The Emergent Church Markets Catholicism
By Richard Bennet at the Berean Beacon
“Not since the Jesus Movement of the early 1970s has a Christian phenomenon been so closely entangled with the self-conscious cutting edge of U.S. culture. Frequently urban, disproportionately young, overwhelmingly white, and very new—few have been in existence for more than five years—a growing number of churches are joining the ranks of the “emerging church.”
Thus declared Christianity Today in its article, “The Emergent Mystique”.1 While this new movement is permeating modern Evangelical circles in the Western world, few seem to understand its essential modus operandi. Careful analysis shows it to be a theory that repudiates any single defining source for truth and reality beyond the individual.
Emergent Church in its larger context
The Emergent Church movement did not start and does not operate in a vacuum. Hence to evaluate its function in the larger context, it is essential to understand that thirty- five years ago, the Roman Catholic Church published its non- negotiable agenda on ecumenism in its Post Vatican Council II documents. A crucial passage states,
“…ecumenical dialogue is not limited to an academic or purely conceptual level, but striving for a more complete communion between the Christian communities [churches], a common service on the Gospel and closer collaboration on the level of thought and action, it serves to transform modes of thought and behavior and the daily life of those communities. In this way, it aims at preparing the way for their unity of faith in the bosom of a Church one and visible: thus ‘little by little’, as the obstacles to perfect ecclesial communion are overcome, all Christians will be gathered, in a common celebration of the Eucharist, into that unity of the one and only Church which Christ bestowed on his Church from the beginning. This unity, we believe, dwells in the Catholic Church as something she can never lose…”2
Thus rather than looking for unity based on truth, the Papacy, as ever, is seeking to secure visible outward conformity through the compromise of others. This is the larger context into which the Emergent Church is set… Read Full Article
http://www.bereanbeacon.org/The_Emergent_Church_Markets_Catholicism.htm
Note: Richard Bennett, a former Catholic Priest has a much needed ministry inthese days of compromise.
Please visit his Webpage at: http://www.bereanbeacon.org
