INDEX - EMERGENT CHURCH ERA
OF THE 1990s to 2010s,
Part I
"...In hindsight, my faith didn't require abandonment. No.
Simply a better resonance with what it wasn't hearing
in today's current generations of God's faithful." - re slater
Contrary to how conservative evangelical churches have spoken of the emergent church, I have participated in each church forum as an active minister and member. And from what I have read of the many evangelical articles on its more progressive twin, they all seem to be unfair, if not errant, evaluations of the emergent movement.
Moreover, these same statements and evaluations have told me exactly who evangelicals think they are in difference to the work of the Spirit of God pouring the Lord's gospel out through their kindred emergent fellowships.
It is why I left evangelicalism for process Christianity. For better or worse, the conservative evangelical church over the past forty years (since the 1980s) has closed its ears and hearts to the gospel of Christ not unlike how the pharisees did towards Jesus in their era. A lot of it came from how they read their Bible which I have spoken to in hundreds of articles here on this site.
More simply, Jesus preached a loving God and a loving gospel against the evangelical's God of wrath and judgment and the sundry legalisms which came along with this kind of evangelical God. And as I look about the conservative enangelical landscape in 2024 they have fundamentally embraced an anti-christ-like figure within their political midst over that of Jesus and the kindness, if not thoughtfulness of Jesus' gospel.
Hence, I would state that everything from conservative evangelic apologetics to their eschatology has been turned inside-out and backwards as hallmarks to evangelicalism's fallenness, pride, unteachability, and unrepentant hearts. James says to watch the works of one's faith. However perfectly dogmatic and holy evangelical doctrine is, the very acts of it's dogmas have betrayed the kind of God they are worshipping. It's confusing and caused a significant quantity of their fellowship to leave evangelicalism to rethink what they believe and hold dear about Christ and Christianity.
And though I continue to attend both conservative and progressive evangelical churches and fellowships as I was taught as a child from my youth, I find the Spirit-life my once former fellowship had in the 60s and 70s has altogether changed for the worse and not for the better.
Thus the reason so many evangelicals have left for a better expression of the gospel found in the emergent church movement. Whereas, the churches they had left have continued to hunker down into less vibrant, more angry, and condemnatory protestations - if not impreccations - placed upon the heads of former friends and disciplers. It is the poorest of Christian responses. To disagree is one thing... but to condemn and damn is simply another. It sears the heart when pronouncing "Raca" upon the soul of another thus making any form of fellowship virtually non-existent.
Jesus once observed that new wine will burst old wine sacks. So too today, the new wine of the gospel has burst the confines of the traditional church forcing it to examine itself, and in the examination move either forwards, towards Jesus, when drinking of the new wine he is offering or... to continue in their older forms of stubborn, idealised, traditionalism. From what I can see this latter has greatly harmed evangelical fellowships across America.
Below is a collection of articles I have written over the years discussing this very personal faith-dilemma. You may disagree or agree... none of which I care about. What I do care about is that Jesus be preached in a loving gospel of embrace, welcome and spirited fellowship that sees the person and not the argument. I would like to see a return to how the church use to evangelize as versus how it evangelizes today.
My vision of the present and future is profoundly different from what it once was. And though the emergent church has since come-and-gone it's legacy is still present with us. I would urge those who can, to join those like myself, along with the mass of recovering "nones and dones." My gifts are several, but here, I will teach God's love to the lost generations of the church and local communities.
Join us then. Find your spot and settle in for awhile. There is no movement, no organizations, no faith committees. But there is a profound Spirit-resurgence criss-crossing the globe across all faiths and beliefs.
Peace and blessings,
R.E. Slater
February 6, 2024
Emergent Christianity
~~ all articles are listed in chronological order from latest to earliest ~~
An Oral History of the Emerging Church Movement, Qtr 1, 2024
Emergent Christianity Defined
~~ all articles are listed in chronological order from latest to earliest ~~
"...They have not known nor understood: for they have shut their eyes and cannot see;
they have shut their hearts and cannot understand." (Isaiah 44.18)
