by Understand the Times with Roger Oakland
LTRP Note: The following commentary by Roger Oakland is in response to a recent article written by Trevin Wax titled, “5 Reasons Why the Emerging Church is Now Receding.”1
“Don’t Bury The Emerging Church, Yet!”
by Roger Oakland
Trevin Wax’s article titled “5 Reasons Why the Emerging Church is Now Receding” posted February 5, 2008, asks some interesting questions and raises some valid concerns with regard to the Emerging Church. However, unfortunately Wax has drawn conclusions that steer readers far from an accurate picture of understanding the times from a biblical perspective, and it is necessary to sound the alarm.
Wax asks the question, “Has the Emerging Church begun to recede?” then answers it with a “yes,” giving 5 reasons why this is so. While Wax points out several crucial problems of the emerging church, (true biblical evangelism, doctrines on hell and the deity of Christ, etc.), he has underestimated the seriousness and the expansiveness of the emerging church movement by suggesting that it’s “influence” has “begun to wane.”
He suggests that because some young pastors and leaders are distancing themselves from the term emergent or emerging, this is “a clear sign that the conversation is ending.” This is not an accurate view of what is happening throughout the world as the documented facts reveal.
Certain aspects of the emerging church, like other trends or fads that hit Christianity, will no doubt come and go. Perhaps the name will even change. However, the underlying spirituality (I call it emerging spirituality) and the overall vision of the emerging church is not going to fade away or disappear, even if, as Wax suggests, it blends into the evangelical church. It will still exist. Thus, I would disagree that the emerging church is on its way to a burial.
The ideologies and theologies that have been presented by the emerging church and the purpose driven church (one of the greatest evangelistic tools for the emerging church) have opened the door to a much bigger delusion that is coming in the name of Christ.
Click here to read this entire article.
