NOTHING NEW

I’m sorry for the long time in between posts. I wrote the first installment in a three part review of Tony Jones’ “The New Christians” earlier this week, but when I tried to retrieve it the file was no longer accessible. I will try to recreate that article before the weekend is over.

I do want to take this opportunity to share some insights about the nature of the Emerging Church. The primary value of the EC is community. Community is at the heart of the EC formulation of the Kingdom; community is at the heart of the EC’s understanding of the church; and community serves as the glue that holds the various theological positions together.

I recently spent some time on the community message boards of the “ooze.com.” I won’t go into what was said, but it occurred to me in the course of my conversations there that the EC is really not all that different from the traditional church. Traditional Christians also gather to form online communities. One example is “crosswalk.com.” Crosswalk is a web site that offers, among other things, community forums where Christians from every tradition can gather. Currently, Crosswalk has 89,000+ community members from all around the globe that represent virtually every denomination or tradition.

The more I thought about this, the more I realized that much of what emergents claim is unique to their movement is really not unique at all. This fact tends to get lost in all the talk about reclaiming historical Christianity, post modernity, and the influence of culture on theology. However, when we strip away all the “what’s” and “why’s” of the EC, we see something that can most aptly be described as, nothing new.

Instead of me describing other examples of the similarities between the EC and the traditional church, I am asking for input from you, the reader. Do you recognize some characteristics that emergents claim are unique to the EC but are actually “nothing new?”

Looking forward to your responses!