Where Does the Emergent Road Lead?

i think you bring up some really salient points. i am with you to a large degree. Yet i think people, when deconstructing their faith/religion, they are sort of going through a mourning period, which for everyone, the time and length and extent is different.

My father passed away 3 weeks before my 17th birthday and his parents NEVER got over their anguish before dying themselves in a fire in their home 3 months later. It took me years to get over my own anguish of losing 4 family members within 3 months of each other. Again, we all lose people, but each story is uniquely different because of circumstances, our individual emotional makeup, and how we deal with stress. We can all relate that we have a shared experience in that we have experienced loss and are mourning.

i am just not meeting people very often who are interested in Jesus or Christianity, but in their paganism, other religions, atheism or agnosticism.

So, i think there are people who are at the same point you find yourself and those people need to be connected.

I’d like to find these people too. Anyone out there?

Check out this wonderful post by Pete Rollins on mourning:
http://peterrollins.net/blog/?p=127

THANKS for your thoughts!

Warm Regards,

Existential Punk

Angela, what is happening with post-evangelicals, post congregationalists, etc, is a phenomenon that we have very little history to teach us how to deal with. The dialog you hear is part of the grieving process, and the blogs are the means. The angst you feel of not having someone to talk to is the same thing we’re feeling only in a different domain.

I would encourage you to blog more about your own journey and hopefully discover others in your boat, so that…we can all hook up and discover what it really means to follow Jesus.

This interim period will not or cannot last forever. If it does, shoot me. ;-P

Much Love.

There are times I feel like I am emerging not from, but into, the pagan (ie “of the country”, as opposed to the city). The prophetically pagan message is talking to us post evangelicals, helping us to worship the creator via the creation, to live lives of balance, in tune with the natural order. As a post/ambivangelical, I deeply welcome this voice.

Angela, your voice is a much needed and welcome one in this conversation! Imagine if all of us only came from one place, and there was no diversity among us, how boring and uneventful that would be. I would encourage you to continue talking about the things God is putting on your heart! I too desire a deeper life with Christ, as I am a mother of four and only 31 years old – so I have been a mom of a small child my whole adult life. I am in what most people call a season, but it is all I have ever, from 18 on, known. And it is difficult to seek God when you have little ones – correction: it is difficult for me. I am eager to hear what you have to say next, and would love for you to friend me on Facebook so we can get further down this journey together! God bless you, and thank you!

Angela – this is a tremendously important post. Thanks for expressing these thoughts. I am meeting more and more people like you around the world … For example, at my home church (I used to be pastor, now I’m a “regular” member), I keep meeting people who aren’t emerging “out of Evangelicalism,” but are emerging from a more or less secular background “into” Christ. As people emerge “out of” some of the less welcoming expressions of Christianity, they create space for people to discover the beauty and love of God … and “emerge into” an authentic faith for the first time. That’s beautiful!

No. You’re certainly not alone. I ‘emerged’ from growing up and living in as an adult in a thoroughly pluralistic background (though I found I preferred paths more influenced by Hinduism than Buddhism – but also a soft spot for a variety of self-proclaimed ‘pagans’) into Christianity some 15 years ago.

I haven’t bounced around much as far as churches go, but have never really felt settled either. I sometimes have a reaction not dissimilar to yours. And experiences not dissimilar to what you describe.

Angela,
This post is beautiful, and timely. Though I AM a “post-evangelical”-what-have-you, I am longing for Emergent Meat.

With books like “The Third Jesus” and “The Secret According to Jesus” (not to be confused with Mr McLaren’s work), the Secular World is looking to claim Jesus as their own. Still, Staunch-Conservatism clefts to the Christ resolved.

We Emergents stand in this gap. Our conversations must seek a dangerous balance that beckons in both sides.

Thank you for sharing. Let’s experience This Beautiful Thing together.

-Chase

Angela;

Thanks so much for this post. I have to admit to being one of those other kind of emergent people, but over the years, it is the people from your side of the mountains who have been bringing the most to my table. We need to hear more from the “other” people among us.

Wow, Angela, this is cool! Yes, there are many like you, coming “out of the woods” or maybe coming in.

But also—there are many of us life-long insiders coming out to a more generous, accepting, world-embracing way of faith—once upon a time we would have been accused of syncretism or even heresy, but refuse to worry about such labels anymore. The whole exploration of Celtic spirituality including its non-Christian elements is one manifestation of this phenomenon.

I haven’t read all the comments, but what I will say is, “Right On!” I am not post-evangelical, I am Presbyterian, I am questioning, I am searching, and I have been my whole life. I can understand people’s grieving, and deconstruction, but right now I am tired of it. I want to start working toward something positive. A lot of the conversations I hear are about what we shouldn’t do, not what we should. I am ready to offer new things, that aren’t new, I am ready to be new in my old tradition, I am ready to walk to road with people who are ready to walk.

I hope to be with those who are on the side of the road, because they can’t move on…yet, but right now I am interested in lifting them up and putting my arm around them and helping them put one foot in front of the other.

Blessings,
Greg

Wow! Nice to make these connections. I almost didn’t post this, because it seemed like a big whine… not my style (online anyway).

But I’m sure glad I did.

@Theresa, I’d love to connect. You can find me on facebook or almost anywhere using my real name. And twitter! Who’s on twitter? :) (click my name, above)

Bless you on this post.really enjoyed it…

The most wonderful thing I heard is that people are searching for Jesus and finding Him. Just realize that the “church” is you and not some building or congregation under a teacher.

Dear Angela, Jesus is not a thing; He is our Lord, and our Savior. When He was on this earth, He was real. He lived, breathed, ate, slept and wept. He is and was real! He is not a thing. He is God.
It is very sad to here of your friends who declare their pagan roots, yet think they know Him. The Bible states that there are many who will face Him on judgement day having acknowledged Him with their voices, but denied Him with their lives. Please let them know that Jesus is the only way to God, not a way to God. I am praying for your friends, thankful that they have a friend who will tell them the truth.

as with others, I’m so grateful for your perspective. It’s important that space is provided for people in all places and stages. One point I wanted to make is that if people weren’t fighting for emergence FROM certain established institutions, there would be no place for those emerging INTO Christ to come to which is why I think it’s important to recognize this aspect of our recent history as more and more people find themselves sharing your story

Greg (Jan 2) You have missed Angela’s point and you have misunderstood her relationship with Christ. Your concern and care are appreciated, but your accusations are hurtful rather than helpful.
Angela, this is a necessary course of conversation and you rock for putting your neck out like this to call us Emergents to awareness of this aspect of life in EC.
God bless you.

Angela, and anyone else seeking to come together for God’s glory in an internet community, come join me at http://thedesertrose.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/welcome/#comment-3

Oh, silly me! That link should be http://thedesertrose.wordpress.com/

So, is Jesus God or not, or is he simply divine and growing and we are walking in his good foot steps?

Angela, sorry I’m late to the party, but no-one invited me. Your post is really important, but it asks for this question. How many people emerging into Christ from non-Christian backgrounds are inviting those of us who are emerging into him from within traditional church into their conversations? We need to listen to each others experiences and learn as much as we can.

Ill tell you where this road leads… To a one world religion. It is an abandonment of allegiance to Jesus… Jesus is no longer Lord he is just one of many. This is a set up for the great falling away. Sad but true. Most every problem you guys have with the western church is probably true… but we cannot say there is no repentance of sin and accepting of Jesus as Lord and ruler as well as lover… He is the second Adam but he is also God incarnate. Fully God and Fully Man.

Greg (Post 14),

I think that Jesus can be described as a thing and it is better in my opinion to understand Jesus as an experience and a reference point for one’s mind. Appeals to the Bible as historical is unhelpful for learned outsiders (anybody actually). To describe Jesus as a thing is to say that the Biblical portrait of Jesus (his way of life and death) is powerful as a concept. Whether Jesus actually was God or not is beside the point. The church needs to move past bald assertions of dogma toward messy self-analysis of the Jesus experience and its role in influencing our lives. All this emergent stuff is about examining things deeply—beneath the generic Sunday School answers of yesterday. To the degree that those answers still ring true, we should seek to understand in greater depth why they are true in a way that actually is honest and curious.