The Emergent Church

Adrian Warnock linked to this post on the Emergent Church. It isn't as good as people are saying it is. Here is an example:

If you ask for a definition of post-modernism from those who claim it as their own philosophy or worldview you will likely get as many different answers as those you ask. In the same way to try and define the emergent church, especially in terms of a theological stance can be a somewhat elusive task. The ec takes great pains to tell you that they cannot be pigeonholed into any one theological mindset or method.

This may be true, but these same criticisms could be applied almost equally well to Evangelicalism. Remember how the press was struggling to get a definition after the last election? Emergent also seems to be fairly ecumenical. I would expect a single theological mindset would be hard to achieve for that reason alone.

He also mentions "open view" theism as an Emergent doctrine. Didn't he already state that Emergent doesn't have much in the way of firm theology? Oh well. He is also quite wrong on this count. "Open view" is not doctrine developed by the Emergent church, it is a modern outgrowth of Arminian theology which was developed by Evangelicals. Oops.

The author makes a lot of leaps to judgement and unreinforced assertions. Most of this is linking Emergent with post-modernism. I found it really annoying. He may be right, but is it really that difficult to back things up with quotes or links these days? But this is an introductory article with more to follow, so maybe I should just wait for more.

Now if you want a good post on the Emergent church read this one instead.