in Philly, we say, "Brush da hatas (haters) off."

It's interesting because if you generally want to be critical of the emerging movement than you would be in agreement with this article. But a deeper read will see the fallacy in the above-mentioned statement.

It's just a shame. I'm glad you pointed it out. I think, though, we must always push people to a deeper reading (i.e., read between the lines), which shows that this writer clearly has it out for the emerging church.

Also, I was married on a Sunday, and we took communion together. So, what do they do with that?

I read that Christian Courier article with a smile on my face.

Maybe he has a point, maybe it is not arrogant for us to know the absolute truth of all things. I'm going to test this: The writer of that piece, Wayne, does not have a clue to what the "so-called emerging church" believes. It is a fact, not a perception based on my reading of his piece on this particular day. Sure I could seek a little more context, a little more clarification but that may lead to a conversation, which may lead to a resolve, and now there is no point to the post but no his piece is clueless - FACT! is much easier to say!

This cannot be refuted, Jesus said it, (flipping through the pages of Bible Gateway to find a passage that has nothing to do with the context but makes a great sound byte ... got it ... I Peter 3:15, "Always be prepared to give a reason for your faith! - Yeah, Jesus said it, Paul wrote it in plain King James English in I Peter and I believe it!) Though I am humoring myself by writing this I have to say, I only like myself less for even pretending to be this arrogant.

On a somewhat serious note, I think it's terrible that he quoted Chuck Colson. While I differ on some points with him, he is a respectable Christian conservative who shouldn't be lumped in with bad conservatism. Further maybe Wayne has better things to say elsewhere on his site but I was turned off by this piece, I'm not interested in spending the time in reading anymore.

And lastly, this is a dumb statement - "He (the "emergist") absolutely knows one cannot know absolute truth." Are there actually people who believe they have the absolute truth? They know everything? Who shot JFK? What are the coordinates of the meteor that is closest to killing the inhabitants of earth? Is there good coffee in heaven?

We can "absolutely know" the state capitals of all 50 States but we cannot know absolutely know that a loving God that sent His Son to redeem all of humanity and all of creation exists. If you do, that is not faith, that is something else. It's simply better and people like me argue, to humbly and passionately believe in this powerful, life- transforming claim but we cannot know it empirically. Remember my fellow brethren of the Bible, "It is by grace you have been saved through faith" (eph 2) & "the just shall live by faith" (rom 1) not by absolute certainty, not by evidence that demands a verdict nor by ridiculous rhetoric that panders to the desperate and gullible.

This is an example of a frustrating tendency in American public dialogue. The idea is to gain credibility for one's own position by bashing a particularly bashable target. In non-Christian fora this phenomenon is observed as "Godwin's Law," or the "Reductio ad Hitlerum" fallacy.

In the Christian world, particularly among my Truly Reformed® friends, I see that in order to acquire an audience all one needs to do is to condemn either Emerging Church or the NPP. The last one really baffles me, particularly when N.T. Wright is criticized. If they actually read some of his books (he is so prolific that any attempt to read his entire canon is doomed to failure) they would see that he is in 97% agreement with Reformed Calvinism in general and biblical theologians like Dick Gaffin in particular. Yet he is a popular Reformed whipping boy.

Emergents suffer the same criticism. Though I have been involved in an emerging churchin the past I do not consider myself emergent, and I have significant disagreements with some in the "conversation" (most of which pertain to pragmatics rather than dogmatics). But there is much in the movement for which we thank God, and criticism should be constructive as between brothers, rather than polemical as between enemies.

Lobbing false charges only short-circuits legitimage discussion. Unfortunately, bashing and negative association are effective in the public forum. It leaves me with no hope for democracy; my only hope for the church is Christ.

That's absurd!

There is absolutely no indication that Communion was ever meant to be restricted. Heck, a case could be made that every meal should be a celebration of Communion.

That case would be a lot stronger than the one that says it's bad to celebrate Communion at a wedding.

Part of the problem, though, is that it's too easy to say that something is bad, cite a vaguely-related Biblical truth, and then count on people who never open their Bibles to believe it. Sadly, that includes a majority of American Christians.