The Death Knell for the Emergent Church Movement (I) [Ron]

A Movement Begins a Slow but Certain Death

Bad theology usually manifests itself in an attack on the ordinary means of grace that God gave to the Church of Jesus Christ. We also need to understand that when such an attack occurs, it is not an isolated event. Rather, it extends its tentacles across a wide range of biblical truths and everything-either directly or indirectly-becomes infected, tainted. Whatever the current language of the attack is-either frontal or subtle-we should not spend a lot of time attempting to "appreciate" what precious little good in found in the movement itself.

By and large, when the attacks occur, people spend a lot of time giving "left-handed" compliments to the attackers, especially if they come from an evangelical church. This is akin, in a church setting, to Americans walking on eggshells around the politically correct crowd. We end up explaining ourselves out of existence and trying to say something "nice" about the movement/attackers. Surely, there's nothing inherently incorrect with being winsome and kind. Wherever possible we should be winsome. For example, when I read Paul Tillich's Systematic Theology I concluded that it had a "nice" dust cover.

When it comes to the Emergent Church Movement, I hear things such as "Brian McLaren has a wonderful writing style" or "Donald Miller is quite humorous" or "Anne Lamott is a thought-provoking author." The same things could be said of Ernest Hemingway, Jeff Foxworthy, or Karl Marx. Even in my own Presbyterian Church of America circles I've read some articles recently that tend to make the ECM seem attractive without warning the readers about some of the Neo- and non-orthodox elements in this movement-and to keep with a biblical phrase: they are legion.

For the life of me, I cannot fathom why any orthodox theologian would spend time extolling the humor and erudition of a movement without, at the same time, drawing attention to some of its obvious, glaring, egregious flaws. In chapter 33 of Ezekiel's prophecy there is a graphic depiction of the watchman on the tower. If he sees the "sword coming upon the land" and warns the people and they continue to march, then their blood will be upon their own heads. But, if he sees danger coming and fails to issue the clarion call, the blood of the people will be upon the watchman's head. As a pastor/teacher is take this biblical admonition seriously-very seriously.

In addition, I have always been struck by what Paul said to the elders in Ephesus in Acts 20:17-38. One of the most striking verses in that section of Scripture is verse 24: "But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my source and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God." The gospel is more precious than life itself. Moreover, there is but one gospel (cf. Gal. 3:6-9).

I'm telling you this because it is beginning to "emerge" from the Emergent Church Movement that Scripture is not held in high esteem. Oh, the leaders say that it is, but their actions and supposed innovations point in a different direction. We should have known for the longest time-from the inception of the movement-that people like McLaren, Miller, Lamott and others were not particularly enthralled with the Word of God written.

The Bible as "Story"

The latest shenanigan of the movement is to speak of the Bible not as the Word of God, but as "God's story." The argument runs something like this: "The real Word of God is Jesus, not the Bible; that's what John 1:1 teaches." I chuckled a little as I read a recent email about his very subject. The ECM adherents claim that this paradigm shift in no way changes their views on inerrancy or the authority of the Bible or does it deny the fact that Scripture is working in their heart.

The jargon here is over the top. For an ecclesial tribe that doesn't want to get hung up in all the traditional theological "stuff" the ECM is becoming highly jargonal and is attempting to dazzle us with it fancy footwork-something like the Ali shuffle with The Message in your hands. Let me explain why this new development was so predictable and, at the same time, so non-creative.
There is, in the ECM, an explicit and implicit dependence upon the Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, who is best known for his magnum opus Die kirchliche Dogmatik. In I/1 (Die Lehre vom Wort Gottes-The Doctrine of the Word of God), Barth's fourth paragraph (§) is entitled Das Wort Gottes in seiner dreifachen Gestalt-The Word of God in its Threefold Form. Barth delineates the preached, written, and revealed Word of God. Of course, Jesus is the revealed Word. In the fourth sub-section of this paragraph, Barth speaks about the unity (Einheit) of the Word of God.

This can sound pretty orthodox until you stop and recall that in his 1919 edition of his commentary on the book of Romans (Römerbrief) Barth revealed his view of Scripture. It is not the Word of God, but becomes the Word of God when the Holy Spirit works in and through it. The Word of God written becomes God's Word in the event of preaching. "It does not become God's Word because we accord it faith but in the fact that it becomes revelation to us…. [T]he Bible must become again and again His Word to us."

In other words, Barth rejects the notion of equating the Bible with revelation. He writes, "The direct identification between revelation and the Bible which is in fact at issue is not one that we can presuppose or anticipate. It takes place as an event when and where the biblical word becomes God's Word, i.e., when and where the biblical word comes into play as a word of witness..."

Many of the technical theologians in the ECM are openly dependent on Barth (McClendon, Franke) so it should come as no surprise that they have adopted his views on Scripture with some modifications here and there. It is, however, somewhat ironic that when evangelical Christianity embraced the mega-church movement they maintained a high (intellectual) view of the Bible. In the decades where little more than the themes of the "love of God" and "Jesus died for everyone" it's no wonder that knowledge of and respect for the scriptures diminished-drastically.

Now with the pendulum swinging in the direction of the ECM, prestigious publishers such as Baker in Grand Rapids announce, with joy, that they will be publishing a number of the ECM authors (you just cannot help but wonder where the line is between integrity and profit margin). While the mega-church movement at least held to a formal view of inerrancy and infallibility, we should not be at all surprised that some of the leaders of this movement will begin to tinker with their statements concerning the Bible. Let me give you a few examples of what I mean.

In November 2004, Christianity Today (or Astray) carried an article on the Emergent Church Movement. The author, Andy Crouch, focuses the article on the Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids and Brian McLaren.

Crouch describes the ECM as "Frequently urban, disproportionately young, overwhelming white, and very new…" The worship style is "startlingly improvisational" affecting "everything from worship to leadership to preaching to prayer." What struck me as odd in Crouch's article was his comment that Rob Bell, the pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church is the only pastor to have begun a mega-church-planting career with a sermon series from the book of Leviticus. That's not odd, but he described his experience at Bell's worship service as "more conventional" since Bell was preaching on "the story of Jesus rebuking Peter for drawing his sword in the Garden of Gethsemane." How could a writer for CT find the Old Testament "unconventional," which is the clear implication?

Bell told Crouch that "after launching Mars Hill in 1999, they (Bob and his wife Kristen) found themselves increasingly uncomfortable with church." At this point I must admit that I don't have the foggiest clue what that means. What possible significant implication can it have that I am "uncomfortable" with church? One scenario could be that the pastor is preaching sermons that convict me of my sin and I feel uncomfortable. That's a good thing; a very good thing. In keeping with the ECM, Kristen remains vague. Here is her description: "Life in the church had become so small. It had worked for me for a long time. Then it stopped working." What in the world is that supposed to mean? It worked? How did it work? Did it go on strike?

Whatever happened, the Bells did the unthinkable: They "started questioning their assumptions about the Bible itself." Uh-oh. This is like playing the Sesame Street game of "What Happens Next?" The Bells began looking at "the Bible as a human product…rather than the product of divine fiat." Surprise! Surprise! Rob explains, "The Bible is still the center for us, but it's a different kind of center." No further explanation? That's it? A different kind of center is like a square circle. It's in the center, but it isn't. Cute. Cutting edge. It's the sound of one hand clapping-in the center that's the center except it isn't the center. Got it? Continuing Rob says, "We want to embrace mystery, rather than conquer it." I'm guessing that he means the mystery of the Trinity or predestination. Yeah, right.

Fortunately, Kristen had a "lucid interval" in her thought processes and gives us this profound thought of the day: "I grew up thinking that we've figured out the Bible, that we knew what it means. Now I have no idea what most of it means. And yet I feel like life is big again-like life used to be black and white, and now it's in color." What a helpful statement for a pastor's wife to make. One can only imagine what pearls of wisdom she'll be rolling down the floor to the younger women once she's older. Our guest speaker this morning is Mrs. Kristen Bell, our beloved pastor's wife. She'll be addressing us on the topic: We Have No Idea What Most of the Bible Means. The NBC peacock shows up and announces that the talk will be given in living color.

Crouch's assessment is almost as ludicrous: "The more I talk with the Bells, the more aware I am that they are telling me a conversion narrative-not a story of salvation in the strict sense, but of having been delivered from a small life into a big life." I know that's in the Bible somewhere, but it's probably my problem that I can't find it because I'm reading the authoritative black and white version. How did this cataclysmic change in their lives occur? It was reading Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian. In our next issue, we'll delve more deeply into what McLaren says in his book.

Read Part Two