by Lon on September 23, 2008
An article out of Christianity Today has been stirring some buzz – R.I.P. Emerging Church
Supposedly Dan Kimball, Erwin McManus, and Scot McKnight are starting up a new missional network that will have it’s orthodox theological foundation based on the Lausanne Covenant in an attempt to get away from the emerging/emergent labels.
It’s amazing how in a world that disdains labels how many labels we keep coming up with.
From Tom Sine’s Emerging, Missional, Mosaic, and Monastic;
to Mark Driscoll’s Reformed/Relevants, Reconstructionists, and Revisionists;
to Wess Daniels’ Deconstructionist, Pre-modernist/Augustinian, Emerging Peace Church/Open Anabaptist, and Foundationalists;
to Scot Mcknight’s Prophetic, Postmodern, Praxis Driven, Post Evangelical, and Political;
to Darrin Patrick’s Emerging Conversational, Emerging Attractional, and Emerging Incarnational…
not to mention other labels/streams like catholic, orthodox, purpose-driven, simple, neo and non-reformed, etc, etc, etc.
It seems every now and a group of us have a need to repackage the thing all over again… and I think we need to, because terms do get old, and sometimes words are necessary to bring greater clarity. However, I think we need to just as much reclaim the labels behind the great movements of the church throughout history as well, and not simply abandon them.
Can’t wait to hear what the latest one will be called…
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
