Is the Emergent Church Movement a Threat to the Gospel?
- Posted by: Todd
- Posted on: Wed, March 30, 2005
- Viewed 113
- (24) comments so far
According to Carson, the movement arose as a protest against the institutional church, modernism and seeker-sensitive churches.
At times it is difficult to identify with precision the participants and parameters of the movement, he writes.
Carson acknowledges that the Emerging Church Movement has encouraged evangelicals to take note of cultural trends and has emphasized authenticity among believers.
He criticizes the movement, however, for a reductionistic understanding of modernism and an inappropriate dismissal of confessional Christianity.
Carson asserts that some Emerging Church leaders are "painfully reductionistic about modernism and the confessional Christianity that forged its way through the modernist period" and that they "give the impression of dismissing" Christianity.
Carson argues that many thinkers in the movement shy away from asserting that Christianity is true and authoritative.
He also argues that the Emerging Church Movement frequently fails to use Scripture as the normative standard of truth and instead appeals to tradition.
In response to Carson, McLaren told Baptist Press that "Dr. Carson doesn't understand us."
McLaren, who is the founding pastor of Cedar Ridge Community Church near Baltimore, Md., and was listed as one of 25 influential evangelicals by TIME magazine, said that he rejects the label "movement" to describe the Emerging Church.
"I generally don't even use the term movement at this point," he said. "I think it's more of a conversation. It's a group of people who are talking about the Gospel and church and mission, especially in terms of changes going on in our culture that some people call a shift from modern to postmodern culture."
In contrast to the cultural imperialism demonstrated by believers in the past, McLaren believes Christians should present Christianity through loving attitudes rather than logical arguments.
"Those of us in the west now ... realize that there were a lot of bad consequences of European and American people trying to tell everybody else how things are," he said. "We feel that there's got to be a lot more humility and a lot more gentleness and that the Gospel is made credible not by how we argue and make truth claims. But it's made credible by the love and the good deeds that flow from our lives and our community."
R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., questions McLaren's claim to be giving a credible witness for the Gospel. In an Internet commentary posted on crosswalk.com Mohler argues that McLaren's claim to uphold historic Christian faith and simultaneously avoid articulating truth in propositional form is self-contradictory.
Responding to McLaren's book, "A Generous Orthodoxy," Mohler writes, "Embracing the worldview of the postmodern age, he embraces relativism at the cost of clarity in matters of truth and intends to redefine Christianity for this new age, largely in terms of an eccentric mixture of elements he would take from virtually every theological position and variant."
"... As a postmodernist, he considers himself free from any concern for propositional truthfulness, and simply wants the Christian community to embrace a pluriform understanding of truth as a way out of doctrinal conflict and impasse."
Mohler charges McLaren with speaking about clear-cut issues in an unbiblical and ambiguous manner.
"When it comes to issues such as the exclusivity of the gospel, the identity of Jesus Christ as both fully human and fully divine, the authoritative character of Scripture as written revelation, and the clear teaching of Scripture concerning issues such as homosexuality, this movement simply refuses to answer the questions," Mohler writes.
"A responsible theological argument must acknowledge that difficult questions demand to be answered. We are not faced with an endless array of doctrinal variants from which we can pick and choose.
"Homosexuality either will or will not be embraced as normative. The church either will or will not accept a radical revisioning of the missionary task. We will either see those who have not come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as persons to whom we should extend a clear gospel message and a call for decision, or we will simply come alongside them to tell our story as they tell their own."
McLaren answers Mohler by saying that he is seeking to contextualize the Gospel as many Southern Baptists do. At times contextualizing the Gospel may mean encouraging people to become followers of Jesus without encouraging them to become a part of the institutional church, McLaren added.
"Dr. Albert Mohler is one of the people who have talked about this," McLaren said. "But yet there are many Southern Baptists who are doing this very thing. ... Many missionaries are ... realizing that the issue isn't whether a person identifies with a religion that now is seen as a western European religion. But the important thing is to help people identify with Jesus and become followers of Jesus."
When asked whether a person must trust Christ as dying to make atonement for sin in order to be a Christian, McLaren replied, "I want to help people understand everything they can about the cross. ... I wouldn't say that having that understanding (Jesus dying as a substitute for sinful humanity) is all that it means to be a Christian. I think that some people might have that understanding and not be interested in following Jesus. They want Jesus' blood to pay for their sins so they can go to heaven, but they aren't really interested in following Jesus in this life."
McLaren declined to give his opinion on the morality of homosexuality, saying that the issue has become inappropriately political.
"I have my own opinions, but I don't believe that the smartest thing for me to do is to go around and make those varying opinions a reason to separate myself from other Christians," he said. "I fellowship with Christians who have a diversity of opinion of this (homosexuality)."
Because of his views on salvation and other issues, the Kentucky Baptist Convention recently withdrew an invitation for McLaren to speak at the convention's evangelism conference Feb. 28-March 1.
"I respect Dr. McLaren greatly and have appreciated his insight on reaching people in today's culture," KBC executive director Bill Mackey said. "We try to bring dynamic speakers to the Evangelism Conference who will challenge and inspire their listeners. I felt that in this instance, however, Dr. McLaren's position diverges too greatly to be appropriate for this conference."
Mohler concludes that McLaren and other leaders in the Emergent Church represent "a significant challenge to biblical Christianity."
"Unwilling to affirm that the Bible contains propositional truths that form the framework for Christian belief, this movement argues that we can have Christian symbolism and substance without those thorny questions of truthfulness that have so vexed the modern mind," Mohler writes.
"The worldview of postmodernism -- complete with an epistemology that denies the possibility of or need for propositional truth -- affords the movement an opportunity to hop, skip and jump throughout the Bible and the history Christian thought in order to take whatever pieces they want from one theology and attach them, like doctrinal post-it notes, to whatever picture they would want to draw."
What do you think?
In a book entitled “Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church,” which is scheduled to be published in June by Zondervan, theologian D.A. Carson defines the Emerging Church Movement as a group of people who believe the church must use new modes of expressing the Gospel as western culture adopts a postmodern mindset.
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Josh Wright on Wed, March 30, 2005
I wonder if heaven will be a bunch of discussion of systematic theology? I love that we can talk about this so let me give my two cents and do it quick. I have been in church my whole life. I grew up baptist, then went tranfered over to wesleyan. For those of you that have no idea the diffence between these two denominations, it is like night and day. It is the arminian vs calvin debate. I went to a wesleyan school where I heard why we were right and the “calvanist” where wrong. I say all this to say that even in the conservative churches there is huge theological, and philosophical argument going on. I do believe in the infalablitly of scripture, but I believe in the falabily of those who read and interpret it. Even in Corinthians Paul talks about our understanding being like looking through a clouded mirror, or window. God says in Isaiah to this person I will look, he who is humble and contrite in spirit and who tribles at His word. Lets drop the ego, and let God talk to us, through His Holy Spirit and His Holy Word. The desciples that Jesus chose where a bounch of uneducated drop outs, not the educated elite. It is the educated elite that have made so much division in the church. This crap is not this complicated. I don’t see the faith or charater of a child in all this discussion. I don’t know as much as the rest of you, but after reading it I guess I would rather stay unread.
Pete King on Thu, March 31, 2005
What a great discussion this is! Just reading everyone’s comments has been very informative. I have not been extremely familiar with this topic and it has been very educational. I of course, have only had as I stated earlier debates with classmates regarding the school of thought. From what I am hearing from many of you is a need for change in our approach to winning the lost. I agree we need to think in a direction that speaks to where people are. But just Like Ben said, “lets teach people to make a commitment to doing what God wants not just create an atmospere that says this is just another option for you to choose.” I guess what I am afraid of here is we eliminating the exclusive aspect of Christianity. In our efforts to change from a threatening Gospel there is the potential to remove the fact that there is only one way to Heaven. And that way is through salvation through Jesus Christ. In the case of the debate with my classmate, she was incapable of allowing the Gospel to be exclusive. However, that’s where we get into trouble. When we define a Gospel that allows other avenues to God. In other words relativism. Unfortunately that undercuts the character of Christ found in the bible. As we look at the Old and New Testament we find an overall theme that man cannot save themselves. A priest wasn’t holy enough and lamb was pure enough to cover our sin. All of this is pointing to the concept of an exclusive Gospel where only Jesus is the way to the Father.
Ricky Roubique on Thu, March 31, 2005
Pete said:
“From what I am hearing from many of you is a need for change in our approach to winning the lost.”
I don’t think it’s a change as to how we “win the lost,” but rather how we can learn to become the Church, the Body of Christ, as represented in the New Testament.
Evangelism, at least the biblical understanding of it, is not accomplished through programs, crusades or even how well someone preaches, but rather is best accomplished as the result of being witnessed. I am not “witnessing” in the old Baptist way (i.e., Roman Road, et al), but rather how society views firsthand how the Body of Christ interacts with itself and to the degree the presence of Jesus Christ is visibly seen among His people as they gather.
This is the single most dynamic trait that the Early Church had and the church today has lost. Today we come together, not to minister to the Lord or to each other, but rather to sit our tushes in a plush pew and listen to someone talk at us. This is not the biblical understanding of Church.
Instead, when we come together and EVERYONE has a psalm, hymn and a spiritual song and we exercise those gifts, an incarnation occurs. It is this incarnation that draws people to Him and serves as the most effective evangelism there is.
So, let’s not just look at how to reach the lost, but rather how to become the Church, as represented in the Scriptures.
Samuel on Thu, March 31, 2005
This is an interesting discussion, as I was looking forward to it once I saw the topic was coming up. Having been interested in the whole movement, and having started attending a church with one of the emergent discussion senior fellows pastoring it is great to hear what everyone has to say. There are a few things I have recently learned, or I guess understood by listening to what McLaren AND OTHERS are saying, and I wanted to offer them in light of what is being said, as I believe they are being ignored or misunderstood.
I will mainly take the role of pro-emergent since this board seems short of people of that persuasion, although I could argue for the other position if I chose. To give you a quick idea of who I am, I am a 22 yr. old college drop-out who grew up in the post-modern generation and is currently church planting in the 10/40 window in partnership with a well-known sending agency.
But first I think that it should be understood that what we are looking at is a different way of doing things, a movement of sorts, though emergent people won’t call it that. I emphasize that point, because I think that every type of movement inside or outside of the church contains a lot of truth, but certainly falls short of being innerant. Look at communism, democracy, socialism, or different schools of thought in philosophy. All take some extreme definitive truth based claims to defend their position, but none are perfect and without critisism.
I mention this, because while I believe there are somethings which are extremely useful and at times superior to other approaches currently being employed by the church, there are still some problems. The whole emergent CONVERSATION, and I stress conversations, insists that it is not taking a stance of idiological completion, because quite frankly it isn’t. I really enjoy the fact that emergent is made up a group of people who are discussing how to do something that the status quo isn’t. While the status quo is failing and dieing, the emergents are at least looking to do something to prevent this.
To highlight something that was quite startling to me, when I was in college (2 years ago) in a more rural school of about 7,000 students (which was located among a more traditional population) less than 1.5% of the students attended a church, and I would argue that less than that were true followers of Christ. (I don’t know what the statistics are nation-wide, but I wouldn’t be suprised if that is normative.)
I would however, not be surprised if more people than that 1.5% had prayed that Jesus be Lord of their life at a younger age and were later the same people I saw filling their weekends (and weekdays) with sex, drugs and alcohol.
What I am trying to point-out, if you have not clearly already observed this in our churches, is that the status quo, conservative evangelical church IS NOT reaching our young people and leading to seeing Christ change their lives. It isn’t happening, and at this rate, I would not be surprised if in 50 years America is no different spiritually than Europe. I think this is what Emergent is trying to change.
There are a few things which I have found helpful in my witness in America.
The first is a definition of the true postmodernism which exists. It is NOT a denial of all absolute truth! That statement is an oxymoron, and there are few if any average postmoderns who will defend it. Instead I believe they see the church and the conservative-right, which I believe the church has fatally attached itself to as a threat. They see them as a powerful bueracracy, which intends to justify exerting power over them, whether they agree or not, by refering to a supreme heavenly law, which these postmoderns don’t even believe in. These groups (which may not be a majority, but do certainly make the most noise) are in many ways to these post-moderns today what the catholic church was to Jews and non-believers hundreds of years ago. Do you think any Jew of that time would listen to catholic reasoning with them from logic why they should become catholic?
That being said, are we killing people in sick and horrible ways? No. But, we are seeking the same type of politcal dominance, and among post-moderns, it is not the way to be heard. Just like missions abroad, we MUST earn the right to be heard! This means that we must find a new approach to that.
Another thing I have really benefitted from, is understanding that post-modernism lends people to value somethings which our modernist Christian mindsets do not provide. Instead of trying to battle postmodernism (which has very decidely won that battle) why can’t we contextualize towards emphasis of those things which postmoderns value and praise them for those values?
A biblical example is the unknown god, and how Paul uses that as a doorway to sharing. These people believed in many gods, but Paul did not attack that, but praised them for searching for a god they didn’t know. Post-moderns aren’t looking for a way of thinking, or a way of systematizing things, but for a way of living. Why can’t we show them the beauty of the life of Christ, and His person, and allow that to be the thing which lends authority to Jesus and His teachings.
The third (and last thing I will mention here) thing I have benefited from is an emergent view of scripture. I believe that it has widend my understanding of scripture. It is not just some encyclopedia to be referenced for information on a particular subject or the reinforcement of a rigid doctrine, nor is it a devotional book. It is a beautiful book, filled with the knowledge of who God and Christ are. It is also a story to be read as a whole. It is many things, most of which I can’t begin to list here, but since listening to some of the emergent leaders, I have come treasure the scriptures far more and want to memorize them all. I think this along with the fact that the emergent movement is more more rooted in theology than this blog would lead you to believe have also contributed to my appreciation of some of the things being said within the discussion.
The pathway emergent is traveling down certainly has some problems, I won’t deny that at all. But, the fact is, they are much closer to finding an approach to earning the right to speak to today’s post-moderns than most other evangelicals are. Most if not all young adults my age (22) will have nothing to do with you if faced with the 4 spiritual laws (a.k.a.the Romans Road), and I don’t think I would either. The fact is, most of our apologetics and approaches to evangelism are so incredibly dated, that they are only effective on a very small minority. If emergent is not the way, what is? That is same question being discussed by emergent I believe.
Ben E. on Thu, March 31, 2005
I enjoyed your comments Samuel and appreciate your views. As for myself, I’m a 41 yr old worship leader who’s worked with students who would be in your age range. I’m theologically conservative BUT, if you asked me where my heart would be in this converstation, it would be in the emergent “camp.” Yes, for most post-moderns, logical reasoning, spiritual laws and doctrine will translate into a bunch of preachy “blah, blah, blah.” They HAD to be TALKED AT while in school so why would CHOOSE to be TALKED AT when it came Christ? You may have to hear the Theo/Political wrangling between conservatives & liberals which has certainly burned me out, but why would you CHOOSE to go to church and hear it? As you put it, “I don’t think I would either.” But, according to Christ and the scriptures, there ARE spiritual LAWS that must be considered and taught. You can tell someone about the beauty and wonder of handgliding all day long but before they take off, you had better teach them the LAWS of the physics involved or the LAW of gravity will quickly come into play and bad things will happen!
That’s where the emerging church Christian background can come together in a magnificent way. It is my understand that it stems from a longing to express and experience the FREEDOM we have in Christ and not just the doctrine and/or doggma.
I myself long for that and want everyone to know the freedom of a salvation relationship with Jesus Christ.
The difference, I think, is being a Christian and having that background. We have a grasp of those spiritual laws and know that they are not a bad thing but nor or they the ONLY thing.
I think a second consideration/concern to be aware of the tendancy for us to being worshipping the “movement.” (Any “movement.”) The center of it must always be Christ not the technology or non-techology or the ancient/modern practices or anything else. Good discussion!
Ben E.
David Liebherr on Thu, March 31, 2005
Can you imagine Paul entering the Areopagus (Acts 17) to engage his culture in an ambiguous conversation about psychological shifts in social thought..uggggggh! There is nothing new under the sun nor in “postmodernism” that cannot/should not be addressed clearly, logically and apologetically in the glaring light of exclusive Gospel declaration! The unique Truth claims of Jesus Christ articulated from the Word of God with Authority by the Power of the Holy Spirit in the market place of human ideas is the Biblical paradigm. To mess with that for some half-baked pseudo-intellectual blather is the devil’s business. “Preach the Word…”
Bobby G. on Fri, April 01, 2005
Interesting discussion, I’m not sure I understand why anyone should feel “compelled” to say that the “emergent church” model is the only alternative to the “modern church” model? Given the post-modern concept of truth (an incredulity to any meta-narratives, i.e. scripture), why would a historic orthodox Christian even want to dabble with such a framework? Indeed truth has its subjective/pragmatic feature—but without its objective/propositional side there is nothing to believe/nothing to live. I.e. Objective truth we can’t do without: Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross and rose again some 2,000yrs ago (I Cor 15:1-3ff). Subjective/Experiential consequence of the fact of Jesus’ death and resurrection: Now that we “know” this we should live in the reality of the crucified/resurrected life of Christ (Col 2:6-7; II Cor 4:1ff; etc.).
Indeed the Bible’s emphasis is relational (John 17:3), but post-modernity is an unecessary alternative to come to this conclusion. Just reach back into church history a bit, and you’ll see a discussion that might surprise you. For example people like Richard Sibbes, John Cotton, etc. advocated a theology known as “Affective Theology”, which summarily emphasizes the language of marriage (ie. Song of Songs; Eph 5, I Cor 6:17)/union with Christ as not just analogous language but ontological and substantial. In other words, the emphasis indeed is focused upon relationship—without the necessity of embracing the logical conclusion of modernity in post-modernity (i.e. post-modernity stands upon the epistemological shoulders of modernity—see the “prophet” Nietzche).
Anyway, as the “emergent church”, when you reach back into church history for ancient symbols for purposes of bolstering your worship services, why not dig deeper and look at the ideas/doctrine that shaped those symbols. You might be surprised by the depth and authenticity you find when you genuinely look at how Christ (Heb 13:8)moved and worked in the lives of our brothers and sisters in ages past.
I realize the tension of communicating the “gospel” in any given culture or society. The apostle Paul (see I Cor 1—4)seemed to think the using particular cultural “forms” definitely can effect the content being communicated (the cross of Christ appears foolish—to the church in Corinth—hopefully not today). Anyway, I’ve said enough. Thank you for the conversation . . .
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