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We
have been studying Postmodernism for twenty years. 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. In 1996, James White
proposed, “Now a new tidal wave, called by the scholars postmodernity, is
sweeping across Western thought, undermining the very idea of absolute truth.
What should be the response of the Christian church in the face of these waves
of philosophical attack?”1 In 1999, Dan Story wrote, “This
post-Christian and postmodern world holds to the premise that there are no
absolute truths that apply to everyone equally. Christianity and Christian
ethics are no longer relevant. 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.”2
Non-Christians were often more pointed in their criticisms of postmodernism than
Christians. Alan Wolfe, in the October 2000 issue of
The Atlantic Monthly, wrote,
“Postmodernism exercises such a fascination over the evangelical mind, I
believe, because of the never-ending legacy of fundamentalism. 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.”3
This observation was truly prophetic! Today, evangelicalism in the name of
“emergence,” has distanced itself so far from its fundamental roots that it is
embracing postmodernism rather than standing firm in conservative, historic
Christianity.
Brian
McLaren, probably the most prolific emerging church writer, flatly promotes
leaving the old structures and passionately embracing the postmodern culture.
“Even an agnostic or an atheist, then, can see the need for new kinds of
churches in the new world—churches 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.”4
Typically, these emergent writers have little sympathy or courtesy for
conservative Christianity.
A Definition
Dan
Kimball in his book, Emerging Worship:
Creating Worship Gatherings for New Generations,5
gives a revealing definition of “emerging” church worship. In the first chapter
of his book, he takes the reader back to Genesis 4 with the worship of Cain and
Abel. 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. Here he stops to show that we
have “read about how worship emerged not just in the Temple in Jerusalem, but
everywhere, with incense and pure offerings brought to God. The paradigm of
worship shifts again” (p. 8). The next paragraph begins, “The New Testament is
full of emerging worship” (p. 8).
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. But no! 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. His fantastic conclusion is, “So, as our current
culture moves from a modern to postmodern world, it is only natural that new
forms of worship are arising. . . . It doesn’t mean previous forms of worship
are invalid; just that new expressions are emerging—and will continue to emerge”
(p. 9). In other words, even the New Testament was a passing (“emerging”)
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.
If
that sounds too fantastic, listen to McLaren:
The new church does not view the New Testament as a “New Leviticus”—a law book
of strict rules—nor as a fixed, detailed blueprint to be applied to all churches
in all cultures across time. 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. 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. The key word is adaptability.6
In a
similar vein, Leonard Sweet says, “Jesus is the Truth. Truth resides in
relationships, not documents or principles. The Gospels don’t teach us about
Jesus as principle but Jesus as person. The power of a logo is that it
transmutes image into identity, creating the very thing it symbolizes. In
Jesus, the logos and logo became one. Not until the fourteenth century (at the
earliest) did truth become embedded in propositions and positions.”7
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.
Correct Observations
There
are a few things that the emerging church proponents have correctly noticed.
First, this is a postmodern generation.
Few would disagree that this change from modern to postmodern times has taken
place. The question is not whether we have seen this cultural change happen but
how should we respond biblically? Second,
Modernism was a faulty system of anti-theistic thought. Yes, of course
it was. But the emerging church is claiming that even the form of our
traditional church service came more from modernism than from the New
Testament. 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. Still, however, the emerging church speakers are much
kinder to them than to conservatives. Fourth,
this is a difficult time for conservative, traditional churches. 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. Most of these parents have
not forced their children to do anything they didn’t want to do.
Though
I agree with these four assessments of today’s culture, I also believe the
emerging church followers are responding to every one of them in the wrong way.
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.
Greatest Concerns
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. Loving the brethren and “the
brotherhood” is more than just having sympathy for a wayward believer, much
more. It is loving the people of God! It is loving what they believe, how they
live, and how they worship. Christian history is replete with testimonies of
sinners who have been converted and rescued from their old ways. Kimball calls
his emerging church “refuge camps for bitter Christians that complain against
the organized church” (205). He says that “churchy styling” is “exactly what
English emerging churches are trying to escape from” (216). He also says about
English emerging churches, “So, 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” (209). My point is that a postmodern generation
has boycotted and won! They weren’t about to participate in what the church is,
only in what they want it to be.
My
second concern is from Kimball’s definition (see previous) of the emerging
church. Through his book he refers to the old style as a “Judeo-Christian”
style of church. Of a California church he says they “wanted to develop a
ministry geared to post-Christians growing up without a Judeo-Christian mindset”
(157). Later in the book he says, “Both British and American post-Christians
share in common a culturally implanted worldview that differs from the
traditional Judeo-Christian worldview” (217). In other words, our
“Judeo-Christian” worldview is (was) simply a cultural expression. It can be
replaced overnight by any group of people with a different cultural point of
view. Where is the commitment to doctrine here? Where is the belief in a
prophetic future or even the proper understanding of the church age?
My
third concern is about the emerging worship itself. It is so loaded with
symbolisms that appeal to the five senses that it becomes void of faithful
substance and cognitive processes. 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. 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.
Does all of this appeal to the walk of faith or to the natural man’s limited
world of the flesh? Benjamin Woolley admitted, “Artificial reality is the
authentic postmodern condition, and virtual reality its definitive technological
expression . . . The artificial is the authentic.”8 As to its
evangelistic effectiveness, the discussion of pragmatic methodology has been
covered again and again.
My
fourth concern is that preaching and everything that goes with it is dangerously
minimized or eliminated. Kimball says, “Emerging preachers see themselves as
fellow journeyers. Preaching is no longer an authoritative transferring of
biblical information. Instead, it’s becoming more about spiritual formation and
Kingdom living” (87). 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. Almost anything connected with
preaching is claimed to come from Greek culture and not from the New Testament.
It’s always amazing that this generation has such ability to correct 2000 years
of church history!
The
claim is that we have fallen prey to the “modernism” of the last 200 years and
that what we have called “fundamental” is really an expression of the “modern”
era. Preaching too, they say, is borrowed from that “culture.” Besides being
historically naïve, this is self-contradictory. 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’s. The truth is, these gatherings
are filled with those who never liked church and could never bear to listen to
gospel preaching. Therefore, preaching has been eliminated.
And So . . .
D.A.
Carson aptly asked the question, “Is 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?”9 The answer is becoming more obvious all the time.
Notes:
1. James R. White, The
Roman Catholic Controversy (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1996) 9.
2. Dan Story, Engaging The
Closed Minded (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1999) 9.
3. Alan Wolfe, “The Opening of the Evangelical Mind,”
The Atlantic Monthly, October, 2000.
4. Brian McLaren, The
Church on the Other Side (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000) 14.
5. Dan Kimball, Emerging
Worship (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004) title page.
6. McLaren, p. 23.
7. Leonard Sweet,
Postmodern Pilgrims (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Pub., 2000) 131.
8. Quoted by Douglas Groothuis,
The Soul in CyberSpace (Grand Rapids:
Baker Books, 1997) 27.
9. D.A. Carson, Becoming
Conversant with the Emerging Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005) 44.
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