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***Vic*** · 12-11-2008, 01:12 PM

The New buzz word after we got over seeker friendly, we now have the emergent church. What are people emerging from and moving into?

milordsheep · 12-11-2008, 01:55 PM

I think the most important emergence for me was the removal from the " I'm ok...you're ok corral... to the realization of the need for Yeshua...and His Redemption.

I have emerged from the legalistic " I gotta do..." to the Savior's " IT IS FINISHED!"

what a relief that is!!

sheep wrecked · (This post was last modified: 12-11-2008 03:14 PM by sheep wrecked.)

(12-11-2008 01:55 PM)truckerdan Wrote: I think the most important emergence for me was the removal from the " I'm ok...you're ok corral... to the realization of the need for Yeshua...and His Redemption.

I have emerged from the legalistic " I gotta do..." to the Savior's " IT IS FINISHED!"

what a relief that is!!

I like that!!! :D

Unfortunately, emergent also means something quite negative in regard to the movement itself. It's sort of sneaky by throwing some "new" concepts at people to convince them they need to "contemplate" or "meditate" in order to "find" God. It's pretty smooth and subtle how it's getting worked into the church as a whole. :(

A little mysticism, a cup of new age, and a bunch of eastern religion and hinduism and voila - we have a pretty package ready to be unwrapped by the unwary in name of "a closer walk with God". :s

sheep wrecked · 12-11-2008, 03:43 PM

I have seen emergent move thinking from "traditional" and "fundamental" to "openmindedness" about the Bible. By that I mean, it is not the ultimate Authority and one can question Biblical truths to find "deeper" understanding of what the Bible "really says" through sources that are ungodly.

Here is an example:

Quote:This is the exact same mentality beneath the Emergent Church; a kind of smug, “Well, ‘they’ just don’t get it because they don’t understand the postmodern ‘emerging culture.’ ” We get a little peek at this view in The Emergent Mystique Andy Crouch tells us:

Mars Hill’s teaching pastor, Rob Bell, hair tousled and reddish brown, hops on stage in the center of what must have been the mall’s anchor store… Inviting his congregation to embrace weakness, referring to Paul’s words about his own infirmity in 2 Corinthians, Bell takes up a refrain: “Weak is the new strong”…

“This is not just the same old message with new methods,” Rob says. “We’re rediscovering Christianity as an Eastern religion, as a way of life. Legal metaphors for faith don’t deliver a way of life. We grew up in churches where people knew the nine verses why we don’t speak in tongues, but had never experienced the overwhelming presence of God…”

The Bells started questioning their assumptions about the Bible itself –“discovering the Bible as a human product,” as Rob puts it, rather than the product of divine fiat. “The Bible is still in the center for us,” Rob says, “but it’s a different kind of center. We want to embrace mystery, rather than conquer it.”

“I grew up thinking that we’ve figured out the Bible,” Kristen says, “that we knew what it means. Now I have no idea what most of it means. And yet I feel like life is big again–like life used to be black and white, and now it’s in color”… The Bells, who flourished at evangelical institutions from Wheaton to Fuller Theological Seminary to Grand Rapids’s Calvary Church before starting Mars Hill, were by their own account happy and successful young evangelicals. Yet that very world, as the Bells tell it, became constricting–in Kristen’s phrase, “black and white.”

They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy 4:4)

You have just read Rob Bell giving you a good explanation of the neo-orthodox view of the Bible. It can be summed up like this: “The Bible is a divine mailbox where God speaks to us from Heaven.” This is what the Bells have just said. And as I said on a recent SliceCast at first this sounds right until someone like myself points out that the Bible itself is the message. 2 Timothy 3:16 – All Scripture is God-breathed. This is the huge issue that is being obscured in all the bending over backwards to give someone like Bell the benefit of the doubt.

source of above quote: http://apprising.org/2006/08/bell-tolls-on-the-bible/

12-31-2008, 01:22 PM

FASCINATING!! For I agree with some of the below. but they have twisted their response.

They said

'This is not just the same old message with new methods,” Rob says. “We’re rediscovering Christianity as an Eastern religion, as a way of life. Legal metaphors for faith don’t deliver a way of life. We grew up in churches where people knew the nine verses why we don’t speak in tongues, but had never experienced the overwhelming presence of God…”'

I respond,
Which old message is to be rejected? the old message of the church, by which I mean the real subtext of legalistic unbelief that has been our real faith for centuries, is not the old message of the Bible as the Word of God. But it seems that subtle thinking was beyond them, or maybe they couldnt face conviction of sin that acknowledgement they were believing the old message of the church, as opposed to the scripture itself, would imply

yes, in a certain sense real christianity is an eastern religion, But they have not bothered to be careful as to WHICH sense of the term applies. Western christianity is an offshoot of catholicism, like it or not, which itself took the juridicial metaphors of scripture too far, so of course it is arid. Their message now is this: if our lives are arid let us reject the Bible as the word of God rather than submit to the living reality that the Bible describes but does not, of itself produce. for the
bible says that the letter kills but the spirit gives life. As they were dead they rejected the letter, so then they rejected the Spirit the letter talks about. Poor, poor fools

metaphors of any kind dont deliver a way of life, they only describe it. the way of life, or rather life itself, comes from the person who is christ. If they have never experienced the ovewhelming presence of God, then maybe it is their unbelief. But this they cannot even consider.

They continue

'The Bells started questioning their assumptions about the Bible itself –“discovering the Bible as a human product,” as Rob puts it, rather than the product of divine fiat. “The Bible is still in the center for us,” Rob says, “but it’s a different kind of center. We want to embrace mystery, rather than conquer it.”'

And i continue, WELL YES, I embrace mystery also, but not by making the Bible a human product. To deny it is the productof Divine Fiat is to strip the mystery from the thing. I hated and feared mystery, but now I know that the book is permeated with paradox, yet paradoxes which are logically necessary. But if they deny biblical clarity because their earlier clarity was not honest then they have now found not biblical mystery (properly done, of course) rather another form of obscurantism. But of course if they deny that the Bible is divine fiat then it is not the proper centre for them, their denials of this notwithstanding

and they conclude

'“I grew up thinking that we’ve figured out the Bible,” Kristen says, “that we knew what it means. Now I have no idea what most of it means. And yet I feel like life is big again–like life used to be black and white, and now it’s in color”… The Bells, who flourished at evangelical institutions from Wheaton to Fuller Theological Seminary to Grand Rapids’s Calvary Church before starting Mars Hill, were by their own account happy and successful young evangelicals. Yet that very world, as the Bells tell it, became constricting–in Kristen’s phrase, “black and white.”'

and I conclude

REALLY? they thought they had figured out the Bible? Or that they were closer to figuring it out now by their heretic positition on it? thereal glorious technicolour comes from truly believing what the Bible, as the divine inspired word of God, actually says. It is clear that they were discontent. their lives were legalistic and therefore arid. So what did they do? They denied the Word of Glod because they wouldnt acknowledge their own sin and unbelief as regards it. If in doing this some of the legalistic pressure comes off, life might seem better, and seem technicolour even, but they have ,made themselves colour blind then denied that any colour they do not see actually exists, whereas before they were dimly aware that something was not right and so felt deprived. They havent met the deprivation by coming to christ they have denied it.

It seems that as typical evangelicals they were never born again, or if they were they fell away into church legalism, but coped with it wrongly. Not experienced the presence of God? they never knew him at any level

Divergent church. Emergent heresy

QUOTE:

I have seen emergent move thinking from "traditional" and "fundamental" to "openmindedness" about the Bible.

Strefanash:

well again i can say i am all for openmindedness about the Bible, if open mindedness means willingness to accept and believe what it says. But as we are carnal minded we cant do this. So there is a choice: they could seek the Holy Spirit as your personal tutor friend mentor master lord and father and get there by repenting, at His leading, of the sins, mostly secret sins of the heart, which denied He is all these things.

OR

they could deny the true fundamentals of scripture using as an excuse the fact of the mess human tradition has made in the name of believing, when they did not, these fundamentals.

they havent taken the easy way, for in christ his yoke is easy, they have taken the lazy way.

what a great pity

sheep wrecked · 12-31-2008, 03:40 PM

(12-31-2008 01:22 PM)strefanash Wrote: FASCINATING!! For I agree with some of the below. but they have twisted their response.

They said

'This is not just the same old message with new methods,” Rob says. “We’re rediscovering Christianity as an Eastern religion, as a way of life. Legal metaphors for faith don’t deliver a way of life. We grew up in churches where people knew the nine verses why we don’t speak in tongues, but had never experienced the overwhelming presence of God…”'

I respond,
Which old message is to be rejected? the old message of the church, by which I mean the real subtext of legalistic unbelief that has been our real faith for centuries, is not the old message of the Bible as the Word of God. But it seems that subtle thinking was beyond them, or maybe they couldnt face conviction of sin that acknowledgement they were believing the old message of the church, as opposed to the scripture itself, would imply

yes, in a certain sense real christianity is an eastern religion, But they have not bothered to be careful as to WHICH sense of the term applies. Western christianity is an offshoot of catholicism, like it or not, which itself took the juridicial metaphors of scripture too far, so of course it is arid. Their message now is this: if our lives are arid let us reject the Bible as the word of God rather than submit to the living reality that the Bible describes but does not, of itself produce. for the
bible says that the letter kills but the spirit gives life. As they were dead they rejected the letter, so then they rejected the Spirit the letter talks about. Poor, poor fools

metaphors of any kind dont deliver a way of life, they only describe it. the way of life, or rather life itself, comes from the person who is christ. If they have never experienced the ovewhelming presence of God, then maybe it is their unbelief. But this they cannot even consider.

They continue

'The Bells started questioning their assumptions about the Bible itself –“discovering the Bible as a human product,” as Rob puts it, rather than the product of divine fiat. “The Bible is still in the center for us,” Rob says, “but it’s a different kind of center. We want to embrace mystery, rather than conquer it.”'

And i continue, WELL YES, I embrace mystery also, but not by making the Bible a human product. To deny it is the productof Divine Fiat is to strip the mystery from the thing. I hated and feared mystery, but now I know that the book is permeated with paradox, yet paradoxes which are logically necessary. But if they deny biblical clarity because their earlier clarity was not honest then they have now found not biblical mystery (properly done, of course) rather another form of obscurantism. But of course if they deny that the Bible is divine fiat then it is not the proper centre for them, their denials of this notwithstanding

and they conclude

'“I grew up thinking that we’ve figured out the Bible,” Kristen says, “that we knew what it means. Now I have no idea what most of it means. And yet I feel like life is big again–like life used to be black and white, and now it’s in color”… The Bells, who flourished at evangelical institutions from Wheaton to Fuller Theological Seminary to Grand Rapids’s Calvary Church before starting Mars Hill, were by their own account happy and successful young evangelicals. Yet that very world, as the Bells tell it, became constricting–in Kristen’s phrase, “black and white.”'

and I conclude

REALLY? they thought they had figured out the Bible? Or that they were closer to figuring it out now by their heretic positition on it? thereal glorious technicolour comes from truly believing what the Bible, as the divine inspired word of God, actually says. It is clear that they were discontent. their lives were legalistic and therefore arid. So what did they do? They denied the Word of Glod because they wouldnt acknowledge their own sin and unbelief as regards it. If in doing this some of the legalistic pressure comes off, life might seem better, and seem technicolour even, but they have ,made themselves colour blind then denied that any colour they do not see actually exists, whereas before they were dimly aware that something was not right and so felt deprived. They havent met the deprivation by coming to christ they have denied it.

It seems that as typical evangelicals they were never born again, or if they were they fell away into church legalism, but coped with it wrongly. Not experienced the presence of God? they never knew him at any level

Divergent church. Emergent heresy
QUOTE:

I have seen emergent move thinking from "traditional" and "fundamental" to "openmindedness" about the Bible.

Strefanash:

well again i can say i am all for openmindedness about the Bible, if open mindedness means willingness to accept and believe what it says. But as we are carnal minded we cant do this. So there is a choice: they could seek the Holy Spirit as your personal tutor friend mentor master lord and father and get there by repenting, at His leading, of the sins, mostly secret sins of the heart, which denied He is all these things.

OR

they could deny the true fundamentals of scripture using as an excuse the fact of the mess human tradition has made in the name of believing, when they did not, these fundamentals.

they havent taken the easy way, for in christ his yoke is easy, they have taken the lazy way.

what a great pity

excellent insight

DarkGlass1312 · 01-02-2009, 11:11 AM

Local churches are teaching so many heresies that the stones may cry out. The ground will break underneath their own feet whose house is built upon the sand. Pastors no longer preach truth! Death and hell await most people, and yet they won't tell you that. "And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart," (Genesis 6:6). "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Cannot the sinful world know where she's gone? She's on her way to hell! "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up," (2 Peter 3:10).