Where is Emergent Going?

Date January 14, 2006 Posted by Roger Overton

Pastor Ken Sivlla has some ideas. He's been posting a series of articles
on what he perceives to be shift towards panentheism and theosis:

“Emergent Church: The Shift To Panentheism”

“Emergent Church: Quantum Shift To Panentheism“

“Emergent Church: A Return To Theosis?“

Silva brings together a series of troubling quotes from authors popular
in Emergent circles. Is it all as bad as he says? Possibly, but Silva's
critiques often suffer from “guilt by association.” While I think some
will (and have) travel down the dangerous paths he's cautioning
against, I don't think a case is present here to condemn the entire
movement.

Related posts:

  1. What is the Emergent Church?
  2. “Is the Emergent Church a Threat to the Gospel?” or “Why I’m Concerned”
  3. ETS 2008 – William Henard “Sinners in the Hands of the Emergent Church”
  4. Discussing Emergent: A Plea for Realism and Charity
  5. Reconsidering Emergent Theology
  6. Modern Reformation #5: Emergent Church Roundtable Discussion

Category Posted in Emerging / Emergent Church, Main Page, Roger's Posts, Theology

One Response to “Where is Emergent Going?”

  1. Anonymous said:

    January 14th, 2006 at 11:02 am

    Unforunately, Silva's critique is quite deficient on a number of fronts. Firstly, his understanding of panentheism seems to be quite limited and detached from why there is interest in some “panen” principles. If one assumes God as a single subject with a deficient view of True Infinity, panentheism doens't make sense and is an attempt to equate God with creation. But if God is truly infinite and God isn't a single subject, but is actually the trinitarian relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, some “panen” principles make complete sense in light of Biblical understanding and does not diminish God's sovereignty and power, nor does it equate creation with God.
    Secondly, Silva never addresses the biblical support for some of these ideas. He considers the argument that creation needs and will experience God's saving redemption foolish, yet Paul explicitly says such things in Romans 8. He doesn't even mention Paul affirming Greek poets in Acts 17:28 when he says “IN HIM we live and move and have our being” (and he isn't referring to 'children of god', but to all people).
    Finally, considering theosis, he doesn't even bring up 2 Pet. 1:4, the central text in this discussion.
    I'm not certainly suggesting we adopt some of the formulations laid out by some of the emergent folks, but if we put the walls up and resist our continual need to examine our understanding of God and how he relates to us, we will slowly become more and more irrelevant. Personally, I have integrated some “panen” principles in my understanding of the God-world relationship and I don't think my views are unbiblical at all.
    Those are my two cents.

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