values of the emerging conversation

This is more of an abstract... just some linked random thoughts...

As I have been discovering this week (and here), much of the ethos of the emerging conversation relates to being a kinder, gentler person, and focusing on aspects of the Gospel that those in the more theologically convicted camp would call the "Social Gospel". Without depicting why those in the "conversation" have adopted this view, as it has been written about ad nauseum, I have this to say: I see little difference in the unbiblical asceticism of modernity and that of post-modernity.

We KNOW about the legalism of modern denominational and evangelical churches thank you very much. Post moderns and "emergents" have identified themselves as being accepting/tolerant/participatory of beer drinking, dressing down, tattoos, post-modern art and music, and left-wing activism. Fine, I don't hold dogma against any of those (well except the last). Many of the moral values of modernity are cultural not Biblical, but get trumpeted as absolutes. I understand the "emergent" complaint about this- but there is a fly in the ointment. I think that emergents have substituted only the content, and left the faulty presuppositions intact.

See, a lot of "emergent values" could be called post modern asceticism. Think about it. The cultural virtue of the 1950s is largely gone, and frequently mocked. Those cultural virtues have been transformed and altered over the last 50 years into the cultural values of political correctness as dictated by liberal political ideology. Tolerance, kindness, acceptance, dialog, etc, etc, these are the morals of the progressive culture, and not one's necessarily grounded in scripture, primarily being pluralistic, with an emphasis on marginalizing anything dogmatic. Emergents are so deeply attached to the progressiveness of post modern culture, they have shaped their theology around its values. It's no worse, but certainly no better, than it's predecessor.