Battle on Mars Hill…

by Lon on September 26, 2007

The blogosphere’s been abuzz the last few days with Mark Driscoll’s most recent comments at the Convergence conference at the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He talked about different streams of the emerging church today:

The Relevants – Evangelical folks that are being innovative in their methods… he names guys like Donald Miller, Erwin McManus, and Dan Kimball. He’s okay with this crowd.

Reformed Relevants—the theologically conservative and reformed crowd that are still missional – citing himself, those in the Acts 29 network like Matt Chandler, and C.J. Mahaney

Revisionists—those associated with the emergent village who are reinventing church and theologically liberal – naming Brian McLaren, Doug Paggit, and Rob Bell.

I’ve seen this breakdown before by Driscoll in the past, but the new name added this time around was Rob Bell’s. He jokingly said that he was still in therapy due to their churches sharing the same name, Mars Hill. I predicted a year ago that Driscoll’s Mars Hill Seattle would pick a fight with Bell’s Mars Hill in Michigan. I guess it was long overdue.

What’s interesting is that Rob Bell couldn’t preach this week, and had Doug Paggit cover for him, further fueling his association with the emergent dudes, even though he’s never used the label himself.

I’ve learned tremendously from all of these guys, from Mclaren to Driscoll. Only problem is the reformed crowd almost makes me feel embarrassed when I say that.

Here’s the audio

Great conversation at Bob Hyatt’s blog on Mark’s comments

Thoughts on a tale of two movements