On May 13th, Talbot Seminary (where I'm working on my MA in Theology) will be hosting the Emerging Church Conference. It will include my apologetics professor Garret DeWeese and the emergent line up of Dan Kimball, Robert Webber, Spencer Burke and other well known Emergent leaders (too bad Brian McLaren is not coming).
Having read Dr. DeWeese's (and others) "Reclaiming the Center" I imagine this conversation will have some debate on postmodern theology and Talbot's (i.e. DeWeesee, JP Moreland, etc) concerns with its lack of propositional truth, and much more. In fact, Dr. DeWeese's chapter in his book is about this very topic of propositional truth. It's interesting and very good.
Kimball will probably talk about experience, leadership and postmodernity. Webber will talk about ancient-future worship, I've never heard Spencer talk, I've read his books. It should be interesting. I'll be at the Talbot Emergent Conference, it's pretty cheap for students. I'm very proud of Talbot for doing this.
On a related issue, Andrew Jones, an emergent leader, missionary, blogger and prophet (in my opinion), has written An Open Blog Post for Don Carson 1.0
The post is a bit confrontational, with a slight edge to it, yet very respectful. I wish it was less argumentative (for such a public forum) and more gentle.
Andrew's hope is to get D.A. Carson to respond to his "4 Questions" to the book D.A. has written called, "Becoming Conversant with the Emergent Church", which from reading the Table of Contents, and having read D.A's previous lectures and tapes on Emergent, the book is probably not very positive on Emergent theology and thought.
My guess is that this post by Andrew, D.A's book and the ensuing responses will be a topic of discussion at Talbot's conference. That is good.
My opinion is that Emergent theology is still growing and it's not all bad. It does have some difficult aspects to accept such as communal truth, but for the most part it's open, honest, conservative yet contemporary.
Should theology be such a thing? I think so. Truth is Truth, Jesus is Truth, the Gospel is central, the Bible is Truth, but much is still wide open for debate.
