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too liberal?

The hubby was thinking aloud the other day about how the emerging church might be getting too liberal - or might be on a slope toward universalism or relativism or whatnot.

I expressed an idea that maybe we’re not really getting more liberal, but perhaps some of the newfound “generous orthodoxy” in Christianity and the more celtic form of evangelism (belong, behave, believe vs. believe, behave, belong) is simply attracting and embracing spiritual people who did not previously commune with Christians. In other words, I suspect that these thinkers were always there, they were just numbered among the myriad of “non believers” (a phrase I put in quotes because as Rob Bell says in Velvet Elvis, we all believe in something).

My guess is that we are both a little bit right but for once, I’m actually more optimistic than he is so I’m going to take what I can get for now hehe.

I was thinking about how it must have been similar in the Gentile church communities written to and about in the New Testament. This trend in the first church certainly didn’t scare anyone and doesn’t to this day (while it was of course addressed). In fact, it was/is considered “church growth”.

I actually think that we will trend away from blatantly unorthodox and non historical beliefs within the Church as discipleship takes root in the lives of those entering Christianity from a spiritual but distinctly post Christian experience. I also think that some liberal thought and questioning is really not all bad.

I was reading the first 30 odd pages of Hirsch’s new book and in it, he talks about the need for discipleship as part of the missional church process. I’m interested to see what this means to him because my guess is that he has very progressive ideas of what discipleship is within the context of his ideas about “apostolic genius”.

It definitely got me thinking about the importance of journeying with people after we embrace them. In other words, the plan for all of us is to become more like Christ, in order to be more accurate incarnations of him to others on this earth so that we can advance God’s Kingdom. So we work together as disciples of Christ.

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