Thursday, February 22, 2007

Deeks on the ECM

This is the first of a series of blogposts by Ken Deeks, a "moderate" dean of a Canadian Bible college, which examines the question of whether or not the Emerging/Emergent Church Movement is heretical, using Calvary Chapel Outreach Fellowship's statement on the ECM as a launching pad.

It isn't complementary to CCOF's position, and in my opinion betrays Deeks' liberalism - er, I mean, "moderat...ism...".

However, it's a good counter-point and worth reading if you want a fuller-spectrum view of the issues involved in thinking through the implications of the ECM. And in thinking through how liber--ah, that is, "moderates'" view CCOF's position on the subject.

Munching through the series of blogposts, spitting out the plethora of pounds of gristle, there is some good meat in there, which I'll try to comment on at a later time...

3 comments:

Bryonm said...

Calvary has published some amazing position papers through the years. One of my favorites is Calvinism vs. Arminianism.

Another great position published was Charisma vs. Charismania which brought balance to the teaching of the Holy Spirit and practice of gifts in the congregational setting.

If those published positions, thouroughly researched and taught on in depth are the standard, then the position paper against the emerging church definitely did not measure up.

To borrow one of your phrases: it was drive by position paper writing.

mike macon said...

Bryon, I have to unfortunately agree.

While I appreciate the heart behind Paul Smith's missive, I think it was really better directed to the more liberal (albeit, if we're being honest, predominant) wing of ECM - as Joe Paskewich and Terry Dawson have pointed out, the EmergENT side of the movement, which includes MacLaren (sorry) and McKnight, over against the EmergING side, which includes some pretty cool dudes like Kimball and Driscoll.

The ECM overall isn't dangerous - heck, as I've pointed out, in many ways we were Emerging before Emerging Emerged.

Bryonm said...

yep...