lifeasmission

Friend of Emergent

August 1, 2006

You may have noticed that on the bottom of my sidebar I have an icon declaring myself to be a “Friend of Emergent.”  I would encourage you to give it a click and see what they are all about.  There is a lot of controversy over the emergent/emerging church movement.  Recently, Calvary Chapel published a document denouncing the “Emergent Church teachings.”  You can see the entire document here, but I thought I would provide a few excerpts and some of my thoughts.  You can also look here for an imperfect introduction into emergent theology.

Their critique begins:

“For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old
ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our
God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord
Jesus Christ.”

We see a tendency toward this in what is commonly called the
“Emergent Church” teachings.

The emerging church movement in no way denies the only Lord God, or Jesus as Messiah.  Quite the contrary, there is a great emphasis on Jesus as Savior and Lord.  What is differnet is that rather than limiting his saviorship and lordship to substitutionary atonement, they are seen as including his life and teaching.  In other words, Jesus is not savior merely in that he atones for sin, but also because he perfectly emulates a life of salvation, forgiving others, healing, exercising comapssion, fighting injustice, and so forth.  He also saves us by showing us how we ought to live.

It seems that they are postulating a broader gate and a broader path to heaven, a sort of “all roads lead to heaven.”

I don’t know any emerging church folk who say this and it is certainly not part their core distinctives.  Rather, they are marked by a humility in their approach to truth.  They are willing to admit that more often than not the way in which Christians have claimed to be the posessors of absolute truth has led to oppression and injustice rather than freedom and liberty.  They are further troubled by the fact that many people who would never identify themsleves as Christians lead far more Jesus-like lives than many Christians who know “the truth” and aren’t quite sure what to do with that.

There are suggestions of universalism in their teaching, that all will ultimately be saved.

Emerging church folk do wrestle with the idea of hell and what to make of it.  Some are not quite so ready to put all their eggs in the basket of it being a literal place where people who haven’t said the sinners prayer go.  They are puzzled over the absence of the idea of heaven and hell in the older testament and further by the striking way in which Jesus’ words about hell resembled what happened in 70 AD with the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem when there was an incredible amount of weeping and gnashing of teeth.  At the same time, I don’t get the impression that emergent theology conceives of a God who would force people to be in heaven against their will or that someone who leads a life which contradicts God’s desire for humanity and creation would even experience heaven as a joyous place to be. 

We have difficulty in their touchy-feely relating to God. Where the
experience of certain feelings become the criteria for truth rather
than the word of God.

This is a plain false dichotomy.  It is sad that the emphasis which the emerging church places on relationships, communtiy, and spiritual formation has been mistaken for overemphasizing feelings, or even further that people of this movement would confuse feelings with truth.  What seems to actually be the problem here is the emerging church’s refusal to simply equate the word of God with plain and absolute truth apart from context, community, and culture.  What are we do with all the various interpretations of Scripture?  What are we to do with the fact that throughout the course of history Christians have used the “truth of Scripture” to legitimate the extermination of fellow human beings and that they continue to use it as justification for exploitation of the environment, exclusion of others from the community of the Church, and reason for escapism from the ills of the world?  What are we to do with the fact if Christians indeed have the truth it doesn’t seem to make much of a diference in their lives or in the world? 

We have great problems with the use of icons to give them a sense of
God or the presence of God. If they want to have a tie with the
historicity of the church, why not go back to the church in Acts, which
seems to be devoid of incense, candles, robes etc., but was filled with
the Spirit.

This is a complete disregard for our eastern Christian brothers and sisters around the world for whom icons have been a huge part of their spirituality.  The church in Acts was also devoid of carpet, microphones, suits and ties, coffee, hymnals, pews, pew Bibles, slogans, advertising campaigns, expense accounts, and coffee.  Should we get rid of those?

We do not believe that we should seek to make sinners feel safe and
comfortable in church. Is it right for me to speak comfortable words to
a man who is going to hell unless he turns from his sin?

First, the emergent movement has a hard time speaking of church as place.  The issue for them isn’t making sinners feel safe in church, but helping to expose the sin which oppresses all of humanity and all of creation in all the world.  Were not Jesus’ words to the woman at the well or the woman caught in adultery, or Zacchaeus, or Peter consoling rather than threatening?  Whatever they were, the fact of the matter is that these people responded to Jesus positively.  I wonder how often the people whom we are trying to help by pointing out their sin respond to us in like fashion?

The great confusion that exists in the divergent positions of the
Emergent Church results from their challenging the final authority of
the Scriptures. When you no longer have a final authority, then
everyone’s ideas become as valid as the next person’s, and it cannot
help but end in total confusion and contradictions.

No it doesn’t, it results from their hope in God as final authority and their willingness to treat Scripture as the Jews treated the older testament, as a guide, a story of God’s interaction with and message to his people.  Everyone’s ideas are not as valid as everyoen elses, but the proof, as they say, is in the pudding.  My truth doesn’t amount to much if it doesn’t result in God’s vision for creation, one of peace, blessing, redemption, reconciliation, and Jesus-like transformation.

This post was fairly reactionary, I hope to be more proactive about some of these important theological issues in the future.

Related Posts

1. What is the Emergent Church?

Posted in: bible, church, Jesus, theology