An Emerging Mistake?

This weekend Westminster Theological Seminary is hosting its annual theological conference. This year's theme is the Emerging Church. As for me, apart from what I found out on Wikipedia, this is my first real taste of this sweeping phenomenon. And so far, I gotta say I'm not impressed. No movement can survive by stressing one small aspect (or even several aspects) of what the Church is called to be completely. For the Emerging Church those aspects seem to be the following: missiology and ecclesiology. Noticeably missing from this list is theology. Admittedly so, the EM (Emerging Movement) stresses praxis, but not theology. In practice then, you can have several churches that aline themselves with the EM, yet have polemically opposing doctrines. This seems to be an attempt at catering to the post-modern resistance to metanarratives; the speaker today, Scot McKnight, even claimed the EM to be "post-systematic theology".

Now I can understand and even appreciate the recognition of the need for reform in evangelical circles, but I don't think this is a healthy approach. First of all, it isn't sustainable. To be an Emerging Church, the body must agree with the goal and vision of the EM (hmmm, this doesn't sound very post-modern). But if you have several churches claiming to be the same thing (whatever that "thing" is), sharing a goal and vision yet preaching whatever they want, there is only one eventual certainty: self-destruction. This is actually already happening within the EM circles as one leader has even gone as far as calling another's teachings heretical. Of course the same thing could happen in a denomination like the PCA (oh, by the way, EM doesn't have denominations, they have "cohorts" which is just a post-modern name for denominations; change the name of somthing and all of a sudden its new and exciting). Yet there is a system in place for such eventualities, and at least when a person goes to a PCA church, he/she has a pretty good idea of what to expect from the pulpit.

Hear I would like to insert a disclaimer that I have not actually attended a church that is part of the EM and my opinion as of now is flawed at best. I have no doubt that my view will change with that experience, but yet the flexibility that I described above concerning theology is still probably better labled "weakness" and that as much as our post-modern world cries out for flexibility, at the end of the day, what it wants and what it needs are quite different. I think of 2-year-old screaming to get his way, but what he's really screaming for is to have guidelines, some sort of rigidity with which he can know, "Ok, this is permissible to do, but this is not."

Does the post-modern context call for us to respond differently with the gospel than we have been? Most certainly. But I do not think this requires us to smack systematic theology over the head with a shovel and throw it in the river. EM claims to be "post-systematic". That term was never really fleshed out, and I'm not quite sure what that means, but it certainly does imply a divorce and more importantly the idea that the new conception is more enlightened than the old (this, you may recognize is a stalwart of post-modern thinking). One must always be cautious when treading in those waters: to promote something new (or emergent), one should be very certain that what is new is changing the inadequate parts of what was old and not simply responding to the demands of the secular society in which he lives.

Which brings me to the 2nd reason why EM isn't a healthy approach: it's superficial. They've done away with doctrine (theoretically, but not practically; even non-denominational churches adhere to a very particular doctrine), or at least calling it doctrine since post-moderns seem to shiver at the mere mention of the word. But here is where I find something extremely insightful on their part, something that we as evangelicals need to incorporate into our ecclesiology: creative worship. EM is all about incorporating the arts and involving all the senses in worship. God gave us all our senses, why not use them? Amen, brothers! But putting me in a low-lit room and sitting me in front of a bunch of candles at a "worship station" (the video atop is an example of this) isn't really going to cut it. I give post-moderns more credit than that. They may suspect metanarratives and be wary of traditional doctrine, but they're not superficial. It's like the youth group sunday school rooms we all know and love: on the walls are posters of the greatest Christian rock bands like Petra and D.C. Talk taped up crooked because that'll make all this God-stuff relevant to the crazy teens. We can't sacrifice sound doctrine or a solid foundation for relevance. Their focus on missiology, ecclesiology, social justice and involved worship are quite warranted; we as evangelicals need to wake up and see the needs (both spiritual AND physical) of the world around us. Yet it is my opinion that this approach will draw in a great and curious crowd, but after a while the crowd will find itself malnourished and sucking on dust.

A Sojourner

Below is Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Church in NYC, speaking on the EM.