Thursday, February 07, 2008
Is Emergent Christianity DOA?
Bishop John Shelby Spong’s makes an important observation about our faith in the title of his best selling book “Christianity Must Change or Die”. Emergent could be a catalyst for the change that saves our religion. On the other hand, Emergent could become a fleeting fad if it refuses to make real change due to our apprehension about asking hard theological questions. I have a few questions for our movement. As the Emergent movement dips its toe in the water of higher biblical criticism, will we stand shivering on the shore in fear of taking the big plunge? If Emergent begins this journey by marking certain topics out of bounds based on the fear of going too far, will we be destined to fizzle like a flat bottle of soda?
I’ve been involved in this emergent conversation for several years, but I’m constantly learning more about the movement. Recently, I’ve had an ongoing debate with Emergent Village national coordinator Tony Jones. Tony has publicly voiced his criticism of scholars, like Marcus Borg, who are open to questioning certain traditional dogmatic beliefs, for example a literal interpretation of Jesus’ resurrection narratives. In addition, Tony criticized Jack Caputo for being too specific about his own personal theological and political positions in the book “What Would Jesus Deconstruct? The Good News of Postmodernism”. Tony would prefer to keep the conversation at 30,000 feet rather than being specific and landing the plane. I understand Tony’s apprehension and I totally admire what he has written and said, but I disagree with this implication. If we can’t share our deep theological and philosophical views in detail, then what kind of shallow conversation would that create? Have we lost all hope of civil discourse? Should we enter every conversation with a fear of saying anything specific just because it might mean we will need to live with diversity? Isn't there a better alternative?
I hope Emergents are not afraid to move from the sidelines and develop independent opinions even if we all disagree. A generous orthodoxy does not mean our individual orthodoxy should be MIA. I also hope we will take specific actions. The idea of keeping the conversation ambiguous seems horribly doomed to fail. I agree that the conversation should be inclusive and generous, but we should not ask people to be intentionally vague in order to avoid criticism or conflict. That is sick! At some point, someone has to land the plane. It might mean we get called a liberal. Worse things could happen. The apostle Paul had a different metaphor. Paul suggested that at some point we must take up our cross and die. If Jesus had stayed at 30,000 feet, then he would never have marched to the capital and said the very liberal things that got him killed.
What do you think?
14 comments:
I share your concern. I am really new to the entire emergent discussion and I was shocked actually to see how the word postmodern is used about like a brand name or governing idea. My question to that is "What kind of postmodernism?" "What does it look like?"
In my more than average research into postmodern theories the problem with it is that it ends in rather un-constructive ambiguity as you indicate.
I think that critical theory needs to be introduced into the theoretical makeup as a much needed corrective in order for this emergent plane to land. I sense that it continues to be in a strange loopy holding pattern where ideas and words are used a lot, but the pragmatic piece of what it looks like almost seems an afterthought in so much of what I have read and heard.
So with you, I like it, but I want to see more radical reconstruction happen without fear of the liberal or orthodox labels being applied to one's theological actualization. Critical theory makes sense since it demands a restructuring of meaning as it deconstructs a current form of meaning.
As someone who is drawn to the emergent movement, but serving at a church that is about as far from it as you can get, I can only speek as an outsider, but...
I think the problem is that many people who are so attracted to the emergent movement are attracted because they have had people label them as outsiders in their own faith for what they believed (or, more often, did not believe). They don't want to exclude others for this reason.
I (like many) am totally turned off by pre-millenial eschatology. It is hurtful and harmful and does a disservice to scripture and God's plan for this world. But for a long time my rejection of pre-millenialism was enough for me. I didn't want to come up with another option so I ignored eschatology completely. But now I'm realizing that that is not healthy either.
Sometimes, what happens is that we need to allow the deconstruction of the current models to happen. Then we need to live in that new deconstructed place for a while (and find ourselves uncomfortable with it) and then we can begin to construct new models that can better reach the culture around us. The problem is that the deconstruction is by far the easiest part of this process.
That is an interesting point Gavin. I suspect that deconstruction is a process of breaking down whatever structure is right in front of you at the moment. For example, many young evangelical type Emergents are deconstructing small things like atonement theories right now, but the idea of deconstructing the incarnation or even theism is just too far away for them. They may need to knock down the wall of one doctrine at a time. In the mean time, they may have harsh reactions to those who desire to jump right to the end and deconstruct the whole thing.
I guess the main point is to give people the right balance of freedom and support as they work through these tough questions. That is what I hope Emergent becomes.
You know, it's interesting, most people as they head to Seminary find themselves at a point where their faith is questioned. Now this isn't always true with the ultra conservative seminaries, but it seems to be true with most of my pastor friends. We all have a crisis of faith when something that we took as word-of-God-truth comes into question. For some, it is the process by which we received the Bible, for others it is the possibility that the Timothy book may not have really been written by Paul, for others it is coming in contact, real contact, with people of other faiths. But we are all forced to deconstruct some of what we've come to believe.
Now, thankfully for me, the Bible College I went to (Trinity Lutheran College in WA) and then the seminary (North Park Seminary in IL) were both safe places to ask difficult questions. But even still, there are certain questions that you aren't supposed to ask. It is okay to flirt with universalism (because we all want it to be true, it makes God seem so much nicer) but there are other things that are more off limits.
I do believe that it is important to give people a safe place to ask these questions, though. If you are ostricized(sp?) for questioning your faith, you will probably find yourself throwing out the baby with the bathwater. So, I, like you, hope to see the emergent movement as a safe place for people to ask their questions. Even ones that an 'orthodox' believer wouldn't dare ask.
But you also have to realize that we all have different comfort levels when confronting the unknown. Some can go right up to the edge of a cliff and look right over, others have to inch up to it a little bit at a time, still others don't want to be in a place where they can see where the cliff is. In a way, we need to respect people where they are in relation to that cliff.
Nice pastorly advice Gavin. Thanks for taking the time to respond.
"It is okay to flirt with universalism (because we all want it to be true, it makes God seem so much nicer) but there are other things that are more off limits.
That is pure gold! It summarizes the current state of emergent perfectly.
Mike:
This is becoming shocking to me. Really.
What I said about Borg in the book was that, in my estimation, his mythological understanding of the resurrection narratives will not be compelling to emergents.
And I did NOT criticize Jack. That post was more of a personal lament about what happens when one comes out of the ivory tower and makes plain statements about what one believes. I've obviously done that on many occasions, including my recent public endorsement of Barack Obama.
Frankly, it's surprising to me how you continue to misunderstand what I'm writing. No one else is coming to the conclusions you are, or else I'd really be worried about my ability to communicate.
Tony,
I've heard you have this conversation (directly or indirectly) with several people. Diana Butler Bass, Me, Jack Caputo, Marcus Borg. Non-literal appraoches to CERTAIN stories and specific (liberal) politics clearly push the wrong buttons for you. You are going to have to own up to that because it is a recurring theme.
I think my "lament" of your comment is fair. All these issues you've had with liberals are probably due to the over generalization of their views. You've often tried to force all of them into a stereotype of modern liberalism that only exists as a straw man. Militant liberals may exist somewhere in some form, but these are not those people.
FYI.... straw man is a metaphor in case you missed it!
In hindsight I was making the same mistake when I over generalized your views as "pre-enlightenment literalism". The lesson I've learned is to stop making those generl statements. Each person is very different than any theological stereotype.
I will conceed that your response is not alone. I have a guy in my group who is more conservative. So when he went to Brian's lectures in Charlotte his response was that the whole thing was simply bowing to the alter of the democratic party. I see how he could think that. It is pretty hard to love your neighbor, act justly, and care for the poor without sounding like a liberal and therefore a democrat.
I'd like to keep working on this. Feel free to explain where I've missed the boat on your views.
Tony can speak for himself (and he has!). As far as I'm concerned, the emerging church CONVERSATION (and that label, over and against 'movement' is part of what makes me 'a part of it') is helpful precisely because it brings together people who don't agree, but who are open.
The conversation must be temporary. You can't have a conversation about the same things for 50 years (well, you can, but the people involved might get tired).
McLaren introduced me to some interesting ideas as a part of this conversation, and liberal scholars (e.g. Borg, Crossan) obviously have tremendous things to say. But personally, I feel like I've conversed about just about everything, and come to conclusions about some of the more important stuff. And so I've become a Mennonite. I still believe in the Trinity, the Resurrection of Jesus [in the 'literal' sense, though I'm troubled I even have to make that distinction] and so forth.
Critical engagement with critical scholarship is essential to where I now find myself, and I remain open to being shown where I'm wrong, but when it comes time to live in one way or another, I have to refer back to some solid hard beliefs (even if they're potentially revisable in light of strong evidence).
Am I making sense?
Peace,
-Daniel-
Thanks for jumping in Daniel. You and I have had this conversation many times. I'm very grateful the CONVERSATION includes us both. Your perspective as a pacifist (and now Mennonite) is so valuable to the dialogue. You've challenged me in a very positive way.
I would like you to expand what you mean by:
"[in the 'literal' sense, though I'm troubled I even have to make that distinction]".
Are you yourself troubled over the theology or are you troubled that you have to defend it?
My experience with many 'emergents' has been that most are evangelicals trying to rescue ideas that sound absurd to the modern mind. It is as if the post-modern science wars of the nineties suddenly allowed an avenue to criticize the modern impulse against supernaturalism.
I was initially attracted to the emergent conversation because I was tired of the obvious leaning to the political right within the envangelical community and I had theological questions. But when I unloaded questions about the nature of God, Jesus, etc. I had to move on because most emergents that I've come across demand orthodoxy.
Thanks for the comment Pat. I agree, however I still have a great deal of respect for Emergent and people like Brian McLaren and Tony Jones. I consider myself one of them despite our differences.
1) they are great people
2) their message is tailored in a way that won't offend Evangelicals that are new to biblical criticism. I hope the message goes further, but they are doing what is best right now for that audience.
I hope people like you don't run away from Emergent. It needs your voice. More extreme views help keep the debate honest and open.
Borg does not say that you have to accept his take on the mythological character of the resurrection. If you want to believe that Jesus was literally, physically resurrected from the dead, as far as I know, Borg says go right ahead and believe it. Instead, his point is that, literal or not, what really matters is the deeper meaning that lies behind those resurrection narratives, and that is what he explores in his books. I am sure that conservatives will not buy into that, since they think that it does matter whether you believe in a literal resurrection, and their interpretation of the deeper meaning of the resurrection probably doesn't jibe with Borg's. But the point is that Borg doesn't tell others that they have to share his viewpoint on whether the resurrection was a historical event, and many who are perhaps moderate Christians and who might share Borg's take on the deeper meaning even if they take the resurrection literally might accept that Borg isn't telling them what to believe on that subject.
"their message is tailored in a way that won't offend Evangelicals that are new to biblical criticism. I hope the message goes further, but they are doing what is best right now for that audience"
What do you mean by further? It seems to imply that "further" equals better. How is that different from the way I (wrongly) use the word "just" in my comments?
Jen,
It means that eventually we will have open honest discussion. Right now, it may have to be limited so it doesn't offend evangelicals. I appreciate McLaren for being more gentle. On the other hand I appreciate Borg for being honest about sharing his views and not hiding or softening them.
McLaren could be like Galileo and Darwin. He could just hold a mirror up to christianity and say, "look you guys missed the boat". But he takes a more gentle approach knowing that one day it will be more acceptable, but for now we may need to go half way.
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