Archive for December, 2006

One of the most popular emerging buzz-words is authentic. Being authentic is an important goal for emerging churches and Christians alike. This is basically a reaction against two things – commercialised church and super-spiritual Christians. Emergents are tired of churches who are so eager to grow that their services turn into slick marketing campaigns and their rhetoric sounds increasingly like political spin. And they are tired of “keeping up appearances”, never admitting to doubts or personal battles with sin.

By contrast the authentic Christian is willing to reveal their own weaknesses, failings and doubts. The church is not led by a super-hero personality, but by an ordinary person being “real” about their own emotions and battles. The authentic church is not afraid to discuss the difficult issues – (e.g. why is prayer not always answered) – and seeks to be honest about the trials of the Christian life.

I stumbled across this blurb for a new book called “Blind Spots in the Bible” by Adrian Plass. I don’t know if he identifies with the emerging church or not, but I have emphasised a couple of phrases which typify the “authentic” approach:

“Adrian Plass approaches 40 ‘blind spots’ in the Bible with honest comment and quirky insights. … Although not offering easy answers, Adrian Plass opens up over 40 blind spots, asking searching questions and responding from his own vulnerable honesty.”

The implications for mission are significant. Rather than bringing non-Christian friends to church and hoping that they will be impressed by how “vibrant” or “powerful” it is, the authentic Christian hopes they will be impressed by the quality and depth of community forged by people who are willing to be true about who they really are. It is into this non-threatening environment that the seeker themselves feels able to join without feeling condemned for who they are. Sin can be confessed without fear of being rejected and excluded.

Of course, the emerging church does not have a monopoly on the word “authentic”. Many evangelicals have written about living an authentic Christian life, often emphasising the need for integrity. It is sad that many in the emerging church are former evangelicals who have become disillusioned with what they see as a lack of authenticity within evangelicalism. The New Testament authors themselves display a commendable measure of authenticity in the way they warn Christians of the real struggles and difficulties they will face. The glamourised and idealised picture of the Christian life presented by some best-selling modern authors is not one that finds its basis in the Bible.

So we can say that the desire to be authentic is one that evangelicals should be welcoming. Let us strive for more openness and honesty between us. Let us beware of trying to wow people with amazing church services, and make sure that underneath there is a real quality of community and relationships. Let us make sure our fine-sounding words are backed up with actions. And let us be more supportive of those who are willing to admit to their doubts and struggles, while at the same time not creating an environment where we make peace with sin.

So here is the first section in my series that tries to explain the good and the bad of the emerging church to my evangelical friends who are struggling to understand what it is all about.

The most obvious place to start in explaining the emerging movement is by saying that emerging churches are either post-modern, or post-modern friendly. At the very least they recognise that we are living in an increasingly post-modern culture, and the church by and large has failed to reach a post-modern generation with the gospel. To be post-modern is to approach truth in a subjective rather than an objective way. So while a modernist mindset is supremely confident about the “absolute facts” we know (either from science, or in Christian circles, from the Bible), the post-modernists view this as not just arrogant, but unwarranted, as we must doubt our own ability to discern absolute truth, and accept that others may come to differing conclusions which we must also accept as valid.

There is of course a good and bad side to this. It is important for Christians to be humble, and to acknowledge that we don’t know it all. Most every Christian looks back at times when their ideas were different to those they hold now. And many fundamentalists have tended to view themselves almost as infallible interpreters of the Bible, so any Christian who doesn’t see a passage in exactly the same way as they do is denounced as holding to aberrant theology.

In contrast, emerging Christians prefer to emphasise that we are all on a spiritual journey, with much to learn. When it comes to the Bible, they like to point out that none of us approaches it neutrally, or is an infallible interpreter of it, and thus we should not hold intransigently to our doctrinal positions. More progressive emergents will emphasise the fallibility of the Biblical authors themselves and are some are even willing to flatly contradict some passages of Scripture. This has meant that standard evangelical positions on issues such as biblical inerrancy, hell, homosexuality, justification, gender roles and the atonement are coming under sustained criticism.

We must also note that the writers of Scripture were supremely confident of what they believed. They were sure that Jesus had risen from the dead and would return again. They were equally sure that the Scriptures contained God’s very word, to be believed and obeyed. Whilst they would have readily acknowledged the need for humility and a teachable spirit, it is hard to imagine them being as “generous” towards those of radically differing viewpoints as some emerging leaders would have us be. (n.b. This emerging “generosity” sadly seems to be extended to almost anyone except evangelicals at times)

It might also be questioned whether post-modernism is compatible with Christianity at all. After all, post-modernism is highly suspicious of “meta-narratives”. That is to say that it rejects the idea that we can know the “big picture” that explains life, the universe and everything. But the Bible does just that, explaining where we came from, why things are the way they are, and where we are going. It is at this point that emerging Christians pick up on ideas such as N T Wright’s “improvised fifth act”. This is where Wright in essence argues that the Bible should not be thought of like a script for a play where we as actors are given our lines to memorise and repeat verbatim, but a script for the first four acts of a play, where we as actors must improvise a fifth act. We seek to go through uncharted territory, while remaining faithful to what has gone before. Naturally this allows for a variety of improvisations to be equally valid.

So the emerging mindset is certainly not “modernist”, but is not quite “post-modern” in the fullest sense. I suspect many in the emerging movement would align themselves with Alister McGrath and N T Wright in adopting a philosophy of “critical realism“. This allows them to hold that there really is objective truth out there to be believed, while at the same time acknowledging the very real role our human perception plays as we seek to discover it.

So in summary, the emerging movement calls for:

Humility concerning our own human fallibility

and Generosity towards Christians from other traditions who see things differently

Evangelicals would not on the whole disagree with either of these ideals, so long as there is equal commitment to…
Confidence in the Bible as the word of God
and Caution about jettisoning long-held orthodox doctrinal positions simply because they do not fit with the post-modern mood