John Piper - The emergent church

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[doulostheou777]

When God calls a man to shepherd his people as a pastor, it is his duty to protect the sheep from wolves(i.e. those false teachers who distort the truth of Christ). So when John Piper gets angry about false teaching/emerging church, he is being more loving by exposing it and attacking it, than if he said nothing about it at all.

[drayker99]

Im more disturbed by all the comments here....John is upholding and defending the truths found in Gods Word but all the comments on here are aimed at John.... For those of you who make all these comments(out of ignorance)you need to realize that even Christ was rejected and talked about for defending and explaining the truth to the people of his time.... So are you mad at John or what the Word has to say....?

[astherrien]

@eagles5822 Preachers like Rob Bell are bringing into question fundamental doctrines like the virgin birth, hell, and whether or not homosexuality is a sin. They want to throw out the offensive things in the Bible to get more people to join their movement. Like Piper said, they want to build relationships, even at the expense of truth.

[eagles5822]

what is the emerging church?

[RethinkPublishing]

@missmachine7382 Agreed. The name "emerging church" may not be used in 10 years but the movement that is emerging within the church in America certainly will. Not all within this movement are unorthodox as Piper seems to indicate. Although Francis Chan may not fall under the "emerging church" category, his views are certainly challenging the status quo of "church in our country as we know it. Is he "unorthodox"? Check out the new book Steeple Envy from Vic Cuccia as well. steeple-envy.c om

[l33tpwnzord]

"Doctrines divide and relationships pull together". This is such a great way to sum up the whole movement. It's essentially the worship of man and the minimizing of God.

What happened to the words of john the baptist, "He must increase and I must decrease."?

[l33tpwnzord]

@billb380 u mad at god, bro?

[marmolejomarc]

@cre599 on what substance do you base your truth on and please dont tell me scripture because I can put 10 people to read the same scripture and come out with 50 different meanings.. instead of finding away that you like to worship God how about learning about God and finding out how he likes to be worshiped..

[marmolejomarc]

@missmachine7382 no longer working to save the lost? there is a strong influx of people coming into eastern orthodoxy, the pentecostal movement is the fasting growing movement in China.. I tell you whats failing to save the lost are churches who preach relativism, Christians that have this trademark mentality that stick a fish on their bumper but flip u off when cut off... the christian that has pro life on their shirt but does nothing to help the widow.. hypocrisy is what fails to win souls..

[missmachine7382]

because he does, and if the emergent church is going to be the the gospel centered movement i feel like it could be, then it needs to affirm this. the full scope of god - his love, his judgement - needs to be affirmed and lived out authentically in mission.

my experience with the emergent church hasn't looked like universalism/cheap grace.

it's look like community over institution, the leading of the holy spirit over man-made tradition, and a focus on mission. no, piper, this is not going away.

[missmachine7382]

the traditional church model is not working - i'm not saying the church is called to be culturally relevant, but we are called to take the gospel into culture. i dare say the church has been "of the world, but not in the world" rather than the other way around. i'm not saying the emerging church has it all together - they don't, in the least, but they have a nugget of truth at their core. namely, that truth is only discovered through relationship. i'm not saying god doesn't have finalities(cont)

[missmachine7382]

why is it so often assumed that "orthodox" christianity and "emergent" christianity cannot be reconcilled? piper, like many others on this topic, is speaking in extremes, generalities, and false dichotomies. what the "emerging church" has going for them is the pushback against the structures of christendom, which are no longer working to save the lost. (con't)