Why they're not emergent

I was impressed with Kristen's eloquence. I happen to agree with her. I don't recall the place in the New Testament where's it's mentioned, but Paul said we are to be prepared to give a reason for the hope that lies within us, both in season and out of season. If it's out of season, as it is now, we are to present the ancient gospel, even if it means taking a few lumps.

OK, actually a combination of both saints, verses being 1 Peter 3:15 and 2 Timothy 4:2.

Eh . . . the Jesus of the church? Jesus was Jewish. The Church, capital 'C', came later: Hundreds of years and much bloodshed later. And whether Catholicism provides the most faithful representation of Jesus is certainly an open question, to which there are a variety of honest answers.

H.S. is definitely not speaking of the Jesus Ms. Scharold seeks; the One Who Is, the Only Begotten before all ages, of one Essence with the Father, Who spoke by the Prophets, etc.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure any real dialogue is possible about this. The Jesus of whom I speak is seen through the eyes of Faith, and the world does not recognize Him. He Himself told His disciples about this.

But back to the subject of the post, I know very little about the Emergent (or "emergent") church (and very little about evangelical Protestantism in general, for that matter), but from what I've heard, it is trying to engage the culture in an honestly Christian way...whatever that may mean. But isn't mainstream Evangelicalism doing the same thing, with its pop music, its (shudder) PowerPoint sermons, its endless stream of self-help books, and its "one-stop-shopping" megachurches, complete with gym and Starbucks?

It seems to me that the problem is in "trying to engage the culture" on its own terms. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever; yes, cultures change, dominant tastes and social mores change, academic trends (e.g. the "Historical Jesus") come and go. What has any of that got to do with Christ? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Eric W,
I've heard people mention the "Emergent/emerging" church before, and so I read the Wiki entry a while back and it only confused me more. It also appears the emergent church is different from the entity for which McLaren is a spokesman. Anyway, I'm still confused about what it all is. No one seems to have the same definition.

One question... who were the notable Evangelicals who refused to sign this manifesto?

I was a member of one of the "flagship" churches for about nine years; but have since fled and found my home in Holy Orthodoxy.

The church I was part of was basically Calvinist in it's doctinal statement, but in practice was more in the lines of the prosperity gospel -every service you'd get at least one spiel about how big the church was, how much money it was making, how many hits it's website was getting, what magazine was featuring us, and so on. We'd get phone calls every few months from people on staff that we didn't know wanting to discuss how much we tithed.

People could quote Calvin's Institutes but thought nothing of living with their girlfriends.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, the answer to everything we were repeatedly told was Jesus. God the Father and God the Holy Spirit were an afterthought, if mentioned at all.

Communion was open and considered only symbolic of the Body and Blood of our Lord. Anyone who claimed to be a "christian" could partake; and anyone did.

There was tremendous pressure to be relevant (i.e."cool"); wear the right clothes, listen to the right bands, have the right job, piercings, tattoes, friends, ect. Image was a top priority -it was your witness after all, although one's clothing could leave little to the imagination. It was incredibly difficult to have a conversation with anyone that didn't revolve around anime or South Park.

The music was rock, either sloppy emo or a watered-down rock-a-billy; all at full volume. Over the years it got even louder until it reached the point that we had to take our kids out of the sanctuary because it would hurt their ears. The lyrics were theologically oblique, if not flat out heretical (an example: "the good news is Jehu, it's Yahweh or the highway").

Too much truth about the movement can be found here:
http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/posters.htm

That website was one of the final nails in the coffin for me; I did not want my children to grow up thinking or associating the eternal Word with fad or fashion.

In a nutshell, I found the movement -at least what I experienced of it- to be young and self-absorbed; a theological expression of "look-at-me-look-at-me-look-at-me."

most emerging church types are not trying to be hip, but spend a fair amount of time going back and looking at stuff their predecesors threw out to see what we should have kept. Emerging is sometimes characterized as "smells and bells" for its embrace of more ancient practices. They are also more open to mystery within the gospel while evangelism has been on a long quest for a more perfectly defined theology on which "true believers" ought to agree. What emerging churches are seeking is much closer to something Rod would agree with than the evangelicals he is quoting.

You know, I've had another thought - - Traditional, Reformed theology of the Calvin/Knox school is way too dry and scholastic for me, but I've never thought of it as "Evangelical." Nor would I consider a traditional Presbyterian church to fit into that category. Is this a misconception on my part?

I tend to think of evangelicalism as something more rooted in the Baptist end of the Protestant spectrum. Churches self-designating as "non-denominational," for example, almost invariably are recognizably Baptist in their ecclesiology and soteriology.

And I tried to read the Evangelical Manifesto, or at least the "executive summary" thereof, but my eyes glazed over in very short order...sorry!

Tony,
it is not a traditional Presybterian church that he is referring to, not the Prebsyterian USA but rather the PCA--a conservative, traditional reformed theology, that is rooted in orthodoxy of scripture and is truly evangelical. Check out Cresheim Valley church on google, or Tenth Presbyterian in Philadelphia.
I am a fundamentalist of the Baptist vein that you might be thinking of, but because there are very few of my ilk in urban areas like philly, i attend a PCA congregration. They are evangelical.

I think you may be mixing up USA and PCA, and also fundamentalist--dispensationalism with evangelical--reform theology.