Emerging vs. Emergent

In his book, Confessions of a Reformission Rev. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), Mark Driscoll delineates between the 'emerging church' and the 'emergent church'. He says, "The emergent church is part of the Emerging Church Movement but does not embrace the dominant ideology of the movement. Rather, the emergent church is the latest version of liberalism. The only difference is that the old liberalism accomodated modernity and the new liberalism accommodates postmodernity" (21).

Driscoll was involved in the emerging church 'conversation' from nearly the beginning, but as time passed he had to distance himself from those who began using the term 'emergent', due to their doctrinal sloppiness. He would include in this camp people like Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, Tony Jones, and even someone like Rob Bell. It's not that they don't have helpful things to say, but that they go too far. Driscoll lists key points which such emergent-types typically balk at: (1) penal substitutionary atonement, (2) the sinfulness of homosexual acts, (3) the eternal torments of hell, (4) God's exhaustive knowledge of the future (i.e. denying Open Theism), (5) gender roles, (6) the inerrancy of Scripture. [To this I would add things like the exclusivity of Christ and even the Trinity(!)] Are these necessary truths or merely 'modern' conceptual constructs?

Are we using the phrase - Chicago Emerging Baptists - intentionally as a way of distancing ourselves from those who have taken contextualization all the way to syncretism? Would we identify with emerging leaders like Driscoll (see www.marshillchurch.org or www.theresurgence.com) or with McLaren (see www.emergentvillage.com)? Comments??

Personally, I believe that Driscoll sums up well what should be our approach - "holding in one closed hand the unchanging truth of evangelical Christian theology (Jude 3) and holding in one open hand the many cultural ways of showing and speaking Christian truth as a missionary to America (1Cor. 9:19-23)" (22).