I posted a reply to the great scholar Ben Witherington III after reading a Patheos blog post he wrote about the anti-ecclesial rhetoric of emerging communities. He rightly stated that emergents need to remember their roots and to see that many before have made similar arguments. I wanted to reassure him he’s spot on and we get it already. Emergents are among the most ecumenical and historically rooted communities despite being recently formed. Furthermore, we know, as Dr. Witherington challenges, that people make up the Church. It’s not an institution; it’s an assembly. A major goal of emergence is to restore the dignity and diversity within the collective. I hope and pray that we all appreciate the human aspects of ekklesia that makes life in Christ so transformational. But Dr. Witherington has to see that the institutional issues which provoke the emergent conversation must be dealt with in order for the assembly to be a healthy, vibrant expression in the 21st century.
