http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.334
Tony Jones, a member of the group Emergent (others, Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt)“Belief Statements Create Harmful Borders.”
…It becomes an obsession — guarding the borders. That is simply not the ministry of Jesus. It wasn’t the ministry of Paul or Peter. It started to become the ministry of the early Church, and it abated somewhat in the Middle Ages and blew back to life in the time of modernity. For the short duration of time that I have on this planet to do my best to partner with God and build His kingdom, I don’t want to spend it guarding borders. I’d like to spend it inviting people into the kingdom. Statements of faith don’t do they. They’re a modernistic endeavor that I’m not the least bit interested in.
This could certainly be argued. Like we were just discussing Matt, both Jesus and Paul did indeed defend their borders. For example think of all the times that Jesus defended His deity and his teaching against those who would never be a part of the kingdom. Also whole books of the NT are primarily a polemic against error. Ex. Gal, Jude, Epistles of John etc. Those who don’t want to have anything to do with drawing up doctrinal statements and defending them are not akin to many of the writers of the New Testament. Emergent seems like liberalism repackaged.
I can’t help thinking of Christianity and Liberalism and Machen applied this verse. Gal 1:8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!