Postmodern Christians?
After a few years feeling like I am pulled between both sides of the emergent/postmodernism conversation I don’t know how to respond. I find the greatest difficulty is in the fact that neither side does a good job of explaining their foundation of thought for their objection (expected for the postmodern since, as a philosophy postmodernism dislikes definition). I’m not sure really where the debate is taking place and I agree wholeheartedly that the discussion is much like two ships passing in the night. I would even go further and say its more like two trains passing in the night as it seems their terms aren’t even allowing for meaningful discussion on the same topics. Even if traditional evangelicals (whatever that means) and traditional emergents (whatever that means – if meanings exist) use the same words I have yet to find them talking about the same object. I am becoming more and more convinced that this debate will be the next great debate within the church for the next couple decades and will either give us a greater understanding of what it means to be (or in process of being) a Christian or it will wind up expending a lot of energy and resources building a new seminary in order to better articulate an argument in opposition of the other side. I also don’t know which side I’m going to wind up with or if I will wind up anywhere.
That said let me tell you my thoughts on this evangelical/emergent discussion. Like I said I have been pulled between both sides. Two years ago I got involved with a wilderness ministry in
Where is the debate? For the evangelical side the debate is about absolute truth. It seems to me when absolute truth is brought up by the evangelical (again who are we talking about) it is an unintentional red herring since I have yet to find an educated evangelical theologian defend 100% epistemological certainty (doesn’t exist… I’m sure of it?). Is anyone out there saying that Jesus lived with absolute certainty? J. P. Moreland who was arguing against postmodernism back in 1996 even conceded that this central foundational truth to Christianity had an epistemological possibility of being false (it’s true I have the tape). It’s not on this ground that the evangelicals choose to do battle yet with their critique of the emergents denial of absolute truth they seem to be unwittingly drawn into an epistemological debate.
On the other hand the emergent community does not seem to deny the ontological existence of a right way of living. More so it seems that their objection lies in the epistemological. The concern ranges from a denial of 100% epistemic certainty all the way to questioning whether epistemic methods can be objectively scaled. In this you get the objection to one pastor claiming the absolute abomination of homosexuality and another pastor reading the same text as that particular homosexual instancing as having more implied than mere same sex intercourse and cohabitation (i.e. bells and symbols aren’t necessarily the sins of a prostitute as it is in a specific biblical text). There isn’t a concern as to whether there is a rightness or wrongness. Instead the question becomes how can pastor A make one claim and pastor B make an antithetical claim with them both claiming absolute truth. Does just claiming absolute truth make an action a right way of living? Moreover with such different views held as rightness, who has the ability to stand outside of their own community and determine what is actually the exact explanation of our reality? There’s no denial of absolute truth there. There isn’t even a denial that rightness and wrongness cannot be known. The emergent position more accurately says that as we are looking through a glass darkly it is difficult to determine exactly how dark each person’s glass actually is.
What is the emergent saying? It is that nothing is known? Is the emergent view that there isn’t right or wrong per se but only right or wrong degreed by the culture time and situation? I don’t– nor do I want to – believe that this is being fair to most emergents. I think before understanding the majority of the emergents view (if there is a majority view) that there needs to be a clear distinction between Christian Philosophical Postmodernism (i.e. Alistair MacIntyre) and Christian Postmodernists (i.e. the emergent community). I believe that the Christian Postmodern Philosopher has journeyed quite far from a cohesive view of reality that is easily compatible with orthodoxy. Christian Philosophical Postmodernist find themselves a discussion of language and the ability to know both epistemologically and ontologically. Alistar MacIntyre seems to suggest two things in his book Who’s Justice, Who’s Rationality. First, that language cannot be bifurcated from the world such that without language there would be no world. Second, there is no way meaningful communication can take place between two language groups. MacIntyre describes language as both utterances and non-verbal gestures within the context of a community and time period. In this MacIntyre would throw English-as-uttered-and-gestured-in-the-18th-century and English-as-uttered-and-gestured-in-the-21st-century as two different language groups unable to communicate in a meaningful way. I say that, not in order to give one a comprehensive understanding of MacIntyre, but that I believe it is this argument that traditional evangelicals fear – and rightly so. I believe that is the fear the evangelicals have is that since emergents call themselves postmodern Christians
I’m not so sure that the emergent church is following MacIntyre into this line of reasoning. I don’t think it’s so much that communities can’t communicate in a meaningful way. If this were true I don’t think that Brian McLaren would be writing books (of course it begs the question why would MacIntyre write book but as a professor he obviously writes books so he can force his classes to buy and read them). The reaction of the emergent church is more against presenting Christianity as being completely figured out and also to presenting Christianity as being merely a conversion experience.
A critique emergents bring against evangelicals is that evangelicals put all their emphasis in the conversion instead of the ongoing lifestyle of becoming more and more like Christ. I don’t think anyone would question that there are people who have had a conversion experience at summer camp, going forward in church, praying a prayer after a random evangelism experience or after a life changing experience that later nothing changes in their life. There is no question that happens. Jesus told his disciples this would happen when he taught them the parable of the sower. I don’t think it is a fair characterization to say that this is the hallmark of evangelicalism. If you look at the churches who have really grown into mega-churches there has been more than just an emphasis on evangelism. If you look at the parachurch organizations to that have risen up to challenge the organized local church there is an understanding that discipleship is part of the Christian experience. I believe it an error to bifurcate between sharing the gospel and evangelism.
On the other hand there seems to be a mistake made by the reacting emergents in reacting to evangelism without discipleship there seems to be a practice of discipleship without evangelism. Thought I do not believe that it is imperative to pray a prayer or have a traditional point of conversion in order to be grafted into the tree of life, I do believe there needs to be an understanding of what sin is, its offense to God and what Jesus’ did in justifying the forgiveness of sin. What I have seen in my very limited experience with the emergent church is that living rightly is more the focus than the justification Jesus brought with his dying on the cross. While welcoming people into the community of God is defiantly in God’s plan, if you watch the early church there was no shying away from explaining what Jesus’ justification was. Brian McLaren does tell a fictional story of how one could invite a person in the life of Christ in his book More Ready than You Realize, but my experience with an emergent church is more an invitation to live in the ways of Christ than who God is and what Jesus’ death on the cross means in their fitting into the story of the world. If we look at Christians as being monks in a monastery then the emergent approach is to invite people into the monastery and after they are comfortable with the lifestyle then ask them if they want to become monks. Conversely, the traditional evangelical approach is to explain life in the monastery and what is means to be a monk then ask them to decide whether they want to be a monk before they can come into the monastery and experience it in a meaningful way. Both approaches seem incomplete and limiting.
Are they really so far apart? Certainly there is disagreement on the methods/practices of a Christian’s interaction with God and man. I don’t believe there is as great a disagreement on the ontology of the relationship they should have with God and man. That is just to say I believe that the emergent complaint that D. A. Carson should have spent time in community with emergents prior to writing a book critiquing is a good one. But I also believe that the emergents should spend time in active ministry with a dynamic growing evangelical church. If there isn’t an charitable effort by both sides to understand each other it won’t be long before you see a reaction to the emergent reaction. I pray this doesn’t happen.
posted by Nate @ 10:36 AM
17 comments
17 Comments:
thanks man, i really appreciated your thoughts.
Wouldn't you say "Emergents" have already experienced what it is like, in most cases, to see evangelicals in their environment since the majority of them came from an evangelical background and felt it didn't explain it well enough or was working? I don't classify myself as either/or because I think it can be deceiving to put labels on people, but I know I grew up in a evangelical church and was then heavily involved and mentored by a parachurch group, and I tend to lean towards most emergent thinking nowadays, not because I think evangelicals are off their rocker, but because they are not explaining things well enough. I think there are good and bad things about both and in a lot of cases style is a big factor as well. I believe in sharing Christ with people, I just don't think using a tract is always the most effective (in most cases actually). But at the same time, I think there are definitive truths (whether we have them figured out or not) and that it's not ALL a mystery. *shrug*
Mostly I am saddened that there is even a debate about it. Aren't we all on the same side? (all as in followers of Christ, believers, Christians, whatever)
"Aren't we all on the same side?"
Dear greg,
I dont know you, but if you root for the Trojans, then the answer to your question is No, we are NOT on the same side.
Greg,
My good friend Cody's Balls and I are both huge Mariner fans. Often times we completely disagree about the best path for the team to take. At no point do we resolve our arguments by hugging and saying, "Aren't we all on the same side?"
We do hug thought, we used to do more before Tara came around too.
But do you resolve your argument by continually arguing and never coming to a resolution is the question?
Besides that... the Mariners? They still have a baseball team?
I got about 3 sentances deep and I realized I have no idea what is being said, so I banged it and read the comments.
oh and that is a cute picture you got there greg!
lets play the who is the biggest asshole game?
normally i would think i would be a shoe-in, but garret continues to amaze.
We usually resolve it by Cody beating the shit out of me. And Dru, we all know that no one tops Elbrecht as the biggest Asshole. I'm pretty sure Satan thinks Elbrecht is an asshole.
asshole
Elbrecht IS and asshole.
Good post...
I've been to all three Emergent Conventions, and I'd have to say that the reason that most of the people that I have come across call themselves "emergent" is because they became disillusioned with their evangelical church experience.
There are a lot of people that I love and respect on both sides of the street. My problem with both sides is that most evangelical churches that I have been to have derived some crazy form of evangelism that gives ammunition to a self-righteous social club of political conservatives; while most emerging churches will only spread the good news of "community" while becoming an elitist, self-righteous social club of political anti-conservatives.
As far as practitioners go, it's a shame that evangelicals are running away from Brian McLaren because of some of Carson's criticisms. And it's a shame that emergents are blowing off anything that comes from guys like Rick Warren.
I was told that the word Emergent came from the group's desire to express that the church is still growing and taking shape, that they embrace church history and grow from it. Almost every Emergent practitioner that I know will say that they value every era of church history, but will then disregard and disrespect anything that has happened in the past 20 or 30 years.
I like to identify myself as more of an emerging Christian, but I recognize some of the major flaws and the inherent disrespect that flows out of the emerging groups right now. I wish that more Christians had McLaren's attitude about having hope in any Christian and any church, looking to agree first rather than criticize.
Why can’t people just love Jesus and do the stuff that He was all about and knock off all of the labels etc?
I would tend to agree with my boy Mikey although I am far less educated on the current state of the church than him and obviously Elbrecht. I have a hard time not getting embittered by the ridiculousness of these various "social clubs" masquerading as churches and their various social and political agendi. Oh and by the way, just wanted to pass along congrats to Greg, Nate E., Missouri Justin et al. on a fantastic season by the St. Louis Rams this year. You guys are easily the fourth or fifth greatest show on turf. Way to go. Oh yeah and make sure one of you wipes up Vermeil's tears. See you in Detroit!!!!
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
that reminds me... you should have seen what "emergent-ed" out of me earlier today when i took my morning dump.
seriously guys, what does thoeness think of all this?
Dude, what emergent-ed out of you? Anything spiritual?
Hey there bishop.. this is the Commish.. and good luck against my COLTS in week 16. If you make it to the Super Bowl, good luck getting second.
Post a Comment
<< Home