Ed,

I wish I could have been there. It seems like a hot topic given all the drama surrounding the Acts 29 network.

Dr. Stetzer,

Just wanted to take the time to thank you for your honest and ethical approach to the emerging church movement and the issues therein. I was at the EFCA midwinter ministerial... (tattooed guy in the third row!) and I found your presentation helpful in developing a theologically sound and balanced approach toward how I plan to move forward in my own ministry. I am not currently in an emerging church, but plan on planting one along the lines of Driscoll and Kimball. Again I cannot thank you enough.

Steven Dahl - Keene EFC

Ed, your 5 presentations were outstanding. The church I pastor, www.bethanyefree.org, has been on the missional church trajectory which has included conversations with those in our context that would consider themselves part of the Emerging Movement.

As our church moves more and more towards orthopraxy, you brought a great reminder not to lose our orthodoxy. As we wrestle with our missiology and ecclesiology, we have to keep going back to our Christology.

Keep up the good work and may God richly bless you in your ministry.

Kevin J. Navarro

P.S. Some of the pastors that I was conversing with were confused about what you meant that Evangelicals didn't deliver on what they promised...i.e., this is what the Emerging Church is responding to....

There was an assumption that you were talking about our inability to transform culture (Niebuhr) as 20th Cent. Evangelicalism was a reaction/response to the Fundamentalism that was a Christ against Culture model.

Is this what you were referring to? Clarity?

Thanks, Steven, it was good to see you. The tattoos would be better if they told the whole story of redemption (in dispensations of course). Grin.

Kevin,

Thanks for the kind words.

I believe evangelicalism is adrift.

The center has not held. That is one of the reasons I mentioned and affirmed the Gospel Coalition. There are other groups with similar concerns and plans.

I could list a lot of ways I think it has failed. Let me give two here:

First, I think evangelicalism has failed to produce a clear witness of the gospel of the cross, but has often reduced its message to moralism, praying a prayer, and being a good person. That is not the gospel.

Second, I think evangelicalism has largely been unable to reach people outside of modern American values-- and the emerging church has been, partly, a response to that.

Those were the main areas I was addressing.

But, I am an evangelical, not a post-evangelical, becuase I think that the theology is good, but the fidelity, praxis, and spiritual formation has been... well... not so good.

Ed - was in Albqr with you (EFCA). Great stuff, very helpful.

Thanks & blessings in HIM,

Kerry

Thanks for your hard work. We met in the car. I came to the conference a little worried that this was going to be another example of denominational executives getting all privately enthusiastic about someone or something and forcing him/it on us, but that turned out not to be the case. It was more like a concentrated seminary missions class (which was a good thing). Surrounded as I am by people who only talk about UK Wildcats basketball, it was excellent to get some brain food.

Do you include Pentecostalism under the rubric of "Evangelicalism"? The most hit-a-nerve comment you made was, obviously, "Evangelicalism has failed" -- which I imagine a lot of people inwardly interpret as, "He just said that the particular kind people who loved me when I was young and helped me so much at such-and-such a church failed!"

If you include Pentecostalism, then the problem of grossly over-promising and grossly under-delivering (resulting in disappointment and disgust with U.S. Evangelicalism) certainly applies in spades. Even throw in Southern Baptists (ahem), and a long history of overly confident evangelists promising endless peace and boundless joy, and you get disappointment and disgust.

But the statement stuck out as the most black and white, un-nuanced thing you said, coming as it did in a series of talks where you bent yourself backward trying to not slam the emergent village guys, and giving scores of little nuances. In that way, "Evangelicalism has failed" stuck out like a big fat green tomato in a field of little buttercups.

Ed,
Thoroughly enjoyed your presentation in Albuqurque. I have a question but wasn't able to ask it at the conference. With your discussion of the C1-C6 scale, it seems that you could envision (and approve of) an "indigenous" church in the postmodern (soft postmodernism) culture. I don't remember which C level you used, but that seems that you are leaving the way open for a church to be evangelical even though they may not accept a foundationalist espistomology. In other words, can a Christian who recognizes the validity of a more postmodern view of reality still be considered evangelical? (I believe they can, since I am, but would appreciate your comments.)

Thanks for all the work you are doing on this subject.

Rob

Jack, when in the family, I am blunt. Grin. I think that there is a widespread realization that evangelicalism as a whole is losing its way, has deemphasized the gospel, and has failed to engage cultures.

Rob, good question. But, probably not one I can get into on the road (as I am this week). I will post the full presentation soon and will deal (briefly) with that then.

And, I would like to have the presentations up before I interact with them too much.

Thanks,

Ed