When the dust settled I couldn’t get out of there quick enough. I think a lot of these Emergent-type folks are where I was early on in my Christian formation. They are into theological ideas that they have not actually tried out, ecclesiastically or personally. I think if they actually try to live out their philosophical and theological constructs they will come back closer to the center - which is Jesus Christ. Liberal religion is a mess. It doesn’t work and it will not work.

That said, I embrace religious dialog, openness and the free-acceptance of my neighbors. I’m into new forms of church and art. I am not yesterday’s evangelical. Nope. I’m Emerging, that is, if Emerging remains Incarnational, Missional, and, most importantly of all, Jesus Christ-centered, without becoming an “Emergent-liberalism”. I’ve tried religious liberalism. It doesn’t work at all.

If it’s not Gospel, I won’t touch it.

I think you’ve done a great service here. Having grown up in a liberal Protestant church and never hearing the gospel until someone told me when I was in college, I too am wary of the theological directions the emergent movement is moving. By the way, I just finished a book by professor of theology at Fuller Seminary Ray Anderson entitled, “Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches.” In it he espouses a more Pauline theology than the Jesus as Rabbi one that so many emergents are pushing right now.