Again thank you so much for your knowledge and faith.
I have a question regarding the rapid growth of the emergent church and I wonder if you could explain this movement to me in more detail. I had always thought that the real Church would be the one falling away from the false teachings going on in organized religion today. Not falling away from OUR FATHER, but false religion. Thanks again.
The Emergent Church is also known as the Seeker Friendly or Seeker Sensitive movement. It was begun a few years back as a way to bring more people to church on Sundays. The Gospel is de-emphasized in favor of a less threatening message with a focus on entertainment and socialization. The idea is to attract as many people as possible into a church setting thinking that some of them would want to learn more about Jesus on their own.
Although the movement has attracted a great many people who wouldn’t otherwise have gone to church, it’s criticized by traditionalists for not providing clear guidance into a born-again relationship. After all the point of Christianity, they say, isn’t to spend Sunday mornings in a building singing and laughing with a bunch of people, but to secure our place in eternity and learn how to live in a manner pleasing to God while we wait.
The phrase falling away comes from 2 Thes. 2:3 where it’s also called the rebellion. The Greek word it comes from is the one from which we get apostasy, which is the act of abandoning the truth. So it’s not the true church falling away from false doctrine, but the exact opposite.