Over at “Reclaiming the Mind Ministries” blog, C. Michael Patton has been doing a great series devoted to painting the picture a little bit clearer as to how to define and understand who is “emerging” and who is “emergent” and how these movements relate to orthodox Christianity and contemporary evangelicalism. The name of the series is “Will The Real Emerger Please Stand Up?” I haven’t been able to read all of his posts yet, but what I have seen looks insightful and very thought-provoking. Furthermore, I found his charts helpful, simple, and informative. Sometimes charts can be overbearing and too rigorous. But, his are fair-minded and do not get bogged down in too much periphery detail. I wanted to share them with you all since visuals can be beneficial in putting things into perspective, especially religious movements and culture shifts. However, Patton offers several more charts and diagams throughout his posts that help in sorting out some of these issues mentioned above. Give him the credit, and go read the posts and see these charts in their original context.

 

**Patton now has compiled all of his posts on the emerging and emergent church, called “Will The Real Emerger Please Stand Up?“ into one post. It can also be downloaded as a PDF format.