Catalyst #2: The gospel that emergents heard as children they believe is a caricature of Paul's teaching--Brian McLaren (often seen as the poster-child for the movement) calls it "Paulianity." The re-discovery of Jesus' teaching about the kingdom and the poor and life changing here and now (not just salvation when you die) creates a tension--if this is what Jesus talked about, why don't we talk about it, too? Why aren't we preaching Jesus' message? This message is often more political and social and global in its' scope.
Huzzah!
Taking Jesus' life and his teaching seriously is a very, very good thing.
This past week I read something from John Piper, a leader and pace-setter in many corners of evangelicalism--and someone who was very influential in my own life earlier in my ministry.
He was talking about his new sermon series starting this fall through the gospel of John. One of the reasons why he's excited? He's never preached through a gospel before. This is a man who's been preaching for several decades. He always preaches straight through books of Scripture. He's never once had his people sit in the life and teachings of Jesus. He's never once preached through a gospel.
It's just one story, but I think it's indicative of how many baby-boomer generation Christians approached the Scriptures...and it's exactly this type of thing that Emergents are pushing back against. Without looking at what Jesus preached, how can we be preaching the whole gospel?
The victory here is that the Emergents are calling the evangelical church to take seriously this world and issues that matter here and now, including systemic evils, poverty, racism, etc.
The Danger
But boo! to repeating an old mistake made last century! In the early 20th century, the liberal church liked Jesus' social gospel message and made that the whole of their preaching. The more conservative churches were wary of the social gospel and made their priority "winning souls."
We've already been down this weary road of a false bifurcation between Jesus and Paul. The Emergents are simply over-reacting to a previous over-reaction in evangelicalism.
And their Jesus, inasmuch as I can see, is a very truncated one. No one talks more about hell than Jesus does--issues of eternity matter to Jesus. Jesus never once says the word "grace" in all four gospels. Everything we know about grace comes from the rest of the New Testament that unpacks the work and life of Christ in extremely important ways that cannot be ignored--especially the meaning and purpose of Christ's death and resurrection.
And here, as Scot McKnight points out in his article, is a very weak spot in the thinking of Emergent thought. The cross and the resurrection have a very small role to play beyond a model or an example. Again, we've been down this road before.
As N.T. Wright points out, throughout the Scriptures God acts and then his people interpret his activity: the crossing of the Red Sea, crossing the Jordan River, the death and resurrection of Christ, all require Spirit-led people to interpret and apply meaning and purpose. This is the point of the rest of the New Testament--and why it matters that we read past the gospel of John into the rest of the Scriptures.
C.S. Lewis argued that all the hardest and most overwhelming things that are said in the Bible come from Jesus' mouth. Many of the most comforting and relieving things said come from his interpreters. It is a false, flat caricature of Jesus to make him warm-fuzzy, social-justice only guy.
The Verdict
I am glad for people in and around the evangelical movement calling us to take Jesus seriously. I am less excited about the negation of the rest of the New Testament in doing so. There is no need to choose between these two.
We can have both Jesus' teachings on "the kingdom" which shapes our understanding of what life under Christ's rule is to look like AND the writing of the rest of the New Testament that helps us to understand the purpose and meaning behind the death and resurrection of Christ.
In fact, author Dallas Willard is an evangelical giant who has spent much of the last twenty years doing just that. For folks who would like to see a more fully "whole" gospel worked out, I'd highly recommend his book Divine Conspiracy.
4 comments:
So, a couple of things:
1. Could you define a little more clearly your definition of the "Emergent Church"? Just want to make sure I know who you're talking about when you say "the Emergents".
2. I followed the "Emergent Church" link that you had in the post "8 Catalysts," and the first thing I saw there was information about a conference they are holding in 2008 entitled "Reclaiming Paul." Seems like they haven't completely tossed the rest of the New Testament.
I likewise don't see an entire tossing of the rest of the NT, but maybe it's just because I take some emerging people and lumped them with the true Emergent people and ideas.
I really think there's a lot more people out there that are emerging than Emergent, and among those people, I really do hear about a holistic gospel. The emerging (not Emergent) people I know already read Dallas Willard and N.T. Wright along with Rob Bell (who isn't technically Emergent, I don't think, but is further in that direction...) and Brian McLauren. I do think some people that want to distance themselves from the more personal side of the gospel are attracted to the Emergent church, but honestly, I think for most of them it's going to be a brief stopping point rather than the place they stay. I think they are already--on their own--either exploring theologically and are either going to come back "to the middle" so to speak (back to the mainstream of the emerging church in fellowship with the larger evangelical world) after some time of reflection and exploration OR are on their way out of Christianity (or at least evangelicalism) anyway. I don't think that potential movement away from Christianity and the whole gospel is something the Emergent church is at fault for--I think it's happening to certain jaded individuals, and the Emergent movement just happens to be there for them as well as for more committed followers of Jesus (which I do believe legitimately exist within the Emergent church, even if their own issues with evangelicalism sometimes taint the way they communicate their ideas).
On the other hand, I haven't really spent time in Emergent circles, so this is speaking from the outside--totally just ignorant conjecture.
great stuff, amanda and ash. thanks for your comments!
amanda, it's tough to nail down emergent because it's more of a school of thought than a denomination. but it's a group of folks who grew up evangelical and are re-forming core evangelical beliefs (especially about Scripture and what "salvation" is). there's a lot of different variations of the themes that we're talking about here.
re: the Paul conference. yeah, it'll be interesting to see how that shakes out: who are they reclaiming Paul from and in what sort of categories are they trying to re-shape his writings?
I probably over-stated the whole "chuck the rest of the NT" thing here in this post. clearly emergents aren't getting rid of all the rest of the Bible. they're simply moving the primacy of the teaching away from the interpretation of the cross and resurrection towards Jesus' life and teaching. Not a bad move! But when it becomes an either/or vs. a both/and, i get a little uneasy.
ash, i think that your comments are right on in terms of who's atrracted to this movement and why.
thanks for the thoughts!
Funny--I never read the comments, but I was googling for any post-conference online reaction, and found these. Hilarious--your own bro is participating in the "Reclaiming Paul" conference; why you gotta be all dubious about it? :)
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