Jesus Cropped from the Picture

The Emerging Method

personal lives as they intersect their subjective, emerging version of the gospel. In these cases, where the importance of subjective, personal experience is elevated above historic faith, Emergings are Pragmatics on steroids.

Most Emergings would be critical of SLIM (Spectator, Linguistic, Individual, Mental). In this respect, the Emerging Method is serving as a healthy improvement to SLIMChristian faith. However, while they may describe themselves as EPIC (Experiential, Participative, Image-rich, Christ-centered), they are so highly individualistic in their approaches that their method is yet another variation of SLIM. Despite all the good they are doing, the Emerging Method still crops Jesus from the picture . Nostalgic Era Many in the Emerging Method desire to return to the early church prior to Constantine (see Appendix 5). Contemporary writers refer to Constantine as though he ended the Church age and ushered in an institutional church (Christendom), from which Christianity has never recovered. Their hope is that the Emerging Method will restore authentic Christian faith. 100 They search intently for ways to re-employ early-church commitments to Jesus’ teaching, community living, and the re-integration of the sacred and secular (see Chapter 7). 101 The Emerging Method is open to incorporating ancient practices into their worship, as long as they are not part of Christendom.

Common Antagonist Emergings often react to the hypocrisy and shallowness they see in the Traditional and Pragmatic methods. This is why some Emergings call

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