Andrew, but the Church as a whole has always seen itself as a community shaped by Scripture and it always ends up becoming what it hates; it never fails. Now I admit I have no answers as to why that happens; perhaps it is the human need for structure and systematic thinking, or need for rules and regulations; maybe the message of Jesus is too simple for us to deal with and we inadvertedly complicate it. Whatever the reason is, I have always seen the “progress” of the Church as being cyclical (imagine a sinusoidal wave) which grows while still maintaining a permanent phase shift toward the future.

Maybe I am a pessimist, but I see the emerging church offering great solutions to the current and next generation or two, but will it continue to do so in the long run? I hope so, and I pray that it will, otherwise modernism will smother the Christian faith even more.