Kind of like the Jesuits, with goatees. February 26, 2008
Posted by Zack in , trackback
During the Reformation, the newly-formed Jesuits took on a special role inside the Counter Reformation of understanding and validating many Protestant grievances and theological arguments—with the goal of bringing people back into the fold of the Roman Catholic Church. They successfully stopped the spread of Protestantism in large chunks of Europe. Their success came from their ability to connect with and affirm disgruntled Catholics while rekindling hope of reforming the church from within. This role, and their success, made Jesuits extremely valuable to the Catholic church—and extremely dangerous.
With the rise of the Revolutionaries—including, but not limited to the Emergent movement—the cry “Heresy!” has rung at churches, conferences and across the Internet. Some critics have been acting on a purely knee jerk fashion—often not even taking the time to understand what the real views of their targets are. Other critics are making principled theological arguments in good faith.
Mainly, though, the new counter reformation has been falling on deaf ears thanks to a usually bitter and angry approach. For example, efforts such as Apprising Ministries are stuck preaching to their own choir. Here are some of their recent articles (all-caps theirs, not mine):
EMERGENT CHURCH: FEEDING YOU THEOLOGICAL POISON
GREG BOYD: HERETIC
BRIAN MCLAREN: SPREADING A GENEROUS HERESY IN THE EMERGING CHURCH
ROB BELL IS NOT A CHRISTIAN
Enter a couple of young hipsters (to be fair, only one seems to have a goatee) who are capable of sympathizing with the Emergent Church’s passions and grievances, while making reasoned arguments why true Christians must sick with an orthodox theology and (modern) church traditions:
Tags: appraising ministries, emergent church, why were not emergent“You can be young, passionate about Jesus Christ, surrounded by diversity, engaged in a postmodern world, reared in evangelicalism and not be an emergent Christian. In fact, I want to argue that it would be better if you weren’t.”
The Emergent Church is a strong voice in today’s Christian community. And they’re talking about good things: caring for the poor, peace for all men, loving Jesus. They’re doing church a new way, not content to fit the mold. Again, all good. But there’s more to the movement than that. Much more.
Kevin and Ted are two guys who, demographically, should be all over this movement. But they’re not. And Why We’re Not Emergent gives you the solid reasons why. From both a theological and an on-the-street perspective, Kevin and Ted diagnose the emerging church. They pull apart interviews, articles, books, and blogs, helping you see for yourself what it’s all about.
Comments»
I have a goatee.
And as far as “preaching to their own choir”, I’m afraid that’s a bit of wishful musing.
Hmmm…I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I do get tired of the postevangelical vibe, because I’m not post-evangelical. Emergent circles tend to shelter a lot of people who are running away from their roots, in the vain hope that if they just get vague and pomo enough, it’ll all just magically hang together. I’ve been in liberal mainline churches and I want to tell them–it won’t. So I’m glad that there are some more “old-school” fundamentalists reminding us how badly liberal theology turned out, and that we shouldn’t get all postliberal and expect a better result just because we’re writing in a narrative format. So, Kevin, Ted, and Ken…I’ll give you some respect for doing us that favor.
On the other hand, I’ve lived through the blood-bath that was the Fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention. Ken Silva, I lived it and I’m telling you, that was a wicked thing, and it didn’t strengthen the faith, it just tried to bottle up a certain version of Southern civil religion and preserve it for the future. It meant that Southern Baptists didn’t wrestle with the ways that the old time religion WASN’T being faithful to the Bible or to Jesus. It led to jingoism, blind support for American warmaking, and a blind support for 1950s gender roles–even coming up with new translation of the Bible to justify unbiblical positions on the role of women in the church. Over the long haul, it won’t bear fruit. There is a need to engage meaningful with history, with critique, and not just demonize everyone who disagrees.
Can we have a generous orthodoxy that’s a little more orthodox…without becoming fightin’ fundamentalists who throw the baby out with the bathwater?
Lydia,
I’m not a fundamentalist and would probably have the same reservations that you would have. I’ve been an ordained SBC pastor since 1994 and am well aware of the new leftist drift within. But at the same time I’m not an advocate of the Christian “right” either.
My interest is to return the Church to seeking God in Scripture, letting the text speak as the Holy Spirit leads. I’m also not a cessationist because I know God guides us today.
However, unlike the subjective relativism of so-called “Christian” mysticism, which was a core doctrine of the emerging church from its inception, the Lord wants us to test all experience by Scripture. Never the reverse that is so in vogue in the postevangelical American Christian Church.
As a former Vineyard pastor I can identify with the struggles of a new movement attempting to mature and define itself in a very public setting. John Wimber gave the Vineyard room to grow and even overgrow in some unhealthy ways before he would prune it back. He was more concerned about missing something that God was doing by pruning too quickly than by trying to please the critics. It resulted in John and the Vineyard getting negative press. At times even some of us internally thought we had gone too far (i.e. Toronto blessing). The desire to experiment and the willingness (sometimes) to heed the critics kept us from abandoning orthodoxy but also permitted us to become more culturally relevant and able to embrace more liberal stances on racial, gender and class issues.
As the Emergent church publicly struggles to define itself, I want to be willing to give it time to sort itself out. Specific, constructive criticism will be good for the movement, but as Lydia suggests a “generous orthodoxy” that also gives Emergent churches time to grow and prune into (hopefully) a revolutionary, orthodox movement is also necessary.
But the Emergent Church movement doesn’t seem to be a dash to liberalism. Emergent churches seem to be just as on fire for Jesus, if not more so, than your typical evangelical church — at least in my very limited experience.
The objections seem to be over matters of theology — like who’s going to hell and who’s not, etc…
Zach. The theological differences are far more serious. The Emergent Church, as led by McClaren and others, have swung from one side of the pendulum to the other. Whereas some fundamentalist evangelicals are “too opinionated” and scare off seekers, Emergents are so scared of offending that they fail to declare morality at all- particularly in tough situations (like that of homosexuality). One only has to read McClaren’s tortured viewpoints on the issue to know that he would rather make people feel good than tell them the truth. That may be an improvement over just telling people they are “going to hell” (particularly in terms of making people feel welcome at church), but those seekers still end up in the same place- engaging in harmful behavior that scripture clearly declares sinful.
Kurt, I think, although I would not consider myself Emergent, that the point is to get people to the church. Yes they need to be instructed about sin and homosexuality. But there is such a signficant issue of introducing people to the culture of Christianity before we introduce them to Christ. What is more important, a bottle of beer or a presentation of Christ to people that normally would not enter a church? I would say the presentation is more important. But Missouri SBC has withdrawn loans to a church plant that was having an outreach bible study in a bar. So yes we need to be sure that we are focused on Christ and on scripture. But that means we should be focused on what Christ is actually telling us, not what we have been telling one another for the past 50 years. Are there serious theological issues among Emergents. Sure, but writing of a whole segment of the body. (By the way I am not writing off SBC, I am trying to work inside them.)