CriswellTR on Emerging Church

Emerging Church is the theme of the latest Criswell Theological Review. No online copy now but probably worth buying an issue (or a one year subscription for $10 more) One of the essays is “An Ecclesiological Assessment of the Emergent Church”, by John Hammet which is a heavily revised version of the original. In fact, it has been changed and edited so much that it is not worth me linking to the original document. John had a lot of good discussions with us and has been one of our most congenial critics.

The Kiwis get a few honorable mentions in the revised essay that John Hammett sent me a few months ago (I am assuming this copy is the same or almost the same as published by CTR) including the results of the Christ and Culture poll that some of you contributed to [thanks], and the incredible complexity that now surrounds this movement:

“In fact, the difficulty of definition is compounded by the diversity of the movement. Andrew Jones cites the recently published Lausanne Occasional Paper #43, “The Changing Expression of Church,” as listing twenty-three such new expressions (i.e., cyberchurch, house church, coffee shop), many if not all of which could be argued to fit some definitions of emerging church. Steve Taylor gives six “emerging church types” (house church, labyrinth, art collective, weekly participative communities, festival spirituality, and postmodern monasteries), but would make no claim that these types exhaust the possibilities. Thus, anyone who speaks of emerging churches as a whole will find it difficult to avoid misrepresenting some emerging churches.” John Hammett

HT: Justin Taylor

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