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I suggested yesterday that Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead expresses deep themes that find expression also among the Emergent folk, and I’d like to record here one of those comments. It comes near the end of the book, when Pastor John Ames is about to sign off (which he never does, which too is a bit postmodern).…

No, I’m not talking about A New Kind of Christian or The Story We Find Ourselves In or The Last Word and After That. Instead, I’m talking about Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead and the theology of Pastor John Ames. Of course, it is foolish to debate what is the Emergent novel, but I am willing to…

This essay was previously blogged under “What to read” but I have now, at the helm of Bob Robinson, posted it as a link and a pdf file. Never Alone “…the truth that reading and its necessary twin, writing,constitute not merely an ability but a power.”— Jacques Barzun “Every old man complains,” so said Samuel…

Essayists are humans who stick their nose out and sometimes their neck and, if truth be told about some of them, the entire body. Regardless, each sticks out her or his mind and scratches down some thoughts on paper. And, when you read them, you begin a wrestling match because instead of leading you along…

If we define “ecumenical” in the classical sense, that is, as the attempt by a variety of major church denominations to become “one” in theology and, by that theological unity, to move steps closer toward structural unity with a goal of making the Church entirely one, we are prepared also to claim that the Emergent…

I have no wish here to describe or evaluate what various Emergence churches are saying and doing and thinking about when it comes to the Sacraments, which for most Protestants has always been limited to Baptism and the Lord’s Supper — and not always called sacraments. Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism differ both on number…

The Cross is the center of the Christian faith, though it takes the entire Weekend (Good Friday and Easter Morn) to accomplish the gospel work of God. But, the Cross is often truncated into an event that deals exclusively with sin as transgression (sin is transgression, and a lot more) for the purpose of preparing…

An interesting discussion for me is whether or not to call this Emergent “thing” a “church” or a “movement” or a “conversation.” Let me weigh in with these thoughts, and then suggest what I think is the quintessential literary form for Emergents. First, I think it can be said with a fairly robust confidence that…

To define a movement properly is to find not just what is unique to a movement, as adult baptism upon confession was to the Baptists or as the gift of prophecy was to the Vineyard, but to discover and elaborate what is “characteristic” of that movement. I think it is a mistake to define Emergent…

No word is more used among the Emergent folk than the word “missional,” so I’ll use it too. Some of these churches will chuck an occasional Sunday gathering to “do something for others.” In so carrying its missional emphasis, a message is sent to the local community that what the Church is about is a…
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