Scot McKnight recently posted a fascinating article for Christianity Today about Emergent leader Brian McLaren. The whole article is worth the read, but one section in particular caught my attention. At the end of the article, McKnight raises some questions about McLaren’s theology, and the first one has to do with McLaren’s engagement with the wider evangelical movement:

I think Scot McKnight would describe himself as “emerging,” so it’s fascinating to see his trenchant remarks about Emergent in a recent article for Christianity Today. McKnight describes the theological trajectory of Emergents in this way: “Very few emergent folks I have encountered have any chance of returning to a robust, traditional evangelical faith. As emergents learned and listened in their evangelical churches and institutions, they realized they could not accept much of what they were being taught. Though they remained within the comfortable confines of these institutions, their faith became ironic. Yes, they were Christians, but not quite what most people meant by that term.

I couldn’t agree more with S. M. Hutchens’s remarks about how some would-be suitors appeal to the “will of God” in manipulative ways. “A young woman whose family I have known for years called me for advice. She had just been told by a young man that after long and earnest prayer, after seeking the face of God for days, the Holy Spirit had informed him it was God’s will she form a romantic attachment with him. With little deliberation and equal gravity I informed her she could tell her swain and his Spirit to go jump in the lake, and add a boot in my name to their collective…