{"id":993,"date":"2005-10-25T01:16:46","date_gmt":"2005-10-25T01:16:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/october-qthe-emerging-churchq-part-2\/"},"modified":"2014-02-02T07:55:50","modified_gmt":"2014-02-02T07:55:50","slug":"october-qthe-emerging-churchq-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/aletheiabaptistministries.org\/Blog\/october-qthe-emerging-churchq-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Emerging Church (part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The primary tenet of the Emerging Church has been that we must a) recognize that our culture has become postmodern and b) we must immerse our churches much more into this postmodernism if we are to reach this generation with the gospel.\u00a0 It has been my contention that \u201ca\u201d is true but \u201cb\u201d is false.\u00a0 Increasingly Christian apologists are sounding warnings that this movement has gone over-board in their love affair with the postmodern culture with little or no warning of its inherent dangers.\u00a0 I have already suggested reading D.A. Carson\u2019s stinging rebuke of the Emerging Church<\/span>1<\/sup> for their unbridled adoption of postmodernism.\u00a0 I might also suggest Douglas Groothuis\u2019 chapter on Postmodernism<\/span>2<\/sup> from this month\u2019s book review.\u00a0 Also Millard Erickson\u2019s Truth or Consequences, part 3.<\/span>3 <\/sup>All of these strongly warn churches of the dangers in using postmodern methodologies to such a degree.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

1. EPIC of the Emerging Church<\/h2>\n

In his 2000 book Post-Modern Pilgrims4<\/sup> Leonard Sweet outlined his vision for the new Emerging Churches with the four-fold epigram EPIC, which he gives in a catchy postmodern way, \u201cE(xperiential),\u201d \u201cE-P(articipatory),\u201d \u201cE-P-I (mage-Driven),\u201d \u201cE-P-I-C (onnected).\u201d\u00a0 By these four adjectives Sweet presents the case for churches adopting a much more serious postmodern mindset.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Experiential.<\/h3>\n

It takes little proof to show that the current culture puts much more stock in experience and feeling than in rational thinking.\u00a0 Sweet writes,\u00a0 \u201cPostmoderns don\u2019t want their information straight.\u00a0 They want it laced with experience (hence edutainment).\u00a0 And the more extreme the better\u201d (p. 33).<\/p>\n

Two of the most common expressions of this in churches are the replacement of \u201ctestimonials\u201d with the sharing of \u201cexperiences,\u201d and the replacing of music that relies heavily on the message while the music brings the participants into an experience. For support he enlists a Barna study which \u201cfound that 32 percent of all stripes of regular churchgoers have never experienced God\u2019s presence in worship.\u00a0 Forty-four percent have not experienced God\u2019s presence in the past year\u201d (p. 45).\u00a0 Sweet advocates, \u201cTotal Experience is the new watchword in postmodern worship.\u00a0 New World preachers don\u2019t \u2018write sermons.\u2019 They create total experiences\u201d (p. 43).<\/p>\n

In 1985 Neil Postman wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death in which he described a \u201cSesame Street\u201d generation that has been entertained in school and church since infancy and is now holding us all hostage with the demand, \u201cEntertain me and I\u2019ll learn.\u201d\u00a0 Sweet\u2019s assessment of the postmodern generation merely describes this phenomenon as inevitable.\u00a0 He makes no attempt to offer suggestions for combating it but rather only offers ways to \u201cgo with the postmodern flow.\u201d\u00a0 (These are the ones who have always criticized Conservatives\u00a0 for their failure to confront the culture!)\u00a0\u00a0 This appears to be a capitulation to postmodern feeling over fact, or rather, feeling that creates the fact!<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Participatory.<\/h3>\n

It is not hard to show that the postmodern culture is one of participation, of two-way communication not one-way.\u00a0 Sweet calls this the Karaoke Culture because people don\u2019t want to merely listen, they want to participate in the music.\u00a0 Television is mostly a one-way communication whereas the computer forces one to interact.\u00a0 Older Radio broadcasts were one-way communication whereas talk-radio allows the listener to participate.\u00a0 Sweet criticizes the old \u201crepresentative\u201d culture in a severe caricature (needing to be controlled, have decisions made for them, etc.) but praises the Participatory Culture for broad-mindedness and fairness.<\/p>\n

In his 1994 book, Postmodern Times, Gene Veith pointed out that postmodernism was replacing the \u201crepresentational\u201d art of premodernism, and the \u201cself-centered\u201d art of modernism with a \u201cparticipatory art\u201d of postmodernism that is socially constructed.\u00a0 Again, it may be astute to recognize what is happening, but it is a lack of biblical stewardship to fall head-over-heels for the culture\u2019s immaturity and baseness.\u00a0 We have always recognized that the younger the child, the more he needs sensory participation.\u00a0 But we also realize that growing up and maturing means to \u201cput away childish things.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

Image-Driven.<\/h3>\n

It is not a secret that today\u2019s culture believes that \u201cimage is everything.\u201d\u00a0 Sweet writes, \u201cThe lesson for the church is simple: images generate emotions, and people will respond to their feelings . . . . Images come as close as human beings will get to a universal language\u201d (p. 86). Sweet makes much of the word \u201cmetaphor\u201d as opposed to the old word \u201cproposition.\u201d\u00a0 A proposition has connotations of dictionaries, linguistics, logical deductions and the like.\u00a0 But metaphor has the connotation of symbols, stories, feelings and other image-driven communication.\u00a0 Sweet says,\u00a0 \u201cPostmodern culture is image-driven.\u00a0 The modern world was word-based.\u00a0 Its theologians tried to create an intellectual faith, placing reason and order at the heart of religion\u201d (p. 86).<\/p>\n

Metaphors, similes, parables and other language tools all have a legitimate place in Scripture and other literature.\u00a0 But there is a definite demarcation between using these language tools to illuminate propositional truth and using them to create propositions!\u00a0\u00a0 Carson writes, \u201cYes, postmoderns are more open to nonlinear thinking than moderns, and they probably appreciate imagery and metaphor more than the preceding generation. . . . But there are plenty of dangers with \u2018image-driven\u2019 witness.\u00a0 While it can fire the imagination, it may prove so subjective that it leads people astray from what the text actually says.\u201d5<\/sup><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Connected.<\/h3>\n

I doubt that anyone denies the obvious fact that the world is a smaller place because of modern communication tools.\u00a0 But the point here is not merely communication but connectivity.\u00a0 Sweet writes, \u201cthe web is less an information source than a social medium.\u00a0 Both [Amazon.com and eBay] are becoming the new town squares for the global village\u201d (p. 109).\u00a0 The contention is that people are hungry for personal connections and are not getting them in the traditional places.\u00a0 \u201cThe paradox is this: the pursuit of individualism has led us to this place of hunger for connectedness, for communities not of blood or nation but communities of choice\u201d (p. 109-110).\u00a0 Sweet goes even further when he writes, \u201cJesus is the Truth.\u00a0 Truth resides in relationships, not documents or principles . . . . Not until the fourteenth century (at the earliest) did truth become embedded in propositions and positions\u201d (p. 131).<\/p>\n

Again, no one doubts the fact that this is a connected world and few doubt that people are hungry for relationships.\u00a0 But where does the local church, made up of born-again believers and responsible for the precepts of God\u2019s Word, open its doors indiscriminately to whomever wants to \u201cfeel connected?\u201d\u00a0 The Emergent Church puts \u201cbelonging\u201d before \u201cbecoming\u201d (i.e. sharing in the family\u2019s benefits before committing to its membership) even in matters of salvation and church membership.\u00a0 Unbelievers must never be \u201cdisconnected.\u201d\u00a0 In addition, the \u201cglobal community\u201d emphasis widens the door for ecumenical and social gospel participation that conservative local churches have until now cautiously avoided.\u00a0 To avoid these things is seen as sectarian and narrow-minded to today\u2019s \u201cconnected\u201d generation.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

2. Some Further Thoughts<\/h2>\n

It has been a generally accepted conclusion by conservative writers that postmodernism has many more negatives than positives.\u00a0 For a new movement to advocate using more of it, not less, should sound a strong note of warning to Biblically conservative churches.\u00a0 In addition to my comments above I would add two thoughts that keep coming back to me as I read more and more of this literature.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The Return to an Old Testament Form of Faith and Practice<\/h3>\n

The appeal for support of contemporary worship is almost always from the Old Testament because the New Testament says very little about it.\u00a0 New Testament worship is centered on our High Priest in heaven who continually intercedes for us.\u00a0 It is by necessity more cognitive than emotional.\u00a0 The writer of Hebrews often contrasts the temple worship on earth with its \u201cparticipatory\u201d and \u201csymbolic\u201d services with that of faith, which understands what is happening before God\u2019s throne in heaven.\u00a0 Chapter 12 reminds us that we are not come to Mt. Sinai that was full of sights and sounds, but to Mt. Zion and the things of a heavenly worship.<\/p>\n

Even in the matter of salvation, the Emerging Church places \u201cbelonging\u201d before \u201cbecoming\u201d i.e. practicing the things of Christianity before actually accepting them.\u00a0 Paul\u2019s formula for \u201cthe righteousness which is of the law\u201d (Rom 10:5) is \u201cthat the man which doeth those things shall live by them\u201d (taken from Lev 18:5) rather than the New Testament order of faith before works.\u00a0 Liberal Christianity has always down-played personal conversion and focused on teaching a person to try to live the Christian life.\u00a0 The seeker-sensitive model is to bring the lost person into the church first with a lot of \u201cChristian\u201d activity, and then hope that conversion will follow.<\/p>\n

The simple Christian life with its walk of faith, not of sight, has no appeal to this carnal world (nor should it).\u00a0 But a religious life of good works with a lot of activity to keep the contemplation at a minimum appeals a great deal.\u00a0 Baptists, of all believers, have been champions of a simple, direct New Testament form of worship. Even D.A. Carson says \u201cThe emerging folk have reversed the order.\u00a0 Invite people to belong, welcome them aboard, take them into your story, and the \u2018becoming\u2019 may follow\u201d (p. 146).\u00a0 Then, sadly, he adds, \u201cOver against this \u2018Believers Church Tradition\u2019 to which they are normally thought to belong, some Baptists are now openly advocating belonging before becoming\u201d (p. 147).\u00a0 That\u2019s because a desire for popularity will always gravitate to the base desires of the lost which will always be a works-based salvation, what Paul calls \u201cthe righteousness which is of the law.\u201d Ironically, this becomes the real \u201clegalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The Reversal of the Fundamentals from a Century Ago<\/h3>\n

Having read the entire set of The Fundamentals last year, I\u2019m convinced that many who think they are still in that mold are not, whether they still choose to use the title or not.\u00a0 As I have written before, the most obvious reversal in thinking is the misconception that these volumes present an irreducible minimum of doctrines that make one a \u201cfundamentalist.\u201d\u00a0 The opposite is true.\u00a0 They propose that all of the Bible must be defended against the modernists who were minimizing almost all parts of it for rationalistic reasons.\u00a0 To minimize parts of it today for pragmatic reasons is no less (and perhaps more) dangerous.<\/p>\n

I made a list of references from The Fundamentals that speak to almost all of the concepts in the EPIC outline above.\u00a0 Space keeps me from being detailed.\u00a0 My intention was to illustrate how far we\u2019ve moved away from what our forefathers in the faith defended.\u00a0 One example would be from Howard Crosby on \u201cPreach the Word.\u201d He writes,\u00a0 \u201cChurches are filled by appealing to carnal desires and aesthetic tastes.\u00a0 Brilliant oratory, scientific music, sensational topics and fashionable pewholders, are the baits to lure people into the churches, and a church is called prosperous as these wretched devices succeed\u201d (Vol. III, p. 169-170).<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also read (and reviewed) the volumes on The Fundamental Baptist Congresses fifty years after that.\u00a0 They are not as detailed nor doctrinal as The Fundamentals but still show the same true fundamentalism.\u00a0 Now, at another fifty year interval, we need another world-wide voice for the fundamentals of our faith.\u00a0 As one said of those early days, \u201cThere were giants in the land in those days.\u201d\u00a0 They were truly men who stood against the world and cared not for its praises.\u00a0 God help us to have some today.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\n

Notes:<\/address>\n
1. D.A. Carson, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church (Grand Rapids:\u00a0 Zondervan, 2005).<\/address>\n
2. Douglas Groothuis, \u201cFacing the Challenge of Postmodernism,\u201d in To Everyone An Answer, edited by J.P. Moreland and others (Downer\u2019s Grove, IVP, 2004).<\/address>\n
3. Millard Erickson, Truth or Consequences: the promise and perils of postmodernism (Downer\u2019s Grove: IVP, 2001).<\/address>\n
4. Leonard Sweet, Post-Modern Pilgrims (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2000).<\/address>\n
5. Carson, 126.<\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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