The last area I want to look at in my consideration of the emerging church is that of politics. I have been dreading this moment – I have to explain something I know almost nothing about. If you follow what the emerging conversation, then you cannot avoid this subject. So here is my idiots guide to American politics…

Basically, in American politics, there are two teams – the red team and the blue team, also known as the Republicans (Red) and Democrats (Blue), right wing conservatives (red) and left wing liberals (blue). The current president, George Bush, is a Republican, and also a Christian. Broadly speaking, evangelical Christians are supporters of the Republican party, probably because their candidates are more likely to oppose abortion and same-sex marriages. These voters are known as the “religious right”. By way of contrast, more liberal Christians have tended to support the Democratic party, probably because of their stance on matters of “human rights”, environmental concerns and opposition to the “war on terror”.

The emergents have proposed that Christians transcend this polarisation with a “purple politics” that supports neither one side nor the other, but supports what is just and right wherever it is found. This certainly sounds a noble aim, but in all my reading of emerging blogs I have found nothing but disdain for Bush (and more generally the “religious right”), which suggests to be that this shade of purple might be considerably more blue than it is red.

Emerging church leaders are concerned that there are a number of key political issues that evangelical Christians have not given enough attention to. For example…

• Concern for the environment
• Fair trade
• Policies that favour the poor – e.g. increased minimum wage, cheaper health care, cheaper education
• Opposition to torture (and death penalty?)
• More restrictive gun control
• Less agressive foreign policy (verging on pacifism in some cases)
• Combatting discrimination (emergents are much less likely to feel threatened by recent gay rights legislation for instance)

A look at the Wikipedia page on the US Democratic party reveals that many of these emerging concerns would cause them to lean towards voting Democrat. So what keeps other evangelicals from supporting this party? I would guess that these policies might be among the chief reasons…

• Believes abortion to be a right
• Likely to support gay marriage
• Full support for stem cell research
• Less inclined to fund or provide tax relief to Christian organisations
• Less likely to support Christian freedoms of public expression of faith (e.g. prayer / teaching creation in schools)

Thankfully the UK world of politics seems less polarised than the American one, and yet Christians here often feel they face the same dilemma – no one party stands for all that we want to stand for, and each party seems to have some policies that are out of sync with Christian values. The emerging church calls Christians to engage in politics again, and to stand for more than just one issue. It is hard to assess how to respond. The church should beware of seeking to gain political power for itself as a means to achieving its ends. And yet at the same time, our evangelical heritage includes a number of Bible-believing Christians who made a difference by getting involved in politics, despite facing much ridicule and opposition. So politics is a subject that I am glad the emerging church has brought back into the “conversation”. The evangelical church will need a lot of wisdom and courage as we consider how we can seek to bring kingdom benefits to the world in a way that does not compromise kingdom values.

I am coming to the close of my series of posts on the emerging church, and now is the time for some real controversy. Despite being a diverse bunch, I think I have identified a number of common doctrinal distinctives of emerging Christians. Interestingly, emergents can rarely be found debating amongst themselves on infant vs believers baptism, cessation or continuation of charismatic gifts, Calvinism vs Arminianism, interpretation of the millennium or about the leadership structure of a local church. These are the sorts of things that evangelicals love to have a debate on, but emergents have their focus elsewhere. Read some emergent blogs, or listen to some emergent sermons and you are bound to come up against one or more of these hot potatoes…

Women – Emerging churches are almost exclusively egalitarian (i.e. no gender distinctions in roles in the church). The complementarian position held by many Reformed evangelicals is considered sexist and shameful. They are not likely to use an exegetical argument to prove their position however, like many egalitarian evangelicals would try to. That would go against the way they approach Scripture. Rather they talk about redemptive trends, or trajectory hermeneutics. In other words, the biblical writers were too timid (or even wrong) when it came to declaring the egalitarian position, but at least they pointed us in the right direction and now thankfully we have got it right.

The Atonement – Evangelicals have happily preached and sung about Christ bearing the punishment for our sins for years, but recently there has been a back-lash from emergent theologians arguing that the doctrine of “penal substitution” is all wrong. Worse than that, some are outraged by the very concept of it, as they see it as portraying a sadistic God. Instead the emerging church argue for “Christus Victor” approach, partly because it removes the distateful concepts of God’s wrath and Jesus being the object of the Father’s punishment, and partly because it claims support from the early church fathers (playing a card that is conspicious by its absence in some of the other issues listed here). This has spilled over into wider debate on the precise meanings of terms such as justification and imputation and perhaps represents the biggest theological battle-ground between conservative evangelicals and emergents.

Hell – Emergent churches are calling into question the evangelical understanding of hell as everlasting conscious punishment, in many ways for similar reasons to those for the atonement – it makes God out to be too nasty in their eyes. There is a range of alternative options, from annihilationism to universalism. They object to evangelism conceived as saving people’s eternal destinies, and stress that salvation is for before death as well as after. Some emerging conversations I have listened to on the internet recently are questioning whether evangelism (i.e. attempting to convert people) is even desirable any more.

Homosexuality – Emerging churches are determined not to be homophobic, which they view evangelicals as being, and emphaisise having an open and “inclusive” attitude. Personally I have never come across an evangelical church that does not claim to want to be welcoming or loving to the homosexual, but they will all make clear that they do not believe practising a homosexual lifestyle is compatible with a Christian confession. Emerging leaders typically refuse to be drawn on whether they view it as a “sin” or not, and some have decided that there is nothing wrong with it at all (I came across a “pro-gay” emerging blogger recently).

Holiness – Evangelicals have typically thought of holiness in terms of maintaining a good devotional life, and avoiding “worldly” sins such as swearing, sexual promiscuity and drunkenness. Emergents on the other hand are glad to shock us with the odd curse in their sermon, and wax lyrical about their love for beer. They see holiness (or “orthopraxy” as they call it) as expressed in issues such as environmentalism, fair trade and lobbying for human rights legislation. Thus there is plenty of scope for emergent and evangelical Christians to doubt the genuine holiness of each other.

Conclusion
There is no doubt that emerging Christians are concerned that evangelicals are portraying a bad image of Christianity. Atheists such as Richard Dawkins for example are attacking the church for being sexist, homophobic, violence loving (because of their views on the atonement and hell), stupid (for believing in young earth creationism) and unconcerned with the environment or human rights. The emerging church can answer on each point “but we’re not like that – its just those unenlightened evangelicals”. So my contentious question for today is, what is driving the emerging church in this direction? How come it seems to be answering to the world’s agenda at almost every point? Is it fear of ridicule? Or is truly the direction that following Jesus takes you in (as they would claim)? As a reformed evangelical, I do believe that the church must always be reforming, but that is to be more faithful to the truth as revealed in Scripture rather than to appease the critics in a secular society. On the other hand, I do agree with the emergents that too often the evangelical church has behaved in a way that makes the gospel seem unattractive because we have come across as hypocritical, judgemental and self-serving. However, we must accept that followers Jesus will not always be well-loved by an unbelieving world (see 1 Pet 3:16; 1 Jn 3:13).

Today, I will briefly reflect on another recurring theme in emerging circles – it is that of being “ancient / future”. That is to say we look to the church’s past to guide us for its future. Now it could be argued that most evangelicals do this to some extent or the other, often looking back to a “golden age” of the church for inspiration. So reformed Christians might look back to the time of the Reformers, or the Puritans, Pentecostals look back to Asuza street, and Restorationists have sought to follow the example of the earliest church in the book of Acts.

But emergents have turned the focus to parts of church history less familiar to many evangelicals. So for example, the prayers of Celtic Christians, the liturgies of eastern orthodoxy and the meditations of Christian mystics would be the sort of source material used for an emerging service. The creeds of the early church fathers are also considered very important, and the use of “icons” is becoming more prevalent. They are more likely to be in tune with the “Christian calendar”, observing its seasons and days and following its pattern of Scripture readings in their meetings. The liturgy rejected as dead ritual by many evangelical churches is being reintroduced, albeit often with a modern twist.

Why this look to the past? The stereotypical evangelical response is that we don’t need to look to church history except to learn from its mistakes – it is the Bible that sets our pattern. But in these ancient writings the emerging Christian finds the depth of spirituality that they feel is lacking in the superficiality of what they have found in evangelicalism. They are looking for “deep church” that helps them in their “spiritual formation”. Spiritual formation is essentially the fancy new name encompassing a Christian’s discipleship, sanctification and private devotional life. Emerging churches recognise it as so important that they are increasingly appointing “spiritual directors” to help church members in their walk with God. Some emerging churches are going so far as to experiment with new monastic communities, with houses where Christians can devote themselves to prayer and serving the poor.

If my experience of church is anything to go by, I would say that the influence of previous generations does seem to be weakening in many evangelical churches. The old hymns are no longer sung, and the only authors being read are those who top the Wesley Owen best-seller list. It is this vacuum of historical context that the emerging appreciation of ancient Christianity is seeking to fill. There are of course many in evangelical churches (often Anglican or reformed ones) that are still very much in touch with their history, but for those who are feeling a sense of disconnect, this emerging emphasis comes as a welcome relief. They find that they draw fresh inspiration for their personal prayer and devotional lives from sources that had previously seemed irrelevant and archaic.

Personally I do not feel that this desire to look back to our roots is a threat. Of course, we need to exercise discernment in what material we make use of (and arguably such “discernment” is not a priority for emerging churches, as they seek to embrace tradition from a wide range of streams). But I think that many evangelical churches could greatly enrich their worship times by including more Scripture, more read prayers, more liturgical elements even (not too much though!), rather than simply running through the current top of the Christian pops worship songs with the odd verse and brief prayer thrown in. There is also I believe a desparate need to help people in their personal discipleship (i.e. spiritual formation), rather than simply providing “leadership training”, “finding and using your gift” training or even “theological training” (not that I am opposed to such things).

Here’s another installment in my attempts to understand and explain what the whole emerging thing is all about in a way that my evangelical friends can understand. It seems almost every week I meet another person who has come across it and isn’t quite sure what to make of it. I am surprised so far that I haven’t been attacked in my comments for misrepresenting the movement. Presumably it is because noone is reading this, rather than because I am doing a good job of it! Anyway, things are going to get a bit more controversial in the next few posts!

Today I want to think about the emerging approach to Scripture. A typical evangelical would affirm that the Bible is inspired, inerrant, and infallible. That is to say that God inspired the very words, they contains no errors (no false statements), and will not fail you if you believe and obey it. Most evangelicals will also go on to affirm that the Bible is sufficient and perspicuous. “Sufficient” meaning that there is no extra revelation we need to know God, to learn the way of salvation, or to learn how we are to live. Perspicious is a complicated way of saying that the message that God intends to communicate to us in the Bible is plain for all to see. So even though there are some hard to understand bits, the important message of salvation through Jesus Christ is not obscure. The Chicago statement on Biblical Innerancy spells out a robust evangelical position on the Bible in detail.

So what do the emerging church people say? Well, they don’t like the term “inerrancy”, preferring to talk about the “authority” of the Bible. They accuse evangelicals of approaching the Bible as though it were a scientific textbook full of facts to be memorised and recited, or an instruction manual with detailed step by step instructions to follow exactly. Rather, they point out that much of the Bible is narrative, and then talk about how that narrative speaks to us and shapes us. It is hard to explain, as unlike the Chicago statement with its affirmations and denials, emergents explain their view of the Bible in more nebulous fashion. For example, emerging church favourite Walter Brueggemann has said…

The Bible is essentially an open, artistic, imaginative narrative of God’s staggering care for the world, a narrative that will feed and nurture into obedience that builds community precisely by respect for the liberty of the Christian man or woman.

What are the practical implications of the emerging approach to Scripture when contrasted with the way reformed evangelicals view it?

• They are not into “expository preaching”. They do not attempt to extract a list of theological truths and commands to be obeyed from a passage. Rather they prefer to read a story, and see what original thoughts and innovative ideas it inspires. (check out Bruegemmann speaking at an Emerging Church conference for a bit more on this – look out for the word “imagination”)
• They are not into “systematic theology”. Evangelicals like to put all the Bible together into one coherent framework, based on a belief in the unity of Scripture. Emergents view this with suspicion. Each author must be allowed to speak for himself. So we have Paul’s view of God, which is different from Peter’s and different from John’s etc (even more so in the Old Testament).
• They are not into “inerrancy”. They view not just fundamentalists but evangelicals in general as overly literal in their approach to Scripture. They are happy to characterise various stories as “myths” or “legends”. Many emergent blogs show open contempt for anyone who holds to young earth creationism. Some would argue that anyone who asks “did it really happen?” of an Old Testament story or of a New Testament miracle account is “missing the point”.

Without a doubt, the emerging position is a challenge to the evangelical one. To be brutally honest, I feel that many of the emerging speakers I have read and heard are struggling with real doubts about the truth of the Bible, and this is their way of handling it. However, once started on the slippery slope of diminishing confidence in the Bible, it is not long before it loses its authority altogether, and the journey terminates in agnosticism or pluralism (n.b. for many emergents there is still a commitment to ancient Christian creedal statements, which at present puts some boundaries in place – more on this perhaps in a future post). I would argue that as evangelicals we do not need to repent of our high view of the Bible or our faith in it. However, we do need to be constantly re-evaluating our hermeneutics, and not automatically assuming that our current interpretation of a given passage is necessarily the correct one. I’ve posted some various thoughts here before on the woefully simplistic approach to interpreting Scripture often found in evangelical preaching.