This is the second of two articles with accompanying discussion posted by Rob Wilkerson on his blog Miscellanies on the Gospel. The first can be found here.
Yesterday, I posted again on The Emergent Church Movement and the Gospel. Andrew Perriman, who heads up the Open Source Theology site responded to my post with some very helpful feedback. Scroll to the bottom of my post and read his comments there. I wanted to respond to his comments, but my response to his response was so lengthy that it wouldn’t do to put it in the comments section. So I’ve decided to make my response to Andrew a post in and of itself.
1. I understand what you mean by the metaphor now and agree exactly with every word of your sentence: “The argument is that too much theologizing has been a response to internal issues, too little has been done in response to the actual challenges that believers face as people who, like it or not, are immersed in a thoroughly non-Christian and anti-theistic culture.” A legitimate fear, however, is that now too much theologizing is coming in response to external issues, i.e., “the actual challenges that believers face…” I see the pendulum swinging from the dry, crusty, dead-orthodoxy of so much of modern, contemporary evangelicalism to a postmodern, question the beliefs of our parents and grandparents, neo-neo-orthodoxy version of evangelicalism. In other words, it appears that the EC movement will end up swinging the pendulum in the extreme opposite direction rather than bringing balance to a Christianity that is more filled with lipservice than lifestyle. It is based on this fear that, even given your horizontal metaphor, the overall analogy still stands that believers will be essentially wandering in that space between God and the world, and never actually settling.
I further agree with you that there is in fact a gulf that does in fact exist “between the committed, God-centered community and the rest of the world.” And I also agree that we as a church have definitely reflected a “manifest failure to communicate across that gulf.” On the human side, we have failed because have become much like post-exilic Israel – so self-centered that we have failed to see the very life purpose for which God has saved us and put us on this earth. Israel was made to be a light to the nations, and instead she squandered the precious treasure of God’s Words and laws on herself seemingly for the express purpose of maintaining and even widening that gulf. Theologically and biblically, the church is Jesus Christ’s answer to that problem, thus we are the new Israel. And yet, here we are doing what seems to be the same thing.
However, if we put that gulf of which you speak up against Scripture we find two truths. First, God has not failed His church throughout all of the era modernistic, contemporary evangelicalism. Jesus promised to build His kingdom and even the gates of hell – which may have been involved in modernistic, contemporary evangelicalism – would not be able to stand against it. So it seems that the EC movement might benefit from believing that everything the modernistic era of church history stood for does not count for loss. One can quickly get that sense when reading EC and OST materials.
Second, the gulf that exists between the ‘committed, God-centered community and the rest of the world’ is due to the offensive nature of the cross. Paul told us that the preaching of the cross would be foolishness to those who are perishing. 1 Corinthians 1:18, I’m sure, is a text you’ve had to answer on more than one occasion. And if not, it is a worthy text, filled with much theological import, to consider as it relates to the EC movement. That gulf exists because of man’s inherent disdain for the message of the cross.
Now, here’s my beef with modern, contemporary evangelicalism. It has added to the glorious message of the cross its own version of Christianity so that the messenger has become more offensive than the message, if you get my drift. How many preachers have you heard ruin an good opportunity to reach the lost because the way they presented the truth turned others off, whereas if they had simply presented the truth as it is in Scripture, enveloped and enrapture in love for others in manifest practical, tangible, concrete ways, they might have been more successful reaching them. (But even in our fallen ways of fouling up the communication of the cross to the lost, God is still sovereign enough to utilize our failures for His ultimate plan of salvation…praise Him for that!).
Here’s my beef, then, with the response to modern, contemporary evangelicalism. It has looked back on the failure of the modern, contemporaries and has assumed that the problem must be with the message. Therefore, it believes that the correct alternative is to grow a church, to make it bigger, and that in order to do so it must ‘pretty up’ the message of the cross. But in order to do so, it removes the inherent offensiveness which it will naturally have. Calling sin by other names, refusing to talk about sin altogether, and other such techniques immediately kill the effectiveness the gospel is supposed to have. The gospel’s effectiveness is found in the acknowledgement and admission that I am a sinner and I stand in need of God’s forgiveness. I stand in need of a declaration from God of ‘not guilty’ which can only come if I am fully and intimately aware of that guiltiness. This is at the heart of my critique of church-growth and seeker-sensitive movements. In essence, they unwittingly recreate the gospel to their suiting. Why? Because their goal from the very beginning was to ‘grow’ a church by reaching out to lost people to bring them to Jesus. What has happened is that lost people do in fact begin coming to church through such methods, and perhaps find that it is ‘safe,’ and even grow comfortable there. But the problem is that they do not find the Jesus of the Scriptures at the end of that road. Instead, they are introduced into an endless journey of various groups whose identity is founding trying to overcome this or that problem rather than in the person and work and mission of Jesus Christ.
That leads to my concern with the EC movement and OST. It responds to both the modernism and the postmodernism tendencies of the church-growth movement by making the same mistake the church-growther’s made in dealing with the era of modernism. They react instead of respond. They swing the pendulum in the other direction rather than push it in the other direction (by pointing out the problems) and stand at the bottom braced with all their might (by correcting the problems) to stop it at a point of balance.
EC and OST seem to be coming across with the mindset, “Question the answers.” If we enter into the realm of discussion and questioning then will we ever actually ‘arrive’ at enough conclusions to get to work? If the EC is truly rooted in hermeneutical missiology, but if that hermeneutic says we can’t really be sure about the meaning of this or that text, then how can EC ever hope to gain any ground and get anything done? And if it does get somewhere and get something done, what objective truths in Scripture can it point to with authority and clarity, so that it doesn’t come across creating an environment which ends up saying, “Now I’ve told you this or I’ve done this because I think, or at least I’m pretty sure the Bible’s teaching on this matter is this or that.” Hermeneutics of this sort cannot hope to escape the endless, “I think it means this to me” mentality.
2. I’ll skip the comment on sarcasm, having dealt with that in my opening.
3. You state: “The issue is not whether there are absolutes or not, but whether we are allowed to bring into question culturally and historically determined presuppositions about what scripture is actually saying, how themes are to be prioritized, and so on.” As I see it, this may be a blindspot for the EC movement. It seems to me that the very reason you question what you are allowed to bring into question is because a relativistic postmodern hermeneutic has already left its mark. In other words, I don’t think you’d feel the need to question culturally and historically determined presuppositions if postmodernism had not already left its indelible mark. To say it another way, if one questions whether or not to question determined presuppositions, one shows just how much postmodernism has affected his/her thinking.
You also stated: “Emerging theology is not stuck in an ‘endless state of limbo’: it is going through a process of re-examining the grounds of faith in order to arrive at something that (we believe) will be more not less compelling than what we had before.” This is basically ‘empiricism,’ the view that one’s own experience is the only source of knowledge. Empiricism questions what one learned before as being truthful or valuable, and from that questioning commences to rediscover it for oneself. If my remembrance of history serves me correctly, this is what prompted the Age of Enlightenment. By questioning and eventually rejecting the truth which had come before, a new age dawned in which man could break free of determined presuppositions to discover for himself. Proverbs is clear enough on that matter for anyone, I would think. The goal of the book is to teach children (and believers) wisdom. And wisdom says, “you don’t have to experience sin to know how wrong it is, nor do you have to discover it in order to learn to stay away from it.” The counsel of Proverbs is, “listen to your mom and dad and they’ll tell you what God says, and that way you can keep yourself out of trouble and sin.” But empiricism says, “no, those things your parents believed might have worked for them, but how can you really know whether or not they are true unless you start over and discover them for yourself.”
That’s sort of how the EC movement and especially OST comes across, at least to me. It seems that the only reason for ‘going through a process of re-examining the grounds of faith’ is because one doesn’t believe that those grounds of faith are sufficient or efficient. I would have to ask why? Is it because of the way it was presented? I think that’s probably it, in my opinion. We become so dissatisfied with the way in which those before us presented the truth that we toss out their way and their truth along with it – the baby goes out with the bathwater. But there’s really no need to do that. It bespeaks of arrogance. I have come to think that this is more likely the real reason why, “A lot of people have simply become so uncomfortable with the mind-set of contemporary evangelicalism that they have had no choice but to pursue this course and trust that it will lead them to solid ground.” There may be another more likely reason, but I don’t think that it is related to the truth, the message, or the theology itself that was presented or preached or taught to us.
4. You stated: “I’m sure you won’t like the suggestion that the emerging church has a prophetic edge to it, but surely we must allow that the church, even the evangelical church, needs to be disturbed out of its complacency by the voice of God at times?” I don’t mind the suggestion at all. But I would suggest in return that a word like ‘prophetic’ be used in its proper way…with perhaps a more biblical tone to it. Prophetic has not so much to do with the attitude as it does with the message or truth one speaks. Too often the word ‘prophetic’ has come to refer to the way in which a person speaks truth, or to a particular personality that can sort of ‘tell it like it is.’ But that’s not ‘prophetic.’ Being prophetic seems in Scripture to be speaking God’s words at the right time to the right person in the right place and in the right way. So I would just respond by saying that just because EC disturbs the church out of its complacency doesn’t mean it is prophetic. It could mean that it is arrogant, guilty of the same thing that modernism and contemporary-evangelicalism and even reformed people are guilty of – preaching the truth in a way that does not adorn it.
5. Finally, you stated: “If the emerging church is seriously asking itself, ‘What exactly is this “gospel” that we are proclaiming to the world?’, the likelihood is that there will be some loss of clarity and conviction.” This is the zinger for me, personally. No doubt, Andrew, you have to see the huge, significant, and eternally massive implications for losing clarity and conviction with regards to the gospel of Jesus Christ. To lose that clarity and conviction in that most important message means that those to whom you try to minister won’t get it at all, and will end up discussing and theologizing with you all the way until they reach hell, all while they thought they were on a journey towards God.
What could be more clear than, “The God of the universe who made you and loves you, says you are a sinner, an enemy against Him. But in love He stepped out of heaven, became a human being, and solved that problem for you because you couldn’t. He did that by suffering what would have been and should have been your own punishment. And now He offers it to you and commands you to put your trust in Him, in what He has done for you, instead of continuing to put your trust in what you think.” That’s an example of the truth of the gospel presented with clarity and conviction.
If the gospel is not clear then how are you going to explain it to the lost you so desperately want to reach? If it is not clear to you, then you cannot preach it with conviction. Worse yet, if it is not clear to you or for you, you personally are not warranted in holding it to be a conviction. If that’s the case, why ‘hang out’ with the gospel and ‘talk’ theology at all? Essentially, the gospel and the truths of God’s Word become ‘talking points,’ as I said yesterday. They become points of discussion which we can bat around and theologize about. And the gospel is then relegated to hold the same place in our discussion as the Atlanta Braves do among the old men I have breakfast with on Thursday mornings. "Hey now! The difference is that this is church, Scripture, lost people, and gospel at stake here!" as I would expect some to respond. But is that a real difference? I mean the only real difference between myself and the old men at breakfast, in this line of thought, is that the gospel just so happens to be my favorite subject, like the Braves are for them. No, the real difference must be in the clarity and conviction of the truth we are talking about. So if those two things are missing, then what I’m talking about is really no different from what they are talking about.
In your view, “this uncertainty has to be gone through. The hope is that we are working towards a renewal of clarity and conviction.” My view is that it is foolish and severely unwise to feel like you have to go through uncertainty at all. The road has been paved for us. We are standing on the shoulders of giants. Why go back to square one? Why climb down and say we don’t need those giants anymore because we question if they have been really useful to the church. The arrogance that is inherent in such a position is extremely subtle and very dangerous. There is one thing that history has proven again and again: those who purposefully and willfully walk through the valley of uncertainty usually die there. There is rarely one who comes out of that valley with a renewal of clarity and conviction. How can you if you purposefully walk away from clarity and conviction to enter the valley of uncertainty?
6. Finally, I do hold the creeds as valuable, though I wouldn’t consider myself a ‘credo’ Christian. I value them for one reason: men much greater than the two of us, guided by God’s providence and sovereignty, forged the church universal’s biblical view of our Savior. Without them, you and I would be in a much greater mess theologically than we already are. Without them, there would not even be a hint of truth about our Savior to even discuss and theologize about. Those creeds, which represent an orthodox view and interpretation of the ‘basics’ of our belief system, are the bedrock of the church in history. My legitimate fear is that if the EC movement and OST launch the church back into the fire of those decades of discussion, theologizing, questioning, etc. (I call it controversy) before we had the creeds, then it becomes essentially a ‘rebooting’ of church history all over again. I’m not saying this is what you’re suggesting, though you may well be. All I’m suggesting is that this is where the philosophy behind EC movement and OST seems to lead. But there’s no need to ‘reboot’ church history and go back to the drawing board of theology. What they forged there has been assumed by trillions of Christians to be orthodox truth which can use to understand the Scriptures and, more than anything else, which can use to understand our Savior and the glorious plan of redemption. Question anything else…but don’t question that because it has been the heartbeat of the church since they were written.
Let’s continue the discussion, Andrew. Again, I am truly humbled that you would take the time to respond to my meager attempts at blogging. I’d love to actually meet you and spend a few hours with you, if only just to eat and pray together, and talk about how silly our kids can be or how our wives put up with us! Bless you dear brother.
posted by Rob Wilkerson at 6/9/2005 11:12:00 AM
I don’t mean to speak for all Emerging Churches, but in response to the creeds, I disagree with Andrew, and think that many Emergent folks would as well. You mention it yourself: "men much greater than the two of us, guided by God’s providence and sovereignty, forged the church universal’s biblical view of our Savior." Most of the early church councils focused on the nature of Christ and the Trinity. However, ecclesiology and missiology do not have universal creeds in which we can turn to. I am led to believe that many in the EC don’t have much of a problem with the creeds, but the question for them is: "How do we practically and authentically live out and communicate what lies within the ancient creeds?"
In sum: Creeds are good; I hold to them. But they can only go so far. There is much in the Christian faith that isn’t explained neatly by the creeds. This is where Emergent finds itself.
By Matt, at 3:02 PM
Just a small comment on the matter of creeds… I did say ‘I detect rather a high regard for the creeds of the ancients in the emerging church’. And broadly speaking I wouldn’t want to disagree with your remarks. I think the point about argumentative context remains valid; I also think that there is always a danger that creedal formulations old and new will obscure the much more complex biblical narrative that they are supposed to summarize. But they are part of our wisdom and certainly should not be dismissed simply because they are creeds.
By Andrew Perriman, at 5:07 PM
Matt,
I agree that "ecclesiology and missiology do not have universal creeds in which we can turn to." However, the creeds on the trinity and Christ do form the message which ecclesiology and missiology seeks to proclaim. It is from that message and on that message that these two disciplines are built. Therefore, any pursuit or building of those disciplines that does not compliment what is taught in the creeds - or questions the truth that is in them - cannot hope to successfully proclaim the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Andrew,
I agree with you when you say, " I also think that there is always a danger that creedal formulations old and new will obscure the much more complex biblical narrative that they are supposed to summarize." I get the sense you’r after here. However on a deeper level, my question would be, why assume that the biblical narratives are ‘much more complex’? It is precisely out of that presupposition that the desire comes to put the biblical text - and all that surrounds it and is entailed in it - on the table for discussion. Again, as I said in an earlier post, wouldn’t we be served better by resting on the perspecuity of Scripture, the truth that God’s communication and revelation to us was clear, overall easy to understand and comprehend? To presume that it is ‘much more complex’ is to call into question God’s perspecuity. I know that in response you might say, "We are not questioning God’s perspecuity; but we are only calling into question the perspecuity of the men who handed their theology about God down to us." But wouldn’t theology and the church and the gospel be better served by sitting down with those who handed down the truth about God to us and express your concerns and keep at it until you are able to come to some common ground on which to work? Instead, the EC movement seems to communicate an air of neglect or rejection of the godly men who have come before them, giving them the very theology which they wish to discuss? Perhaps a serious, deep, self-examining reconsideration of Hebrews 13:7 might be in order for the EC. To neglect or reject "your leaders, those who spoke to you the Word of God," may point to more arrogance (and we all have it to some degree or another) than is actually realized.
Thanks again for your comments Andrew. I’ve been very excited about your willingness to interact. It speaks highly of your character that you would be willing to associate with someone of low position in the blogosphere such as me!
By Rob Wilkerson, at 9:41 AM
As a visitor to the OST website I was interested to read your comments,Rob. I don’t know what the state of the ‘emergent church’ is in the US, but it’s far from being a seditious conspiracy over here - nowhere more so than the OST website. There are as many agendas as there are contributors. I think Andrew gave up long ago the idea of a ‘collaborative theology’ for the post modern era.
Most contributors to the site seem to be orthodox believers, but those who want a bit of freedom to explore ideas ‘outside the box’. There are also the cyber thought police - a bit like myself - hunting down heresy across the web. Generally it’s a very congenial community - we all seem to get on with each other very well - even when we disagree, and the temperature rises a bit.
I think Andrew has set the tone of the site very well - it’s generally inclusive and affirming, though not averse to admonishing sloppy thinking or rudeness.
Also Andrew has done the most thorough thinking through of a theology for a post modern era - in terms of a narrative/historical approach to gospel interpretation. This is somewhat influenced by the likes of N.T.Wright in this country.
I have to admit that I am rather with you in ‘the basics’ of the gospel, and don’t have any problem with the summary you provided. There is a great deal of experimentation with church going in the U.K., but to my mind it’s most successful when anchored in a traditional gospel approach. But there is a growing realisation that the gospel is more than an individualistic message, and that it has relevance (and challenge) to society in general. The church is also pioneering this aspect of the gospel. So we are not totally hopeless.
However, you should look up some of Andrew’s contributions on OST if you can. I’m still trying to encourage more general debate of these!
By Peter Wilkinson, at 10:02 AM
Rob, there’s a lot in your post. I haven’t got time at the moment to respond to everything, and in any case, I doubt if I could deal properly with all your concerns. This is simply a snapshot of a much bigger conversation, but I do think it important that the emerging church keeps listening to the voice of mainstream evangelicalism. So I have a couple of comments, one relating to how we hold the truth, the other to what we mean by the gospel.
A cultural difference has emerged in this dialogue, which I suppose is characteristic of the distinction between modernism and postmodernism: I am inclined to see the questioning, rethinking and restating of beliefs as an intrinsically good thing whereas you are inclined to see it as at best unnecessary and at worst highly dangerous for faith. I would argue that this openness is actually more true to the truthfulness of the gospel; you would argue that it betrays a lack of confidence in the truthfulness and efficacy of the gospel. I’m not sure there is much we can do about this, but I do want to repeat the general point. How we formulate and live out a belief system is, to my mind, invariably influenced by our cultural and intellectual environment. If this is the case, then it seems to me to be always incumbent upon us to ask questions about what we are saying, what we are doing, how we are doing it. What lies behind this, as far as I am concerned, is not a sense that the grounds of faith are insufficient but quite the opposite – a desire to make sure we have got them right because we have every intention of committing ourselves wholeheartedly to them. I don’t think the emerging church is fundamentally in dispute with scripture. Its argument is with a certain (rationalist, modernist) reading of scripture.
Your encapsulation of the gospel is interesting. I would happily endorse it as far as it goes, but there are a number of respects in which I would now consider it inadequate if not potentially misleading. I would suggest that it is actually a rather poor representation of the ‘good news’ that we find in the New Testament, which for both Jesus and Paul, in different ways, was a message about the people of God not about individuals. Jesus’ gospel was a message about the salvation of a nation facing concrete historical judgment; Paul’s gospel was a message about the incorporation of Gentiles into a renewed people of God, for whom Christ not Caesar was Lord.
In both cases the gospel had implications for individuals who are in need of being reconciled to God, but it is significant that the typical evangelical formulation of the gospel makes no reference to the people of God. With the question about the community come questions about the purpose of the community. A highly individualized gospel (I agree with Peter’s comments) very easily makes the church a place for preserving and nurturing the faith of individuals and struggles to find anything constructive to say about the relation of the believing community to its social and natural environment. The emerging church is trying to ask what it means to be a kingdom of priests in the world: we are not convinced that this is adequately fulfilled by pursuing a narrow agenda of saving souls. The big question that is being asked is: what are we saving people for? For whatever reason, a lot of people feel that the full scope of that question has been missed by modern evangelicalism.
I have been a little provocative here and probably have not made the point very well, but I hope it at least illustrates the fact that the emerging church is struggling to understood the Bible better for the sake of following Christ with integrity, not simply doing the old liberal thing of cutting out everything that was incompatible with a modern sensibility.
Finally, one of the things that I have noticed about the emerging church is that things are often much smaller than they appear at first sight – or than they appear on the website. I am not that important, Open Source Theology is not that influential or representative of the ‘movement’ as a whole: it is just one table among many around which people are holding a conversation, often while engaged in all sorts of other things in their real lives. Your expressed desire to chat, eat and pray together is, in any case, much closer in spirit to the emerging church than perhaps you realize.
By Andrew Perriman, at 1:10 PM
Peter,
Thanks for the insightful comments. I’ve read a few of your posts on the OST sight and find much in common.
Andrew,
In response to your response to my response to your response (or however it went!), there is indeed a fundamental problem at the foundation here, at least as it appears to me.
You state, "The big question that is being asked is: what are we saving people for? For whatever reason, a lot of people feel that the full scope of that question has been missed by modern evangelicalism." As I stressed a couple of days ago, could it not be that the "lot of people" who feel this way, feel this way because of the influences of postmodernism? Connected that quotation I just made then with the one you made earlier: "How we formulate and live out a belief system is, to my mind, invariably influenced by our cultural and intellectual environment." See the connection? From evangelicals outside the EC, it appears that the questioning of so many is undeniably related to the influence of postmodern culture and intellectual environment. Again, it might be a blind spot. The answer to that question seems to go away when postmodernism and its effects are sort of ferreted out and put aside. Just a hypothesis.
You also state, "the emerging church is struggling to understood the Bible better for the sake of following Christ with integrity, not simply doing the old liberal thing of cutting out everything that was incompatible with a modern sensibility." Way to go…powerful statement about what you represent here. Thanks for the clarification, and I do agree with it as you state it.
I saved the biggest for last. And it relates, of course, to the difference in the gospel theology. I sense a huge underpinning influence of N. T. Wright, and I believe Peter stated it explicitly. That may be where we agree to disagree. For I see Wright, with all the good he brings to the table on Paul, as sort of having already paved the way for a requestioning of what has been, I believe, a true understanding of the gospel message for several hundred years now.
I dipped my microbe-sized brain into that mix several years ago, spending a couple of years studying NPP theology. Wright and Dunn, more particularly, helped shape my view of justification into what I believe is a more biblical understanding of it. That said, their dealing with the gospel itself in much the same way you describe seems again to be a more pendulum reaction than balanced response. It is both about corporate and individual, people and persons.
You stated, "A highly individualized gospel (I agree with Peter’s comments) very easily makes the church a place for preserving and nurturing the faith of individuals and struggles to find anything constructive to say about the relation of the believing community to its social and natural environment." I think that in my response to you yesterday, or wheneve rit was, I brought out that point on how the church of today seems to very much parallel post-exilic Israel with its inward oriented focus to the extent of shutting out the rest of the world God put Israel there to save in the first place. Yes, Israel became hyper-individualized (and that plays a significant role in how Wright and other NPP fellows understand the whole covenant nomism issue). And yes, the church is very much mirroring that same sort of response to the world. And I bet you would probably agree with me that such movements as the Moral Majority, Dobson-type affiliations, Fundamentalism (in particular) and other similar organizations (or denominations) have, to a great degree, been responsible for the real disconnect that now exists between "God and the world."
But again, do we attempt to reconnect that disconnect by reexamining the message and its theology? Or should we just back up and reexamine the methods which the last several decades of Christianity (and its methods of communication) and ask where the communication process went wrong?
A requestioning of the gospel and its theology will inevitably only lead to confusion and the message cannot help but suffer in the process. The gospel as I attempted to boil it down was simplified, for only for the sake of what is at stake - the "individual’s" soul. Take away that "individual" component that the gospel does grab hold of (you - you as an individual - must be right with God) and you all of the sudden have no formula for the church to even exist in the first place. It is not a group of individual justified sinners anymore. It is just a group. And that is where the EC cannot help but trend towards if the gospel loses that individualistic component.
For me personally, at this point in my life, I have struggled with this democratic approach to church - the ‘every Christian for himself’ mentality which has turned the church inward, effectively killing its witness to the lost. I live in a small town of about 700 citizens and in my opinion that’s pretty much what has happened around here. Christianity as the Bible teaches and illustrates it is pretty much dead in our little town, thanks to that brand of Christianity. And I’m sure this is where you are probably feeling my pain, if you’ll excuse the Clintonism.
Enter Sovereign Grace Ministries who has successfully, in my peon opinion, brought a humble theological balance to the biblical understanding of the church. The gospel is about you as a person, and it is also about us as a people. They model that so well and it is for that reason that I sense such a groundswell of support in that direction, much like you do toward the EC movement. But in the SG movement, there is a firm grasp on the age-old, time-tested, understanding of the gospel of Christ, rather than a tabling of it to discuss it more. They accept the teaching of the most sound teachers of church history, and then seek to stand on their shoulders to see beyond the place where the past couple of generations of the church have seemed to grow so stagnant. In other words, they seem to desire to stand on their shoulders to correct the imbalances, and to do its share to bring Christianity, and particularly the gospel, back to the core of all of life so that it transforms individuals and thereby makes the church corporate a real force to be reckoned with in the world.
By Rob Wilkerson, at 4:15 PM
Rob, thanks for responding so constructively and helpfully. I’ve addressed a number of specific points below.
“From evangelicals outside the EC, it appears that the questioning of so many is undeniably related to the influence of postmodern culture and intellectual environment.”
This is obviously true – but I don’t see that as scandalous. The church has always read scripture and looked out on the world through the lenses of the prevailing culture. And each shift in intellectual culture corrects some of the shortcomings of what went before and introduces new failings. This is unavoidable – at least, postmoderns believe that this is unavoidable, that there is no position of cognitive neutrality, even for believers, and that contemporary evangelicalism is much more the product of modernism than its proponents seem willing to admit.
“That said, their dealing with the gospel itself in much the same way you describe seems again to be a more pendulum reaction than balanced response.”
I wonder if this pendulum metaphor is not somewhat misleading – we risk perpetuating through it the sort of instability that we are trying to avoid. It might be more helpful to think in terms, say, of bringing into focus parts of a picture that had become blurred or obscured because too much attention had been paid to one foreground detail. Rather than trying to maintain balance by swinging from side to side, I would suggest that we are trying to step back and look at the whole picture again.
“But again, do we attempt to reconnect that disconnect by reexamining the message and its theology? Or should we just back up and reexamine the methods which the last several decades of Christianity (and its methods of communication) and ask where the communication process went wrong?”
Why not both? To my mind it is a matter of intellectual integrity (no less important than spiritual or moral integrity) that we re-examine our belief system from time to time – this is part of the overall integrity of faith.
‘Take away that "individual" component that the gospel does grab hold of (you - you as an individual - must be right with God) and you all of the sudden have no formula for the church to even exist in the first place. It is not a group of individual justified sinners anymore. It is just a group.’
I would argue now that this is back-to-front. It is not the salvation of individuals that gives us the rationale for the existence of the church; it is the existence of the people of God that has made necessary the reconciliation of individuals to God. The church exists in the first place because God chose a people for his own possession – it is not just a group, it is a community called as a community to embody in its life and thought the reality of God in the world. This is probably a key shift of emphasis for the emerging church.
“I have struggled with this democratic approach to church - the ‘every Christian for himself’ mentality…”
The emerging church is certainly not advocating an ‘every Christian for himself’ mentality, if that’s what you are suggesting. Democracy is not about individuals pursuing their own interests – it is about people taking collective responsibility for the proper functioning whole. The vision behind OST (whether we consider it a realistic vision or not) is not that every believer has the freedom to define his or her own theology – it is that, given the state of the church, given the way people think and interact today, it is good that we engage a wide range of people in an ongoing conversation about our collective responsibility to be God’s people in the world.
By Andrew Perriman, at 8:44 AM
Andrew,
In relation to the democracy thing, I was using that as an illustration of the kind of thing the EC is probably reacting against in the church. I was in no way saying that the EC movement or even OST was imbibing this sort of thinking. Thanks again for your continued interaction.
Rob
By Rob Wilkerson, at 9:06 PM
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