I guess nailing down the CRN folks is kind of like nailing Jell-O to the wall these days.

For so long, they’ve been trying to define anyone/everyone with a differing theological opinion as ‘emergent’ – with this term implying a lack of orthodoxy.  [Granted, there are a number of churches in the 'Emergent' movement who have moved too far in favor of liberal interpretations (or no interpretations), but much of what I see in the 'emerging' church is not this far out - as Dan Kimball has aptly demonstrated in recently disembowling the arguments of Johnnie Mac's lackey.]

Now, though, it seems that non-adherence to legalistic orthopraxy is on the table, as well.  In the continuum of the ECM, probably the most conservative of voices has been Mark Driscoll of the Mars Hill church in Seattle – a strict complementarian, 5-point Calvinist – whose chief sin has been to set up a church in downtown Seattle and to minister to the culture there, without demanding that the church’s culture bow to traditional (not Biblical) norms.  In fact, Mark has said on recent occasions that he doesn’t consider Mars Hill ‘Emergent’ (though he would consider it ‘emerging’), and a growing number of fundamentalists (like John Piper) have been cautiously welcoming Mark into their fold to discuss how to be relevant without watering down the message.

[In fact, I would recommend Mark's podcast, available on iTunes, though I sometimes think that he holds some of the 5-points a little too closely.  Generally, in terms of orthodoxy, it is right on par what you'd expect to hear from John MacArthur's pulpit minus the legalism and treatments of "who's 'in' and who's 'out'".]

But, of course, who would have imagined that Ken wouldn’t buy Mars Hill’s ‘Emergent-ness’?  And what is the evidence of this “sin”?  The church is holding a Cinco de Mayo celebration which serves beer (seems Ken is answering our question from last week).  And Driscoll, that awful dude in black, is a “chelero, a bebedor de cerveza” (a beer drinker, for those of you who don’t want to run to AltaVista Babelfish).

Also, the advertisement referred to a New Year’s celebration which had a champagne toast and had a “Red Hot” theme (which, from the context of the original message meant to wear red…).  Of course Ken’s dirty mind made this into a sexual reference of some sort (had this actually been the case, if you listen to Driscoll and know how he deals with certain issues, he would not have minced words in forcing a change in clothing/atmosphere).  Leave it to Ken to manufacture slander against a brother, but who’s really surprised anyomore at his outrageous lies?  Really?