The “emerging church” is a name applied to a loosely affiliated movement of churches largely in North America and England. This movement is marked by an intentional desire to reinvent Christianity for the post-modern world—to speak the Gospel in a contemporary idiom. Its advocates have been hailed as heroes launching a new Protestant Reformation. They have also been castigated as a threat to the Gospel and ultimately a dismissal of Christianity itself. What are we to make of this movement? Is the emerging church really just the departing church or is it a novel expression of the abiding church—built on the foundation of the apostles with Christ himself as the cornerstone.
For a helpful overview of the emerging church and some of the theological questions it raises, let me suggest reading this article.