Emergents and Calvinists

After reading Young, Restless, Reformed, Al Hsu comments on what emergents and Calvinists have in common:

What’s interesting to me about Collin’s book is that despite the fact that the new Calvinists and emergent folks might seem poles apart in many ways, they do share a common concern – that contemporary evangelicalism is not what it ought to be. Both critique evangelical Christianity for being shallow, ahistorical, more focused on pragmatic issues than authentic spirituality and transformation. Both communities are calling the church to recover its heritage, the depth and breadth of Christian theology and worship, with a keen eye to missional ministry in this postmodern world, to the glory of God.

Of course, John Piper and Doug Pagitt, while both Minnesotan pastors, have somewhat different visions for the church. And Mars Hill (Seattle, Mark Driscoll) is a different kind of church from Mars Hill (Grand Rapids, Rob Bell). But for all the differences, I think folks on all sides can charitably affirm that everybody wants Christianity to be more faithful, more vibrant, more missional than it currently is…

I have to think that there are others like me that would like to see more fruitful collaboration and dialogue on all sides.

more (via Steve McCoy’s shared items)

There are some significant differences between the two, but as we see more missional Calvinists and more orthodox emergents, I wonder if we’ll also see more interaction between the two groups.