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Emergent Church Quotes

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Emergent Church Quotes

“The Heresy of Incarnation of the Cosmic Christ: Mathew Fox is a proponent of the Emergent Church movement, within the Episcopal Church. Mr. Fox states that the incarnation of the Cosmic Christ is for popular Christianity. He says the Cosmic Christ has not been born yet. Jesus, the Cosmic Christ, did not reach the full birth, because those who believe in him have barely brought forth the Cosmic Christ to the level required by mother earth. He says the mystical Christ must reach full maturity, but the Cosmic Christ must also reach this level. For him, there are many Christs. Mr. Fox says we are divine and demon. Yet, he claims we are all Cosmic Christs (2). Jesus warned, “For many shall come in my name, saying, I am the Christ; and shall deceive many” (Mark 24:5, KJV). References: 1. Vallalongo, Fred and Sally. "Matthew Fox Confronts Life Outside the Catholic Church: New Age." Toledo Blade. 3-28-1993, Section E, Pg. 6. 2. Fox, Matthew. The Coming of the Cosmic Christ. 1988, pp. 136-138, 2-5.”

“If I have so far argued that Foucault is a kind of closet liberal and thus deeply modern, I need to be equally critical of evangelical (and especially American) Christianity's modernity and its appropriation of Enlightenment notions of the autonomous self. Indeed, many otherwise orthodox Christians, who recoil at the notion of theological liberalism, have unwittingly adopted notions of freedom and autonomy that are liberal to the core. Averse to hierarchies and control, contemporary evangelicalism thrives on autonomy: the autonomy of the nondenominational church, at a macrocosmic level, and the autonomy of the individual Christian, at the microcosmic level. And it does not seem to me that the emerging church has changed much on this score; indeed, some elements of emergent spirituality are intensifications of this affirmation of autonomy and a laissez-faire attitude with respect to institutions.”

“Dialogue with Catholics and other nonevangelical Christians offered some correction to the Church Growth movement's fixation on cultural accommodation and baptism rates. However - save for those few who converted - evangelicals attracted to other Christian traditions have made those traditions their own. They assemble do-it-yourself liturgies from a hodgepodge of monastic prayers and mystics' visions. They lionize medieval dissenters - Celtic monks, or renegade Franciscans - but don't understand their broader Catholic context. Without quite realizing what they have done, evangelicals often use these ancient teachings and practices to confirm, rather than challenge, their own assumptions. History becomes a sidekick to one's twenty-first-century journey with Jesus.”

“The emergent Church is the latest act in the wave of antimodernist revolt by liturgical renewal and charismatic revival, a rebellion whose central insight is that rationalistic fundamentalism, as much as liberalism, is a mass of worldly accretions. The historical record and human feeling, not the illusion of inerrancy, are supposed to command authority in the post-Christian age. Yet American evangelicals' craving for clear authority is second only to their refusal to let any authority boss them around. Skeptics note that the Emergent Church is a movement of quintessentially evangelical individualists. 'By constantly appealing to the "capital T" Tradition, and then in effect picking and choosing from its offerings, they do not succeed in living out any of the traditions that flow from the Tradition, but create their own eclectic, ad hod churchmanship,' wrote D.A. Carson, a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. 'It is controlled by what these emerging thinkers judge to be appropriate in the postmodern world - and this results, rather ironically, in one of the most self-serving appeals to tradition I have ever seen.”