Scriptorium Daily
I admit it—I stole the title of my blog from someone else. That someone else is my friend Kevin DeYoung, who went to seminary with me. He’s now the pastor of a church in Michigan. Kevin and his co-author Ted Kluck wrote a book entitled Why We’re Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be.
I should explain something, though: I have not seen or talked to Kevin since I graduated from seminary in 2001, so I am not unduly influenced by him, nor have I even read his book (though I’ve heard about it). So the following observations/opinions have all come about quite recently and with very little influence from anyone else. If it’s possible to have a “jury” member (mostly unbiased based on little experience) comment on the Emergent Church, I think I would qualify! In fact, I think I would not only qualify as someone who is unbiased, but perhaps (based on my background) inclined to be sympathetic to the movement.
Just to set the stage for this discussion, the Emergent Church is a particular group within a larger movement called the Emerging Church (though I will use the two terms synonymously as many people do). Again, like Kevin’s book, it is a movement that I’ve heard about but have otherwise had little interaction with.
Of course, the movement’s big proponents are becoming household names among evangelicals: Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Doug Pagitt, and Tony Jones, among others. I felt like, as someone who has the responsibility to teach or shepherd people, I ought to be at least educated on what all this is about.
What got the Emergent Church on my radar was the fact that I attended the National Pastors’ Convention (in San Diego) last week and both Brian McLaren and Rob Bell were there as featured speakers. I went to McLaren’s seminar and Bell’s keynote address, and I’d like to speak from my experiences.
But first, just to set the stage briefly, the Emergent Church is characterized by several hallmarks:
1) It is “missional.” However you define that, broadly speaking it means that it is focused on reaching people and makes that as a priority.
2) It is community-oriented. It eschews the gross individualism of Western society for an authentic interrelatedness.
3) It is postmodern, contemporary, and relevant. “Behind the times” and old-fashioned it is not.
4) It is social justice-oriented.
If anyone should be Emergent, it should be me! Why? Let me give you four reasons, corresponding to the above:
First of all, I am, by academic training, a missiologist. Contextualization is my thing. I love to spread the Gospel and study how it spreads. Secondly, I come from an Asian culture where community is highly prized, and I certainly prefer that over rampant individualism. Thirdly, I am young (relatively so—I’m in my early 30s) and the Emergent Church is geared toward people in their 20s and 30s. Fourthly, I studied Latin American liberation theology for my doctoral dissertation. Social justice is another one of my big interests. I attend an urban church in Long Beach that ministers to the poor. I even subscribe to the e-newletters of Sojourners and Evangelicals for Social Action.
If there is any type of person who is “ripe” for the Emergent movement, then I am surely it. Why then do I not resonate with the Emergent Church? Because I feel like it has robbed Peter to pay Paul.
Consider my circumstances at the National Pastors’ Convention. I showed up to Brian McLaren’s seminar, and he started off with a bang. He told a story about how he once asked a crowd of younger people what issues they think the church is concerned about these days. The answers came back: contemporary vs. traditional worship music; eschatology; whether women should be ordained; method of baptism; Calvinism vs. Arminianism; etc. He wrote those on a large piece of paper and stuck it to the wall. He then asked what they thought the world’s issues are these days. The replies were: the AIDS pandemic; global warming; nuclear disarmament; poverty and starvation; etc. He said, “Take a look at these two lists and tell me what’s wrong with this picture.”
I take his point. The church is irrelevant. Our concerns are not the world’s. That is a correct diagnosis. However, I did not have a problem with his diagnosis so much as his remedy. He concluded that we, as the church, need to focus on the second list instead of the first list. Ah, but that’s where we differed. So I raised my hand and said, “I agree that the church’s agenda is often irrelevant. However, aren’t you, then, just letting the world set the agenda instead of letting Jesus do it? After all, I don’t think people are good at self-diagnosing their problems. You ask most young people what they care about today, and it will probably be something about the next Batman movie or their iPhone. Only Jesus is able to offer both the correct diagnosis of our problems as well as the correct solution to those problems.” McLaren responded, “Like how? Give me an example.” So I said, “The woman at the well. She wanted regular water, but Jesus told her she needed Living Water. She tried to fill up her emptiness with many men, but Jesus told her that she needed eternal life.” McLaren dismissed me with, “Well, the trouble is that we all think we know what Jesus’ agenda is.” And I thought to myself, “But don’t you? After all, what you’re advertising here is what you think Jesus’ agenda for the world is, right? What Christian doesn’t operate with what they think Jesus’ agenda is?” Well, the room was full of McLarenites who all nodded affirmingly at his statement, and one guy even piped in, “Yeah, the problem with the church is that all we talk about is the soul.” !!! I wanted to say, “The problem with the Emergent movement is that you’ve left the soul out of the picture altogether!” In fact, McLaren never mentioned the soul once during that entire first hour of his talk. He wanted to replace the first list with the second list. I think that both lists are insufficient and need to be replaced with Jesus’ list, one that is far more holistic than either.
Remember, I’m the guy who wrote this blog on why I am a radical evangelical. But the difference between being a radical evangelical and being Emergent, it seems to me, is that radical evangelicals try to keep that tension, that balanced holistic middle ground, whereas the Emergent movement has sacrificed its biblical roots to remain relevant.
What was interesting to me, as I looked around the room of McLarenites, was that I was not only the youngest person in the room, but I was the only non-white person. Well, ethnic minorities are used to being the odd one out (by the very definition of “minority,” that’s just a fact of life we have to deal with every day) but this particularly disturbed me because it was supposed to be a “national pastors’ convention” and I’m pretty sure that not all the pastors in the nation are white and 50! [Please don’t think I’m being derogatory; instead of “old and white” I could’ve said “old and Asian” or “young and black” if that was the case. It wasn’t. I am merely using descriptive words of what were the plain facts: the demographics in the room just happened to be old and white].
In some ways, I applaud this reversal of trends. Old white people are not typically the demographic to be on board with the social justice thing! On the other hand, it disturbed me that everyone in the room was old and white. If the Emergent Church is meant to be missional, why is it hitting only one age demographic, and only one ethnic demographic? It’s obviously not doing a very good job of recruiting the very people it tries to reach. It’s like Latin American liberation theology. One adage I’ve heard is, “Liberation theologians chose the poor; but the poor chose Pentecostalism.” If it purports to be a grassroots movement but is only effective top-down, then it implodes upon itself, like Communism.
And that’s the major problem with the Emergent movement: like liberation theology, it starts not with Scripture but with the situation. I’ve studied Latin American liberation theology for the past seven years during my graduate studies, and I know it when I see it. The Emergent movement is essentially a cousin of liberation theology. Contextualization crosses the line when it allows the world to set the agenda. It’s one thing to be culturally relevant; it’s quite another thing altogether when the church is bowing to the whims of the world. And that’s just not the Gospel. McLaren is allowing the world to set the agenda for us. He’s so sick of the church’s petty concerns that he buys the world’s concerns wholesale. But I think he threw out the baby with the bathwater.
A second problem is that McLaren and the Emergent Church movement thrive on overstating their point to be radically different. That’s fine for shock value, but it is not lasting. Eventually people need substance, not just dazzle. A third problem with Emergents is that they’re built on an isolationist policy. They build their identity on being marginal. But if they recruit enough people to their cause, will they cease to be “different” and “edgy” and “alternative” and effectively collapse as “the other voice”? After all, anyone who wants to be non-denominational or anti-denominational becomes, in effect, their own denomination.
Look, don’t get me wrong—there are some great points about the Emergent movement, and I think its pushback against individualism is one of its greatest contributions. I also think it’s great that it’s trying to make the church relevant to non-Christians. I just think that, in trying to right the ship that’s leaning too far in one direction, it caused the ship to tip over the other way.
I’m a radical evangelical and deeply social justice-oriented, but I’m not Emergent, and definitely not cool. I don’t reach people with my leather jacket and trendy glasses, or rock music. I believe Jesus wants to reach people, heart, mind, body, emotions, and soul. He cares about whether we have believed Him in our hearts and confessed Him with our lips (Romans) and live that out with our lives (James) in helping the oppressed and keeping ourselves pure. The Gospel is that Christ died for your entire being, now and later, justification and sanctification and glorification, inside and out, and you ought to live for Him in prayer, social justice, worship, fellowship, purity, and reconciliation. That is Jesus’ list, which is different from the church’s list and different from the world’s list. It is a third way, one that I hope to follow, and that is why I am not Emergent—by a guy who should be.
P.S. Though McLaren did not resonate with me, I did like Rob Bell however! He came across as far more “hip” than McLaren was, but he preached forgiveness which is the center of the Gospel. And he did not keep it on the theoretical realm, he talked about real, hard, concrete forgiveness of people who have wronged you.
