won't Get Fooled Again Lyrics"
(2): "Meet the new boss... Same as the old boss"
onward,
So true. Haven't we gone through this before? Oh yes we have....with the liberal Protestants in the first half of the 20th century. And how are the poor doing? Hmmmm....There must be a better answer for the poor than emergent/progressive/liberal Protestantism. On the other hand, their criticisms are well-founded. The fundamental.....then offspring evangelical church wasn't so hot about helping the poor either. But the answer isn't to jettison or to make sweeping changes to the whole Protestant belief system. In other words, as I've said here so many times...please do not push me to your extremes. Let's find the perfect middle so we can REALLY help others.
Good point:
What is the balance of helping the poor?
I do not know about the west where you live. However, in the South, there was a shift of thinking in the early 1980's in the churches (influenced by the religious right and in some cased mixed with Word of Faith teachings) where the poor went from a group of people we help while preaching the Word to being viewed as lazy people who live from handout to handout and also the byproduct of the wrath from an angry God.
In other words, you were not poor because of some circumstance, you were poor because you made a wrong and poor decision that made God angry at you and therefore you (and your next four generations) bear the wrath of God's anger.
The poor we will always have, but that does not mean that we stop supporting organizations like The Salvation Army that try to make a difference and help people.
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I too am awaiting to hear the 'story' (emergents love stories) of an emergent who decides to take a sabbatical from 'emergence' in order to deal with some personal issues. I believe the 'story' will parallel the same mentalities seen in some fundamentalist, pentecostal, charismatic churches where the person on sabbatical would get scolded, chided, and condemned.
I do not know about the west where you live. However, in the South, there was a shift of thinking in the early 1980's in the churches (influenced by the religious right and in some cased mixed with Word of Faith teachings) where the poor went from a group of people we help while preaching the Word to being viewed as lazy people who live from handout to handout and also the byproduct of the wrath from an angry God. -- OFT
Some months ago, Wall Street Journal had a book review on the history of the Social Gospel. One line of the review leaped out at me: "They ended up with a Gospel without Personal Salvation."
And what OFT has described above is the equally out-of-balance reaction: Fleeing the Liberal Social Gospel, they ended up with a Gospel of Personal Salvation and ONLY Personal Salvation.
Great thoughts! I wrote about this a few months ago in my post, What Ever Happened To The Bible?.
The problem is, somewhere along the way while the delivery was being changed, the message was changed as well. Instead of the source for preaching being the inspired Word of God, sound doctrine seems to be taking a backseat to a seeker-friendly message that makes the Gospel much more inclusive and non-offensive.
Great post, I subscribed to this feed and I'll check back for more!
You've raised some debate, well done. The church swings back and forth like a pendulum, sometimes to the orthodox and fundamental other times to the social and anti-theological.
Today's emergent movement is merely a new way of saying "the church is really missing it's mission by caring so much about buildings and so little about people"
But, you are totally correct that major emergent leaders are severely flawed in their theological underpinnings.
Thank you so much, everyone, for your comments. They're excellent....:)
Anonymous,
I've read that book" that started the Social Gospel. It's called "Christianity and the Social Crises" and was written by Walter Raschenbush in 1907. The book was really good as Raschenbush wasn't saying to ditch the gospel as the liberal Protestants and now many of the the emergents are doing. He simply said that if we are turning our backs on the poor (at that time he was dealing with sweatshops and children working long hours, etc)) we are not carrying out our Christianity completely. And that is true as so many of you pointed out in your comments.
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