Characteristics of the Emerging Church (part two)

It has been a busy week with cross country meets and Bible classes. I need to get a radio program ready and then I will be ready for the last two days of the week, Thursday and Friday, the easy days. My cross country team did win their meet, my middle school son did finish first and my high school sons' varsity team is rated #2 in state for 4A schools (They are down from #1). Bible studies were on theology (angelology and theology). They can be found with the notes on http://www.generationword.com/

Now . . . the next few characteristics of the emerging church problem. The emerging church is the result of the evangelical movement getting mixed up in church growth methods and techniques. Churches discovered that some doctrines sell easier than others. It is easier for people to visit and stay at a church that is teaching what the people already think. The obvious result is that church growth research basically tells us that if a church simply tells people the people what they already believe then they are going to be comfortable in your church and stay.

Characteristics #4-8 of an emergent church follow:

4. The moral failures of leaders in the church have caused the emergers to doubt the entire institution of the church.
5. Multiculturalism has caused an unresolvable tension between the gospel that says Jesus is the only way and multiculturalism that says every culture has found their own way. (So, how are those cultures doing? Are the emergers leaving the US yet for those other cultures yet?)
6. Just as the Gnostics of the second century could not grasp the concept of the God of wrath in the Old Testament, so also the Emergent Church can not resolve the conflict they have between their image of a tolerant, understanding God of love and mercy along with the holy God of righteous judgment found in the scripture. (Point: the emergers are not emerging but are regressing back into ideas and practices that time has proven to be failures.)
7. Concerning the issue of homosexuality the emergents consider the biblical view to be oversimplified compared to the complex issue of sexuality. (How hard can it be? God begins the Bible by telling us he made them male and female. People are either one or the other. Obviously, the sin nature is so powerful that people get confused with only two options. Just imagine how difficult sexuality would be for the emergers if sexual options were like a Baskin Robbins store??)
8. The use of language has its limits so the Bible itself is bound by the limits of language. (It is too bad that God did not have the foresight to overcome this. If God were only as wise as the emergers he could have skipped the whole process of the recording of scripture and just communicated to us through our feelings.)

You may want to take note of the following. According to Roger Oakland these are some trends of the Emerging Church movement:

1. Scripture is no longer the ultimate authority as the basis for the Christian faith.
2. The centrality of the gospel of Jesus Christ is being replaced by humanistic methods promoting church growth and a social gospel.
3. More and more emphasis is being placed on building the kingdom of God now and less and less on the warnings of Scripture about the imminent return of Jesus Christ and a coming judgment in the future.
4. The teaching that Jesus Christ will rule and reign in a literal millennial period is considered unbiblical and heretical.
5. The teaching that the church has taken the place of Israel and Israel has no prophetic significance is often embraced.
6. The teaching that the book of Revelation does not refer to the future, but instead has been already fulfilled in the past or is allegorical.
7. An experiential mystical form of Christianity begins to be promoted as a method to reach the postmodern generation.
8. Ideas are promoted teaching that Christianity needs to be reinvented in order to provide meaning for this generation.
9. The pastor may implement an idea called "ancient-future" or "vintage Christianity"claiming that in order to take the church forward, we need to go back in church history and find out what experiences were effective to get people to embrace Christianity.
10. While the authority of the Word of God is undermined, images and sensual experiences are promoted as the key to experiencing and knowing God.
11. These experiences include icons, candles, incense, liturgy, labyrinths, prayer stations, contemplative prayer, experiencing the sacraments (for Protestants), particularly the sacrament of the Eucharist.
12. Some "evangelical" Protestant leaders are saying that the Reformation went too far. They are reexamining the claims of the "church fathers" saying that communion is more than a symbol and that Jesus actually becomes present in the wafer at communion.
13. Some suggest there are many ways to God.
14. Members of churches who question or resist the new changes that the pastor is implementing are reprimanded and usually asked to leave. If you are over age 50, your opinion will not even matter.

Galyn Wiemers
http://www.generationword.com/

Characteristics of the Emerging Church

This month's issue of Christianity Today (Sept.) has an article focusing on describing the Emerging Church movement. Along with this main article is a smaller article on page 62 that provides us with eight characteristics of the Emerging Church. We could call today's blog "Eight Signs You are in an Emerging Church". Here are three of them:

1. Emerging churches believe that the doctrine of Scripture's inerrancy does not sufficiently capture the true character of the Bible. (Can you guess where this is heading?)
2. They believe that the gospel we have been preaching concerning Jesus' death as payment for our sins and his resurrection for our new life was Paul's idea and not Jesus' intention at all. Emergers, which is my word for people involved in an Emerging Church, describe the message Jesus preached as a 'secret message' that has been rediscovered by leading emergers. They have discovered that Jesus was focused on political action and he had global concerns. (Maybe the emergers would like to suggest a world political leader we could unite behind to follow into a golden age of world harmony. Are you ready for the anti-christ?)
3. The deification of science has created a generation of people that are ready to dismiss the literal biblical accounts whenever science's latest revelation, or hypothesis, demands obedience. This is easily done in the name of Christianity by assuming the Bible is written in some ancient form of poetry, allegory, parable, etc. With this understanding an Emerger can both agree with the Bible but at the same time redirect it to allign with current pop science. (Remember the house built on shifting sand? Well, this is that house.)

Galyn Wiemers
http://www.generationword.com

The Emerging Church Movement Problem

I called Maxine Sieleman Sunday night to ask her to write a comment for the back cover of our new book "Framework for Christian Faith". While we were talking she voiced her concerns about the new movement in the western church now labeled as the Emerging Church. Maxine and I had talked about this a few weeks ago when I was on her morning talk show but I have none nothing with the topic except throw out a few warnings on Sunday mornings and read some articles and blogs. The Emerging Church movement is the new wave of Christianity that follows the solid evangelical movement. This movement gets a foothold when the lack of biblical understanding among Christians, that stems from the evangelical's fear of commitment to intelligent expository teaching from the pulpit, combines with our cultures drive to destroy critical thinking skills while indoctrinating an entire generation to tolerate and accept anything that is strange or different. We are now faced with a generation that wants to embrace the concept of God but at the same time they can not comprehend an absolute God who does not think and feel exactly as they do about everything. We need to talk more about the Emerging Church in the next few days, but I would sum this blog up by saying that this movement is the ultimate example of people creating God in their own image instead of allowing themselves to be conformed into his image.

Galyn Wiemers
http://www.generationword.com

Paterology: The Fatherhood of God

Paterology is the study of God the Father. Pater, or pathr, is the Greek word for father. The fatherhood of God as creator is true for all men, but the New Testament develops a richer and deeper relationship with God as Father for the believer in Jesus Christ. The word for Father is used fifteen times in the Old Testament but 245 times in the New Testament. This concept was clarified by Jesus in his reference to God as his Father concerning his own relationship with God (see Matthew 11:25-27). The Aramaic term Abba, a term originally used by young children for their fathers, indicating an intimate and familiar relationship, was used by Jesus to address God (Mark 14:36).

The identification of God as Father goes even beyond Jesus’ own relationship with God when he teaches his disciples to also pray by saying “Our Father” (Matthew 6:9). It should be noted in passing that Jesus’ teaching concerning God’s fatherly relationship to them, and their familiarity and intimacy with God as Father, should not detract from their understanding of his awesome holiness and flawless righteousness because in the Lord’s Prayer Jesus followed “Our Father in heaven” with “hallowed be your name.” The Father/Son relationship of man with God is based on the redemptive work of God through Jesus. John says, “To all who received him (Jesus), to those who believed in his name, he (God the Father) gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God” (John 1:12, 13). Jesus and the apostles taught that God our Father demonstrated his Fatherly care and relationship with each believer in these ways:

Cares for daily needs (Matthew 6:32)
Individual concern and attention (Matthew 6:26)
Source of our spiritual life (John 1:12, 13)
His Love has been lavished on us (1 John 3:1)
Gives us grace and peace (Ephesians 1:2; 1 Thessalonians 1:1)
Concerned with our welfare (Romans 8:15-28)
Gives us good gifts (James 1:17)
Oversees our discipline and growth (Hebrews 12:5-13)
Provides us with commands and directions for living life (2 John 4)
Makes us in the image of his own Son (1 John 3:2)

Paul begins all his epistles by identifying God as the Father (Rm.1:7; 1Co.1:3; 2Co.1:2; Gal.1:1; etc.). All human fathers receive the concept of fatherhood from God himself (Ephesians 3:14,15). God is the Father of glory (Eph.1:17), the Father of spirits (Heb.12:9) and the Father of lights (James 1:17). After his resurrection Jesus told Mary that he was “ascending to my Father and your Father” (John 20:17).

Galyn Wiemers
http://www.generationword.com