Why I am Not Emergent - Part 2

So in my last post, I opined that one of the problems with many in the Emergent “conversation” is a significant capitulation to one the central tenets of the postmodern, that objectivity is myth and that all knowledge is determined by experience within a culture. Tony Jones, in challenging Chuck Colson, did make a distinction between truth and objectivity, for example, saying that Stanley Fish did not deny the possibility of truth, but of objectivity. This in itself is an example of the problem, however, because if ALL objectivity is impossible, then the word “truth” can only refer to subjective interpretation, which is the issue Colson was trying to refute.

I argued, essentially, that though no one can be perfectly objective, for most things in ordinary life, we are dependent on the common sense understanding that any two individuals can refer to an object and both can be sufficiently objective to be confident they are referring to the same object. Communication can occur.

But I must move on. A second key element of the general “postmodern” view of reality, which I believe many emergent leaders have uncritically accepted, is:

1. Language is a construct of society – words do not signify reality, but a cultural perception of reality.

And as a subset of the the above, come two other related assumptions.

a. Texts do not reflect objective realities, but interpretations of facts and events within a particular culture.

b. Readers of texts cannot enter into the culture of the author, so the text can only be understood as an interpretation by the reader within his own language and culture.
This leads many to the conclusion that it is the reader who gives meaning to the text.

Why I am not Emergent - Part 1

I've fallen into a bad habit of reading the "Out of Ur" section of the CT website. Out of Ur is billed as "Conversations hosted by the editors of Leadership Journal" and has a subheading of "Following God's Call in a New World". As such, it leans heavily in the direction of "Emergent" Christianity, which is an extremely loose and difficult to define collection of approaches to communicating Christianity in a post modern context.

In recent months, there have been a few controversial exchanges. Brian McLaren started a firestorm when one of his posts implied rather strongly that he could not affirm a traditional view of homosexuality as a sin. Later Tony Jones laid out a feisty apologetic as to why the Emergent movement should not have a clear statement of faith. More recently, Jones, in responding to critics who equate emergent with a new Christian left, directly took on Chuck Colson for his criticism of Emergent as not accepting the notion of objective truth.

Knowing full well that Emergent does describe a broad collection of folks with a lot of views, it has been my impression that most of the key leaders of the movement are influenced greatly by a set of philosophical assumptions. And I find those assumptions troublesome.

Silver Lining and a Dark Cloud

I'm not a political blogger, just a guy who writes for cartharsis and to think and I leave the heavy political stuff to the guys with the time, resources and background. Still, I read a few political sites and blogs, and Iraq and Iran loom large.

Occasionally there is apparent good news. Like the report in the Washington Times about significant numbers of Kurds converting to Christianity. According to the article, Retired Iraqi Gen. Georges Sada, the same guy who claims Saddam flew WMD out of Iraq into Syria before the war, says Kurds are converting to Christianity "by the hundreds" in northern Iraq.

I guess it rings true. Particularly in light of the Al Jazeera interview in which Ahmad Al Katani laments that as many as six million Muslims convert to Christianity in Africa each year. Of course Al Katani unfortunately argues that evangelism is OK as long as it doesn't involve evangelizing Muslims. Still, seeing Christianity having an impact in Muslim countries is encouraging in light of the other, darker stories.

Rating Your Church...

Been thinking for a few days about a CT article by Leith Anderson called "7 Ways to Rate Your Church: How to measure your church's ministry.” It was a well-intentioned and fairly sensible list of characteristics of churches people, and specifically unchurched people, tend to find attractive. The article is a reprint from 1999, so it is a few years old.

The list is as follows, with excerpts of the summaries taken directly from the article:

1. Sensing the presence of God
Experiencing the supernatural dwarfs everything else as people rate a church's atmosphere.
2. Others-centered
The others-centered church talks little about its programs or its people unless that is truly helpful to the newcomer.
3. Understandable terminology
Blessed are those churches where everyone can understand what is being communicated!
4. People who look like me
Seeing one person who looks and dresses "like me" up on the platform or ushering or pictured in church publicity can communicate an open and inviting atmosphere.
5. Healthy problem handling
What makes a healthy church is not the absence of problems. It's how problems are handled.
6. Accessibility
High ratings go to churches that are "barrier free" in every sense of the term.
7. Sense of expectancy
Most healthy churches are hopeful churches.

Of course there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this list. It is fairly common-sense stuff. I have nothing against Leith Anderson and attended his church a few times years ago. But I have to wonder, isn’t there something missing from this list? Notice that none of the seven items have anything in them directly related to biblical or theological concepts. Sure, sensing the presence of God is a religious element, but not specifically Christian. Being others-centered recalls a biblical principle, but lots of non-believers accept a form of the golden rule.

It seems to me, prior to the megachurch era, few if any of these items would have occurred to anyone seeking to “rate” a church. Granted, Anderson is probably assuming from the outset that Christians know enough to consider biblical orthodoxy before evaluating the seven points he stresses. And it is definitely true that many churches can be theologically correct while being cold and dead to the world around them.

Such an assumption seems ill advised these days. But rather than just being critical, I would suggest an addendum to such a list, one that accounts for some things perhaps more critical. So here’s my list:

1. Cross Centered
Does your church begin and end its ministry with a focus on the central event of human history, the death of Christ for the salvation of the world?
2. Biblical
Does your church take scripture seriously? Is scripture read aloud, understood to be the living voice of God? Is there a sense that God condescended to use human language to communicate things to us that we dare not ignore, revise, edit, or distort?
3. Orthodox
Is your church committed to those essentials of the faith that have been held by the vast majority of Christians for most of twenty centuries? Does the Trinity matter? The incarnation? The virgin birth? Does your church take seriously the clear understanding of whom God is?
4. Confession
In deference to the emphasis of being friendly to the unchurched and avoiding the negative, I have to ask, is there opportunity for us as human beings to face up to our failings? Is there opportunity to see ourselves against the measuring rod of God’s moral standards? Is there opportunity to see our need?
5. Redemption
Perhaps this reiterates point one, but is there real opportunity to connect with the personal meaning of redemption? In some churches steeped in revivalism and personal decision, this has taken the form of an altar call, but in most of Christian history this opportunity for renewal of the New Covenant takes place at the Lord’s Table. Does worship allow the worshiper to walk away with a renewed conscience and a sense of being forgiven?
6. Hope
Does the final reality of the church service leave people with a sense of hope, refreshing, purpose for the future? Is the good news really good news?
7. Ecumenism
I do NOT mean here ecumenical in the sense of the World Council of Churches, where no distinctions can any longer be made between Christianity and paganism. Rather, I mean non-sectarian. Is it possible to affirm essential Christian doctrine as expressed in Nicea and Chalcedon and accept those from other perspectives who also hold to those definitions?

Lists always have their limitations. I could add a few more items, so could you, but you get the point. Is it not possible to be sensitive to the concerns of the seeker and be theologically sound and thorough at the same time? I believe that the tendency to quantify, measure, program and perhaps even manipulate God is a hyper-modern trait the evangelical church has thoroughly embraced. We are too often in love with what seems to work in the short term and are unaware of what long-term ramifications might be. I just want to call attention to what is often forgotten in the process.

Phil Keaggy Speaks Out

Nice CT interview with Phil Keaggy today. I've been a huge Keaggy fan since I was a teenager, and he has influenced my guitar playing ever since. Aside from being a phenomenally versatile guitarist, Phil has always been a genuine nice guy, which makes a couple of comments in CT a little surprising. In context, he is not bashing anything or anyone, just being honest about some minor annoyances. Says Phil:

What irks me most about the Christian music business is the model on which they built the whole thing. It's based on the world's model of taking songs and masters from artists and owning it, when they make you pay back the production budget based on your royalties' percentage and then they end up owning it. It's like making 30 years of payments on a house that the bank never gives you!

Gnosticism

Marvin Olasky has good interview with Westminster Seminary New Testament professor Peter Jones on Gnosticism. Two key exchanges.

"WORLD: Even though The Da Vinci Code invents a marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, it seems that Gnostics have something against heterosexual activity . . .

JONES: The goal of Gnostic sexuality is androgyny, the blending of male and female in one human being. The distinction of male and female is the result of the Fall, and so to undo the effects of the Fall one must join the opposites and make the two one. The "Jesus" of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas declares, "when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female . . . then you will enter the kingdom of heaven" (Saying 22). How interesting that this is happening in our own day, and that this is a definite developed theme in The Da Vinci Code."

I suppose it is no surprise that gnosticism is undergoing a bit of a revival in this time and culture...

The Fill-in-the-blank Creed of Emergentville

Poking around on the Emergent Village Blog today I found a fairly intriguing post. It seems certain critics of the vagueness of statements from emergent leaders have asked those leaders to produce a statement of faith. This would seem a reasonable request so that we can all know at least what sort of historic Christian doctrines emergent leaders consider essential.

Tony Jones, the National Coordinator of Emergent-U.S. provided a bit of a response by deferring to the statement of LeRon Shults, a former professor of Theology Bethel Seminary and author of The Postfoundationalist Task of Theology and Reforming the Doctrine of God. Jones writes:

"Yes, we have been inundated with requests for our statement of faith in Emergent, but some of us had an inclination that to formulate something would take us down a road that we don't want to trod. So, imagine our joy when a leading theologian joined our ranks and said that such a statement would be disastrous..."

Even given the opinion from Scott McKnight at Jesus Creed that since Emergent is not a denomination, no creed is necessary, one wonders why a simple statement of what doctrines emergent finds essential would be disastrous.

D.H. Williams on the Creed

I enjoy D.H. Williams. His book Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism ought to be required reading for evangelical pastors.

Williams has an article in Christian History regarding the Nicene Creed. It is titled "Do You Know Whom You Worship?" and has the subtitle "Did the Nicene Creed distort the pure gospel, or did it embody and protect it?"

Given the fascination with spurious writings like the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas as well as the worldwide phenomena of "The Da Vinci Code", this is a timely article. The accusation is leveled these days that the church which defined the creed and the Canon was already relatively corrupt, owing to the marriage of Roman imperial power with a hierarchical structure. In a way, some Protestants have made the very case Dan Brown attempts to make with his book.

"At the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, some Protestant historians regarded the Council of Nicaea and its creed with the same suspicion as they did the church of Rome. The esteemed German scholar Eduard Schwarz, for example, depicted the conflicts between pro-Nicene and "Arian" opponents as in reality a struggle for power within the church which was disguised as a theological dispute. The council's decisions represented a victory for those who wielded the most influence over the emperor. This meant too that the creed was an unfortunate capitulation of the church to imperial politics and an emblem of the new merger between the Roman empire and Christianity. "

Frightening Things Confirmed

Adding to the concern that Bin Laden may have nuclear capabilities is this report of a British Intelligence confirmation of such a terrifying prospect. Not that anyone on the left side of the political spectrum will believe British Intelligence after the Iraq WMD hoopla. But we would be crazy not to at least take the possibility seriously.

Gay Adoption and Religious Liberty

Chilling story in the Weekly Standard today, regarding the decision by Catholic Charities of Boston to get out of the adoption business because of Massachusetts law that would tolerate no discrimination for same-sex couples seeking to adopt. The story, by Maggie Gallagher explains that Massachusetts law has prohibited "orientation discrimination" for about a decade. But more recently, beginning in November 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court insisted on sanctioning gay marriage. As a result, Catholic Charities faced a conflict between official church teaching and state mandate. The church lost.

Gallagher spends more than a few collumn inches seeking the viewpoints of legal experts on the issue. A couple of key quotes stand out, such as this from Anthony Picarello, president and general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

"In times of relative peace, says Picarello, people don't even notice that "the church is surrounded on all sides by the state; that church and state butt up against each other. The boundaries are usually peaceful, so it's easy sometimes to forget they are there. But because marriage affects just about every area of the law, gay marriage is going to create a point of conflict at every point around the perimeter."

Futile Care - Code for Duty to Die?

This is the sort of thing pro-life folks have been predicting for years. It is called futile care theory. The slippery slope has become a crumbling cliff.

Update
I'm sure one can find plenty of ammunition to make the case that the euthanasia movement remains committed to no death on demand. This April 27 weekly Standard Artical by Wesley J. Smith is one example. Quoting philosopher John Hardwig,

"A duty to die is more likely when continuing to live will impose significant burdens--emotional burdens, extensive caregiving, destruction of life plans, and yes, financial hardship--on your family and loved ones. This is the fundamental insight underlying a duty to die.
"A duty to die becomes greater as you grow older. As we age, we will be giving up less by giving up our lives . . . To have reached the age of say, seventy-five or eighty years without being ready to die is itself a moral failing, the sign of a life out of touch with life's basic realities."

Did you get that? To not be willing to die at age 75 is a "moral failing". And we thought these folks didn't believe in morality.