On Being an "Emergent" Christian

I recently discovered that I have kin I didn't even know existed. What I mean is that I have lately stumbled upon a group of people who I think are a lot like me. They are "boomer" Christians, steeped in tradition, well-educated and more than a little intellectual. They know the Bible and church history forward and backward. They have been churchgoers for most of their lives. And (lo and behold!) they think they've been hurt by the church--not by individuals within the church, but by the very institution itself.

According to the leaders of this group, they feel sad and/or mad about being hurt by the church, but they are unwilling to forsake their Christianity. Instead, they want to start anew. They want to leave behind the institutional church of their childhood and follow Jesus only. They want to shake off the dust of denominationalism as they leave. They fully expect their exodus to lead them to a "Post-evangelical" promised land, where the "emergent" church will then be established.

And here I was, thinking I was all alone!

For the last twenty years or so, I have been a church-less soul, wandering in a soul-less evangelical wilderness. I have been looking for but not finding other like-minded souls to whom I can spill my spiritual guts. Could it be that I have found them?

I have probably attended a third of the churches in my area--enough to know that I'm not going to find what I'm looking for in an institutional church. I have been disappointed again and again by their vapidity. They seem so desperate to find life. Not a one of them seems to be a place where I can be myself, let alone be appreciated for being myself. Careful observation has revealed to me that each one of them is really just trying to be the ultimate social club, or the ultimate self-help clinic, or the last bastion of this or that. And I can identify many of them by their walls--by what they are trying to keep out or keep in.

No thanks. Not interested. What I want is to be part of a group of people who want to discover more and more every day what it means to be Christ-like. I want to be challenged by people to be whatever it is that is Christ-like. I don't want to scheme or make long-range plans. I don't want to judge or be judged. I don't want to be told or asked what to do. I just want to bask in the rich heritage of my faith. I just want to ponder on the truth that there is really nothing more for me to do than this. How does that sound to you?

Liberal or Conservative?

1. The fundamental political choice is between freedom and equality. Society can’t have 100% of both, because freedom and equality are antagonistic. If people are to be completely free, then their individual differences will naturally come to the fore and some people will demonstrate an advantage over other people. If people are to be completely equal, then the natural individual differences that lead to inequality will have to be controlled. Thus, the fundamental question to be asked is this: is it more important for a people to be free or to be equal? If you think that it is more important for a people to be equal, then you will necessarily become a liberal. If, on the other hand, you think that it is more important for a people to be free, then you will necessarily become a conservative.

Liberals have made the choice for equality over freedom. But what liberals choose to overlook is the fact that there are two different kinds of equality—“equality of opportunity” in which everyone is equal in the beginning and “equality of outcome” in which everyone is equal in the end. Liberals also choose to overlook the fact that it is a lot harder for a society to keep people from becoming unequal (and to keep them equal) than it is to make sure that everyone is equal in the beginning. (Most liberal legislation has to do with the former.) Conservatives, on the other hand, have made the choice of freedom over equality. Conservatives believe that no government can make its citizens truly and permanently equal, because individuals will always exercise their individual differences to their own advantage. Conservatives are always fighting against liberal legislation on the grounds that it almost always takes away some kind of freedom.