#190-Not Emergents-Part 2-How to Find an Emergent without Compromising Your Value System

(The second Installment of a A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Emergents Amongst Apostolics but While utilizing the Emergents in Such a Way that they Are Beneficial to Our Movement.)

"Why of Course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, most common people don't want war. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along.

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in an country."

-Hermann Goring

Lloyd here, now with my own profile (if you are completely confused, see last post).

To summarize what I stated in the last article, it is this:

There is an EMERGENTcy in our movement. We must recognize it as such and strategize a plan to smother the heresy at once.

Firstly, to get a good profile of the Emergent, know that they are apt to prefer gratifying the lusts of their heart and flesh, OR depressing their adversaries in any way possible. Most of these attacks revolve around utilizing Twitter, blogs (*cough*), or doublespeak from darkened rooms with dim IKEA lights labeled "youth services" or "gatherings" (it is the youth services that I fear most. This machine continues to manufacture the most derelict and imbecile of our movement).

Secondly, before I move on. Let me say, the siege I will propose at the end of this post is not preferable. But it is the last resort. And last resorts are always the most effective. If I were to have my own choice it would be to reduce these men of wit and pleasure (aka the emergents) to a low diet and moderate exercise. Thusly this would ensure that our churches would not become the hospitals which I fear they are destined to become at the rate and trajectory we are on.

Now that said, if I had my ideal choice and had known the state of the Emergentcy decades ago, I would have hesitated not and lived without guilt of conscience to find Rob Bell, Brian McLaren, Donald Miller, and Mark Driscoll as children and one by one dispose of them. Not kill of course because that stupid age of enlightenment made execution out of fashion, but rather would have found them in their childhood state and walked up to them and put a giant dog catching net over them and seized them at once. I would have then driven them to the outskirts of civilization: Los Angeles, and dropped them off at a Hollywood cocktail party where they would have been forced to watch the horrible abominations taking place in such parties: cannibalism, tickling w/giant feathers, and listening to the raucous noises of a band called "Megadeath." They would be terrified. I would then explain that if they ever considered writing a book or speaking on a podcast (which they wouldn't even know what this is since they would be kids and thus my words would seem that much more prophetic decades later), they would end up like those Hollywood Philistines. I suspect that they would be so scared that they would fear ever writing a school paper in fear that it should become a book. That is assuming if they ever found their way back home which I would not provide.

But I digress. I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least of objection. But to put my proposal in action on how to rid emergents I must seek a concrete 4 part method on how to identify the emergents among us so as to be able to get rid of them (regretfully, Joel has told me I must confine the actual proposal in action to a third part which will come Monday because of the length of even this post since the emergent crowd likes short sermons, they also can't swallow long posts. But dear reader I assure you it will be worth it).

Ways to Identify the Emergents:

1) All Apostolics born in the last week of July/First few days of August are probably emergent.

Their identity in this regard is the easiest of the 4 methods, since identifying such people is simply a matter of reviewing birth certificates. The reason these dates are so pertinent as a locater of emergents is because these people were conceived during the week of the Devil's Holiday: Halloween (end of July being 9 months after the end of October). Naturally people conceived in such a period have already been fated to be part of the Devil's procession. Of course there is a chance that some have escaped this doom and are born on July 30th for instance and are not emergent, but we must be willing to count them amongst the rest of their lot. Better 9 emergents caught and 1 wrongly charged, than for sake of some principle 1 innocent left free and the 9 other emergents left free as well.

2)

• Any Preacher who preaches out of Galatians (save the last Chapter). He is emergent.
• Any Preacher who preaches out of Romans 4, 12, 14. He is emergent.
• Any preacher who preaches out of I Corinthians 1, 8, 10, 12, 13. He is Emergent.
• Note: Exemptions to the above three may be taken on a case by case basis, if by chance the preacher preaches a single verse out of these chapters without regard or understanding to the larger context and meaning of the chapter.

The preachers of these chapters will contend they are preaching bible. They are right in a sense. But Paul is writing to churches and therefore he has no concern for salvation or the full truth to be discussed (since they are assumed). Thus the concern of these chapters listed must be received without weight. They are lesser bible. After all Paul wasn't there on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. And thus his writings are less impacting and less foundational because of it. Also be weary of anyone preaching anything out of the second half of Matthew 25.

If we let our churches fall into the hands of emergent ministers, churches will quickly devolve into becoming play houses (where rough housing is encouraged), market-houses, convertible movie theaters, tattoo parlors, and petting zoos in that order of digression.

3) At camps and conventions and congress: Announce a book club where Velvet Elvis, and Blue Like Jazz will be read. Anyone who signs up is emergent. They must be banished.

4) Most efficiently, set an active program wherein we decide to induce a siege of sorts which in it's inception promises to kick down every door which emergents hide behind and lift every rock which they flourish under in it's darkness. In short, at every major youth event (congress, convention, and youth rallys especially) repeatedly for an entire year (this will take persistence with trial and error throughout) we preach topics such as Apostolic Identity, holiness, submission, hair-angels, that story where Moses makes boundary lines around mountains because God said so, and out of chapters emergents fear most: I Corinthians 11, I Timothy 2, Deuteronomy 22:5. And we preach without hesitancy and with the fear of God in us, stuffing it down everyone's throat in the audience forcing digestion. Those who digest willingly will end up at the altar in celebration or in repentance in a realization of missteps.

Those who digest and receive heartburn because of it will end up stubborn and callous to obeying the call of God for repentance of their rebellious ways. And naturally when they altar call comes, they will sit in their pews, indignant about the ransacking of their soul that just took place.

There will also be those who will not repent, and instead of remaining bitter in their pew depart the sanctuary at once during the altar call to make plans for the evening with others like them. They will plot where they will smoke entire packs of cigarettes and curse freely in their "new found religion" at a restaurant or town-square they have decided upon.

In this fraternizing or in the pew-sitting stubbornness, I present to you on a silver platter, the emergents of our movement. There, in the open. Without the realization that in their own rejection of the sermon, they are publicly swearing their allegiance to the Emergent Movement along with the dark spirits of this age.

They are there, in the pews, in the vestibules. We must then make haste and not squander this opportunity to seize them at once. Maybe with a giant net thrown upon them. Or no, we will have bear traps. Yes, Bear Traps! Bear traps will be used (Excuse me but I am in disbelief of the own genius thoughts spewing from my god-blessed brain which I must transmit to you at once). The bear traps will be set up in the area designated for socializing during the altar call. These areas will be darkened so the emergents won't know what they are walking into. And then, SNAP! They will have stepped on the trigger in the middle of the contraption which will have set off the bear trap which bites into the ankle of the unsuspecting emergent. Of course, less violently, one could set up a giant net on the floor and when all the emergents have unknowingly stepped onto the net, a volunteer will hit a hidden which will cause those emergents to be engulfed at once (and not a moment too soon) and elevated to the ceiling trapped in the giant net and for the evening will be on display for the faithful to observe what may become of them if they should reject one or all doctrines of our belief system. Those who sit in pews in anger will be handcuffed by our loyal ushers or lassoed.

All of those incarcerated (by net, bear trap, lasso, or handcuffs) will be hauled off and deposited into a waiting armored van in the church parking lot and then taken to the destination I will speak of in the next post to bring a conclusion to this modest proposal (the destination which will be discussed in the next segment is the most crucial aspect of the proposal. It is there where I will discuss how we can use the hopeless emergent cause to an Apostolic Advantage).

Glory be to God.

Lloyd the Loyalist,

Department of Scorn & Removal

Postscript: Since Joel so unthoughtfully nominated me to have an actual account on this blog, I have opened the floodgates for comments from anyone even without a google account.. Just make sure to number which anonymous you are if you choose such a route (e.g. Anonymous 1, Anonymous 2), and abide by the comment policy that is at the top of this page.