First time for me here - interesting to read where we are all coming from…

I think a very strong case could be made, both from Scripture and from the history of the Church, that salvation is a lifelong process… in the reformed protestant understanding that involves election (naughty word to some!), regeneration (neglected in our day), justification (perhaps what we usually refer to as “getting saved”), sanctification, and ultimately glorification.

It does seem that at different points throughout her history, the Church has had a tendency to overemphasize one particular component of salvation… for example, Rome in the pre-Reformation era (and in her system of doctrine as a whole) seems to equivocate salvation with sanctification… hyper-Calvinistic groups place too much focus on election… while perhaps the Boomer/evangelical/seeker movement overemphasized the justification aspect which led to a “let’s just get ‘em down the aisle” mentality. It seems to me that we need to hold all in high esteem and not only of equal importance, but equal necessity.

So where does the millenial emerging church fit on the scale? Are we recovering a full balance and biblical understanding of the process of salvation? One of my fears, as alluded to, is that we have lost sight of the truth of regeneration - namely, that our minds are so darkened by our own sin, that we cannot enter into any genuinly fruitful discussion of ANY narrative, much less the Christian one… that it is only through the sovereign life-giving work of the Spirit that we are made new creatures, liberated from the dominion of sin. What happens to the church of today and tomorrow if we lose this core truth? Any thoughts? Am I just too cynical?