Exploring the Emerging Movement (.pdf)
This past semester I wrote a paper entitled Exploring the Emerging Movement (.pdf), focusing on the intersection between D. A. Carson, Scot McKnight, and Jeff Jue. In this paper, I am attempting to provide a fair and accurate introduction to the emerging movement, with a gentle critique of McKnight, Jue, and the the EM in general.
I would be very, very interested in getting feedback from you EM types on this - Scot McKnight has reviewed it; I'd love to hear from others as well.
Addendum: per Scot's suggestion, I have gone ahead and posted the paper directly in chunks:
Please note that I haven't figured out a good way to include footnotes, so if you want to see those (and some of them are fairly important, fleshing out the argument that I'm making in a given spot) then you'll still need to refer to the .pdf...
I would be very, very interested in getting feedback from you EM types on this - Scot McKnight has reviewed it; I'd love to hear from others as well.
Addendum: per Scot's suggestion, I have gone ahead and posted the paper directly in chunks:
Please note that I haven't figured out a good way to include footnotes, so if you want to see those (and some of them are fairly important, fleshing out the argument that I'm making in a given spot) then you'll still need to refer to the .pdf...
posted by Pilgrim in Progress @ 6:10 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Just a comment - I'd be interested in knowing whether or not people would prefer to read this type of stuff (ie. w/ footnotes) in .pdf format, or if you'd rather have it broken up into blog posts and distributed that way (probably w/out footnotes).
As for me, I much prefer to read stuff in web pages (but I'd like to see footnotes too, and that's kind of hard in a blog entry)...
Thoughts? Comments?
Definitely split it up into separable posts and let others hash it over in piecemeal fashion.
This is one of the things I love about my interactions with EM types (and Scot exemplifies this as well as any I've seen in this regard) - it's feedback! Ask a question, and you get answers. Fast. That's one of the things that is so darn attractive about the folks in this movement...
So anyway, Scot, your point is well taken, and I will go ahead and do that. Perhaps I can just leave footnotes out, and people can look them up in the .pdf if they have questions...
I enjoyed your paper. I found it to be balanced but critically honest. Your most important points for me occurred near the end; your discussion on boundary-setting I thought was particularly important. I, like you, am attracted to the EM position but I have not yet been able to resolve the conflict between relationship and discipleship. The Gospel does indeed make demands of obedience of the citizens of God's kingdom. There are certain obligations that require a philosophical exclusionism as well as behavioral demands. Of course Christians have struggled with these differences for centuries. I think it can be accurately stated that Jesus accepted people but it is obvious that He also set boundaries on what would be required by discipleship. According to Gospel accounts the money changers and the Pharisees were not "feeling the love". This tension between belief and behavior is the nutrient that aids our Christian growth.
Howdy Pilgrim, (sorry, I just couldn't resist) :-)
I appreciate your feedback, and I like the way you've summarized the tension. Sometimes I feel like the EM (and postmodern types) are unwilling to say that anything is out of bounds, except perhaps modern evangelicals ;-) At what point does compassion become concession? I think that's an area I'd like to hear EMers explicate more clearly (because I suspect they really DO have bounds).
In their defense, however, I notice that the more I talk w/ unbelievers , the more that I find myself not wanting to rush the conversation to "here's the boundaries, here's where you're wrong." Because I'm really interested in extending the dialogue, deepening the relationship.
I have a church planting friend who is often asked, "Do I have to stop doing ________ to become a Christian. And his typical response is, "That's a great question. I'm not going to answer it yet. I will tell you that if you think God loves you more because you stop doing __________, then you don't understand the gospel."
I think there's a lot of wisdom in that response. It's not denying the presence of boundaries. But it IS trying to shape the conversation by understanding what they are really asking: "Is your relationship to me conditional, based on my performance." And they will typically assume that God relates to them the same way we do.
Lot more to be said here, but I'll save it for another post. Thanks for commenting...
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