The Church
Emergent/Emerging Movement

A little over a month ago, Dave Andrianoff and I stood on the streets of Athens and discussed the emerging/emergent church movement. We had just worshipped at the Greek Evangelical Church and witnessed how it was having an impact on a culture where evangelical Christianity is a “foreign religion”. We discussed how the emergent/emerging folks may be in a similar position in our culture. I had some misgivings that we discussed with a promise to begin reading and thinking about the movement and commence a discussion with Dave. This is my preliminary thinking as put to Dave in an e-mail after the jet lag lifted on our return to the Eastern Continental Divide. We will have more to say about this subject in the coming months.

Dear Dave--------Your question to me in Athens about the emerging/emergent church as well as your embracing of A Generous Orthodoxy put me to more serious thinking about this movement [I call it a movement because, as we discussed, there is no authority or discipline structure which is necessary to be a Biblical Church.]. There is good that has come from the movement. Examples:

1. Enunciating the problem that the evangelical [whatever that is!?] church in the USA is, in large part, wedded to politics and nationalism. They have accurately pointed to this factor adding to the angry judgmental spirit of many “Christians” to domestic social issues and international relation/security matters.
2. The movement has exposed the anti-historical view of the modern evangelical church in the USA and the resultant lack of continuity with the ancient/apostolic/universal [real Catholic] church. Christopher Lasch who wrote The Culture of Narcissism says the failure to face the past is indicative of deep despair in a society that cannot face the future. In some ways that may be why modern evangelicals in the west cannot deal with those who are “different” from us. We look at the future of the church and blanch. We must become reconnected with the past to understand how to move forward in the future, a position this movement has promoted.
3. The movement has reacted to modernity’s change of emphasis from God to man and it’s commitment to reason and empiricism. We are all modern people and the emerging/emergent folk have rightly pointed that out. The cultural conditioning of evangelicalism in the USA means the modern church “thinks” it has it figured out [another reason why history is irrelevant] and that its modern understanding is “the way it is and must be”. Coincidently, this understanding comports with the ease, comfort and pleasure of the culture and a pre-tribulation, pre-millennial eschatology which takes the western Christian out before “real trouble” begins. These folk have been effective in pointing out this problem.

With all the good, however, I think the bad is the adaptation to post-modernity. The church must strive to make the Gospel intelligible but that does not mean adapting to the post-modern mindset: no overarching truth; no sin [not even the neuroses of modernity]; and no meaning. These do not represent the reality of Holy Scripture and so should not be part of a church’s belief system. The church is always reforming but never conforming to culture. We are countercultural…not modern or post-modern. Now it is true, post-modernity gives ear to the Gospel as another story which modernity did not, viewing it as pre-modern, miraculous, non-scientific hooha.

As we discussed, a large part of the problem with post-modernism, and the embracing of same, is epistemological…How do we Know? What can we know? Our knowing must always be driven by Holy Scripture, not cultural moods. Yes, we are all influenced by the culture we live in, yet for a Christian that culture does not define our belief system. As David Wells says, the Biblical God is an outside God, self-defined through revelation. He stands apart from His creation and is the standard of Truth.

The emergent/emerging movement seems to be rejecting that concept through swallowing post-modern epistemology. That may be why it is easy to know what they are against but difficult to know what they believe. In an appendix to the recent book The Supremacy of Christ in the Post-Modern World, John Piper relates a conversation he had with two emergent/emerging leaders, Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones. Piper is frustrated by their conversation. This is what he says:

…committed relationships trump truth…To ask “What is the gospel underneath, supporting the relationship is a category mistake. And so I keep going back on my heels, saying I just don’t understand that way these guys think. There are profound epistemological differences—ways of processing reality—that make the conversation almost impossible, as if it were just kind of going by each other. What is the function of knowledge in transformation? What are the goals of transformation? We seem to differ so much in our worldviews and our ways of knowing that I’m not sure how profitable the conversation was or if we could ever get anywhere….[a]s far as their beliefs on certain doctrinal issues, I can’t tell, because as I pushed them on them. I could tell that their attitude was: “That’s not what we do. That’s not what do here. We don’ try to get agreement on the nature of the atonement. That is alienating to friendships to try to do that, so we don’t do that.”…Paul insists on establishing the gospel, whether there is a good relationship or not. [p. 155].

Piper’s experience seems to be indicative of the movement buying into the Grenz/Franke Beyond Foundationalism thesis that there is no epistemic access to the real, objective world but only beliefs fashioned and determined by our particular circumstances. Therefore, we cannot contend for any Truth with others just try to understand their circumstances and resulting belief systems. But, is that Biblical?

While Biblical truth is more than propositions, it is not less. Scripture is full of warnings, promises, commands and assertions, and they are all inerrant and infallible. This content is Truth because it points to the Truth…Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior…the only way to salvation. This is unacceptable to both a modern and post-modern view of reality and the church should not buy into either schema. I fear that the emerging/emergent movement has done just that with post-modernism. If Scripture does not represent the overarching Truth, the meta-narrative that stands apart from all other stories, then how can we come to know the way, the Truth and the life, to which Scripture points us? We proclaim the Gospel because its Truth changes all those who hear and believe. That is the real, objective Truth this world needs to hear.

I eagerly await your comments on this topic since it ultimately affects how we all evangelize in this undeniable post-modern culture.

Blessings-------wck