This afternoon I went online and checked out a emergent church website. I don’t know much about the emergent movement except to say it is another church flavor of the week.

This one is yellow. Yellow as in cowardly. Yellow because no where on the site did it say anything about the Gospel, sin (other than the sin of being judgmental toward ideas different than your own and not repenting of it), a need of Christ alone for salvation (only that they want to live as Jesus taught), and not having the capacity outside of the grace of God to be able to gain it.

The whole idea of the site was to give the statement of belief and invite the curious to become a member of the emergent “denomination” (my word—not theirs). They have a whole set of hierarchy that looks like a concentric circle of concern, drawn by someone who has had too much to drink! There was also NO SCRIPTURE MENTIONED—anywhere!!! That was enough to make me scratch my bald head.

It felt as if I was falling into another Amway presentation of what was necessary for the church to do and change in a postmodern culture and why it needs to do so, and how emergent is doing that. Then if you agreed with joining the “conversation” you would agree to do some things.

One, when you greet someone in the church circles, you would identify yourself as a member of the emergent movement, be it in writing, blogs, or meeting someone for the first time in a coffee house, or environmental activist meeting for the saving of the African ju-ju-bee. (they are very into the social gospel of acting on behalf of justice)

This is all a rehash of the same song just different dance. Don’t believe me? Just look up why Pelagius came up with the “human will” being necessary for salvation. He came up with the idea so to get the Christians to put forth the effort to do the things that Jesus said. In order to show that you decided to become a believer, you did acts—or showed some fruit. It was all your choice. That is what emergent is all about. Doing and showing that you are a believer in a non-confrontational way.



Hence, that is why it is a yellow Christianity. Anything that takes the confrontation from the Gospel, takes away the gospel. Jesus was anything but “conversant” with those whom He came into contact—why would He want us to be?

Second, it included sending money to help support its conferences, annually. It also gave a structure in the circle thing that was a leader tiered organization. They even have their own emblem. That’s a denomination, within denominations.

Emergent asks some questions that, yes, should be asked because those in church leadership (pastors,etc.) haven’t made clear. We have fallen woefully short of educating and discipling our brothers and sisters in the why’s and how’s and what for’s of the church. Does that mean we should try to become postmodern in our outreach? No. Not at all.

Our people need to know that to be saved isn’t just praying a prayer, filling out a card, getting baptized, and going to church once a month or year. It is something to be lived out and if not then doubts should be there about that person’s salvation. This is a beat-down for pastors.

Having people that come, sit, listen, then go and live as if nothing is different. If every believer lived biblically, we (Body of Christ) would be seeing new believers being baptized and major persecution in the U.S. because of the radical backlash from the gates of hell.

May we live radically in the hand of God. Lives that are on the edges of His grace, pulling the lost into the light of His love.

Soli Deo Gloria,

Aaron “Tree” Landis
Psalm 1:3