Such vitriol!

Something else that strikes me forcibly is that those who take the adjectives postmodern, emerging, or emergent, seem to have raised the ire of an awful lot of people. A huge amount of energy seems to have gone into denouncing those people.

Perhaps the feeling is mutual. But it seems kind-of one sided. I'm preparing a talk this week on believing in Christ and becoming like him. I'm dwelling on 1 John 5, though it won't be a traditional exposition of the passage. I Googled

"1 John 5" emergent

thinking I might find some helpful commentary/discussion. Instead I found link after link of bile and denouncement (is that a word?).

Oh, and the other thing that amazes me is how many of those people seem to want to 'resist' postmodernism. Like you can outrun an express train which is about to catch your arse.

Provocative

One thing that's very striking is that here is a generation of writers not afraid to be rather provocative. And in a way that implies doubt in "core beliefs", or indeed in a way redolent of heretics of bygone eras. [Is theology like war? The victors get to write history in the latter case, and arbitrate on orthodoxy in the former. Does truth work like that?]

Very often, that is just a modern rhetorical style, and serves just to pep up some actually quite mainstream beliefs. Rob Bell caught a lot of flack for his "what if Jesus had an earthly father named Larry" line. But his whole book seems quite orthodox to me, if well-expressed in a Gen-X sort of way.

But for others, it really is that they are expressing something heterodox. Of course, that's valuable too: if what we believe isn't robust enough to be questioned and subjected to searching analysis, then it's really quite weedy. But are those who turn out to be expressing something quite different from what I believe also my fellow-travellers in the journey of faith?

I don't know, but if I'm going to look upon those who hold an `inerrant' view of scripture, or hold with creationism, as part of the family, then the tent is going to have to be pretty big. So there's probably room for some people with way-out whacky perspectives that head in other directions, too.

Trying to make sense of the emerging church

It feels as if I have lost touch with the world of Christian literature. Somehow, the entire Emerging Church thing (if it deserves capital letters?) passed me by over the last decade or so. This is my blog, as I try to catch up.

I'm nearly 40, raised in a loving Evangelical family and church community, baptised as a believer, aged 15; saved by the grace of God! I've always seen my gifts and ministry more in support than up-front leadership, but as I have grown up and moved around the world, have found myself progressively more and more involved: in music, in various help and administration, in leading worship, in preaching. I've just joined the leadership team of the church I've belonged to for 7+ years. For a job, I'm a lecturer in Software Engineering - in American-speak that would be Associate Professor.

Where did all this emerging stuff come from? A little over a year ago someone - Dad, actually - showed me a Nooma; Rob Bell's Bullhorn, to be precise. I was intrigued. I started clicking around on the web, and the parcels from Amazon started to arrive.

So I'm starting to form a picture. And, as you may guess from my thirst to find out more, there's something here which resonates for me. Quite a lot, actually. I had reached a point where a nagging voice was starting to say "do you really believe all this stuff which has been the main normative influence on your life?" God, in his grace, stepped in and pointed me at all this ... random, unorganised stuff written by people who seemed to believe things a bit like I did.

So this blog is likely to be a mix of personal reflections, and reviews of books and media I encounter in my attempt to catch up with what's going on out there. The list of unread books keeps growing: but a holiday is coming up, when I plan to read lots. If I get time between now and then, maybe I'll write up some comments about Velvet Elvis, or A generous orthodoxy, or A new kind of Christian, or even the Ryan and Bolger book.