Why Don’t More in the Emerging Church Respond?
postmodernegro has a wonderful interaction going on with Stephen in this post. The following comment made me sit up … “While I agree that postmodern skepticism can lead to a profound subjecitivism I also believe that postmodernity illumines (at least the more Continental versions) for us the various ways we are disciplined, discipled, and formed by the socio-political matrices we inhabit. For instance living in America many North American Christians privilege a white aesthetic when presenting a ‘biblical’ version of Christianity. I think this speaks to the Eschatological tension in just one of many areas. The ‘powers’ bring havoc in our socio-political formations influencing us to be more wedded to the present age. Specific Christian counter-cultural practices and habits can give us the ability to hold on to the age to come while we wrestle our lives away from the present age.”
A Conversation with Brian McLaren on Epistemology
wow … stuff like this was already going on in 2001! After reading the following, you might want to have a look at the line of reasoning:
“For me, this line of
thought pushes me to realize that narratives are far more profound than
propositions, because without the narrative to give context, the
propositions are just kind of floating and up for grabs and up for anyone’s
interpretation.
But here’s the rub … narratives can only be grasped by a rational process
that includes faith.
So, faith (which is wrapped up with personal trust and a sense of a story,
narrative) is more “fundamental” than knowledge (i.e. propositions which can
be rationally debated). “
Emerging Liberals?
Great questions ….
” 1. To begin with, Emergent and the emerging church aren’t one and the same. Are you more comfortable with one over the other? If so, why?
2. For some people, words like ’emerging’ and ’emergent’ are synonymous with words such as ‘liberal’ and ‘wrong’. For good measure, some even throw in words like ‘dangerous’. Is this justified? If so, why? Give me specific examples if you can or you can be sure I’ll ask you why you’ve come to your conclusions.
3. If you are willing to write off Emergent or the emerging church because of examples you’ve heard about or come across that you think are heretical, do you do the same thing when you hear of segments of mainline denominations that have this same problem? Why, or why not?”
Understanding Church in Emergent/Emerging Conversation
Another fellow Malaysian who is giving the conversation a sympathetic hearing. I’ve been enjoying some interaction with Dr. Alex Tang on this matter and more.
Letters to Emerging Christians, December 19, 2006
I noticed the word “missional” is also entering our Malaysian Christian publication vocabulary. So what Scot wrote here caught my eye –> “Yes, you are right that “missional” is one of the emerging movement’s favorite terms and, yes, you are right that there is no official definition. But, I think I could take a stab at describing how it is used and maybe answer the question you ask about whether they are really saying anything new and valuable with this term. I will answer these last two questions first.
No, it is not something new; the emerging movement didn’t invent this term but they have undoubtedly given it a new currency. But, yes, this is a valuable insight and I’m so glad the emerging movement Christians are doing their best to find their way into a “missional” worldview.”
