You might be emergent if… July 1, 2008

I recently finished the book Why We’re Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be. (Authors: Kluck and DeYoung) Fascinating Read. To begin they explain that there is no good definition of Emergent…rather they give a very amusing Jeff Foxworthy style test. “You might be emergent if: you listen to U2, Moby and Johnny Cash’s Hurt (in church), use sermon illustrations from the Sopranos, drink lattes in the afternoon and Guinness in the evenings…your reading list consists primarily of Henri Nouwen, N.T. Wright, Stan Grenz, David Bosch, John Howard Yoder, Wendell Berry, John Franke, (Doug Pagitt, Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, etc)…if your idea of quintessential Christian discipleship is Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela…If you don’t like institutions, big business or capitalism…if your political concerns are poverty, AIDS, war-mongering, CEO salaries, global warming and not so much abortion and gay marriage;…if you love the Bible as a beautiful, inspiring collection of works that lead us into the mystery of God but is not inerrant; if you search for truth but aren’t sure it can be found; if you’ve ever gone to a church with candles, Play-Doh, or beanbags (youth group excluded); if you grew up in a very conservative Christian home that in retrospect seems legalistic, naïve, and rigid; if you believe salvation has little to do with atoning for guilt and a lot to do with bringing the whole creation back into shalom with its Maker; if you believe following Jesus is not believing the right things but living the right way; …you might be emergent.”

Emergents are not only attempting new things stylistically but also theologically. The chapters address such topics as the Knowability of God, Inerrancy of Scripture, Embracing Doubt as the new form of humility, Rejecting the propositions of Christ for the person of Christ, and moving close-handed doctrines (derived specifically from scripture) to the open-hand of liberalism: i.e. Hell, Virgin Birth, etc. Most of those involved in the movement reject calling it a movement at all. They are merely asking questions and allowing conversation. (See Gen 3 “Did God Say…) Paraphrasing Mark Driscoll (pastor of Mars Hill church in Seattle) The chief end of Scripture is not conversation or dialogue, but obedience. Emergents also wear the label “heretic” as a badge of honor.

My conviction is that some churches are totally oblivious to the play the enemy is making. They are not outright “emergent” and may not even know what that is all about. But they are also not interested in holding-fast to statements of faith or propositions of doctrine. (for fear that some may be excluded on that basis) They do not realize the necessity in contending God’s word is without error as well as inspired, and authoritative. Also it is epidemic in our culture to remove authority from anything that is outside of personal experience. Truth does exist regardless of our belief in it. There is such thing as objective certainty. My favorite section of this book is a quote from J.I. Packer:

Once I too avoided the word inerrancy as much as I could, partly because of the tendencies mentioned, and partly because the word has a negative form and I like to sound positive. But I find that nowadays I need the word. Verbal currency, as we know, can be devalued. Any word may have some of its meaning rubbed off, and this has happened to all my preferred terms for stating my belief about the Bible. I hear folk declare Scripture inspired and in the next breath say that it misleads from time to time. I hear them call it infallible and authoritative, and find they mean only that its impact on us and the commitment to which it leads us will keep us in God’s grace, not that it is all true. This is not enough for me. I want to safeguard the historic evangelical meaning of these three words…So I assert inerrancy after all. I think this is a clarifying thing to do, since it shows what I mean when I call Scripture inspired, infallible and authoritative. In an era of linguistic devaluation and double-talk we owe this kind of honesty to one another.
J.I. Packer, Truth and Power

I am joining Packer in this effort. This is my heart on this subject. Satan has reverted to his oldest trick in the book and is making a fresh attempt at confusing and distorting God’s word.
IMO (in my opinion) this is simply a fad. The new sexy. It is no longer sexy to be heterosexual, self-assessing, Bible Thumping, repentant, monogamous and not compete for the “most screwed up in the group” award. Just another notch in the belt of “this world is all about me.”