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I found this and other wonderful posters here that describe many aspects of emergent church-type people's values and beliefs. The statement on this poster I love. It's been a theme at the two best churches we've ever gone to.
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2 comments:
Who decides what the essentials and the non-essentials look like? Why? Whence the authority?
How does the emergent church define unity? What are its manifestations?
Just curious...
Well, three things first off.
1. My church isn't even really considered "emergent" although I appreciate much of what is going on in "emergent circles" and we do have some of those same things going on at ours.
2. The other church that had this motto wasn't emergent at all.
3. I doubt I will have answers that will be satisfying to you, both because I'm not expert on this, and because you're quite scholarly as well as very settled in your orthodoxy. :)
However, I'll take a stab at your questions.
In the churches I have gone to that had this motto, essentials were considered to be the basic things needed for salvation.
Non-essentials would be items that were not considered to be essential for salvation, such as method of baptism, gifts of the Holy Spirit, nitty gritty issues on type of music that is or isn't ok, specifics on how to dress, other doctrinal debates, etc.
So, I would say the dividing line would be "Is it essential for salvation?"
The authority would be the Bible, or I guess as always it is the church's interpretation of the Bible, which does vary, doesn't it?
Unity in these areas in my own church experience would mean that we are unified in our common beliefs and the goals that come from that, and although we are willing and able to discuss the non-essentials, we choose to not make these things dividing lines in our local church body.
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