Reflections on the Emerging Church - Part 1

Is the Emerging Church Worth Discussing…?

www.confidentchristians.org

Yes, it is…

Released February 2010,
Brian McLaren‟s( one of
the definitive leaders of
the Emerging Church
movement) new book
showcases how the
obituaries proclaiming the
end of the Emerging
Church‟s influence may
be a bit premature…

…


A Proposed Definition from one Group…
“Emerging churches are not young adult
services, Gen-X churches, churches-
within-a-church, seeker churches,
purpose-driven or new paradigm
churches, fundamentalist churches, or
even evangelical churches. They are a
new expression of church. The three core
practices are identifying with the life of
Jesus, transforming secular space, and
commitment to community as a way of
life. These practices are expressed in or
lead to the other six: welcoming the
stranger, serving with generosity,
participating as producers, creating as
created beings, leading as a body, and
taking part in spiritual activities.”
- Emerging Churches: Creating Christian
Communities in Postmodern Cultures by Eddie
Gibbs and Ryan Bolger.

What the Emerging Church Actually is
“Emergence,” or the “Emerging” or “Emergent”
Church, is a movement inside and outside the
boundaries of Protestant Christianity that has
been deeply impacted by the worldview of
Postmodernism, and in particular, the Postmodern
hermeneutic of Deconstructionism. Although it
varies significantly from one group to the next,
one of its most common characteristics is a deep
distrust of sure doctrinal convictions, which the
Church has historically used, in their opinion, to
wield authority and oppress the weak. All
theological convictions and points of doctrine
should be held with “humility” (read:
“uncertainty”), and open to ongoing dialogue, in
which all opinions and perspectives should be
embraced and affirmed. Real Christianity, they
claim, is not about believing anything in particular,
but rather about doing what Jesus did, eating with
and loving sinners and the weak and despised.


What the Emerging Church Actually is
In much of the “Emergent Church,” this attitude
has led to a downplaying or outright denying of
some very vital doctrines: the penal
substitutionary atonement has often been denied,
as has hell and eternal punishment, it has been
suggested that “good” moral people of other faith
traditions such as Islam and Hinduism are true
members of the Kingdom, there has been an
acceptance of homosexuality in a “loving”
relationship as a positive and moral thing, and
many other similar things have been affirmed. At
its heart, in much of the movement, Christianity is
no longer about faith in a Christ who saves, but
about finding salvation through being a good,
loving person, accepting those who have been
hurt by the power structures of Christianity
(which often means affirming them in their sin as
well), taking good care of the earth, and so on.
-
http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/qn
a/emerging.html

Some of the More Prominent Leaders…
Brian McLaren – BA, MA in English from University of
Maryland, honorary Doctor of Divinity from Carey
Theological Seminary. Cedar Ridge Community Church
pastor until 2006. Author of The Church on the Other
Side, A New Kind of Christian, A Generous Orthodoxy,
The Secret Message of Jesus, and others.

Rob Bell – Bachelors from Wheaton; Master of Divinity
from Fuller Theological Seminary. Founding pastor of
Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI. Author of
Velvet Elvis, Everything is Spiritual, and others.

Tony Jones – AB from Dartmouth, M.Div. from Fuller
Theological Seminary, Ph.D. from Princeton in Practical
Theology. Past leader of Emergent Village. Author of
The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent
Frontier , and others.

Augustine and the Reformation (300‟s-1500‟s)
Intellectual thinking dominated by theologians

The Renaissance (1300‟s-1600‟s)
Elevation of human reason; rejection of either/or to both/and and mysticism

The Enlightenment (1600‟s-1800‟s)
Continued elevation of human reason; materialist worldview emerges

Modernism (1800‟s-1900‟s)
Empiricism rules; absolutes are embraced; revelation is rejected

Postmodernism (1900‟s-2000‟s)
Rejection of modernism and absolutes; affirmation of no absolute truth


What is Postmodernism?

The term “Postmodernism” literally means “after Modernism” and is used to
philosophically describe the current era which came after the age of
Modernism. Postmodernism is a reaction (or perhaps more appropriately, a
disillusioned response) to Modernism‟s failed promise of using human reason
alone to better mankind and make the world a better place. Because one of
Modernism‟s beliefs was that absolutes did indeed exist, Postmodernism seeks
to „correct‟ things by first eliminating absolute truth and making everything
(including the empirical sciences as well as religion) relative to an individual‟s
beliefs and desires.

Postmodernism‟s Spiritual Death Spiral

Relative Truth

Relative Language

Loss of Discernment

Philosophical Pluralism


Augustine – The Reformation

Absolute Truth
“I believe in order to understand” – Anselm
God is the source and giver of truth

The Renaissance - Enlightenment
“Since this truth, I think, therefore
I am, was so firm and assured
that all the most extravagant
suppositions of the skeptics were
unable to shake it, I judged that I
could safely accept it as the first
principle of the philosophy I was
seeking”
-Renee Descartes

Descartes knowingly or
unknowingly puts the individual at
the center of decision making and
truth determining.


The Enlightenment

Rational, Natural, Skeptical Truth
“I believe what I can understand” – Enlightened man

The Enlightenment – Modernity
Mind Heart

Objective Proof Facts Opinion Faith Values
Science Binding Truth Subjective Freedom Religion
Immanuel Kant comes on the scene to „rescue‟ truth from the skeptics and
publishes his Critique of Pure Reason work, which attempted to fuse the
rational and empirical philosophic schools together. But he built an
impenetrable wall between what he called the phenomenal and noumenal
realms, with the unseen/subjective world including God. He is famous for the
line: “I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make
room for faith”

Postmodernism (1900‟s – Today)
Frederick Nietzsche symbolizes the
shift from Modernism to
Postmodernism. As the patron
saint of postmodernist philosophy,
Nietzsche held to „perspectivism‟ –
that all knowledge is a matter of
perspective, interpretation, with all
interpretations ultimately ending
up as lies. He wrote, “What then is
truth? A mobile army of
metaphors, metonyms, and
anthropomorphisms … truths are
illusions … coins which have lost
their pictures and now matter only
as metal, no longer as coins”

Postmodernism (1900‟s – Today)
Another key figure of Postmodernity was
Jean-Francois Lyotard. In 1979,
Postmodernism became a fixture on the
intellectual landscape when Lyotard
delivered his work The Postmodern
Condition: A Report on Knowledge, which
contained key statements on the topic of
truth. Writing a report on knowledge
commissioned by the government of
Quebec, Lyotard opened his analysis with
the statement: “Simplifying to the
extreme, I define Postmodernism as
incredulity toward metanarratives”. All
that is left are les petites histoires, „the
little stories‟.

This is the heart of the „true for you but
not for me‟ way of thinking.

“The great curse of
modern philosophy is the
almost universal prevailing
rebellion against
intellectual self-discipline.
Where loose thinking
obtains, truth cannot
possibly be grasped,
whence the conclusion
naturally follows that
there is no truth.”
– Philosopher Etienne
Gilson


Evangelical Christians believe that truth is something that can be
communicated via language and the written word, with the Bible being God‟s
truth written down in human words. That being the case, a precondition for
effective evangelism, they say, is that finite human language must be capable
of meaningfully and objectively expressing the nature of the infinite God of
Christian theism and His plan of salvation. Further, they hold that language is
capable of not only effectively and correctly communicating God‟s special
revelation, but His general revelation as well.

Postmodernism‟s Linguistic Objection

I. Everyone comes to the world with his own framework of
understanding.
II. No particular framework of understanding is universally valid.
III. But universal validity is precisely what is implied in the notion
of objectivity.
IV. Therefore no interpreter can be objective in interpretation.
V. But if no interpreter can be objective then no interpretation is
universally valid.
VI. But if no interpretation is universally valid then the concept of
a correct interpretation is at best relative or at worst empty.
VII.Since there is no such thing as a correct interpretation there is
no means of adjudicating between interpretations.
VIII.In fact, the very idea of adjudicating between interpretations
is at best relative and at worst empty – Thomas Howe

Modernism‟s Attack on Objective Language
The Swiss linguist Ferdinand Saussure‟s work
Course in General Linguistics was the forerunner of
modern conventionalism. His contribution to the
theory of language was that the individual author
was not seen as the origin or locus of meaning.
Such a stance makes Saussure the father of
structuralism, which says that an objective,
universal cultural system “structures” our mental
processes and that this structure is evident in both
human language and social institutions. His theory
overturned the modern meaning of texts and of
knowing itself – the author of the text disappears
behind the structures of language with the end
result being that there is no single genius behind a
work. And if that is true, then the reader suddenly
assumes preeminence with respect to what an
actual work means – a teaching that was to become
front and center in the postmodernist position on
language and objectivity.


Modernism‟s Attack on Objective Language
Ludwig Wittgenstein built upon Saussure‟s work and
helped lay the foundation for what Postmodernism
would use for its position on language and
objectivity. He believed that all words or linguistic
signifiers are embedded in what he called “language
games”. A language game is something that
contains a system of rules which governs the way
words are used within a particular context, much
like chess and how the individual game pieces can
be moved about the board. Wittgenstein was
influential in the rise of logical positivism, a stance
that adheres to the belief that if a statement is not
a tautology or an empirically verifiable claim, then it
is meaningless and should be discarded. Certain
matters, said Wittgenstein, defy words and “what
we cannot speak about we must pass over in
silence”.

Hence, religious language is placed in the realm of
the inexpressible.

Postmodernism‟s Attack on Objective Language
The French philosopher Jacques Derrida attacked
language‟s „logocentrism‟ denying that language has
a fixed meaning connected to a fixed reality or that
it unveils definitive and objective truth or meaning.
Derrida mainly concerns himself with the question
of meaning and states that in the end language is
merely self-referential. Meaning is never static,
never given once-for-all; instead it changes over
time and with changing contexts. For this reason,
mankind must continually defer or postpone its
tendency to attribute meaning.

With respect to written text, Derrida promotes
Deconstruction: a form of interpretation that asserts
there is no perfect reference or one-to-one
correspondence between words and the meanings
they confer. To deconstruct something is to take it
apart, but after deconstructing a particular text,
Derrida charges the reader with the task of
reconstructing the text to make it meaningful to
themselves. www.confidentchristians.org


“It is the task of
the philosopher to
make
distinctions.”
- Thomas Aquinas


How Spiritual Discernment is Lost in Postmodernism
If objective and absolute truth does not exist…
… then everything becomes a matter of personal interpretation.
If there is no global, over-arching truth or story…
… then nothing is truly binding on mankind as a whole.
If language cannot objectively describe spiritual matters…
… then no one can be sure what is really real in religion.
If the reader determines the real meaning of a work…
… then one has no way of solving conflicting opinions.

Such a chaotic situation makes it impossible to make meaningful or lasting
distinctions between interpretations because there is no standard or benchmark that
can be used. This especially applies to matters of faith and religion because the
philosophers of the Enlightenment and Modernity had already deposed religion to
the compartment of opinion.


There is no way to adjudicate between competing truth claims…

… which leads to only one reasonable conclusion.

“In my most somber moods I sometimes wonder if the ugly face of what I refer
to as philosophical pluralism is the most dangerous threat to the gospel since
the rise of the Gnostic heresy in the second century, and for some of the same
reasons. Part of the danger arises from the fact that the new hermeneutic and
its assorted offspring are not entirely wrong: it would be easier to damn an
ideology that was wholly and pervasively corrupt”
- D. A. Carson

The Types of Pluralism

1. Empirical pluralism - simply refers to the fact that we all live in a diverse society.
For example, America is a country of many languages, ethnicities, religions, and
worldviews
2. Cherished pluralism - Cherished pluralism takes empirical pluralism and adds an
additional ingredient – approval
3. Philosophical pluralism - naturally flows from celebrated pluralism and says that no
religion has the right to pronounce itself right or true and the other competing
faiths false, or even relatively inferior.


The Underlying Philosophy of Pluralism

Pragmatism – “does it work for me?” – is the philosophical theme
of pluralism. Objective truth is discarded and replaced with
subjective opinion and a review of how something meets the
desires of the individual.

“Pluralism is desirable
and tolerable only in
those areas that are
matters of taste
rather than matters of
truth.”
- Mortimer Adler


The Last Stop on the Spiritual Death Spiral

While some find Postmodernism freeing, others observe another trend –
despair. This occurs because no one has anything objective to believe in – no
ultimate source of truth to cling to. Postmodernism‟s spiritual seekers, they say,
have become convinced there is nothing more to find than a host of conflicting
interpretations and an infinity of linguistically created worlds that offer nothing
real in the end.

The Emerging Church to the Rescue?

The Emerging Church says it understands Postmodernism and the despair that
its generation feels. It wants to offer something real to those suffering from the
bad philosophy that has marched forward since the Renaissance. But as we‟ll
see in Part 2, the Emerging Church has turned out to be a victim of
Postmodernism rather than a victor.


Reflections on the Emerging Church - Part 1

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