mark driscoll & the emerging church movement

i always thought that the emerging church movement or “emergent church conversation” was all about the young & “hip” pastors who were successful at reaching out to the young, postmodern generation. but i recently learned that many evangelical leaders have criticized “emergent theology” as moving away from the biblical faith & becoming a repackaged form of liberal theology.

a friend of mine is a big fan of mark driscoll, the pastor of mars hill church in seattle (not mars hill bible church in michigan, which is pastored by rob bell). because my pastor-friend kept talking about mark driscoll, i started google-ing him. mark driscoll is a young & “hip” pastor whose church is full of many young & trendy people. but he is known for his “in-your-face” style when he is preaching the conservative message of the gospel. his controversial & radical quotes are posted all over the internet, by his fans & by his critics. this is what he said about the emerging church movement…

"In the mid-1990s I was part of what is now known as the Emerging Church and spent some time traveling the country to speak on the emerging church in the emerging culture on a team put together by Leadership Network called the Young Leader Network. But, I eventually had to distance myself from the Emergent stream of the network because friends like Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt began pushing a theological agenda that greatly troubled me. Examples include referring to God as a chick, questioning God's sovereignty over and knowledge of the future, denial of the substitutionary atonement at the cross, a low view of Scripture, and denial of hell which is one hell of a mistake."

“The Emerging Church movement is a bunch of disgruntled liberal evangelicals who gather together to complain about the megachurches of their parents.”