Let’s Talk About the Emergent Church
I haven’t had any good experiences with the emergent church. As this article states:
The emerging church movement solidified in only its most theologically liberal segments. The Emergent church movement which comprised part of the emerging church movement embraced theologically liberal ideas about ecumenism, the role of the Bible, and the theology of the Trinity. The views of the Emergent church were often not something that represented the whole of the emerging church movement…
As usual, the most annoying part of a group ends up being it’s most vocal and most notable. Still, the only emergent church people I’ve ever known were young “know-it-all” types who wanted to change “the system” and fight “the man” with a new type of church experience. It never seemed authentic and was not paired with Christian love.
Seminary Professor and author, Mike Wittmer has spent time confronting serious theological issues within the emergent church movement, such as this blog post in which he details a leader of this movement unashamedly disagreeing with the Apostle Paul in his interpretation of sin.
The most common refrain heard from the emergents (other than the word “post-modern”) is that how you live is more important that what you believe. This stance has led many to claim that it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you help the poor and needy. Even though giving aid to those in need is paramount to following Christ this statement is problematic on many levels.
Still, other conservative and intelligent voices insist that I am wrong. There are (I’m told) numerous examples of the emergent church that do not involve bad theology and an “us vs. them” mentality against big churches. According to this article (that my friend Dan pointed out) the emergent church is a Christian movement with a few “fringe” members who voice minority opinions that the rest of us find troubling. (I’d like to believe this, but ChristianityToday.com has lost my trust with their “Democratic party propoganda thinly disguised as a theological issue” articles.)
Basically, I’m just not convinced. I think the emergent church is going to go the same way as the Seeker Sensitive movement, that is, it will be swept under the rug. What do you think? Am I being too hard on them?
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Not too hard on them at all. Believers throughout the history of the world have had to fight off heresies of all kinds in their generation. The emergent church is our generation’s fight. Is it important that we live for Christ? Absolutely… but if what we believe is tainted and not Gospel then we won’t truly be able to live for Him because we won’t truly know Him. I am reminded of Paul’s word to the Galatians (1:6-10). If any man preach another gospel, which is really no gospel, let him be accursed (anathema). Eternally damned to hell.
How do we know then that there is so much danger in the emergent church? Well true, most of their “pastors” look great from the outside… they appear just as Matthew 7 tells us they will, as wolves in sheep’s clothing. Meek, mild, and innocent.
Yet inwardly they are ravenous. Tearing apart the firm foundation of the church built on the rock.
But what are their fruits? What are they producing? Sermon series about sex (Ed Young Jr, Granger Community Church) or sermon series based on Dr. Seuss (Oaks Fellowship) or books like “Sex God” by Rob Bell… not only is this movement wrong, in most cases it is heretical and we absolutely must stand up and “Play the man”.
It isn’t intolerant to tell these men to repent and turn from this form of wickedness. It is loving. To not practice a little church discipline is to not show love.
If we believe the Word of God then we ought to defend it and stand for Him even unto death.
that’s my small rant..
j
I think you’re right, Adam. We need more of Lewis’s “do what you can with what you have where you are” attitude. He makes this statement in Letters to Malcom — I think — and is talking specifically about the local church.
It’s all the more important for us to discipline ourselves toward developing such a mentality since “local” can’t have much meaning in a place where there’s three churches to every gas station.
But back to the Emergent Church, I don’t see them sticking around for very long either. Without truth and love (which are of course the same thing) nothing can stand.
Dr. Laughery, director of Swiss L’Abri, used to say: “What do you mean, ‘Just believe in Jesus’? Jesus who? Jesus the doorknob?” Doctrine matters. It only matters in perspective, but it matters.
As you now, Adam, I have recently been trying to learn about and very curious about the emerging church. I find myself doing this as I realize in myself a lot of postmodern tendencies. Some of what I read concerning them in inspiring, and some of what I read is horrifying. But, I would love to throw out a couple of quick thoughts here on the topic if that’s ok…. 🙂
First off, from what I’ve read (which is best summed up with that article from Dan), it might be good to clarify the distinction between the Emergent Church and the emerging church. It seems to me that the Emergent Church may be trying to be the focal point of attention aimed at the emerging church.
Secondly, I think ecumenism (within the body of Christ…which may be less so than what you’re seeing it as in relation to the emerging church. I don’t know.) is a great and noble idea. I don’t think I see that as necessarily a “liberal” idea that should be shunned or ignored. Ultimately, we will realize the fulfillment of that very ideal in Heaven with Christ.
Thirdly, it is my great fear that people will react to the emerging church and its ideas in the same way that a modernist might dismiss Augustine because he thought that the sun rotated around the earth. Namely that, because they partially wrong, people might decide they are all wrong and throw out their ideas completely. I really like (probably because I’ve grown up in a postmodern culture) the idea of reanalyzing the things we have been taking for granted for the sake of ascertaining the fullness of truth. I think there is value in that, but only if we do so acknowledging that the conclusion already handed down to us is probably the best one. There are also certain things that we must hold fast to. Especially in the context of church doctrine. The role of the bible and the Christian belief of the Trinity are great examples of those kinds of things. As you know, when we step away from certain beliefs, we are no longer orthodoxically Christian. To say we do not believe in the Trinity or even to make the leap to modalism is to take a massive leap off the bus. However, to say that our style of worship must be hymns because that’s the way it’s been for so long, or to suggest that a church service has to be in a specific format are not things that turning away from would equate to leaping off the bus.
I think that the emerging church’s emphasis on orthorpraxy is symptamatic of a real existing problem in our western culture Christian church. That is that people are going to church, calling themselves Christians, and then going out and doing whatever they want with absolutely no regard for Christ at all. It’s just something people are doing on Sunday mornings. That’s all it is to them, and then they walk away for the next 6 days. We do need orthorpraxy in the Christian church. It’s important, but if you don’t tie it in with solid orthodoxy, you will be doing it in vain. So, the truth is, we need to be in a place where we have both. So, I think that the jump to believing in orthopraxy is a reaction to a stagnation of orthopraxy in the Christian church. People just don’t realize that they still need that orthodoxy, too.
So, what I’m trying to say is: I think we need to look at each thing they are doing and say, “Ok….Are they doing this because they’re nuts or are they doing this because they see a legitimate problem and have a legitimate complaint with how things have been done up to this point or even just recently?”
Honestly, I’m till trying to form my opinion about the emerging church movement. It’s tough because I’ve been trained well by the likes of Dan to make sure I base my theology in scripture. At the same time, I feel a very strong pull and sympathy towards some of what the emerging church represents. I can definately say that I would not feel comfortable at all joining any of these about which I have read. Yet, I like some of their ideas towards worship and I’m definately in the category of people who would enjoy experimenting with traditional format if it would help bring people into better community and more genuinely into worship and belief in Christ.
I’m definately rambling too much now. 🙂
Last thought for you: I read an interesting article the other day entitled The coming evangelical collapse coming out of the Christian Science Monitor. *waits for ciriticism for that source* Dan has called this (now famously) “popycock”. I pretty much agree with him, but it has some interesting predictions, including at least one concerning the emerging church. I’m curious as to your thoughts on it.
Kelly (sry for the rambling…I tried to be as coherent as possible)
Nonsense, I’m happy to have your comments, Kelley. All of these comments are insightful and great.
Nothing a little persecution won’t fix.
I’ve said for some time now that the emergents are asking all the right questions (their critiques often hit the nail on the head), but just coming up with mostly terrifying answers. The very biggest concerns I see (and there are quite a few) are:
1) the divorce of orthodoxy and orthopraxy. I mean, really, creating a false dichotomy between the two is quite silly. We know what is right to do because of what we believe. And 1 John makes it quite clear that one of the tests of salvation is right belief. This is sort of like trying to figure out which is more important: grace or faith, while pitting them against each other as competing demands/values
2) an anemic Christology. very few emergent writers talk as if they realize that there are 23 other books in the NT past the gospels. they especially ignore Revelation and its clear portrayal of Jesus as a warrior-priest-judge, returning to kick butt and take names. this allows them to water down “love” and remove judgment from their gospel (often not the actual gospel) completely, as well as any eschatological implications of the kingdom.
There are others, including their serious issues with authority, but these are the main two, i think.
of course the most hilarious thing is that many of these thinkers believe they’re being original in their thinking and offering brilliant new insights for the church. read a friggin’ church history work.
I don’t have a great or thought out comment right now…but I’m enjoying reading your blog today. It has affirmed many of my concerns.
Hmm, concerns about the emergent church? Or about me…
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Ruth
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