Why not preach Christ and Him crucified, and pray for the land, rather than railing against "the Beast" of US Government? We are not, and have never been, a theocracy. God did not send us out into the world to create a theocracy, or to set up His kingdom on earth for Him. Christ will accomplish that. We, as believers, are to pray for our leaders, witness to the lost, and disciple the believers.

I'm not sure what your point here is Chuck. Your opinion does not seem grounded in anything, other than your subjective experience. God has used many tools, and has raised up unbelievers for the express purpose of showing His glory. Stating that somebody is "God's tool" means nothing.

Yes, that's the type of Fundamentalism we're talking about. There are varying degrees of it within the broader range of extreme Fundamentalism.

Christian subculture - the stuff we add to the Gospel that was not intended.
But even those within the Emerging church have a subculture. Subcultures aren't necessarily right or wrong. But when we make our subculture a foundational part of our Christianity, that's when we have a problem. That's how Fundamentalism has gotten into the mess it's in, and it's why young Fundamentalists are leaving in droves.

3. Primarily emerging churches that are planting: Most of those SBC churches that are planting would consider themselves emerging churches. I have a bunch of friends planting through the SBC and all of them would classify themselves as both SBC and emerging (but not emergent).
I don't know any SBC Pastors who have been planting churches that consider themselves "emerging", and I am a Southern Baptist(of the Reformed variety). The people that I have met who use the title "emerging" seem to be mostly people who are picking it up because "it's cool", or they're just trying to avoid the label "evangelical".

Engaging culture as a church: Churches that do not engage culture, are irrelevant and ineffective...Guys like John MacArthur ran about the watering down of the Gospel because he thinks that the only way to package the Gospel is in the trappings of the 1960's white American church, complete with suits and big choirs.
Can you point me to where MacArthur has gone off about the watering down of the Gospel, and has done so because the persons he is attacking are not packaging the Gospel in a 1960's white American church complete with suits and big choirs?

If you want to become a Christian, you have to lose your culture.
Well, yes, I can see where that is a problem, and I've thought about that often. Now, certain aspects of one's culture may well need to be gotten rid of, so it's not a cut and dry argument here all the time.

Did Driscoll ditch the Emerging label? No. He has definitely ditched the Emergent label & has distanced himself from McClaren, Bell & the other Emergent Village guys that he used to hang out with. In the early days of the Emergent movement, the idea was to put all of the methods of the church on the whiteboard & have conversations about what was relevant & what wasn't. Once they moved through methods, the emergent guys wanted to keep having conversations & they moved past methods to putting the Message up for grabs. That was when Driscoll bailed out. He is staunchly reformed, missional, evangelical and biblical and he could see that those guys were going off the reservation theologically.

http://www.christianpost.com/church/General/2008/...

The title "emerging" seems to do more harm than good. Since there are two(actually more) main streams that have come out of this Emerging/Emergent thing, the two are closely identified. They use some of the same terms, they have had the same associates, and the name is practically the same. Is it wise to use such a title when all it does is distract from one's message and put the focus on leaders who may or may not have had anything to do with one's movement? There's a reason I don't label myself as a Fundamentalist--I don't want to be associated with the likes of Jack Schaap, who is a big name in the movement. For those within the Emerging church, they are constantly being identified with McLaren and other heretics that fall under the broad Emergent label(from which the Emerging movement comes). The Emerging group has done a very poor job of representing themselves to mainstream Christianity. They use all the same buzzwords as those within the Emergent movement, and their label is so similar, that nobody can tell them apart. There aren't as many clear voices within the Emerging group that are speaking up to tell us who they are, so what can they expect other than to be misrepresented? Those of us who are rightfully wary of the Emergent church, are going to regard those within the Emerging church with suspicion because they aren't distinct.

It seems to me, from what I've seen, and the people I've interacted with who would label themselves one way or another, that both the Emerging/Emergent movements are largely reactionary movements. They are reacting to things that they believe(sometimes rightly so) are being done wrong within the broader tent of Evangelical Christianity. I would agree with most Emerging voices that the Seeker-Sensitive movement is a load of bunk. I wish Rick Warren would sit his happy butt down in a corner somewhere and read the Bible until he figures out what it really says. And I also wish that Mark Driscoll would read what the Bible says about speech. I wish that more evangelicals would wake up and realize that they have become largely irrelevant. But I think that much of that latter bit can be attributed to the fact that there are many, many unsaved persons within our churches.

You have made a typical hyper fundy mistake in lumping "emergent" (Brian McClaren, Rob Bell, etc) in with "emerging."
Actually, everybody seems to be making that mistake. The two groups are closely named, and closely aligned in certain areas of idealogy, and they do a very poor job of making themselves distinct from one another. In fact, I've found that trying to pin down beliefs of those who claim one side or the other is like trying to nail jello to the wall.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerging_church
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/february...

And really, I'm not a hyper-fundy anymore. I'm not even a "Fundy", except in the very literal sense of "fundamentalist", as in, I hold to the Fundamentals of the Faith.

"Emerging" is typically a term used for those that want to move toward a church model that is more biblical, missional and evangelical and less dictated by American traditionalism.
But who gets to decide what being "more Biblical, missional, and evangelical" looks like?

Emerging churches are typically working to strip away the christian subculture that clings to the Gospel and allow people to see the Jesus of the Bible instead of the Jesus distorted by American fundamentalism.
A couple of questions here:
A)What does it mean "strip away the Christian subculture that clings to the Gospel"? I'm not sure that I understand what you mean here.
B: "allow people to see the Jesus of the Bible instead of the Jesus distorted by American fundamentalism." What precisely, is the difference? I have a feeling that I know where you're going with this, but I want to make sure. And I'm not sure how "Fundamentalism" has gotten so much of the blame for this, since Fundamentalism is a relatively small movement within the broader confines of Evangelical Christianity.

It is primarily emerging, evangelical, missional churches that are planting churches and teaching a Christ centered message instead of a man centered one.
Primarily? I find that many Reformed Baptist and Southern Baptist churches are doing the same. Are there any statistics on this? There are also a number of Fundamental Baptist churches that are moving further away from traditional Fundamentalism into this area as well.

Here are how Emerging Missional churches categorize ministries based on the biblical ideas of Gospel, Church and engaging culture:
Gospel + Culture - Church = Parachurch
Culture + Church - Gospel = Liberalism / Emergent movement
Church + Gospel - Culture = Fundamentalism
Church + Gospel + Culture = Emerging, Missional and Evangelical
Including "culture" as being part of the church is a bit dangerous methinks. While there are certainly some aspects of a culture that can be integrated into the church, one has to be careful here. For example, Perry Noble(one of the most incredibly immature pastors I've ever had the privilege to listen to), during his Easter service, had his church "praise band" play AC/DC's "Highway To Hell" as preparation for his sermon(I'm not necessarily saying that Noble is part of either Emergent/Emerging group, I don't know enough about him). I keep hearing this bit about "culture" being an integral part of how we do church, and I have no idea where that concept comes from, or what it means. Nobody bothers to explain it. It seems, to me, that these Emergent/Emerging groups are just reacting heavily to what they consider the errors of Modern American Christianity, and that they are overreacting in some areas.

If you really want to know more about this stuff, you should pick up Driscoll's book "Confessions of a Reformission Rev." and read the first 45 pages.
I'll check it out. But didn't Driscoll ditch the Emerging label?

Ummmm...Huh? What are you talking about?

A: Calvinism teaches that those who are elect will be saved via the method that God has chosen to bring all men to salvation, and that is through preaching the Gospel. Calvinism in no way, shape, or form denies that preaching the Gospel to the lost is the necessary means by which God has ordained that men shall be saved. The concept of modern missions was brought about by men who were Calvinists. David Livingstone, Adoniram Judson, Carey, Brainerd, etc. All Calvinists. Geneva, which was once the home of Reformed theology was extremely active in sending forth missionaries. Christians in South Korea are predominately Presbyterian, and yet these same Presbyterians are sending out more missionaries per capita than Baptists in the United States.

B: Idiosyncrasy?

Actually, the spelling is correct. ;) I chose "polygyny" for a specific reason. Polygamy is the belief in having more than one spouse of any gender. Normally, it refers to those who have more than one wife, because women who have more than one husband aren't very common. Polyandry is the practice of having more than one husband. Polygyny is the practice of having more than one wife. :)

Actually, I haven't listened to an entire sermon by an IFB pastor in a while now. I don't make a point of doing so on the internet, unless I'm looking for something in particular that I think is quite good. Like something by Dr Roberson.

Kristin: I would be cautious. To start with, Presbyterians are Paedo-Baptists, and IFB's are fiercely Credo-Baptists and Immersionists. You'll definitely need to talk about that one.