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Well the following should be patently obvious to everyone:

1) We are free to think for ourselves.

2) Such free thought often leads to individuals believing different things.

3) Traditional churches have sought to define themselves by collecting people together who believe the same things, rather than reflect points (1) and (2).

Therefore it seems to me that the 'emergent church' phenomenon, for every one of its flaws, is doing a much better job at understanding who and what human beings are, and reflecting human nature and human freedom of thought, than did the traditional churches.

I'd heard of Revolution but never looked too closely at it before. I've also been familiar with Ikon in Belfast for many years, though its strongly left-wing flavour (to the exclusion of anything other) - and the fact that its peoples' theological libertarianism didn't seem to extend to political ideas - turned me off before I ever had the chance to show up at one of their events. That (and some other annoyances mostly related to the irrationality of much postmodern thought) has made most of the 'emergent' groups difficult for me to consider reflective of my own ideas.

There have been a number of these books and stories over the last number of years.

Some people reject their faith, some people come out the other end with it pretty much intact but looking different. Maybe we could put it this way (I think I read it somewhere) loosing your faith in church and loosing your faith in God are not the same thing. The only trouble of course with Emergent is that sooner of later it runs the risk of becoming a fad or a tradition like almost every other aspect of Christendom. Ultimately Jesus is the only escape from our propensity to create God in our own image. While various expressions of church usually have a part to play in our understanding of God, fashions come and fashions go. I suspect Emergent will be no different, even if it is 'radical' now.

Interesting, as you observe William the concept of grace is central to most of these stories. However having clicked the 'link' to the autobiography I read,

"The long, lonely road that Bakker traveled taught him that you can't earn or make yourself worthy of the love of God, **but if you are willing to let go and open up**, that infinite love is waiting to welcome you home with open arms." My emphasis added.

This too is a common sentiment. Interesting though that people feel able to use the idea 'can't earn or make yourself worthy' along with the need to be 'willing to open up' (to God). Seems to me that that's conditional grace.

I actually think the good news of grace is better than that. Grace isn't merely extended to the willing, it is extended to the enemies of God to those who spit in His face. It's what make Christianity unique among the religions of the world.

Peter Morrow says: "Grace isn't merely extended to the willing, it is extended to the enemies of God to those who spit in His face."

Absolutely right. Grace is not even just for those who "believeth" (after all, the bible does not say anything about the fate of whosoever does NOT believeth); as Dawkins asks, "What's so special about belief?" I'm something of an agnostic universalist these days, haha!, and I'd also say I'm post-emergent. :-) Pete Rollins will love that!

may be relevant to this post.

Peter Morrow

It seems to me that you are really only stating the real gospel of unconditional grace. As I'm sure you already know grace doesn't come in any other flavour.

Anyone who presents the grace of God as something we need to respond to freely by our will has not understood God's nature or their own nature. They are not presenting the grace of God in Christ, but mere works based religion that needs the strength of our will to triumph.

David Agnew

Peter M - are you a universalist? Just interested. As I don't really buy into the whole sin and salvation thing the notion of grace is a bit irrelevant for me but, if I read David A correctly, he's proposing a very Calvinistic notion of predestination - just wondered if you agreed or if I could understand your comments differently?

Portwyne

Interesting question.

It's funny, I had a similar sort of discussion just this afternoon with a friend and we both sort of agreed that Universalism and Calvinism, while not usually linked, are both more representative of God's character than other views of Christianity as they emphasise God's generosity more than human effort.

However given my view on the bible, which you already know, I find it difficult to ignore the comments about hell and therefore cannot, unless one is going to argue that it was Jesus alone who experienced hell, hold a Universalist view.

I would say this though. Calvinism can lead to a 'God chose me' arrogance, which is not the point of the doctrine and a presumption, which again I think misses the point.

For me grace is a demonstration of God's magnanimity and indeed His humility, and the final nail in the coffin of my pride. It ought to lead to humility in the recipient, and it ought to lead to acts of kindness towards one's own enemies; whether or not that is true of me is another matter.

There goes John Wright publicising is blog again! Speaking of desperation ...

John Wright
An interesting argument. But Sikhism allows for many pathways to God, and several popular and ancient forms of Buddhism would be horrified if you suggested that belief was important (Zen for example). Sankhara's Hindu philosophy would not want you to believe truths about God or Reality.
Religion is more than a network of beliefs - even in Religions which value belief, like Christianity. And in any case, relativism and skepticism are still with us.
Do certain types of virtue require or produce certain beliefs? Doesn't sympathy require certain beliefs about others? What about humility - don't I need to believe certain things about myself? Does love produce insight into others?
Dawkins is also confusing belief with faith. He usually confuses them both with dogmatism or absolute certainty. But that's another story.

GV

I've found the Emergent Church to be a very confusing non-movement. It's a bit like Unionism -they're all agreed on what they're against, but can't agree on what they stand for. Or even if they should stand for anything.
In any case, I lost interest when it became clear that they do not have a wide appeal outside certain demographics. But some of their critiques did seem on target. What remains after the Emergent movement fades away will be much more interesting.

GV

PTL- You're a useless meathead with nothing to contribute. Do you really find a link that bothersome? The link I provided was directly on this topic, containing stuff that I would have wanted to say in any case, and to which GV later responded. That's how the internet works. Maybe you would prefer it if I spent time I don't have to write it all over again from memory so that I don't have to be "publicising is blog"? Sorry to offend you, but it was easier just to provide the link.

GV- Yup, those are interesting questions and observations. I can't say the argument is watertight but I think there's something to it. And I sure think Dawkins was right to question why believers think belief is so important.

John W - I think jovialPTL might have been trying to be funny - clue in his name perhaps.

Smasher- Possibly, though he's made an issue of it before, to the point where I needed to refer him to the rules and guidelines. Weird.

Are those tatoos on his arms? If they are and I were him, I'd go to bed every night praying for a miracle...that when he woke up in the morning, all that junk he disfigured himself with would be gone.

"The church's publicity offers an apology: 'As Christians, we are sorry for being self-righteous, judgmental bastards.'"

So what is he saying about his parents, that he denounces them for their hypocricy...or is he merely following in their footsteps reinventing the family business for fun and profit? Papa would have been so proud.

Marc
Maybe the tatoos wash off.

Isn't it just so cool that a Christian can wear tatoos and say "bastard"?

GV

Nothing childish in it at all.

Yeh Graham, real coolatastic.

But isn't it interesting that the basic premise of Christianity is still 'people need to come to church', and membership is still predicated on the notion of participation in a/the sub-culture. Seems to me that too much Christianity is high on sub-culture yet low on substance. It's almost as if we have fallen for the idea that the medium is the message, strange.

What I wonder sometimes is, what is the measure of my christianity when the trappings of the religious programme are removed?