The Emergent Church and Young People
So I was bored and scrolling through Lydia's blog and noticed a nifty little link
http://www.desiringgod.org/media/mp3/conferences/national2006/20060721_piper_qa.mp3
Yeah, I don't know how to make that look all cool and stuff.
But it got me to thinking that the Emergent Church kind of movement sounds vaguely like people of our generations (and the generation preceding us) obsession with "down with the system!" Personally, I have never understood the infatuation with the idea that anarchy is best and that people shouldn't be enslaved to the system of things (blah blah blah, so on and so forth). Pop culture artists in my opinion are just taking advantage of people's need to blame someone else for their failures in life and making money off of it (cynical? yes... and maybe not even true, I don't know).
For if one is doing poorly in life, is it NECESSARILY the fault of the system that supposedly keeps kicking you while you're down? Plenty of people have overcome this and gone on to be, if not huge successes, at least doing well enough and being generally content (materially speaking). Now I would like to take a quick pause here and say that I'm not arguing that life doesn't throw curveballs. That's not what I'm saying at all. What I AM saying is that when life throws you a curveball, people are smart enough to figure out what to do about it and move on instead of wallowing in pity because they've been dealt a bad hand (WOW that statement was wrought with cliches).
So connecting this with the Emergent Church, I like what John Piper says about Mark Driscoll's emergent movement. The idea is that young people (my age and slightly older) need to grow up, stop acting like rebellious teenagers - blaming governments, teachers, school, and life for our problems - and be real men and women of God. Although I think a "reinvention" of the way we do church may be necessary in many settings, shunning doctrine (to plagiarize from Piper) is extremely dangerous for one's spiritual walk with God.
1 Comments:
First Mark Driscoll isn't an emergent.
Second I used to be an evangelical I stopped attending becuase I couldn't tolerate the facade anymore. I'm noticing more and more young people pulling back from the church. In my case I began to notice double standards and hearing certain sins preached about continually yet others continually ignored. It became a farce. On top of that I also knew a couple of situations where people who confessed sin were dealt with severely which in turn forced others dealing with that sin to lie to maintain a spiritual appearance. It became more and more of a facade. I would suggest that there are many problems with the evangelical church today. The problems are not going away..it's actually getting worse.
Now here's the kicker..I joined evangelical Christianity and accepted Jesus as my savior over a decade ago. In the process I separated from Mormonism. However...what drove me away from evangelical Christainity is that I began to notice strong similarities with Mormonism. There was the dishonesty at times, living a facade, twisting the Bible and using manipulation, and on and on it went.
In the end I couldn't stand it anymore. What also disgusted me was when you raised these concerns and people wouldn't bother to listen.
Sad...but life goes on.
Annon
BTW..in reagrds to your posting about John Piper why is it that John Piper and other conserative evangelicals are more than ready to combat heresy on the left yet tolerate and give a pass to hersey on the right? Pat Robertson and many prominant fundementalists have said many things over the years which are not Biblical, yet they have often gone unchallenged by the John Pipers of today....
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