The beginning and the ending of the military campaign…if you find you come from a military family…what then?…is there a world that you can’t insulate yourself from? …is there a love story about another couple…in there…

times extemporarity …and contemporary reasonings…Christians don’t believe in post-revelation’s…to do that you deny the Apocolyptic fire in a man’s life…and without the personal experience…how will you find redemption ….let alone forgiveness…do you know your father in silence…and how did you come to know…why can’t you pay for One…in the world you can’t serve God and mammon….in an economy of means you have to step down off your epistomological ladder…

Here’s a good example with a pastor acquaintance of mine taking some heat:
http://www.bpnews.net/BPFirstPerson.asp?ID=25221

Their website with an explanation of Theology at the Bottleworks:
http://www.journeyon.net/art–culture/midrash/

Kind of like it was discussed on our blog, the “emerging church” has a couple distinctly different streams. The “liberal” stream, that is described by Karen and Curtis, is trying to “pave a new” Christian faith. You would be right in saying that it is not as much like the original church. Very true.

The conservative stream seeks, with the likes of Mark Driscoll, Darrin Patrick, Ed Stetzer, and others, seeks to shed some fo the cultural assumptions of the American Evangelical church and RETURN to a culture-loving-yet-critical view of the faith. Most of them are also young passionate pastors, but reformed in their theology. I would count myself among them.

The two best websites for the conservative stream would be:
http://theresurgence.com/ – The Resurgence, and
http://www.acts29network.org/ – The Acts 29 Network (for Church Planting)

Also, the Gospel Coalition (http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/) includes a few of those in that camp, but are joined by reformed pastors and theologians (like Tim Keller, John Piper, and Bryan Chapell) who are not “emerging” because they are older, but they are still very affirming of culture and reformed theology.

How is that for a start?

Excellent article in the NY Times magazine yesterday, The Evangelical Crackup, about the faltering political influence of evangelicals in the U.S.

Definitely worth a read:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/magazine/28Evangelicals-t.html

It describes the emergent church as “some rebellious evangelical pastors and theologians of the new school,” and yes, they are overwhelmingly young, “postmodern” and disillusioned with evangelicals’ foray into politics and kingmaking. Their defacto leader (they’re not big on authority figures) seem to be a guy named Brian McLaren.

Here’s another link with some good info on the emerging church “conversation” as it’s typically called…

http://www.opensourcetheology.net/node/229

Eventually I came to the conclusion that the “Emerging church,” although psychologically healthy and socially conscientious, had very little to do with the original Christian church.

I am so old, crusty, and out of touch with pop culture, that I have no idea what an ‘emerging church’ is. It sounds on the surface like American Christians under 30, who are fed up with the Religious Right. Is there anything more to it than that? Does it have anything in common with the hippie ‘Jesus Freak’ movement of the early 70′s, but more yuppie, less hippie? And what do you call the ‘Emerging Church’ after it has been around a few decades? The Emerged Church? Can somebody help me with this?

Seminarian blog, where are you youngsters when we need you??? Help!!

But like you, I have to “thank” the church for helping me not want to be a mindless follower. I have faith … but what I know and what I believe comes from what I’ve learned, discovered … the questions I’ve asked. And it’s probably deeper than what I had when I simply “went to church.”

And,I too think the church as we know it should be called “Paulineans,” not Christians, because most of what they preach/follow/believe is NOT from the gospel. But when you say things like that, they go ballistic (or shake their head sadly, knowing I’ve bought into something evil and leading to the path of destruction …).

The longer I think about it, the crazier it gets …