Younger Evangelicals

Hey folks - I'm baaaaccckkk! OK, enough of that. I've been, like several it seems, reading The Younger Evangelicals by Robert Webber. I tried to start reading it at the beginning but got bogged down - had to start skipping around. I've skipped to chapter 7 - Ecclesiology. Very interesting stuff. I want to put a couple of quotes here for your benefit. I think this, just because of it's basic content, a very significant book. It's actually the first book that's really dealing with what's going on in the emerging church in a holistic way. We've had others that have dealt with Postmodernism, etc. but not with the whole emerging church phenomenon.

quote one: "The Constantinian church became so enmeshed with society that it soon served as the 'caretaker' or 'chaplain' of society. By being enmeshed with society and by offering prayer at its various functions, the church created a kind of 'civil religion' that legitimated the social order. It became the moral teacher for all citizens, calling upon them to live good, moral, and upright lives."

That may have been said before but it's still huge. He menitons too the connection later to the liberal social action agenda as well as the conservative agenda in politics. These tactics are not the answer.

He quotes John Green as saying something very key to the rising ethos of the emerging church: "...we are made to be light in the darkness–calling people to the road less travelled, to a costly discipleship that rejects the materialism, nationalism, militarism, classism, racism, and sexism of the American culture for the cross of Christ."

I'll quote more later - good stuff. I hope a lot of people read this book and their eyes are opened.