I think it would be oversimplifying all the cultural dynamics to give credit/blame to youth ministry for the Emerging Church movement. However, I think Jones has a very strong point about the cultural of youth ministry in general being counter to the traditional evangelical church. I was at many youth conferences and camps where you knew if stories of the worship, speakers, emotional small group times and emotional altar call times got back to Momma Church that there would be trouble.

Kids come home from YWAM, youth camps, retreats, youth conferences and outreaches (local and foreign) all fired up and senior pastors asked me to make sure they understand that regular church life CAN'T be like the experiences they've just had. We have offered a generation a glimpse of what can be and then want them to come home to what always has been.

The "Kitchen Table Syndrome" is definitely a part of this experience. But none of this would be shaking things up alone without the greater cultural shift that is taking place inside and out of the Church.

This highlights the major misunderstanding evangelicals have had about the emerging church.

While the discussions got bogged down in the theological vagaries of certain "luminaries" and the confessional evangelical gatekeeper wing's tantrum against them, the real driving guts to the "emerging church" is not "doctrine", but has always primarily been "ecclesiology/missiology".

This is my bias viewpoint which I fully own up too, and acknowledge knowing that this is just an opinion I have developed watching the "emerging" occur.

The flat structure is actually a good thing, but, and herein is where the caveat that I have seen comes into play, is that the emerging church needs to lock down their doctrine or they risk fragmenting (if they haven't already) into disperate groups with competing doctrines of which some may look biblical, but are not.

As for the rest of the emerging church it's okay...church is the group of people meeting together in the presence of G-d...just lock down that doctrine in accordance to the bible and all is good.

The first time I stepped into what was at the time called a "Gen-X church," my first thought was, "This looks an awful lot like a youth group." Indeed, it was started by a former youth pastor, and filled with former youth group members who, after they had "graduated" from the youth services to the adult services in their respective churches, had found that they had no voice in it; few cared to hear their input. So they went to a church that listened.

Of course, there are other factors that transformed those churches into emerging churches: They started developing a theology to understand (or even justify) their purpose and practices; they applied a postmodern methodology to theology that other Christians find bothersome; they tend to swing to the left politically, which to some Evangelicals is worse than apostasy.

But the groundwork for the movement was laid in youth groups. In that, Jones is exactly right.

for me, it was a combination of youth group bible studies, which spoiled me for interactive group experiences drinking coffee and praying and discussing at the same time (like EC today)

AND

the mission experiences overseas (agree with first comment) where contextual missiology learned in foreign contexts was too good to be ignored when i came home.

If Jones means that it provided the context of consumerized expectation which most churches were unable, or unwilling, to continue into adulthood because they expected their kids who they had spiritually parceled off to professional clergymen to have suddenly grasped spiritual maturity through an events driven ministry that never equipped them to handle real life situations?

Yeah I agree.

Jones makes a good point. But, I wonder to what extent evangelicalism also has contributed to the emerging church. If you study our history, railing against church structures; shunning hierarchy; and re-inventing church ('cause we're smarter than all the Christians who have come before us) dates back to the First and Second Great Awakenings. We evangelicals simply have no respect for tradition and this disrespect is wreaking havoc on the church.

Hilarious when someone says that the heart of the Emerging church has "always primarily been "ecclesiology/missiology". Study after study done on these churches show that they give to and participate in LESS mission work whether it be social justice focused or evangelistically focused than their traditional counterparts which they rail against for not doing enough. Having worked with these churches for years and having many colleagues in the movement, I have seen them to be almost completely lacking in accountability, the basis for true community. Doctrinally, they are shallow and not deep thinking. It is easy to see why the studies also indicate it is losing steam. The connection to youth ministry is obvious- most Emerging church leaders I have met over a decade in ministry demonstrate the same immaturity in matters of faith as the teenagers. At least teenagers have an excuse for it!

@Matt:

We're talking about the philosophical theoretical underpinnings/assumptions.

Gibbs and Bolger is a great place to start.

All those early emerging church folks were getting their worlds rocked by Newbigin, et. al.

Sorry...just a fact.

I was there. I listened to the conversations.

Also, what communities are you talking about, because every accurately labeled "emerging" community I know personally have been deeply engaged with their respective communities in mission and are creatively shaping ecclesiology for the cultural setting of their zipcode.

If by "emerging" you mean churches that are defined by way of a "style or vibe" then that isn't the "emerging church", per se. That's the evangelical gate-keeper caricature.

furthermore, "accountability" is a component expression, but not a basis for community.

There are obstacles/challenges to constructing localized, "new" ecclesiological forms. I don't deny that.

I wouldn't say that, despite disagreements, that the people who created and hosted over a decade of the signature theological conference like the yearly emergent village theological conversation with the likes of Hauweras, Brueggemann, Volf, etc. etc. etc. are shallow. Their past and continuing relationships with people like Stan Grenz, John Franke, LeRon Shults and Scot McKnight only further make my point.

I'm not saying people are saints or perfect. I'm just saying your broad disdain doesn't comport with, nor describes the movement I and many others have experienced.

"I know personally have been deeply engaged with their respective communities in mission and are creatively shaping ecclesiology for the cultural setting of their zipcode."

Nathan,
There is creatively bringing the message of G-d to people who would normally never darken the door of a church; And then there is creatively screwing up the message of G-d to such a degree that a person who never would have given G-d a second thought now has a reason why they never gave G-d a second thought.

Just because you see it as creative doesn't mean it comes across as creative...and creativity never brought a dime into the store...it was the person behind the counter just being themselves.

So...instead of crowing about Lesslie Newbigin, whom, to be perfectly honest, is fringe, and bordering on apostasy...and in my opinion...has skipped into heresy, perhaps you should be quoting Paul, Matthew, Luke, John, or Mark...even Peter has some pretty good insights, and if you really have the ball in hand, go for the Prophets, the histories, even the Tanach is loaded with material that is just as applicable to today as any of the gospels.

The problem is easy to solve, the path to solving it though doesn't involve money, orgainzations, or buildings...it involves people...whether they want to solve the problem or continuing to be part of the problem...well, that's a whole other story.

Matt
I agree with you. Emerging talks big on missions and living outside the church walls, but it's mostly just talk. Just follow the money. Emerging churches STILL consume 75 - 85% of the "giving" to buy goodies that benefit mostly the givers. That is because they still REQUIRE special buildings for crowd oriented gathering dominated by one-way communication ONLY by hired experts. They talk down hierarchy but the tightly controlled inner circle alleged to be "leadership" is all there with different labels. The rest of the saints are functionally dumb sheep needing expert driven "feeding" for the rest of their lives. Few, if anyone, is ever "fully trained to be like the teacher" Luke 6:40. Full spiritual reproduction is no more alive than in any institutionalized form of faith. New words and new styles to appear cooler to the world does not change what needs to be changed for mission to happen by God's design. 100% of the giving needs to go beyond the "givers" or it's all just pooling for us and very selfish. The scripture used to justify these giving to self notions have been twisted by otherwise godly people for generations.

Julie
"('cause we're smarter than all the Christians who have come before us)"
No, God, in His grace is intergenerationally revealing to his people, those who will examine what they are told with the scriptures on a daily basis (Acts 17:11), how His church has not grown to the full stature of Christ, and is perpetuating systemic error and not practicing the truth. God's word was given to us SPECIFICALLY to rebuke, correct, and instruct in righteousness. We need to spot failure and sin and "throw it off". If you are comfortable right where you are in your current habits of faith, you should not be. You have been lulled to sleep.

@Sheer,

it's really not that easy of a choice. We all are part of streams/denominations/traditions that modify their ecclesiology to their context(how they organize around the mission of the Church).

I don't think it's about "pitting" these things against each other.

Besides...if Paul walked into EVERY SINGLE EXPRESSION OF THE CHURCH in the world, it wouldn't necessarily be recognizable to him.

I think that's ok. There was no golden age of church ecclesiology.

That being said, my response about Newbigin, et. al is to signal the philosophical/missiological focus of the emerging church's, well, emergence... ;)

Furthermore, the push back the EC was not really into "missions" is not legit. If "missions" only means the traditional understanding of international missions a' la New Tribes, etc. then, sure.

The influence of missiologists on the EC was about reframing the local church as an expression of mission in it's particular context and seeing it's own zipcode as it's loci of mission.

Sorry...we can all have a disagreement on if that is legit or a correct deployment of missiologists and so forth, but you can't say that they didn't focus on or care about reframing the mission of the Church.

Look, there's plenty of reasons to be critical of the EC, but those criticisms need to comport with reality. Not caricatures from people who use the word Emerging to mean things that the creators of the conversation never meant it to mean NOR emphases that they NEVER claimed to be talking about or owning.

I'm just calling foul on characterizations that have more to do with caricatures that originate from Louisville, Deerfield, and Sun Valley and Lansing from people who ought to be ashamed for their lack of actual engagement and listening.

As usual, when talking of Emerging, I think comments here are comparing apples and oranges. There is a big difference between Emergent, Emerging and Big Box Evangelicalism that puts big money into lights, cameras and action. I think most of us work from a picture on this topic that is more straw man than real life.

@Nathan
Your entire rebuttal amounts to "no true Scotsman..." And quite frankly, having been theologically trained, your condescending tone which insinuates that I do not know the difference between "vibe" and content is insulting. You are more interested in condescension towards anyone who disagree with your assumptions. BTW, I can name drop too from the thousand plus books in my library accumulated while studying for my 3 earned theological degrees....while it does nothing to further the discussion, I would suggest you read Horton, Machen, Godfrey, Carson. And while you are at it, read the Arius so you know where emergent beliefs originated.

Matt,

The charge of Arianism seems to me to be a bit unfounded, unless you're privy to information not in the public domain...and I think, based on what I've read of the discussions, letters, books, etc of Emergent leaders seems more of an eclectic group of people with dissimilar opinions about the bible, and people's view of faith; and to further the doubt of the charge, the charge of Arianism would require a coherent statement of faith which I have yet to encounter of any form or degree...granted, some Emergent church units have provided sound doctrinal statements of faith, but as a movement of a whole...no, they can't seem to lock that down either good or bad.

All that aside, an author or two may have printed questionable assumptions of their thinking about G-d, Y'shua, and the Spirit; but the charge you are laying out here is far to organized a heresy even for the diverse Emergent units to corporately agree on.

Yes, nathan, I'm saying that the Emergent Church units are a disorganized batch of people who are incapable of espousing a monolithic statement of faith, much less assembling a heretical theology that would place them in the same category as Mormon's, and Jehovah Witnesses...which is what Mat's charge Arianism amounts too.

Anyway...name dropping...ugh.

Sheer,

Heretics often have much in common. Typically, they have their same origin; fundamental denial of Scripture. Arius and Marcion have much in common with McLaren and Bell- in many cases they have very similar theologies of God, though Arius and Marcion were somewhat less heretical. Arius denied the full deity of Christ, doubting His preexistence as well as his substance. Bell and McLaren suggest similarly in several of their writings. Marcion's view of the God of the OT is almost verbatim that of McLaren. They both view the OT God as malevolent and evil. And yes, I have read these men's work and McLaren did a teaching stint at my seminary before I transferred to a more theologically orthodox school for the rest of my education. (Always was fascinating that he was allowed to teach at a seminary with no earned theological degrees himself. He's often treated as a scholar, but has no theological education, only holds a masters degree in an unrelated discipline)

The fact that emergents refuse to define their theology has been their excuse to avoid charges of heresy for far too long. They say they are more interested in the questions than the answers, but their questions presuppose theological answers and are thus making strong theological statements in a cowardly way by refusing to be tested on those beliefs. When called to the carpet for their assertions, they cowardly reply, I was just asking a question or I was just trying to have a conversation. While it is impossible to define them all based on some, their most prominent members are clear heretics. McLaren preaches a different Jesus and a different Christianity than has been preached for 2000 years. His writings are regurgitated, less intelligent versions of Schleiermacher. Recently, Bell has fallen into this as well. Paget is hateful to anyone who disagrees with him or who makes a theological statement different then him. And yes, I understand that these men supposedly do not define the movement, but every emergent that I have dealt with lifts these men up. To deny their influence in the community is intellectual dishonesty. Also, to deny their sub-Chrisian theologies is dishonest.

Wow, Matt.

I wasn't trying to condescend. Sorry. I've read, and continue to read, the people you suggest. They're just men, exactly like the others you take issue with.

I'm just saying that if you can trot out anecdotal experience, then other people's experience should register as a counter to your claims.

If you'd like to see me be condescending...well, I could start trotting out my multiple theological degrees too. But that wouldn't really be productive, would it?

By doing so, your whole argument is an "appeal to authority", isn't it? My so-called "No true Scotsman..." argument is rooted in real life experience with a broad range of people, most of whom you and the rest of the world probably never met or know.

Now that you respond to Sheer with comments about specific people, are we talking about those specific people OR are we talking about the broader conversation that you initially were painting?

Trust me, I would agree with you about where some of the voices you've named have landed on some issues, but that's not how you initially weighed in.

Frankly, you should expect some push back if you start describing "everyone" in ways that don't line up with the consistent lived experience of people in relationship over the course of more than a decade.

@Sheer,

I hear you. I guess what I'm saying is that you can't hold a loose network of friends to a standard of "denominational" cohesion and coherence when a network of friends never set out to create it.

There's plenty to critique about things there, but some of the critiques are rooted in the same dynamic of "the botanist in the forest". (i.e. the Botanist is in the forest working and it is filled with the songs of wonderful song birds, but he doesn't even notice because he's trained to focus on the beautiful flowers)

Some of the criticisms toward the EC are basically saying that people aren't meeting a goal they never set for themselvves in the first place. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of what the EC was birthed as and for...

Nathan,
You started the "appeal to authority" by name dropping, not I- I answered in kind because you appear to feel that is the only way to prove your point. You are answering with logical fallacy, pointing to anecdotal stories in order to paint the movement in a favorable light- I can do the same thing. I have seen study after study that survey the beliefs of the emergent church as well as interacted with them through our denomination (the heresies from this group are running rampant in our denomination) and networks I have been part of. I have seen countless people led into false doctrine and placed on a road to hell. I have never met an emergent pastor (belief, not practice or "vibe" as you describe it) who did not think quite highly of McLaren. McLaren is demonstrably a heretic according to Scripture. Thus, those who revere his writings are suspect.

The reality is, the movement is suspect and the answer to any kind of scrutiny is "don't paint us with so broad a brush" or "we're just asking questions." When Carson in Christian love pointed our the theological failings of the movement, the response was the same. Conversation is only possible when a key set of principles are agreed upon, otherwise one is simply playing language games, which seems to be the case in this forum.

Autocorrect has gotten me in trouble before. Oh, the stories I could tell.

Couple things,

1. looking at the thread flow you actually trotted out anecdotes/experience first.

Just say'n. :D

2. I've never heard of a denom. completely under assault by the EC. I'd be interested to hear and I wonder why this hasn't been talked about more. It certainly doesn't sound like the tone or tenor that I've experienced. (ooops...we're both back to differing experiences)

3. Carson was reached out to about his book and HE REFUSED to engage about it. Your complaint can be leveraged both ways. He's not being wrongly painted here. And don't even get me started on the Lansing guys whose book should have been titled: "Why we aren't Tony Jones or Brian McLaren. By two guys who were never told they should be in the first place."

4. Sorry you've had a bad experience with some McLaren groupies. (there's that pesky anecdotal thing again. I've seen a broad and varied set of responses to him. Some people dig his early writing and then get concerned with later stuff, other's like him personally and disagree with his material, and everything in between.)

I bet Tony wishes Schleiermacher and Schweitzer were alive today so he could blame them for EC's theology :)

I don't think most people's beef with EC is ecclesial or missional, I think it is theological. After a decade of deconstruction, what has EC constructed? early 20th century liberalism as far as I can tell, with a postmodern spin and an overdose of verbosity.

"I guess what I'm saying is that you can't hold a loose network of friends to a standard of "denominational" cohesion and coherence when a network of friends never set out to create it."

Chaos: def.: a disorderly mass, confusion, jumble; (but for our discussion) any confused or disorderly collection or state of things; a conglomeration of parts or elements without order or connection.

On the outside, any system that is inherently non-conformal would define themselves as non-aligned, and therefore independent of each other; however, as studies have shown in all environments where non-order occurs, what was once "chaos" or non-aligned becomes self-ordered over time though not easily apparent to a short time segment of observation.

So...in a way, yes, you're right that EC did not start off with a self-ascribed theological mandate (loose coalition), but by it's very existence (non-aligned parts), and promulgation of it's non-defined mandate (contact with other EC groups) that the EC itself, though initially uncodified at the time, actually codified their mandate and theological processes through repeated actions.

In short, as much as you would like to point how you started...that's not what I'm talking about...I'm talking about what the EC has become since it's started...and what it has become is questionable, and as I pointed out...needs to review it's doctrine post-haste.

It is good to note that so much of the contemporary Emergent church is more informed by Liberal school theologians (Schleiermacher, Bultmann, Schweitzer, Bauer (both), et al) than they care to admit.

Also, from my engagements with them, the Emergent group tends to be a cloistered community more dedicated to their own aesthetically rooted ecclesiology than one that actually is "missional."

What started as a wonderful conversation about how to witness to people far from Christ has become an excuse to not witness.

The amount of ignorant assumptions about what emergent Christians believe and practice is truly astounding.

Also astounding: how conservative evangelicals have ill-formed opinions, yet they argue them with such certainty.

Perhaps conservative Christians have read the interview with Karen Ward, who is pastor of the emerging church called "Church of the Apostles" in Seattle, WA. It's very alarming, and I assume it is not the norm, but it's one pastor of a church in the "emerging church" and it should cause concern. Here is the interview:

"I further told her that I was interested in the doctrinal orthodoxy of emerging churches and that I hoped I could ask her some basic questions. She smiled and said go ahead.

I fired away. I asked her what the Trinity was. After a contemplative look, Karen Ward told me that the Trinity was "one person in three persona." Of course, that is not an adequate response -- especially from someone who is supposed to be a pastor (female or not). I politely told her that the Trinity was one God in three persons and quickly dropped it. I didn't want to come on too strong. Strike one.

When I asked her if Jesus was a man now, she said no. Of course, he is a man right now, (1 Tim. 2:5; Col. 2:9) and I mentioned that he was. Strike two.

She affirmed the physical resurrection of Christ but added "It's okay if you don't want to believe it." I glanced over to Ryan, who had suddenly stiffened, and then back to Karen. This was rather shocking since the physical resurrection of Christ is one of the essential doctrines of the Christian faith (John 2:19-21; Luke 24:39; 1 Cor. 15:14) and it is absolutely not okay if someone doesn't want to believe it. Ignorance is one thing; denial is another. Strike three.

So, I politely told her that it was an essential doctrine taught in the Bible and that you can't be a Christian if you openly deny it. She said that "The Church gave us the Bible and the Bible was written by men." I'm sure she saw my eyebrows shoot up at this point since that is a typical comment given by people who don't believe in the inspiration of Scripture.3 I told her that the church didn't give us the Bible. The Church recognized the inspired word of God, that the Bible tells us what is and is not essential in Christianity, and the physical resurrection was not an optional belief. I told her a person could not be a Christian if he denied it. Karen said, "The self-righteous won't inherit the kingdom of God." She then turned away and walked off. Ouch.

Karen Ward failed to properly address the basics of the Christian faith. She failed to defend her position adequately. She failed to properly represent biblical truth. Is she qualified to be a pastor (women pastor issue aside)? No. Is she dangerous spiritually? Yes."

http://carm.org/karen-ward

I do not know much about the emergent church so I can not comment on that aspect, except to say it could be a connection. However as a current Youth worker and High School Sunday school teacher let me say this: We are doing a very bad job of teaching our young people. This starts with elementary school education and goes all the way to our singles/college groups. I get 9th graders that come in to my class and they tell me they have been in church all their life. They have gone to vacation Bible school and any childrens program at our church locally and our state. I ask them very basic questions about Christianity and get a blank look. They are very uneducated about Christian deoctrine and know nothing about the Gospel. The sad fact is most adults in my church know so little about these things. How can we expect un-educated adults to teach anything to our kids? According to the Bible it is the responsibility of parents to educate children, not church people. When was the last time your church or denomination had a class or series of classes on teaching parents how to teach their children Biblical things? Let me guess, never in your lifetime? We need to start teaching our kids in elementary ages DOCTRINE! I know some are reading this and think kids that young can not grasp doctrine, but they can! They have in the past and they can now too. Please don't read this and think this is some "liberal" church. It is a church in a small town and most of the people think of themselves as Bible believing christians. It is a problem in many, if not most churches in this country.

Odd that Tony would immediately castigate any, legitimate, criticism of the Emergent group as "conservative evangelicals" who "have ill-formed opinions."

Quite telling of his presuppositions.

Frankly, I'm not surprised. Over the past 15 years of ministry I began in a wonderful emerging expression that sought to authentically connect with unchurched and dechurched people. We had a wonderful ministry. Yet we tried to distance ourselves from our, growing, Emergent brethren across the city who became more vociferous in their opposition to "conservative evangelicals."

Maybe one of the real problems with this whole conversation is it has almost exclusively been done in mediums that don't communicate inflection and clarity, i.e. blogs and books. I'd welcome any effort to clarify the Emergent movement from an open conversation with its leaders.

I find it interesting that two different terminologies are being carelessly thrown around this discussion, like spaghetti in a food fight, without any serious thought or definition. Those two are, "emerging" and "Emergent", and they are not one and the same. For example, not all "emerging" churches are "Emergent". So, before this discussion can go any further there needs to be a clear definition of each,I would love to read how others here define the two.

Are we really going to vilify all youth ministry? Couldn't most movements, both positive and negative, be blamed on youth ministry as many pastors start out their ministries as youth pastors? In fact, I think you would be hard pressed to think of one aspect of modern Christianity that doesn't have ties to young people.

The growth of "Youth Ministry" was because the church failed to make disciples using Jesus's model and his instructions.

I'll probably be scoffed at, but I was born in the mid 1950's and so I had met my grandma's older sisters and brothers who were born in the 1880s and later. Everyone was from a German background, and belonged to the Lutheran church, Missouri Synod, which is conservative. Their parents, and the past generations all belonged to the same church, or if they were in Germany, it was called the evangelical church. When I was growing up, there were no youth groups, and we were taught religious doctrine in church sermons and also in confirmation classes, which were usually held in about 8th grade. I looked up family records, and people stayed in the church generation after generation. I am no longer Lutheran, because my eschatology has changed, but I hold on to the same essentials of course, like the virgin birth, Jesus' atonement for our sins, His resurrection, etc.

But it is society that has changed. They are told by television, movies, celebrities, public schools, and magazines and books that evolution is how we came to exist, taught that waiting for sex until marriage is almost crazy, and that people who take their faith seriously are stupid, foolish, and unscientific. I think that parents must start teaching from toddler on up that God exists, read them Bible stories, take them to Sunday School, set an example yourself, and closely monitor what they watch on tv, especially at young, impressionable ages. As they grow older, give them reasons to believe, so that they can adequately defend their faith. Pray continually for them. Everything in society today, from our President mocking the Bible, on down, is telling them that they and the Bible are wrong on many things like homosexuality. If you don't believe the Bible yourself and are telling your kids that "some" parts of the Bible are true and "some" parts aren't, and everything in the world is tearing down God and the Bible, it's no wonder that young adults are turning from their faith.
1Cor 3:18-21 "Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, “He is THE ONE WHO CATCHES THE WISE IN THEIR CRAFTINESS” and again, “THE LORD KNOWS THE REASONINGS of the wise, THAT THEY ARE USELESS.” So then let no one boast in men."

Isaiah 55:9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts."

I hear you Patricia, but there is something else that calls out.
This something else is called history of humanity, and more specifically the United States.
The incredible thing is we, today, tend mythologize our past, first legend, then the legend growths to be an unassailable social myth.
One of which America was became because we wanted freedom.
Thought kinda/sorta true, the real reason was because of taxes.
In the grand scheme of things, and this will comport with primary sources if England had granted the colonies representation in the House of Parliament there would have been no Revolutionary war, there would have been no Declaration of Independence, no bill of rights, nada.
Also, there is another myth, propaganda once you read anything else from the colonies that Ben Franklin didn't write about, which was how "Churchy" our early forefathers and foremothers were.
Sorry, furthest thing from the truth.
Which, oddly enough, brings me to the truth of our early heritage: Early America is really no different than today.
Premarital sex, out-of-wedlock pregnancies, gay-parades, but in the case of early America more like water-front sailors and pirates looking for a little love, male or female, gender mattered little.

And the Church, the church was the same then as it is today...in conflict, seeking social relevance, and failing miserably to do just the basic message...preach Y'shua risen, and to make disciples of men and women who wanted to be followers of Y'shua.

The American Church, not anyone denomination, but the entire show, every congregation across America has this history...and that is the truth...there is nothing new under the sun, and more so, there is nothing new between early America, yesterday's America, or today's America.

sheerahkahn, if there is nothing different in America today than in the past, why do people need to lock their doors during the day when they are home when 40-50 years ago they didn't even need to lock it at night and they are living in the same house? Why are out of wedlock births now the norm? Why is sexual disease rampant in the population when 50 years ago it was confined to a very small, defined minority? I could go on...

I would submit that, No, youth ministry did not create the emerging church. It's really the other way around. The emerging church grabbed hold of youth ministry through Christian colleges and seminaries where good Christian parents sent their children to get a good Christian education. Colleges and seminaries are places where accountability is nearly impossible to achieve and liberal professors have a captive audience. This is the age vacuum where young people are looking to find their own way in life and guess who is more than ready to fill it? Unbiblical propaganda is present in even the most conservative of school classrooms and no one sees it. I read a statistic sometime back that one of most well known seminaries in America bragged that 90 percent of incoming students believed in Biblical inerrancy and when those same students left only ten percent still did. Youth ministry is a great idea. Unfortunately though, the fox is often guarding the hen house.

"why do people need to lock their doors during the day when they are home when 40-50 years ago they didn't even need to lock it at night and they are living in the same house? Why are out of wedlock births now the norm? Why is sexual disease rampant in the population when 50 years ago it was confined to a very small, defined minority? I could go on..."

uh-boy, seriously?

I will assume that you are an American, and therefore a product of the American education system which I will grant has failed miserably to provide adequate historical instruction of any significance.

I think, elegance, it is time to undo your...misconceptions, and start reading prime sources from the colonial period...starting with the newspaper articles, diaries, and books.

Aside from fascinating reading, it will also take you back to a time that, as you will discover on your own, wasn't all that simple, wasn't all that quaint, and wasn't all that pure.

I think the term 'Emerging Church' has become entirely nebulous and is now used to describe any church that doesn't fully resemble, in doctrine, structure or approach, traditional denominations as espoused by the person doing the labelling. Had they had such terminology a few centuries ago the Roman Catholics would have labelled the Lutherans as Emergent and the Scottish Reformation would have been Emergent to the Anglicans. But I suppose we can assume Skye Jethani deems the Emergent Church anything other than mainstream: Protestant/Reformed/Baptist/Pentecostal/Catholic.

That being said, the very title of the articles suggests Skye views the Emerging Church as entirely negative and any movement away from the Establishment as serious. While there are definitely those within the Emerging Movement who are flirting with or have embraced heresy and false spirituality, there are others who have much to teach Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christianity about recovering the complete Gospel and have managed to get beyond the reductionism that plagues so many pulpits in North America. I'm referring to those who have reduced the Gospel to 'the plan of salvation' and 'sin maintenance'. The Good News includes not only Christ's reconciling of humanity, but also the rest of the story: that with the coming of Israel's king, the Kingdom of Heaven broke into this world and God is in the process of reconciling His entire Creation. And Jesus commands that we, his disciples, are to live Kingdom lives in communion with the Trinity and other believers. And Kingdom living includes getting our hands dirty, it includes social justice issues (the latest 4-letter word for conservatives) like addressing poverty, healthcare, inequality, etc. and rejecting the narcissism and arrogance that infects much of the evangelical and fundamentalist world.

For Skye to dismiss everything Emergent paints with much too broad a brush and discourages some much needed correction in much of the church.

As to the question itself - Did youth ministry create the Emerging Church? - it may have contributed, but I think the greater influence is the very times in which we live: a post-Christendom West. As the influence of the church waned from the 60s through the 90s, and church attendance and the perceived morality of the culture has been in serious decline, much of the church has reacted with cries of lament for its loss of status and power and attacked the culture rather than engaging it. For many embracing the Emerging Movement the negative aspects of Christendom have been laid bare: institutional values rather than community engagement, a reluctance to admit and repent of past institutional crimes, using the corporate business model to operate, the use of political power to bring in the Kingdom, religious compulsion, punitive rather than restorative justice, marginalization of women and the poor and an obsession with who's in and who's out. Many Emergents reject the patriarchal, aggressive, homogenous, judgmental approach, being dubious of the theocratic ambitions of some on both the conservative and the liberal side. And they see this as entirely contradicting the Gospel that Jesus and the apostles proclaimed. That gospel has evolved over the centuries to become unrecognizable in some quarters. As Tony Campolo once said (paraphrasing): "Christianity began as a movement, went to Greece and became a philosophy, went to Rome and became an institution and government, went to the rest of Europe and became a culture, went to America and became a business." Many in the Emergent Movement seek to restore the Biblical model to the modern church, rejecting the truncated Gospel that has isolated and marginalized many churches and rendered some irrelevant.

While there are some things to reject in the Emergent Movement, there are also some things to embrace. If Youth Ministry helped along the latter, well more power to it.

@nathan - It's too bad that you malign D.A. Carson, his was the only book I've read that made me gain respect for and want to like the emergent church. I wish emergents were willing to engage him, instead of cutting off the conversation before it started.

There's something to this argument:

The whole "Youth Ministry" (and "Young Adult Ministry") experience was geared toward the idea that Every Christian Was A Minister. Every Christian Was A Leader. Every Christian Was An Evangelist. We were trained through 6-8 years of firing-up to go out & do active ministry & Then we got to "Adult Church" and were told to sit quietly in the pews, or at the most, teach Sunday School. And.Give.Money. other than that, leave "ministry" to the "professionals," "leadership" to the "more mature" (which for some of us, in some churches would Never BE US, unless we grew an extra chromosome,)No wonder we felt excluded.

But has the response been a church that is equally exclusive? Equally unrelatable?