The Emerging Church: This Sunday's Statesman

Eileen Flynn is writing a report for this Sunday's Statesman about the emerging/emergent church movement. She asked for my comments, and I had to put some things together to be prepared for the interview. It was really my first time to give some real thought to the emergent movement. I mean, I've read books about it (starting with McLaren's "A New Kind of Christian" four years ago), as well as articles (most recently: Tony Jones' lecture at Wheaton). But in order to be of any use for Eileen's interview, I had to collect my thoughts. Here were some things I wrote down in a sort of rough outline, and I ended up sharing these thoughts in some form with her in today's interview.

I don't expect to see more than 1 or 2 quotes from our chat in the story. Her report isn't about Tom Goodman's take on the emerging church. Still, her request for some comments gave me a chance to think through an important issue that I've occasionally visited in the last 5 years. I'm looking forward to the story--

The emerging church movement is a label that covers a wide variety of approaches to church.

All of them are retooling expressions of worship to connect with people, especially unchurched young adults. These guys know how to put the hip in worship.

But some of them are doing more than revising our forms of worship and church structure. Sometimes after reading or listening to certain emergent church leaders, their ideas just sound to me like plain old liberalism with a soul patch.

When I read and listen to emerging church leaders, I see some things I like and some things that really concern me.

Among the things I like:

• They care passionately about seriously and substantively engaging with those who are not connected with church.
• They take postmodernism seriously, which is a worldview that Christians have to deal with.
• They believe in approaching people with humility and sensitivity.
• They want our culture to know that Christianity is not simply a voting bloc of the Republican Party.
• They are resistant to the neat and packaged, sometimes superficial, programming of Boomer-dominated congregations. In fact, in much of what I read, especially from guys like Rob Bell and Brian McLaren, it's a clear that they are reacting against their conservative evangelical upbringing.
• Many are reaching back to ancient practices.
• They want to experience the mystery and wonder of God, and not simply mouth statements about him.

But none of these things are unique to emerging churches. I could give plenty of examples of conservative evangelical churches who are interested in these same issues: notably, Tim Keller's Redeemer Church in New York.

Also--and more seriously--some of the key leaders of the emerging church movement are calling into question some of the most fundamental Biblical beliefs, or at least refusing to express where they stand on them. Basic things, such as, the reliability of the Bible, the atonement of the cross, the nature of Christ, and the meaning of heaven and hell.

Jude 1:3 speaks of our faith as that which was "once for all entrusted to God’s people." In a lecture Tony Jones gave at Wheaton, he said that such conviction about a settled and universal truth simply rings hollow based upon what postmodernism is teaching us. And in Generous Orthodoxy, Brian McLaren said, "We must continually be aware that the old, old story may not be the true, true story." He has said in an interview that his view of the Bible is that it is simply the story of people who had an experience with God, whereas the traditional understanding is that the Bible is an authoritative source for our beliefs, not just a deposit of inspiring stories.

I just think that when speaking of truth, we don't have to shrug to be humble.

In my class for seekers, based on my book, The Anchor Course, the fundamental truths of the faith are presented in a way that I think is humble, and I give lots of room for participants to ask questions and express their doubts. Emerging church leaders like to speak about reaching back to old and ancient practices. Well, there's nothing older, more ancient, and more global than the 1800 year old words of the Apostles Creed, which is what my book and seeker class is built around. There are so many things that I learn from these conversations, and so many lasting friendships that have started. And that can happen even though I'm expressing firm convictions about the faith that was once for all entrusted to God's people. So, you don't have to shrug your shoulders at truth in order to be humble in holding to it.

Actually, when I read some authors, it's clear that they are simply asking a bunch of legitimate questions -- questions that do have answers. And as I think about at least some of these particular leaders, I do feel hopeful that they will settle at last into that faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. It makes me think of that T.S. Eliot poem with the line:

The end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.