Jesus Manifesto - Latest Comments in I couldn’t help myself: Responding to a Critic of the Emerging Church

Re: I couldn’t help myself: Responding to a Critic of the Emerging Church

markvans — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 22:27:12 -0000

Thanks. I've definitely gotten better at design in the past two years, but I think I lucked out with this design. It not only looks better, but it feels more cohesive than my old blog.

By the way Dave, I got your message. Sorry I was unable to answer your call; I would have liked to grab a cup o' coffee with you.

Re: I couldn’t help myself: Responding to a Critic of the Emerging Church

Dave C — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 16:52:21 -0000

Cool looking new digs.

Re: I couldn’t help myself: Responding to a Critic of the Emerging Church

markvans — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 09:30:43 -0000

Luke,

I'll look into the formatting issue; thank you for the heads-up.

I've thought through the two-books idea and realized that the best approach is to write one book. That means that this book will be a bit more basic and accessible than I had intended for the "resistance" part of the book. I think that is a good thing; it allows me to get the basic idea across and then to write a follow-up book or books that go deeper.

Re: I couldn’t help myself: Responding to a Critic of the Emerging Church

Luke — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 01:58:11 -0000

Spiffy new site! But did I miss something? Does this mean the publisher also accepted your proposal for The Jesus Manifesto?

Also, FYI: in Firefox but not in IE the borders to the textboxes for name, mail, website, and comment text are nearly invisible, which probably makes things slightly confusing to those unfamiliar with blog commenting (who happen to use Firefox). Dunno if you're getting the same effect.

Re: I couldn’t help myself: Responding to a Critic of the Emerging Church

Surly Dave — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 20:57:02 -0000

Mark,
I read the comment you posted over at this guys blog and was struck by the observation that we tend to ignore the 1700 years of history and development before the, err...1700's.

Thanks for challenging me once again.

Re: I couldn’t help myself: Responding to a Critic of the Emerging Church

Van S — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 16:37:21 -0000

2e...fair enough. But here is the thing: I am unable to offer a solid defense of "ECM" since we're all from different theological traditions. I shouldn't lump you in with all the "fundamentalist reform guys," but I suspect that folks that read MacArthur have more in common with each other than folks that read Brian McLaren (by the way, I haven't read much of McLaren and I have NEVER read any other book by someone tied to Emergent). Evangelical Reformed theology is much much more monolithic and has clearly identifiable leaders, whereas ECM is de-centralized and doesn't really have any identifiable set of spokespeople. What folks at Emergent are trying to do is broker conversation, not lead a movement (at least, that is what they are mostly about). This is why I can point out major flaws in mainstream evangelicalism, yet not ECM...ECM is more a set of movements. Nevertheless, I have offered critiques of Emergent Village, Spencer Burke, and the Emerging church in general before on this blog.

Re: I couldn’t help myself: Responding to a Critic of the Emerging Church

dlw — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 15:37:33 -0000

You Da Man!

dlw

Re: I couldn’t help myself: Responding to a Critic of the Emerging Church

2e — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 14:39:28 -0000

"yet-another self-designated defender of evangelical orthodoxy" responds:

Mark,
Believe it or not, my original post, I'm going to pick a fight, while provactive, was an attempt to, in some way, converse ECM folks and I explained where I am coming from in a follow up post here. Just for the record, I think a critique of modern evangelicalism is as equally warranted as that of the ECM; however, the defensive posture I often get from those who have embraced things emergent belies an unwillingness to have "conversation" about things that are perceived by many as glaring problems. If it is a movement of God then it is worth defending. Such defense, one would think, would be made to the unenlightened in Christlike humility in an effort to clarify rather than to impress with verbosity. I believe I detect a bit of arrogance in your position as well since apparently there is a basis for determinig the " MAJOR theological short-comings within mainstream evangelicalism" but, not those of the ECM. Lastly, be careful lest you quickly package us (self-designated defender of evangelical orthodoxy, fundamentalist reform guys, evangelicals) all into the same box.