Depart from Scripture... You Depart from God and a Reverence for Him...a few certain thoughts about the Emergent Church Movement 

"For My hand made all these things,
Thus all these things came into being,"
declares the LORD.
"But to this one I will look,
To him who is humble and contrite of spirit,
and who trembles at My word."

-Isaiah 66:2
Legalism and the ECM
The ECM in their search for significance within a postmodern culture has left behind the "old paths" rather than maintaining them. In their striving to figure out how to do church in our day, I think that they are creating their own legalism--a postmodern arrogant cultural relevance legalism that says the gospel will have meager effect if not contextualized and the church will have little growth or impact if it doesn't adapt to culture.Temporal vs Eternal
Emergent Christianity guts the faith to appeal to culture; and their myopic view of the kingdom of God predisposes them to be more concerned with the temporal, than the eternal.The ECM has two Fundamental Flaws:

• 1.) a lack of reverence for God and His Word; and
• 2.) the unquenchable need to contextualize the Christian faith in adapting it to culture.

This is gangrenous to authentic Christianity. Erosion of the truth always begins with the subtle wandering away off the path of the essentials of the faith.

You don't go liberal by reading your Bibles;
you go liberal by not reading them.

Culture or Scripture - the Determining Authority?
In the hallowed ecumenical halls of Emergent theology (and yes they have one) postmodernity becomes the hermeneutic by which they interpret Scripture, rather than Scripture being the hermeneutic that correctly interprets postmodernity.McLaren, Pagitt, and Bell (the uncertain trinity of Emergent Christianity) all depart from the soundness of biblical Christianity into various errant and nefarious doctrines at precisely this point.

FROM THE COMBOX:
IMHO: the EC's theology is methodological by nature, not biblical, rooted in culture. THEN, they take their cultural paradigm's and convert them into their ecclesiology, Christology, missiology, and theology.What is derived is not Scriptural, but certainly marketable. Again, it is the seeker sensitive movement with an attitude.Lastly, it results in liberal socialism by making planetary concerns primary concerns. I.e. redemption is just not thought of in terms of saving souls, but in saving the environment. Everything from the fictitious Global Warming, to abortion, gay rights, war, stem cell research, euthanasia, etc. (all valid concerns) trump the eternal concerns of the gospel. In fact, their gospel is now defined chiefly by the cultural moorings of society rather then by Scripture.Ergo, the social gospel has found new friends in the ECM; and by design it cannot help but be ecumenical as it reinvents the meta of language, religion, missions, church, and solutions to human rights issues. And you must fit into their worldview of these things or be considered out of the conversation and outside the purview of Emergent Christianity. That breeds legalism.This is their worldview. Don't drink the Kool-aid.Campi2 Tim. 2:15