Pilgrims in a Post-Christian Culture

In John Bunyan’s classic The Pilgrim’s Progress, the Wicket Gate is a symbol for entrance into the Christian life. There, the main character, Christian, encounters the gatekeeper, Good-Will. Their encounter, like the rest of the book, is filled with layers of meaning to which modern pilgrims would do well to pay attention:

So when the pilgrim was fully inside, Good Will asked him, “Who directed you to come this way?”

 

CHRISTIAN: Evangelist exhorted me to come this way and knock at the Gate, just as I did. He further told me that you, sir, would tell me what I must do next.

 

GOOD-WILL: An open door is set before you, and no man can shut it.

CHRISTIAN: Now I begin to reap the benefits of my hazards.

GOOD-WILL: But how is it that you have come alone?

CHRISTIAN: Because none of my neighbors saw their danger as I saw mine.

The Battle Has Just Begun
As pilgrims on this journey to the Celestial City, we must recognize the fact that coming to faith in Christ is the end of our enmity with God, but it is in nowise an end of warfare. Obstinate, Pliable, the Slough of Despond, and Mr. Worldly Wiseman had all been obstacles on Christian’s journey to the Wicket Gate. However, in many ways, the worst still lay ahead. Similarly, our battle with the world, the flesh, and the Devil only intensifies once we have crossed from death to life.  Continue at Voddie Baucham

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Settlers, Pilgrims, and Wanderers

Before Emergent brothers and sisters reject Reformation orthodoxy, they should at least know what it is and what it is not. 

 

Travel writer Pico Iyer confesses that he likes airports a lot. Part mall, part border-crossing, they buzz with the ambient noise of postmodern consciousness, representing an "everywhere" that is really no actual place at all. Those of us who can't remember when we were not always on the go, repeatedly uprooted growing up, living in the fast lane with computers and cell phones, catching planes and channel surfing, know deep inside ourselves what it means to be a wanderer in these "everywhere" places.

The Emergent Church movement is as much the product of this postmodern condition as the megachurch movement from which it recoils, but whereas the latter has seemed obsessed with the novel, the ephemeral, the immanent, and the practical, the next-generation Emergent groups evidence an interest in the ancient, the authentic, the transcendent, and the mysterious. 

While there is much to appreciate in the Emergent movement's instincts that should be celebrated and encouraged, is there a characteristically modern tendency that it shares with its megachurch heritage-a tendency that may finally threaten the noble aspirations of these bright, energetic, and hopeful followers of Christ? 

First and foremost, Emergent identifies with postmodernism, although its celebration of postmodernism is often as sweeping as its critique of modernity. In many respects, Emergent reflects these most-modern rather than postmodern tendencies. In fact, to gain any real insight into the Emergent movement (as about any other in our day), one has to visit its websites. There, one enters a world in which theology and church practice are decided largely by democratic conversation: like a 24-hour live streaming Oprah show.   Continue at Michael Horton