I want to reply to an important comment that was added to the article ‘Outline of an emerging theology’. Unfortunately, the comment was posted anonymously, but it offers a word of caution that I think needs to be both listened to (I fully appreciate the spirit in which it was given) and responded to.

I would encourage all who frequent this site, not to forget the importance of church history. Lest we make similar mistakes as those who have gone before and not learn the lessons of the past - otherwise we doom ourselves to repeat those same mistakes both in our thinking and in our lives.

This remark is meant to remind us all that, for various reasons, throughout its history the church has often pursued paths of thought that have led away from the straight road of biblical orthodoxy. This is true. But history also teaches us that ‘orthodoxy’ is always to some degree shaped by the prevailing worldview and the rhetorical or argumentative context. Reformation teaching, for example, was never a pure statement of Christian truth: it was a statement within a particular historical argument (with Catholicism) and subject to a particular set of historical conditions. Even where this conditioning is benign, there is always going to be a need for revision, for a renewal of understanding. But often the prevailing worldview and cultural conditions have a distorting effect on biblical truth, in which case we are presented with a serious theological challenge. The problem faced by the captain of the ‘drifting ship’, to adapt the poster’s metaphor, is not simply that the seas are shifting but that he does not know to what extent he can trust the chart which was passed on to him by his predecessors. The continent of biblical truth may well be immovable and steadfast, but we are having trouble locating it, or exploring, on the basis of maps that were drawn up according to the principles of modernist cartography. What we are trying to do here is revise the charts not re-landscape the continent.

When we speak of evolving theology we must realize that the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob is not evolving, not becoming more perfect.

I do not speak of an ‘evolving theology’; I use the term ‘emerging theology’. This is also potentially ambiguous, but the point is that we are developing a theological understanding appropriate for the circumstances, the mindset, the priorities, of the emerging church. To my mind, at the heart of this theology is a quite radical, but not uncritical, return to a biblical ‘orthodoxy’ that is fully conscious of the determinative presence of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The issue here, I think, is not whether we think of God as changing but whether we have properly understood the narrative that the covenant people have told about their God. Mind you, that is my position. Not everyone will agree with it.

How can we reconcile all that the scriptures reveal about God? One way is to take the scriptures that appeal to us and reinterpret or minimize the ones that don’t… we must not fall into this common error. The multi-dimensional nature of GOD’s dealing with man can not be reduced by man’s finite logic. Thus we worship HIM who our minds cannot fully grasp or we attempt to reduce HIM to that which our minds can grasp… and in so doing create our own “god”.

This, of course, is true. Every ‘theology’ is selective, partly on account of the limits of human understanding, partly because we invariably bring our prejudices and self-interest to the task of interpretation. One safeguard we have is to engage in honest and transparent conversation, listen to other voices: I hope that’s what we will do on this site, and I hope that it will characterize the emerging church. The ‘theology’ inheres in the the conversation rather than in any particular formulation of it. Let me quote this paragraph from ‘Rules of engagement for an open source theology’:

An open-source theology must remain exploratory, open-ended, and in an important sense incomplete. Any attempts we make along to way to formulate summary statements must be clearly marked as provisional; answers may remain tentative, but it is important that we get the questions right. Coherence and clarity must be allowed to emerge from within the project, through a very pragmatic and fluid process of collective arbitration: they should not be superimposed by experts. Open source theology speaks fundamentally through the multifaceted and largely uncontrolled conversation and cannot be encapsulated in precise formulae.

Salvation is eternally important for our souls while eschatology for example, while important, is not a heaven or hell issue.

I’m not sure if the irony here was intended, but anyway…. My problem with this argument is that it seems to entail an unhelpful dichotomy between the idea of eternal salvation and the responsibility of the believer, and more importantly of the church, in this world. I would suggest that we have been lumbered with a debased understanding of eschatology as dealing with obscure, esoteric and problematic matters. I think that’s a mistake. My argument would be that from a biblical point of view eschatology has to do, in the first place, with certain critical moments in God’s dealings with his people. Equally, I think that the missional (and therefore temporal rather than merely ‘eternal’) implications of salvation must also be brought firmly into view. Salvation and eschatology are not distinct and separate concepts: they both have to do fundamentally with the engagement of God with his people in history and for a purpose (see, eg., ‘The church and the kingdom of God’. That engagement certainly has eternal implications, but I think we miss the whole point of ‘election’ (if I can use such a disreputable term) if we place ‘the eternal salvation of our soul’ ahead of the present responsibility (calling) of the church.

Of course, I could be wrong in this. If you think that’s the case, then explain to me carefully why.