Fear, Identity, and the Emerging Church

Scot McKnight has a very interesting post on liberals, evangelical/conservatives, and the emerging church. In his series, “Letters to Emerging Christians,” he looks at the question, “What does our greatest fear tell us about ourselves?” He then answers this for conservative/evangelical, liberal, and emerging Christians. You really should read the whole article, but the breakdown is roughly this.

• Liberals – Intolerance
• Conservatives – Change
• Emergents -Power & Authority

If you read the post and care about both the emerging church and the UMC, you’ll immediately wonder about the way that our system will cause a great deal of fear and trepidation among those with emergent sensibilities. If we’re ever going to get serious about ministering from this paradigm, we’ll have to address these questions.