Wed 5 Jul 2006
Though I don’t watch it often, I enjoy the show Mythbusters. In one scene, one of the Mythbusters says “I reject your reality and insert my own.” Though meant as a joke, I’m afraid it’s an apt description of how many have come to approach theology and church.
“Relevant” magazine has a recent article on the emergents (that’s a bit like the pot writing about the kettle’s “blackness,” isn’t it?). Entitled “Missing the Point?: The Absolute Truth Behind Postmodernism, Emergent and The Emerging Church,” the article claims something it can’t deliver: to define something whose participants refuse to define. Regardless, I had a “Mythbusters” moment as I was just barely into the article and continued throughout. I began to feel that somehow, these people do not operate in the same reality as the rest of us.
The writer included some quotes from Tony Jones, National Coordinator of Emergent (the organization. not the nebulous orb). Defining something (I’m not sure if he was talking about the orb or the organization) Jones begins by saying what it is not:
“It’s not a denomination, It’s not a theological think tank. Its not a capitalist moneymaking venture. It’s not heresy. It’s not the new Christian Left.” It was one statement in particular that caught my attention: “It’s not the new Christian Left.”
The reason this statement made me pause was that only sentences prior, Jones commented that “We have Texas Baptists who don’t let women preach, and we have lesbian mainline pastors in New England.”
This has gone far enough. I understand the desire to move beyond labels but what are we supposed to do when language has ceased to mean anyting? I’m sorry, but if “lesbian mainline pastors” are not considered liberal, if Brian McLaren is not considered liberal, then I don’t know what is and language has ceased to be a useful tool of communication. Let’s be honest: simply because an “organization” (can we call them that?) has fundamental “Texas Baptists” to balance out the lesbians does not mean that the terms “left” and “liberal” are no longer applicable.
In trying to defend Emergents lack of a statement of beliefs, Jones quips oh-so cleverly, “We’re not against beliefs, We’re against formalized statements of beliefs.” In the same context, Jones says that he’s
“even more concerned that people have statements of faith. Statements of faith are about drawing borders, which means you have to load your weapons and place soldiers at those borders.”
Let’s face it, the group itself doesn’t believe or practice this. Only sentences prior, Dan Kimball, in trying to defend the diversity of opinion remarks that:
“even with diversity, I can say that mostly everyone I know in emerging church circles does hold to the core beliefs of the historic Christian faith such as the Nicene Creed.”
So, literally within the span of a few sentences we have two key leaders directly contradicting one another. Kimball references a “formalized statement” of belief, still understanding that orthodoxy is on the line and Jones says that the group is against this very practice. In the end, they as a whole say nothing because they cancel one another out. No wonder the average person can’t understand what the emergents believe.
“Borders” are quite necessary and unless the emergents are willing to erect some, the infiltration of heresy will be their ultimate demise. The fact that men like Brian McLaren and Steve Chalke have not been openly rebuked but encouraged is (or at least ought to be) quite alarming. The open proclamation that they will not exclude lesbians parading as pastors is another aspect that they have left the biblical foundations. I can put on a police outfit but that hardly makes me a law officer. Lesbians are not biblical pastors and if we don’t uphold the very borders Scripture does, we are no longer part of His Body.
Another troubling inconsistency appears in the discussion regarding many of the emergents rejection of “absolute” truth. Jones says: “Emergent surely has people in it who strongly believe that there is absolute truth.” However, in articulating his own position, Jones explains that:
“I think putting the qualifier absolute in front of truth is a modernistic fallacy. truth is not qualified by adjectives like absolute. So for me personally, talking about absolute truth is a nonsensical way to talk and Christian theologians shouldn’t talk in that way. It isn’t helpful because it doesn’t make sense.”
Again, Jones puts forth the notion that the charge is untenable because there are (”surely”) some people in Emergent that hold to absolute truth. In a telling comment regarding the ridiculous nature of the entire article, the writer quips “Do you know what that last statement is going to look like in an article in RELEVANT?” I assume its because even the writer knows that any notion of objectivity has long since been abandoned, but I digress. A lack of consistency is perhaps the most consistent thing throughout the article.
One thing the emergents seem to pride themselves on is their ability to straddle theological boundaries in pursuit of “discussion/conversation/dialogue/engagement.” In fact, this has been one of their key arguments about “traditional” approaches to theology, that they are too “closed” and don’t seek to understand differing viewpoints, much less interact with them.
Fair enough, but when the emergents don’t even practice this, I wonder what if anything they really do believe and if their words have any meaning at all. In a telling statement, Leonard Sweet closes the article by remarking that this whole “dialogue” is a “lover’s quarrel, not a Carson critique,” taking an unnecessary jab at D.A. Carson. Sweet closes by remarking: “In fact, I would rather be wrong with Brian McLaren than right with D.A. Carson.” Don’t worry Mr. Sweet, I think you’re well on your way.
I suppose that you only get a say in the “conversation” if you leave your criticisms at the door? The very fact that one of the key figures here would even insinuate that he didn’t want to hear from someone of a different theological persuasion casts grave concerns over everything else he says under the banner of “dialogue.”
The article underscores (at least for me) that this “movement” is on a dangerous trajectory. I do think some good things are being said and some good challenges are being issued. But many of the emergents seem to have left reality at the door, opening contradicting themselves and each other, making the rest of us wonder whether their own where words still have any meaning.
At some point, if the emergents expect to be taken seriously, deeper still, if they expect to be considered orthodox, they must say something as a whole and they must erect some borders. Until that point, all we’re left with is the caucophony of conflicting opinions masquerading as a discussion.
- Read Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger
- Read Becoming Conversant With the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications by D.A. Carson
on 05 Jul 2006 at 8:31 am 1.justin r said …
enjoyed reading your post. to be honest i’ve thought that some of the reaction against emergents has been unwaranted, but you have connected some of the dots for me. just curious as to where i could find the original article…
on 05 Jul 2006 at 9:06 am 2.Amber said …
Okay, so in “common church-goer” speak, what are “Emergents?”
(By the way, I love Mythusters! Great pic!)
on 05 Jul 2006 at 10:24 am 3.rhettsmith.com said …
Emerging Church critique……
Brent Thomas has a critique of the Emerging Church……
on 05 Jul 2006 at 10:37 am 4.Brent said …
Justin, the article is in the newest issue of Relevant magazine, the one with Thrice on the cover. I have been unable to find an electronic copy of the story on their website. If someone finds it, would you mind posting the link?
on 05 Jul 2006 at 10:42 am 5.Brent said …
Amber, that’s the 64,000 Pyramid question, isn’t it?! In “common church-goer” speak, the “emergents” is a term I use to discuss a wider movement known as the “emerging church” and an official organization known as “Emergent.”
Broadly speaking, they bill themselves as a “conversation’ roughly encompassing the ideas of how to best minister in a postmodern context and things like that. It can take on man different costumes, but at the heart of it, that’s what it seems to boil down to.
You might want to read Wikipedia’s article or my discussion of a presentation by Justin Taylor.
Anyone else have a concise yet accurate definition?
on 05 Jul 2006 at 10:55 am 6.Amber said …
So is it kinda like: “Hey, let’s go smoke a joint with the druggies so we can tell them about Jesus”??
Pardon me, but some of it, at least in your blogging descriptiveness, reminds me of “The One World Faith” from the Left Behind series, and the whole end-of-the-world, blurring-of-the-lines, let’s-all-get-along-religiously “church” that (I think, though I’d have to search to find it) scripture warns us about.
Is it just me? ;)
on 05 Jul 2006 at 10:57 am 7.Kevin said …
I am going to have to change my blog subtitle. I think I have lost my identity some where. I have been to a multitude of denominations, which has been a blessing and a curse. We are all lacking, and the programmed “worship” is awful. I do think we should have a formalized statement of beliefs aka. the Apostle’s or Nicene Creed.
on 05 Jul 2006 at 11:07 am 8.Amber said …
Let me clarify something real quick: I don’t oppose getting along. Only getting along SOOO much that we agree on everything and nobody actually believes anything anymore.
Just thought I’d add that before I got myself into trouble.
on 05 Jul 2006 at 11:32 am 9.Amanda said …
Brent,
Great post! I discovered your blog through Rhett Smith’s blog, and I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve seen so far. I have to agree with what Justin R. said above: This post most definitely connected some dots for me about the emerging church movement. For a long time I’ve thought that it was a good thing, but I knew there was something not quite right. Thanks for this!
on 05 Jul 2006 at 1:11 pm 10.Jody said …
Didn’t even Jesus draw a line (or something) in the sand. A border, no?
on 05 Jul 2006 at 1:13 pm 11.Jody said …
Here is one person’s attempt to establish boundaries: http://www.opensourcetheology.net/node/943
on 05 Jul 2006 at 3:52 pm 12.Sophigirl said …
Great post! I’ve came across it at the Protestant Pub. It seems to me that a lot of problems of the emergent church movement come from the misunderstanding of the underlining philosophical presuppositions. The extreeme left of the movement is coming from the writings of Derrida, Foucault, Rorty and the like. These are the ones that are likely to try to get away with the “lines” since they see any definitions/borders as essentially violent. I don’t know if they have thought through all of the metaphysical implications of these statements, for if they did, I don’t know how they can still call themselves Christians. But then there is a great philosophical movement under the name of Radical Orthodoxy. These guys recognize the postmoderns’ critique of the “modern” Christianity and philosophy as something valid, but do not go overboard with “solutions” as postmoderns do. These guys call for a, well, radical orthodoxy, with all that such terms imply. It is from this camp that the sane and healthy statements of the “emergent” arise.
And Jody, not to be picky, but it does not say in the Bible that Jesus drew the line in the sand. It says that He was writing with His finger - we don’t know what. I understand you point, though.
on 05 Jul 2006 at 5:15 pm 13.Paul said …
Well, yes, and even McLaren takes inspiration from liberal theologians like Karl Barth and Yale’s Hans Frei. The roots go deep for the Emergents and either they understand perfectly where they are coming from or they really don’t understand at all what they are getting into.
Some “big picture” would help for most of the evangelicals or former evangelicals I’ve read who are now Emergents.
Sophigirl makes an important point when she points us to the sources and inspirations of postmoderns.
Wither are they tending? Hate to see where they end up if they are starting out this way.
on 05 Jul 2006 at 11:02 pm 14.Zach said …
I feel like I’ve read this before….
on 06 Jul 2006 at 6:01 am 15.Katharine said …
Dear Brent,
I’d like to know how to get an electronic copy of the article as well - I’ve searched pretty extensively on RelevantMagazine.Com and have come up empty
on 06 Jul 2006 at 9:00 am 16.Brent said …
Katharine, I have still been unable to find one. I’m assuming that they have not uploaded it to the site yet.
Zach, I’d love to read the article you’re referring to. I’ve yet to see one referencing specific contradictions like this (by no means am I saying I’m the first, just that I haven’t seen others!). I’d love to read it.
on 06 Jul 2006 at 10:47 am 17.Zach said …
i’m referring to every “critique of emergent” that i’ve ever read. just google “critique of emergent” and i think you’ll be well on your way. in those you will find the contrast between “truth” and “absolute truth”. you’ll usually find the idea of emergent conversation belittled. you’ll find the criticism of emergents regarding their approach to belief statements. there will be a suggestion of the lack of “boundries” or a “slippery slope” of relatavism.
some of your critique may be well founded, but it’s simply unoriginal and very worn out. you’re music reviews, on the other hand, are fantastic. :-)
on 06 Jul 2006 at 10:57 am 18.Brent said …
Call me old-fashioned, but it would seem to me that if people kept approaching the same critiques of my theology that sooner or later, I ought to consider whether they had any merit. Here’s a situation in which not only do I (obviously) think some of these concerns have merit, I think they have been blatatnly and irresponsibly ignored. Sooner or later, every “conversation” must say something…
I’ve never claimed to not be “unoriginal and worn out,” and I’ve also repeatedly said that I appreciate much of what is coming out of this “conversation,” but with that comes huge red flags for me (and apparently I’m not the only one?) which I think must be addressed if true progress is to be made.
And thanks for the kind word on the music reviews! That’s becoming one of my favorite aspects of doing this!
on 06 Jul 2006 at 10:47 pm 19.Zach said …
I think many in the Emergent camp have heard loud and clear these same criticizms you’ve shared here and they have responded, but not with a response that is agreable for you. Just because they disagree with your criticisms doesn’t mean they’ve not taken them into account. When a criticizm seems to resurface over and over in the same tired fashion, it doesn’t mean that that criticism is somehow more valid. It reminds me of a guy who keeps asking a girl out on a date while being told by her repeatedly that he’s simply not her type. It’s not that his love is not real, it’s just unreturned.
on 07 Jul 2006 at 7:51 am 20.Brendt said …
A few random thoughts:
* Cool Mythbusters picture! That’s a great show!
* I have to disagree with you that “this ‘movement’ is on a dangerous trajectory” — here’s why. ;-)
* If you insert the word “only” after each “not” in Jones’ first quote, it might be more accurate.
on 07 Jul 2006 at 3:17 pm 21.Jim I said …
The picture is not from Mythbusters. Brent keeps a couple crash test dummies around so that he can demo new beards before carving up his own.
Great blog, Brent!
on 07 Jul 2006 at 10:26 pm 22.D.R. Randle said …
Not to be disagreeable, Zach, but I have two friends who got married to girls who they kept asking out until each gave in. One couple has been married for 12 years and the other for 6. I guess we can hold out the same hope for Emergent folks.
on 07 Jul 2006 at 11:41 pm 23.Zach said …
Not to be disagreeable, but let me disagree. I doubt your friends use the same condescending devices that can be found in Brent’s post and others just like it. Who knows? Maybe that kind of tactless approach actually works. Maybe your friends told the girls that they were simply wreckless and naive to think other guys would actually like them. Or, on the other hand, maybe these girls simply ran out other “agreeable” options.
In any case, I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that the rest of us can wise up in order for our doctrine to be agreeable with you.
on 08 Jul 2006 at 8:44 am 24.Brent said …
Let’s be real here. I can hardly lower this to the level of asking girls out. This is the truth of Jesus Christ and His Body that we are talking about and if it’s “disagreeable” to point out misuse of language “yes, we have lesbians, but we’re not liberal…” then so be it. If it’s “disagreeable” to say that a man like Steve Chalke who likens the doctrine of substitionary atonement to “divine child abuse” needs to be reigned in, then so be it. If it’s “disagreeable” to believe that every “conversation” leads somewhere and this “emergent” one is headed in a dangerous direction, then so be it.
If these things concerns are “tired and worn out,” they are viable nonetheless because they have not been addressed (at all, not just in a way I don’t like…). Sooner or later the argument “we’re not anything, just a bunch of people talking” is what’s really “tired and worn out.”
Thank you guys for all of the dialogue and I apologize for my short tone.
on 11 Jul 2006 at 10:35 am 25.Zach said …
Yeah, I agree Brent. How could we stoop so low as to compare this Kingdom of God we seek to human relationships? Jesus was never that wreckless, right? He never dared to compare this Kingdom to the relationship between a father and son, or a worker and the owner of the field, etc….
on 12 Jul 2006 at 3:50 am 26.D.R. Randle said …
I just wrote a post about how Emergent guys can’t handle criticism well, despite the fact that their organization (ur…conversation) is based upon a critique of contemporary Christianity. I find that quite ironic that they can dish out the criticism, but can’t take it well, choosing instead to avoid and deflect. Anyway, Brent, check it out and see if you agree with my assessment.