As Ingrid Schlueter introduces a fine article by T.A. McMahon over at Slice of Laodicea she says:

Before you start clacking rosaries, erecting icons, buying hair shirts and joining one of the hip emerging monastic communities, you may want to read T.A. McMahon’s excellent article on the ancient/future heresies invading through the emerging church enthusiasts. In true evangelical style, these emergents jump over the Reformation, and selectively start adopting practices and techniques they think will help them be more authentically spiritual, leaving behind all they don’t want.

It’s the Monastic Plan with options, American style. It all depends on what emerging outfit you want to sign up with as to what sorts of ancient/future practices you will be engaging in. (Online source)

You can read the rest of Schlueter’s thoughts here.

Apprising Ministries also recommends you take the time to read T.A. McMahon’s article “Ancient-Future Heresies” which begins:

Here’s an idea. Let’s go back through historical church eras and glean from such time periods those issues deemed to be of value in the development of the Christian faith. Let’s review the first-century church, the church between A.D. 100 and 600, then consider the medieval era (A.D. 700 to 1500), followed by the Reformation period (A.D. 1500 and later), and so on. To be effective in this endeavor, it’s important to have a good understanding of the cultural context in which the Christians of each era practiced their faith. In addition, we’ll need to study the Church Fathers and gain the insights they provided.

Why? Well, those who are promoting this “re-presenting the past” believe that today’s Christianity will greatly benefit as it “re-invents itself” in order to effectively bring the message of the gospel to the postmodern world. If you think this may not be a good idea, you could be labeled a “traditionalist,” one whose faith and practice is inflexible and out of touch with our rapidly changing culture-and church. That’s the view that Christianity Today (CT) has of what’s going on in evangelical Christianity…

Is any of this “for the good,” as Christianity Today declares? Let’s both reason from the Scriptures, and simply be reasonable (Isaiah 1:18). The Ancient-Future search to discover gems from “Classic Christianity” comes up short by a century — the century in which the New Testament was written. The critical difference should be obvious. The writers of the New Testament were inspired by the Holy Spirit as they penned God’s Word (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21, 22). What writings from A.D. 100 and later can claim such inspiration? None…
(Online source)

You can read the entire article by McMahon here.