America's 'Emerging Church:' Will a New Post-Evangelical Christianity Reflect More Tolerant Views?

[Why Syzygy]

http://www.alternet.org/story/140321/america%27s_%27emerging_church%3A%27_will_a_new_post-evangelical_christianity_reflect_more_tolerant_views/?page=entire
America's 'Emerging Church:' Will a New Post-Evangelical Christianity Reflect More Tolerant Views?

(...)First, emergents cannot accept the idea of Bible inerrancy. Verbal inerrancy will not stand modern critical examination in the study of languages. To assign fixed inerrancy to ancient documents written in the Hebrew and Greek used thousands of years ago stretches credibility.

Second, emergents have come to believe that the gospel that they have been taught is a caricature of the message of Jesus, rather than the real thing. Increasingly they are putting other Biblical writings in the background and have shown increasing interest in what Jesus said and did.

They ask "If we are followers of Jesus, why do we not live and preach his message?" In short, they are looking for a much more radical Christianity than they have found in the Evangelical (and mainline) churches.

Third, exposure to science in public education, universities and personal studies has led emergents to disown the conclusion that when the Bible and science appear to collide, science must take a back seat to the Bible.

In this conflict, emergents are not abandoning the Bible, but are raising critical questions about the Bible's nature and content. This new bread of Christian remains quite committed to the Bible but they are very open to new ideas and understandings.

Fourth, emergents have become disillusioned by the clay feet of church leadership. It is not just the Jim Bakkers and the Jimmy Swaggarts, but the rank and file of church leadership.

Emergents compare what Jesus had in mind and what is going on in churches, and they see a need to start over. They want a fresh start with serious intent to follow Jesus.

Fifth, our public schools and our nation in general are insisting that we be truly multicultural. The churches' teaching, that people not like us, are doomed, is not acceptable to emergents. They want a much broader definition of what it means to be accepted in the family of God.

Sixth, emergents are insisting that God be understood as totally gracious and loving. The angry, vengeful God that is sometime presented in both Old and New Testaments is not acceptable.

Seventh, acceptance of homosexuals in the family of God is common. Being pro-gay or anti-gay is not the issue. Emergents recognize that sexuality is far more complex than is generally recognized. To live in harmony with gay and lesbian friends and family members is a part of the emergent's perspective.

Eighth, echoing the first named characteristic, emergents recognize the role that language plays in their understanding and practice of the Christian Faith. Theology is language bound. Language is a limited tool of communication. (...)

[regnaD kciN]

1. Actually, it's always been there...

While the laundry list of "emergents" above is as much an oversimplification as much of fundamentalism itself, most of those bullet-points have been characteristic of mainstream Christianity from before the "religious right" ever showed up. Unfortunately, mainstream Christianity didn't have the Hunt brothers bankrolling flashy televangelism networks for it (in exchange for pushing the conservative agenda from the pulpit), and wasn't heavily involved in trendy-at-the-time Reagan Republicanism, and thus the media paid no attention to it when they could rely on sound bites from "prominent media figures" like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.

Remember that, even at its most powerful, religious right/fundamentalist Christianity only made up about 12% of Christians in the United States.

And it's probably worth it to distinguish between "fundamentalism" and "evangelicalism." While people often see them as one-and-the-same and equivalent with the "religious right," some of the leading progressive Christians (including Jim Wallis, of Sojourners and "God's Politics") are evangelicals.

[Why Syzygy]

2. The part of the piece

snipped made the point that the Emergent was spawned by the Evangelical.

[heidler1]

3. I see very little to no evidence of this shift in the exit poll data.

Take a look at: Exit Polls - Election Results 2008 - The New York Times
National Exit Polls Table. Big Board. Map. Obama: Victory ... Religion. 1972. 1976. 1980. 1984. 1988. 1992. 1996. 2000. 2004. 2008. 42% of the. electorate ...elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/national-exit-polls.html - 117k
http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/national-exit-polls.html

This one makes it easy to compare presidential election year data.

[skepticscott]

4. Their take on inerrancy is grossly inadequate

Recognizing that the inherent inaccuracies and variations in translation of any document from one language to another make a literal interpretation of the Bible impossible does not even begin to plumb the full depth of the Bible's flaws. This ignores the fact that all of what is in the Bible was written by human beings with their own social, political and religious agendas and that, with limited exceptions, there is no way to verify the ultimate factual accuracy of Biblical accounts, even if it had been possible to copy and translate them with 100% fidelity from the original documents.

This leaves the "emergents", like most other "progressive" Christians, in the position of basically making things up as they go, glomming on to those things in the Bible that make them feel good, and rejecting those that don't, without any idea which ones (if any) actually reflect the true words and attitudes of God/Jesus. If that's what makes you happy, hey, knock yourself out. It makes as much sense as most approaches to religion. But no one should pretend that this version of Christianity is any less a complete human invention than any other.

[Critters2]

5. I was looking at the "Emergent Church" group on facebook,

and found nothing new at all. Especially on glbt issues, they are spouting the same old hate. Just Evangelicals who like even funkier new music sung over and over again, as far as I can tell.