Campus CrossWalk Magazine: 2008 Spring Issue -- Emerging Quotes

These quotations are a mixed bag. They were selected to pertain to our theme: “The Emerging Challenge!” (Connecting the Lost with Christ’s love--and His Church). Some are by teachers in the Emerging Church Movement and others are by their critics. Each quote speaks for itself.

"Some of the values of the emerging church are an emphasis on emotions, a global outlook, a rise in the use of arts, and a rise in mysticism and spirituality." ~ Josh Reich, Creating Worship Gatherings for the Emerging Church.
"Emergent doesn't have a position on absolute truth, or on anything for that matter. Do you show up at a dinner party with your neighbors and ask, 'What's this dinner party's position on absolute truth?' No, you don't, because it's a non-sensical question." ~ Tony Jones, at the 2005 National Youth Worker’s Convention.
"The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose.” ~ C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Macmillan Publishing. 1978. pgs. 169,170).
"Many Christians use ‘Breath Prayers’ throughout their day. You choose a brief sentence, or a simple phrase that can be repeated to Jesus in one breath." ~ Rick Warren. Pastor.
"Meditative prayer like that we experienced in the labyrinth resonates with hearts of emerging generations." ~ Dan Kimball, Vintage Faith.
"An earnest man is the last to be satisfied with mere formality, routine, or prescription." ~ John Angell James (1785-1859), An Earnest Ministry, 1847 (p. 45).
"The means by which men and women are saved and come into the church cannot be reduced to human formulas that put God into our own little box. As Carl Henry said recently, 'Not even evangelicals can straight-jacket the Holy Spirit.'" ~ Charles Colson, The Body (page 89).
"A continual looking forward to the eternal world is not a form of escapism or wishful thinking... If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought the most of the next." ~ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
"Contemplative spirituality seemed to open up a whole new way for me to understand and experience God. I was deeply moved by works like The Cloud of Unknowing, The Dark Night of the Soul and the Early Writings of the Desert Fathers." ~ Spencer Burke, The Ooze.
“Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature.” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945), Life Together, p. 30.
“We may be embarrassed about Christianity, but we don’t have to be embarrassed about Jesus.” ~ Dan Kimball
“Christians are hard to tolerate. I don’t know how Jesus does it.” ~ Bono. Musician.
“I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike Christ.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi (1869 – 1948). Leader of India.
“I’m a big fan of Jesus. But I’m not a big fan of those who work for him.” ~ Bill Mahr, entertainer.
“I must add, though, that I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts.” ~ Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy, p. 260.
“Frankly, many of us don’t know what we should think about homosexuality. We’ve heard all sides but no position has yet won our confidence so that we can say “it seems good to the Holy Spirit and us.” ~ Brian McLaren on the Homosexual Question, Out of Ur, Jan. 2006.
"Spiritual consumers are not interested in what the church stands for but in the fulfillment it can deliver." ~ Charles Colson
"Be it so, that we live in a literary, philosophic, and scientific age, what then? Is it an age that has outlived the need of the gospel for its salvation; or for the salvation of which any thing else can suffice but the gospel? ...All else is but pretense and empiricism." ~ John Angell James (1785-1859), An Earnest Ministry, 1847 (p. 72).