the emerging church: closing down options?

...let's explore alternative models of understanding the atonement. But when you write a book that ends by slamming a widely-held view with "I used to preach that but I don't any more" and the unnecessarily shocking "that view boils down to child abuse" you have to expect that people will remember that as the issue. You're not opening up our horizons, you're telling us "don't believe what you and I used to believe, believe this instead."

...


All I really want to ask here is this:

Why is emergent putting itself in the position of saying "believe this, reject that"? Wasn't this supposed to be a postmodern "both and" movement rather than a modernist "either or"?
I like the church so much better when we're able to experiment playfully, saying "By all means, hold on to that, but, whoa, look at this".

conrad gempf has posted what, from my seat, is a helpfully provocative post .

It's not unprecedented for movements (or conversations, if you prefer) to overreact to imbalance. Conrad calls the emerging church to take care not to throw baby out with bathwater.