I’m enjoying the discussion about the Emerging Church Movement (ECM) here.  It has waxed and waned here several times since my blog began.  Every time the discussion takes off it seems to suffer from a distinct lack of clarity about what exactly counts as “emerging.”  Some have even questioned whether there is an ECM.  Of course, no one questions the existence of the Emergent Village, but nobody thinks that is the whole of the phenomenon.  So, it is one thing... Read more

Here is Brandon Morgan’s response to critics of his guest post here (about the ECM): “I would like to thank Tony Jones, Scot Mcknight and Deacon Bo over at Homebrewed for taking the time to respond/repost my reflections after attending Wild Goose. A number of the comments from these blogs have asked many good questions, some of which I’m afraid I won’t have time to respond to. Initially, I suppose, I would like to clear up some concerns that Dr.... Read more

First, is it even really a movement?  If so, it’s a very amorphous one! Second, I strongly recommend that people wanting to discuss the ECM (or conversation or network or whatever you want to call the phenomenon) read this: Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger (Baker, 2005).  It’s the best book I know of on the ECM; it’s written on the basis of exhaustive research including extended interviews with leading emergent/emerging... Read more

According to news reports a national controversy has broken out over Texas governor Rick Perry’s association with a seven-hour prayer event to be held in Houston called “A Call to Prayer for a Nation in Crisis.”  What is unclear from news reports is Perry’s precise relationship with the event.  I think evaluating that relationship depends very much on its nature.  Is Perry co-sponsoring it?  Merely attending it?  Publicly supporting it (in the sense of actively urging people to participate)?  What?... Read more

Continuing on from where I left off… So, traditional Christian belief about life after death is, I believe, virtually disappearing from American Christians’ consciousness due to folk religion conveyed through popular culture, funeral sermons, popular hymns and songs and the lingering influence of Spiritualism (a type of gnosticism) in American religious history.  A major recent influence on this disappearance of traditional belief about life after death is the spate of books and television programs about so-called “near death experiences.”  Unfortunately,... Read more

We’ve been discussing the concept “heresy” here and it is a notoriously difficult one to pin down or find agreement about.  However, I worry that a bigger problem for the American church, especially, is folk religion.  Sure, the two concepts overlap somewhat.  But American folk religion (and I’m sure it has its analogies elsewhere) is rampant within the churches (all denominations) and outside the churches. So what is “folk religion?”  I’ve described it and responded to in in some detail... Read more

Recently I’ve used the word “heresy” here.  I hate that word, but I find it inescapable.  But dictionaries aren’t very helpful for defining it (or many other necessary theological terms).  So, in an attempt to shed some light (and hopefully less heat) on the matter, please bear with me as I explain what I mean by it. The most general meaning of heresy is any theological error as determined by some authoritative religious group.  In other words, to call something... Read more

I’m sure it can.  However, I’m made to wonder when I see some of the responses to Brandon Morgan’s guest post here (of about a week ago) and my follow up post.  Brandon, a leader of the Void Collective and known to be a participant in the emergent movement, dared to raise some questions about the direction in which at least some emergent church leaders are taking the movement. One well-known emergent leader responded very defensively at his blog.  I... Read more

I have called universalism “the most attractive heresy.”  For a lover of God’s love, universal salvation might seem to be necessary.  (I guarantee you that some neo-fundamentalist will take that sentence out of context and attribute it to me without acknowledging what follows.) However, I’m not a universalist.  On the other hand, I’d rather be a universalist than a true Calvinist (i.e., a five point Calvinist who believes in double predestination).  Someone once asked me whether I would still worship God... Read more

This morning I wasn’t able to respond to all of the comments.  Hopefully now I can.  Someone suggested that a person who refuses God’s love, preferring hell, would not be free but insane.  In that case, he suggested, a God of love would save the person without his or her consent.  My response is that even an insane person has free will.  As a society we do not force insane people into institutions to be “cured.”  (See C. S. Lewis’... Read more