When I wrote the book The Graham Formula, which came out in 2005, most books on “decisional regeneration” blamed Charles Finney for the altar call mentality that has produced so many Christianettes. It turns out the seeds of “decisional regeneration” was the Enlightenment movements of Humanism and Materialism. If you look at the early writings of the Restoration Movement from the 19th century, you will see “decisional regeneration” (expressed in water baptism) was merely the abandonment of the supernatural born again experience. As man assumed responsibility for his fate, he dropped the spiritual explanation of regeneration and said salvation can be obtained through a non-supernatural “faith”. In fact, restoration movement religions teach the Holy Spirit only works through a person reading the Bible. This is consistent with Enlightenment philosophy that says a spiritual God can not communicate with a physical man. August Compte (the father of humanism) would be proud. Thank you for your website as it has provided many links for me to pursue in uncovering the mystery of how “decisional regeneration” became the default doctrine for evangelical salvation.
God bless you. Patrick

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This is a pretty good summary of the emergent movement (at least from what we can gather from their leaders like McLaren)
1. Living like Jesus is more important than believing in him
2. People are basically good and free from original sin
3. Objection to penal substitution
4. Unite Christians and non-Christians and emphasize our common journey with God
5. Inclusivism: extends salvation to include those who have not believed in Christ
6. Focus on this life solely rather than the afterlife (and hell)

Everyone needs to listen to this a by Eric Ludy on the emergent movement:
http://www.purelifeministries.org/index.cfm?pageid=168

I actually think what may be coming to that “conversation” is a pretty public break-up of the leaders. Kimball at least seems a tad more based in scripture than the likes of McLaren who want very little to do with it.

What the CoC needs is biblical preaching from biblical men who live the Bible daily; period. If only the CoC raises up such men like John Piper! Stop all this other nonsense.

Want to get back to basics? Learn, Live, and Preach the Word of God. It still works! (unlike these new inventions in failure)

So you’re one of the few to whom I feel comfortable confessing that I believe that both the Restoration Movement and the Emergent Conversation have missed the target. By concentrating so much on forms and structures of doing church – rather than on being Christ in the world and doing His work – I think large segments of both are trying to emulate an organization (a God-ordained one, to be sure) as a priority over – or a means toward – imitating Jesus, His Son.

It’s like trying to become a heavy-hitter like Babe Ruth by doing everything that the early 20th Century Red Sox or Yankees did. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with it; it just won’t necessarily help you hit the high-and-outsiders out of the park.

In particular, they are more concerned with social issues than spiritual steadfastness.

“In today’s world, emerging generations have no anchor or truth to hold onto. So as they hear and experience Jesus as the truth and the anchor for the very first time, the hope for the future is incredibly optimistic. As the emerging church returns to a rawer and more vintage form of Christianity, we may see explosive growth much like the early church did…” (p.28-29)

Kimball goes on to talk about the move from seeker-sensitive worship to more ancient forms of worship and the pursuit of a spiritual experience with God by younger and even older generations. He has found that his happens best with less flash, rock bands, etc and more vintage/early church forms of worship. Kimball takes time to describe worship in the New Testament and early church and makes the statement “Vintage worship is going back to the original and keeping that in mind.” (p.114). He goes on to say on page 149, “A major criticism of the church today is that it is a modern, Americanized, organized religion that has lost its ancient roots and sense of mystery.”

“Worship in the emerging church is less about looking out for what is on the cutting edge and more about moving back into our spiritual center with Jesus as our sole focus. How ironic that returning to a raw and ancient form of worship is now seen as new and even cutting edge. We are simply going back to a vintage form of worship which has been around for as long as the church has been in existence.” (p.169).

There are many other relevant quotes from his book but the point is that vintage is good. Getting back to the basics and critically evaluating all the flash in the pan, seeker-sensitive, stuff is going to the wayside and people are seeking out a scaled down, back to the basics approach that is all about connective with God and little about putting on a show or performance.

In my opinion, we have a lot to offer in this arena because we have stuck to these basics for a long, long time. It is also funny that many churches of Christ are now trying to be more flashy and add a bunch of things for seekers while the seekers have now moved beyond much of that and actually want the more traditional forms of worship.