Too Close for Comfort

This was originally posted on an anti-emergent site. Perhaps we can see this in two ways:
1) A humorous reminder to pursue true humility.
2) A call to think more deeply about the nature of humility amid conflicting ideas.

General Superintendents Statement

New statement by the Board of General Superintendents released this month concerning the Emergent Church

http://www.nazarene.org/ministries/superintendents/statements/emergent/display.aspx

New Obit

I am posting a recent blog by Scott Daniels on the Death of the Emergent Church
http://drtscott.typepad.com/pastor_scotts_thoughts/2010/08/the-death-of-the-emerging-church.html

Dr. Daniels starts the blog with the following

A little over a year ago a friend of mine and I were invited to lead a seminar at Nazarene General Assembly assessing the Emerging Church and its relationship to the denomination. I said then, I have written in several places, and I will repeat it here, I have never considered myself to be part of the EC. (It’s hard to truly be emerging when you pastor the second oldest church in the denomination. We still have a choir and orchestra for goodness sake J). I have, however, considered myself a somewhat sympathetic critic of the movement. I consider my own position to be a Wesleyan version of the Reformed position Jim Belcher takes in his book Deep Church: A Third Way Beyond Emerging and Traditional.

Anyway, a year ago, the EC conversation was THE buzz. People loved it or hated it. They considered it the hope of the church or the seed of its destruction. When I wrote my five-part series on the EC a year ago my blog received hundreds of hits each day with people wanting to read all they could about this important movement.

A year later, I can’t find a whole lot of people who care. In particular I can’t find any scholarly folk who want to talk about it. One of my theological colleagues here at APU summed it up well in a conversation last week. “For all practical purposes the EC movement is dead. It is over and done. Does anybody care about it anymore?”

Oh sure, there are still plenty of people talking and blogging about the EC. There are a few seminars still going on with either pro-emerging or anti-emerging overtones to them. But it is my prediction that one year from now even those lingering conversations will largely have faded into the distance. I would agree with my colleague. The EC movement is essentially dead.

I know it is not fair to post this and run but I am up to my earlobes with other assignments right now; however I did want the group to hear of this now rather than wait till it goes viral :0-). Reverend Daniels also references the writing of Anthony Bradley whom I heard this summer at a different conference. [http://online.worldmag.com/2010/04/14/farewell-emerging-church-1989-2010/

Bradley writes for (what I think) is a fairly conservative e-zine known as World Magazine but Bradley represents himself (if I remember correctly) as formerly working with Rob Bell at Mars Hill. His presentation appeared to be pretty condescending at the conference, but I know personality often factors into these situations (can you say Tony Jones? :0-) Some of you probably know that there is also a new book/website that also seems to lampoon Emergent in a way that modulates between irony and sarcasm. http://www.hipsterchristianity.com/

Please note: Bradley and Hipster do not mirror Scott Daniels' writing at all (Scott is too charitable for that tone) and I am not trying to lump the three interpretations together. However, I am not always sure what motivates the need to see/accept a movement's "death." Just an FYI to the members of the blog, you might remember the same issue surfaced here in a different iteration in Jan 2009 thread titled Emerging Church Obituary

To be upfront, I have some personal misgivings with the "death" language (as you might have suspected by now). There is something to the pronouncement of an ontological dissolution of a set of passions/perspectives that united real people in real contexts that always makes me nervous. I am not surprised the language of Emergent might have to change (my first article offering to this group suggested something similar, which got me in trouble then :0-) but I always suspected this would be an gradual shift that occurred from churches sharing similar perspectives and not an outright pronouncement from sympathetic or otherwise onlookers. I could say more but right now I need some sleep.

Daniels presents some interesting, accurate, and charitable observations (his critiques match most of my earlier concerns). But dead? Not sure I would ever try to use this term myself (somewhere I feel Mark Twain in the room), particularly in light of Ezekiel 37. Nuff said (maybe too much). Got to go to bed, enjoy the reading.

Blessed are....

Blessed are you who are rich, for you can give much without sacrificing much of your own comfort and are a witness of how God blesses the truly faithful.

Blessed are you who are satisfied, for you do not need to worry about going hungry and can focus on heavenly things.

Blessed are you who laugh, and do not get distracted from what is really important for eternity by the shortsighted weeping of those who futilely mourn because of, and for, a doomed world.

Blessed are you when everyone loves you, when they tell you how great you, and what a saint you are, because of your faithfulness to the Son of God. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how our fathers treated those whom they determined where truly faithful.

But, woe to you who are poor, for if you were willing to work rather than beg you would receive comfort to the degree of your effort. You need to fix your attitude and get right with God.

Woe to you who are hungry, for you focus so much on your stomach that it is difficult to seek after the spiritual bread of life so you can go to heaven when you die.

Woe to you who weep and act as a victim neglecting your own responsibility. You try to make others feel guilty because you have had no success, but you have reaped what you have sown.

Woe to you when people speak ill of you, for you are only as good as your reputation – honor is given to whom honor is due.


The above sentiments are what I keep hearing from many today about who they think are honored and blessed by God and who isn't, but it doesn't seem to match up with what Jesus says in Luke 6:20-26:

Looking at his disciples, he said:

"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.


Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.

But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.

Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry.

Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.

Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets."