{"id":973,"date":"2007-10-24T23:53:53","date_gmt":"2007-10-24T23:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/october-the-emerging-church-phenomenon\/"},"modified":"2014-01-28T01:57:03","modified_gmt":"2014-01-28T01:57:03","slug":"october-the-emerging-church-phenomenon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/october-the-emerging-church-phenomenon\/","title":{"rendered":"The Emerging Church Phenomenon"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have been studying Postmodernism for twenty years.\u00a0 Christian writers and non-Christian writers alike sounded a note of alarm at what the effects of this cultural paradigm shift would be upon the Church.\u00a0 In 1996, James White proposed, \u201cNow a new tidal wave, called by the scholars postmodernity, is sweeping across Western thought, undermining the very idea of absolute truth.\u00a0 What should be the response of the Christian church in the face of these waves of philosophical attack?\u201d<\/span>1<\/sup> In 1999, Dan Story wrote, \u201cThis post-Christian and postmodern world holds to the premise that there are no absolute truths that apply to everyone equally.\u00a0 Christianity and Christian ethics are no longer relevant.\u00a0 In fact, orthodox Christians are seen as bigoted, narrow-minded, and anti-intellectual because we refuse to accept other religions as ‘paths to God’ or to consider homosexuality, pornography, or abortion as permissible in a moral society.\u201d<\/span>2<\/sup><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Non-Christians were often more pointed in their criticisms of postmodernism than Christians.\u00a0 Alan Wolfe, in the October 2000 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, wrote, \u201cPostmodernism exercises such a fascination over the evangelical mind, I believe, because of the never-ending legacy of fundamentalism.\u00a0 In one sense evangelical scholars have moved away from Billy Sunday and in the direction of French poststructuralism: they cast their lot with those who question any truths rather than those who insist on the literal truth of God’s word.\u201d3<\/sup> This observation was truly prophetic!\u00a0 Today, evangelicalism in the name of \u201cemergence,\u201d has distanced itself so far from its fundamental roots that it is embracing postmodernism rather than standing firm in conservative, historic Christianity.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Brian McLaren, probably the most prolific emerging church writer, flatly promotes leaving the old structures and passionately embracing the postmodern culture.\u00a0 \u201cEven an agnostic or an atheist, then, can see the need for new kinds of churches in the new world\u2014churches that once again replenish the spiritually hungry and thirsty, that understand them and connect them with the mysteries they seed; churches that promote a healthful, whole, hearty spirituality rather than an ugly, thin, hateful, insipid, or anemic religion.\u201d4<\/sup> Typically, these emergent writers have little sympathy or courtesy for conservative Christianity.<\/p>\n

\n

A Definition<\/h3>\n

Dan Kimball in his book, Emerging Worship:\u00a0 Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations,5<\/sup> gives a revealing definition of \u201cemerging\u201d church worship.\u00a0 In the first chapter of his book, he takes the reader back to Genesis 4 with the worship of Cain and Abel.\u00a0 He then moves to Noah in Genesis 8, then to Abraham in Genesis 13, then to Jacob, then David and all the way to Malachi.\u00a0 Here he stops to show that we have \u201cread about how worship emerged not just in the Temple in Jerusalem, but everywhere, with incense and pure offerings brought to God.\u00a0 The paradigm of worship shifts again\u201d (p. 8).\u00a0 The next paragraph begins, \u201cThe New Testament is full of emerging worship\u201d (p. 8).<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Here, I thought Kimball was about to stop and make a case for why he thinks emerging worship is the true New Testament style of worship.\u00a0 But no!\u00a0 With only a brief mention of Jesus and the Apostles, he was on to the architecture of the Roman Basilica of the first few centuries, then the liturgy of the Catholic Church, past the Reformation to today.\u00a0 His fantastic conclusion is, \u201cSo, as our current culture moves from a modern to postmodern world, it is only natural that new forms of worship are arising. . . . It doesn\u2019t mean previous forms of worship are invalid; just that new expressions are emerging\u2014and will continue to emerge\u201d (p. 9).\u00a0 In other words, even the New Testament was a passing (\u201cemerging\u201d) expression of the necessary ongoing change in worship style, or at best, one of many traditions from which to draw the pieces that we like in our own worship.<\/p>\n

If that sounds too fantastic, listen to McLaren:<\/p>\n

\n

The new church does not view the New Testament as a \u201cNew Leviticus\u201d\u2014a law book of strict rules\u2014nor as a fixed, detailed blueprint to be applied to all churches in all cultures across time.\u00a0 Rather, the New Testament serves as (among other things) an inspired, exemplary, and eternally relevant case study of how the early church itself adapted and evolved and coped with rapid change and new challenges.\u00a0 In place of a fixed structure that is to fit all, the new church advocates a flexible, adaptable, evolving structure that is developed to meet the current needs.\u00a0 The key word is adaptability.6<\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In a similar vein, Leonard Sweet says, \u201cJesus is the Truth.\u00a0 Truth resides in relationships, not documents or principles.\u00a0 The Gospels don\u2019t teach us about Jesus as principle but Jesus as person.\u00a0 The power of a logo is that it transmutes image into identity, creating the very thing it symbolizes.\u00a0 In Jesus, the logos and logo became one.\u00a0 Not until the fourteenth century (at the earliest) did truth become embedded in propositions and positions.\u201d7<\/sup> The emerging church leaders see the New Testament as only descriptive of what the church did at that time, not prescriptive for what we must do today.<\/p>\n

\n

Correct Observations<\/h3>\n

There are a few things that the emerging church proponents have correctly noticed.\u00a0 First, this is a postmodern generation.\u00a0 Few would disagree that this change from modern to postmodern times has taken place.\u00a0 The question is not whether we have seen this cultural change happen but how should we respond biblically?\u00a0 Second, Modernism was a faulty system of anti-theistic thought.\u00a0 Yes, of course it was.\u00a0 But the emerging church is claiming that even the form of our traditional church service came more from modernism than from the New Testament.\u00a0 This is the pot calling the kettle black! Third, the Seeker-Sensitive movement of the past generation has gone beyond any reasonable similarity to a New Testament form of church.\u00a0 Still, however, the emerging church speakers are much kinder to them than to conservatives.\u00a0 Fourth, this is a difficult time for conservative, traditional churches.\u00a0 I would say that the younger generation is not coming to the traditional church because it has never been taught nor disciplined to do so.\u00a0 Most of these parents have not forced their children to do anything they didn\u2019t want to do.<\/p>\n

Though I agree with these four assessments of today\u2019s culture, I also believe the emerging church followers are responding to every one of them in the wrong way.\u00a0 They are becoming more postmodern rather than confronting that culture; they are flatly wrong that the traditional church was patterned from the modernism of the last 200 years; they helped breed the Seeker-Sensitive movement themselves until they got tired of it; and though it is a hard time for traditional churches to attract young people, such a fact does not and never has kept a true church from remaining true to its biblical convictions.<\/p>\n

\n

Greatest Concerns<\/h3>\n

The first concern I have when I read emerging church writers, and especially when they describe those who only attend those kinds of services, is that this is a group of people which has never liked the church.\u00a0 Loving the brethren and \u201cthe brotherhood\u201d is more than just having sympathy for a wayward believer, much more.\u00a0 It is loving the people of God!\u00a0 It is loving what they believe, how they live, and how they worship.\u00a0 Christian history is replete with testimonies of sinners who have been converted and rescued from their old ways.\u00a0 Kimball calls his emerging church \u201crefuge camps for bitter Christians that complain against the organized church\u201d (205).\u00a0 He says that \u201cchurchy styling\u201d is \u201cexactly what English emerging churches are trying to escape from\u201d (216).\u00a0 He also says about English emerging churches, \u201cSo, when post-Christian generations in England and Europe who grew up outside the church are resonating with worship there, we in America should pay attention\u201d (209).\u00a0 My point is that a postmodern generation has boycotted and won!\u00a0 They weren\u2019t about to participate in what the church is, only in what they want it to be.<\/p>\n

My second concern is from Kimball\u2019s definition (see previous) of the emerging church.\u00a0 Through his book he refers to the old style as a \u201cJudeo-Christian\u201d style of church.\u00a0 Of a California church he says they \u201cwanted to develop a ministry geared to post-Christians growing up without a Judeo-Christian mindset\u201d (157).\u00a0 Later in the book he says, \u201cBoth British and American post-Christians share in common a culturally implanted worldview that differs from the traditional Judeo-Christian worldview\u201d (217).\u00a0 In other words, our \u201cJudeo-Christian\u201d worldview is (was) simply a cultural expression.\u00a0 It can be replaced overnight by any group of people with a different cultural point of view.\u00a0 Where is the commitment to doctrine here?\u00a0 Where is the belief in a prophetic future or even the proper understanding of the church age?<\/p>\n

My third concern is about the emerging worship itself.\u00a0 It is so loaded with symbolisms that appeal to the five senses that it becomes void of faithful substance and cognitive processes.\u00a0 They use crosses, candles, draperies, prayer stations, stations of the cross, nature scenes, painting stations, images of space and planets, and almost anything else that one can dream up.\u00a0 Their gathering rooms may be full of couches or other casual seating arranged in random order; attendees move about throughout the service; various hands-on experiments may be tried at any time; and many more such things can be listed.\u00a0 Does all of this appeal to the walk of faith or to the natural man\u2019s limited world of the flesh?\u00a0 Benjamin Woolley admitted, \u201cArtificial reality is the authentic postmodern condition, and virtual reality its definitive technological expression . . . The artificial is the authentic.\u201d8<\/sup> As to its evangelistic effectiveness, the discussion of pragmatic methodology has been covered again and again.<\/p>\n

My fourth concern is that preaching and everything that goes with it is dangerously minimized or eliminated.\u00a0 Kimball says, \u201cEmerging preachers see themselves as fellow journeyers.\u00a0 Preaching is no longer an authoritative transferring of biblical information.\u00a0 Instead, it\u2019s becoming more about spiritual formation and Kingdom living\u201d (87).\u00a0 Preachers, pulpits, platforms, and various things that churches have used effectively for hundreds and even thousands of years are now seen as showy, power-hungry, and condescending.\u00a0 Almost anything connected with preaching is claimed to come from Greek culture and not from the New Testament.\u00a0 It\u2019s always amazing that this generation has such ability to correct 2000 years of church history!<\/p>\n

The claim is that we have fallen prey to the \u201cmodernism\u201d of the last 200 years and that what we have called \u201cfundamental\u201d is really an expression of the \u201cmodern\u201d era.\u00a0 Preaching too, they say, is borrowed from that \u201cculture.\u201d\u00a0 Besides being historically na\u00efve, this is self-contradictory.\u00a0 By the same reasoning the emerging church, being so enmeshed in the postmodern era, would have no ability to see its own error much less someone else\u2019s.\u00a0 The truth is, these gatherings are filled with those who never liked church and could never bear to listen to gospel preaching.\u00a0 Therefore, preaching has been eliminated.<\/p>\n

\n

And So . . .<\/h3>\n

D.A. Carson aptly asked the question, \u201cIs there at least some danger that what is being advocated is not so much a new kind of Christian in a new emerging church, but a church that is so submerging itself in the culture that it risks hopeless compromise?\u201d9<\/sup> The answer is becoming more obvious all the time.<\/p>\n

\n

Notes:<\/strong><\/address>\n
1. James R. White, The Roman Catholic Controversy (Minneapolis:\u00a0 Bethany House, 1996) 9.<\/address>\n
2. Dan Story, Engaging The Closed Minded (Grand Rapids:\u00a0 Kregel, 1999) 9.<\/address>\n
3. Alan Wolfe, \u201cThe Opening of the Evangelical Mind,\u201d The Atlantic Monthly, October, 2000.<\/address>\n
4. Brian McLaren, The Church on the Other Side (Grand Rapids:\u00a0 Zondervan, 2000) 14.<\/address>\n
5. Dan Kimball, Emerging Worship (Grand Rapids:\u00a0 Zondervan, 2004) title page.<\/address>\n
6. McLaren, p. 23.<\/address>\n
7. Leonard Sweet, Postmodern Pilgrims (Nashville:\u00a0 Broadman & Holman Pub., 2000) 131.<\/address>\n
8. Quoted by Douglas Groothuis, The Soul in CyberSpace (Grand Rapids:\u00a0 Baker Books, 1997) 27.<\/address>\n
9. D.A. Carson, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005) 44.<\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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