Hello winsome,
Yes, as "Joab" pointed out, the Emergent Church movement has been accused of marketing Catholicism. Also, at times Eastern mysticism has been mixed in with Catholic mysticism during Charismatic worship. That seems to be what happened during the Torono Blessing?bb
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I think that there are two things that you are seeing.
#1 - The Spirit is the same in every age and across all denominations etc. As a result those who try to follow the Spirit and try to emerse themselves in the Spirit, will always have some similarities.
This is why elements of the charismatic movement, even among hardcore protestants resemble the mysticism of both Catholic and Orthodox Churches at various points.
As it is said, there is nothing new under the sun. The Charismatic movement is simply a renewal of the same mysticism which has always been an essential part of the Church.
For many protestants, they are incapable (at least so far) of fully accepting Catholicism because of what they have been raised in and what they have been taught.
However, the Spirit leads them as they are able to accept and thus they accept things which are essentially 'Catholic' because they don't know they are Catholic.
One of the things which was an early influence in my own journey back to the traditional Church was a conversation I had online with an Eastern Orthodox person.
I had expected that I would have nothing in common with the Eastern Orthodox at all... yet when I dug into it, I found my theology in many ways was almost identical to his.
At that time I didn't see all the differences which still remained because my eyes weren't yet open to see and fully understand the true historic and catholic faith.
There were only a few things that I disagreed on, such as infant baptism etc.
However, bit by bit, as I have come to understand more and more, those things have fallen into place, and I've also begun to see more and more the vast amount of stuff I was completely unaware of because it simply didn't exist in my protestant worldview.
Anyway... my point is that the movement of the Spirit in the protestant community draws them closer to Catholicism without them realizing it. They don't realize it simply because they don't know the history and don't really know catholicism... or because they have an overt anti-catholic bias, and would not accept it if it came to them as "catholic".
I believe there is a definite movement back towards the traditional faith as a result of the Charismatic movement. I think a lot of charismatics in particular are getting to the point where they are feeling the limitations of protestant theology and practice and its leaving them feeling as though they are missing something. More and more, as a result are looking back to the traditional, historic faith.
#2 - is that with any genuine move of God, there is likely to be counterfiets of the devil. This has been abundantly evident in the charismatic movement which has spawned numerous false prophets, and errant teachings.
You find the same thing in the history of the Church, where mystic teachers frequently warn of the dangers that lead many would-be mystics off into error and deception.
I believe that this is also the case with the emergent church movement.
Many evangelical protestants, especially among the younger generations, are feeling a sense of emptiness, or something missing.. or general lack of fulfillment and disappointment with the evangelical protestant church. Evangelical faith promises personal relationship.. but in the end, they have found what it delivers to be short of the mark.
The result is, just as many have begun to turn back to the historic faith, so also many are turning to the emergent church.
The emergent church often does offer some of the trappings of the historic faith, and it is open to dialogue with Catholics and Orthodox etc. In fact there was even a theological movement somewhat associated with the emergent movement called neo-orthodoxy. However, in the end this whole movement is flawed because it is fundamentally based on bad philosophy. Specifically, it is post-modern at its core.
It offers some of the trappings of the traditional faith because it recognizes that they contain something that people are looking for. Yet its roots are poisoned by the core ideas and motivations upon which is it based.
It is very possible, perhaps even likely that the emergent church will be a way point, or a stop-over for some people on their way back to the historic faith.
Its openness to catholicism may be a good thing.. but really this is at least partly only because it is open to everything. The emergent church doesn't really recognize true authority whether it be bible or church. To the emergent church everything is just a conversation, and we discover meaning through the conversation.
This is based upon, or is an adaption of the post-modern idea that there is no objective, external meaning. There is no transcendant meaning. There is only meaning within each person.
I do believe that the emergent church is fundamentally a transitional movement. Just like moral relativism.. its not a self-sustaining idea. It is designed to destroy one morality, so that it may eventually be replaced with another.
You can see this in the world today. Moral relativism was the defining philosophy of the last generation. However, if you look at politics and the world now, we are being baraged by moral imperatives all the time. The same people who once said "who are you to tell me what is right or wrong!" now say "This is right and good and it must be followed!"
The only difference is instead of Judeo-Christian morality, they now push politically determined morality.
(for example, in the public sector it was once considered a sin to be homosexual. Then relativity said that no one was right or wrong. Now it is considered a sin to oppose homosexuality)
really, this is simply a matter of who has the upper hand in the public sector. No one was ever really a relativist. Relativism was just a weapon they used while they didn't have power.
The same will eventually happen with the emergent church. Its conversationally determined meaning and lack of authoritative doctrine will eventually be replaced with a meaning determined from the top and authoritarian doctrine.. it will just be different than what existed before.
