Wednesday, May 2, 2007

EC gets personal

A friend of mine recently explained that he left his church, where he had been a member for at least 25 years, because of his frustration and despair over the direction of the church. He blamed it squarely on "the emerging church" movement. He views EC as a movement away from biblical truth and discipleship. Instead, he sees EC as promoting relativism, acceptance of sinful behavior, and avoidance of controversy (re: abortion, homosexuality, etc.). He latched onto John MacArthur's well known diatribe against EC as proof of it's evils.
His anger is clear. I'm not sure that his analysis is as clear. He tends to go ad hominem, blaming the problem on bad motives rather than on well meaning people who are simply wrong about important issues.
To his credit, he has not abandoned Jesus. He has begun attending another church that is known in the area for it's growing vital ministry. I have seen too many who throw out the baby with the bathwater. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish the body of Christ for Christ himself.
My look at EC has been pretty surface. I suppose I should actually read some of the primary sources. I just find it fascinating that this is becoming a large enough issue in Christendom that I know people who are making significant life changing decisions. Get ready. I think it'll get worse before it gets better.

1 comment:

Andrew Jones said...

good book to start with is "the shaping of things to come" by alan hirsch and mike frost - they do a good job on the emerging-missional church