Diane over at Crossroads sent me a link to a great article from Steve Camp titled “Emergent Motto: God is Most Glorified in Us, When We Are Most Satisfied in the Culture” at this page. However, I found the same article in a lot neater format (minus the slow-loading page, gaudy looking web page, and the infinite amount of ads on the sides and most every third comment) on Camps own web page titled “God in the Hands of Complacent Sinners” …the dire need to recover a reverence for God in ministry at CAMPONTHIS
Steve really reveals what is on his heart as he talks about the state of the modern church today. From ‘cultural contextualization, demographics, gift card drawings, rewriting popular songs and calling it worship, buzzwords, and Gospel gimmicks, we have seen the modern church turn in many ways from being filled with the Holy Spirit to being drunk with the ’spirit of the age’ (definition of the word Zeitgeist). The intriguing thing is that all of this stuff came upon us very very quickly (zoom) and we did not realize until now that the “objects in the mirror were closer than they appear”.
One statement that Camp makes that is the most powerful statement of the entire article is this:
And if you speak of biblical evangelism - you are out of date. Missional is the new term now. No one quite knows what it means, but that’s the beauty of this movement. They like the ambiguity and still call it the reformed faith.
I too am trying to figure it out and my church is buzzing all over this concept of Missional. (I hope the ‘local spies’ are reading this right now!!!). I have heard a couple of sermons at church, received a letter and an e-mail from church, and trying to be Berean, research this entire concept and I still do not know what it means. I ask myself a question only to yield more questions. I feel and clearly see the ambiguity, uncertainity, and confusion as what I have read online in doing research has been vastly different concepts coming from vastly different sources. I am clearly wondering if the Reformed Faith is turning into the Amorphous Faith where shape, definition, worship, sermon, order, and structure is being discarded for ambiguity, carelessness, wantonness, infomercial, disorder, and chaos while trying to be everything to everyone fearing that if they miss a potential market segment, the church down the street will surpass them by exploiting that particular segment.
Camp stated that the Emergent Manifesto appears to be “God is Most Glorified in Us, When We Are Most Satisfied in the Culture.” Where did the emergents get this from? The Religious Right when the mantra was “God is Most Glorified in Us, When We Have Conquered, Rebuilt, And Became the Culture.”
There is the problem right there. A wrong focus on culture. Culture is not the problem with a depraved society. Culture is really the byproduct of the depravity that exists within man (flesh and blood) brought forth by (according to Ephesians 6:11-12
) the “wiles of the devil, principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this age, and spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” at work in the heart and actions of man (flesh and blood). There really should be no culture war. This is not ‘us vs. them (culture)’. This is the Child of God versus the “wiles of the devil, principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this age, and spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places”.
