The strengths and weaknesses of the emerging church

I'm currently about 60% of the way through Don Carson's Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church. While he has many criticisms of the emerging church movement's approach to the nature of truth, at the same time it is not only negative things that he has to say Rather, he also devotes some substantial time to some of the positive elements that the emerging church movement has brought to greater attention. Although I'm not yet done reading through the book, I think that at this point I can already reccomend it to those of you looking for something to read. While the book is a heavier read than light fiction, at the same time Carson seems to have a way with words such that it flows rather easily.

What I wanted to share with you here is approximately a paragraph of Carson's book (from p. 55/56):


Although these Christians were steeped in one particular theological tradition, they did not come across as arrogant, even when they were encouraging deep confessionalism. Their denomination was poorly represented in the demographics of their city, so the growth they experienced was not achieved by stealing sheep from sister churches of similar pedigree: it was mostly conversion growth. Penetrating the sealed apartment blocks and yuppie culture of a major city is never easy, but hundreds and eventually thousands were converted, generating a congregation where the mean age was late twenties or early thirties: it was the postmodern generation that was most powerfully affected. Across two decades this church planted numerous other congregations in their large metropolitan area and then reached out to help plant still other churches in other metropolitan areas. The irony is that while this sounds like an outstanding examplar of the emerging church movement, this church - Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City - is thoroughly unlikely to identify itself as a candidate for emerging rolls. The reason I talk about this church should nevertheless be clear: it displays all the strengths of the emerging church movement while avoiding most of its weaknesses.

Interestingly, as my pastor brought to my attention on Sunday, Tim Keller, the pastor of this church, was also recently granted the opportunity to present the gospel with the national media standing nearby. (How many church leaders are written about in both the New York Times and People Magazine within the same week? That said, the two articles are quite different - with each author drawing different things from the sermon and I think also missing the point of it) Everytime I've thought about this the first phrase to come to mind has been "wow!". I was listening to the Ordinary Means podcast last night, and since have been digesting the comment made by one of the hosts that most christians seem to be functionally deists. Just how often do you really expect to hear an answer to your prayers?

I think that I may have mentioned this in the past, but one of the things that I really appreciate about the PCA is its emphasis on urban evangelism. One ministry outlet of the church that I've been talking about is the Redeemer Church Planting Center and you can find an interesting video on their resource page. Tim Keller brings out in the video that cities are (in his words) "the influence centers a particular region or culture." On a more biblical note, Tim Keller also begged viewers to consider where the Apostle Paul went on his missionary journeys.

Ouch!

Classes have kicked into gear once again, and that means

  • The good: I don't have time to spend money
  • The bad: I don't have time to spend money

Add up prepaying 8 months of Shaw, prepaying utils for a while, paying off my BC student loan in one lump sum, finishing furnishing my place, buying textbooks and school supplies, a flight to Vancouver, and considerable eating out while visiting or visited and you have August as a rather expensive month!

On a related I seem to have come down with a case of new-furnituritis, as the fumes from the glue in new plywood furniture and I don't get along so well. Any suggested remedies beyond ventilation, allergy medication, and time?

The maybe-it's-a-baptism form

One thing that I came across when reading through some stuff on Roman Catholicism a while back was the idea of a conditional baptism. Basically, in practice this seems to just involve tossing a phrase such as "If you are not already baptized" at the beginning of the form. In this way Roman Catholics try to ensure that people aren't baptized more than once, while at they same time ensuring that all are baptized.

I was just thinking about this form, and the thought came to mind as to whether or not this might work to create a greater sense of unity between those adhering to infant baptism and those adhering to adult baptism. Somewhat surprisingly (to me) server logs suggest that people are concerned about this sort of topic as I've had a number of people discover this website in their search for information on rebaptism. Might such a modification satisfy those holding to a believer baptist position without creating unneccessary hostility with those adhering to an infant baptist approach?

Mission accomplished!

Check "Weird-out family by sneaking up on them unannounced, when they expect you to be in another province" off my list of silly tasks to do at least once in life. If you haven't tried this one already I reccomend giving it a shot some time.

Following tea with r_0 sigma while in the Fraser Valley, I put in an order tonight for a whole batch of books on technology, science, and christian worldview. Should make for some interesting reading (assuming that I have even a few moments of spare time with school resuming). Here are a few of the items in my latest book order:

Believe it or not I actually bought a textbook too as part of this order! One of the nice perks of being in a constantly changing field is that often the textbooks just haven't caught up. Combine that with unlimited print quota, and this would be the first textbook that I've actually purchased for a class since starting grad school.

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