My favorite show on TV of late has been PBS’ Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. This week, they had an excellent first of a two part series on The Emergent Church. Not only does their page have the transcript and the video of the show, it has a slew of good links too. Here’s what I took away from the show:
- The "Emergent Church" is diverse, and resists categorization and institutionalization. It’s basically the brainchild of a bunch of gen-Xers who wanted to do church differently.
- They are post-modern, post-evangelical, and post- a lot of other things. Basically, they are new ;)
- Like all new Xian movements, their doctrine is in flux, and they make traditionalists uneasy.
The real question is, will they resahape modern xianity as the Charismatic Jesus Movement of the 60’s did, or will they just be a temporary spinoff ministry that reaches a select group of people? Only time will tell.