Ralph raised his hand to ask a question.
We were in the midst of a discussion of theological grids. We had covered Catholic theology and were discussing "main line liberal" theology and then modern neo-orthodoxy. As Ed explained it, the neo-orthodox grid was largely based on subjective experience. It had a distinctively existential edge to it, even though Karl Barth had some notable thoughts on the kingdom of God. It was in the context of this discussion that Ralph had a question.
"Where does the emerging church fit into these categories?"
I perked up and leaned forward in my chair.
Ed grabbed a marker and headed to the white board. Being from Seattle, the home of megachurch Mars Hill, Ed had some familiarity with the emerging church movement.
He began to write down their distinctives.
A committment to historic Christianity and the ancients.
Authenticity.
"Missional", I yelled out. He nodded in agreement and wrote it down.
"No sacred secular dichotomy" I added. He once again agreed and wrote it down.
Then he drew a vertical line dividing the white board into a left hemisphere and a right hemisphere.
"Here is the tension", he added.
He wrote the words "committment to objective propositional truth" on the right side ... and then drew a line through it to strike it out.
Pointing to left and right side of the board, he said "how do you sustain these (pointing to the left side) with this (pointing to the right side)?"
This was not a bash session on the emerging church. Far from it. We praised the exciting and positive aspects of this missional movement towards postmoderns. Personally, my days of bashing the emerging church are behind me. I want the PCA to learn from the emerging church in terms of being hospitable and generous people who welcome the stranger and think missionally about culture.
But Ed has a point. Without a foundation rooted in truth, how does something last? Here today, gone tomorrow. A movement is only as strong as its second generation.
For more reading on the emerging church :
Five Streams Of The Emerging Church, by Scot Mcknight
A rebuttal to the Five Streams article, by Gordon Lewis
(HT: The Christian Mind)
Your friend was terribly mistaken in crossing out "commitment to objective truth" on the "emergent" side of the board -- or at least, he was not working with proper definitions of terms. The Gordon Lewis article you linked from Groothuis' blog does the same thing. (Groothuis, BTW, is one of those folks who gets my blood boiling -- he just doesn't get it, and unfortunately he has a publishing platform for his narrow views and obvious mistakes).
The vast majority of emergent thinkers (serious folks like McKnight) agree that we don't construct reality. There is a reality outside of human language and culture, which we must take as given. Ultimately, that reality is God, the alpha and omega who transcends creation. Thus, in an ontological sense, there is "absolute" truth. Let me call this Truth.
Where most emergent folks differ from the Groothuis crowd is in the extent to which human beings can know the Truth and then express it in human language. Most emergent folks recognize that the human mind and human language are limited. We are not God. God alone knows everything completely. Anything a human being says is necessarily incomplete and bounded by that person's language, time, culture, and noetic capabilities. Even scripture, though completely truthful, represents an accomodation to human limitations. Scripture often uses human concepts, analogical language, stories, etc. to convey something that is really ineffable: what is God like?
Now, I think most folks who pound the drum about "absolute / objective truth" would agree with what I've said about the limitations of human knowledge and human propositional statements. Certainly anyone with a Reformed bent must recognize that human noetic capabilities are at least affected in some way by the fall. The question, then, seems to be not the fact that our epistemology must in some respects be "chastened," but the extent to which this must be so.
For many emergent folks, the adjective "absolute" or "objective" in relation to "truth" has become a power slogan to be used by folks who want to impose their view of everything on everyone else. It means not "there is a reality outside of us that everyone, everywhere must take as a given," but "what I am saying is completely right; it lacks any linguistic, cultural or other context; and you must never question it." Perhaps such folks, of which I am one, would say that there is absolute Truth, but no human person speaks Truth absolutely or absolutely objectively. This is manifestly not the same thing as crossing any commitment to Truth off of the list.
Posted by: dopderbeck | February 12, 2007 at 13:59
First Generation: Fire
Second Generation: Smoldering Reinterpretation or outright Rejection.
Third Generation: Fire
Repeat.
You know the pattern from the "First Great Awakening" and "Second Great Awakening." Three generations apart...hmmmm. Check that with the Reformation and Puritans or Moravians...Hmmmm...
Posted by: Anna | February 12, 2007 at 14:46
Ooh, I would love to see the grids you all came up with, as a starting point for a project of my own.
Do you have any of the info there?
Thank you,
Anne / WF
Posted by: Anne | February 12, 2007 at 18:12
Well said, David.
Anne,
Let me see ... we had ...
Catholic
Liberal/Mainline
Evangelical Fundamentalism/Broad Evangelicalism
Charismatic/Penecostal
Dispensational
We were contrasting these with Reformed Theology as a grid...
Posted by: Mr. Dawntreader | February 12, 2007 at 18:56
Anne -- interesting heuristic. So where do you see emergent folks today? In the "fire" side or the "smoldering reinterpretation or outright rejection" side?
I think most emergent folks see themselves on the "fire" side. But actually, I think they would modify your heuristic a bit. It might look more like this:
First generation: fire
Second generation: scholastic intellectualization
Third generation: reformation, renewal
Fourth generation: integration; establishment of a new paradigmatic sub-culture; partial reasimmilation into broader cultural norms
You might apply a heuristic like this to the "Jesus people" movement of the 60's. The evangelical movement of the 50's responded passionately to the move towards liberal theology in the mainline churches. The evangelical movement, however, was getting stuck in the cultural paradigms of Eisenhower's America -- including some really ugly things, like racism, and some neutral things, like worship styles. The Jesus People movement introduced a fresh emphasis on relational faith, different worship styles, and justice issues.
Evangelicalism assimilated these themes, IMHO with many positive results. The fact that I can attend a suburban evangelical church, sing my heart out in my venacular musical languge (rock and pop), raise my hands and embrace brothers and sisters of other races, is a beautiful thing.
But at the same time, evangelicalism seems to be getting tired. The sub-culture is well established and often trite. Sometimes the missional emphasis seems to get lost in a defensive posture.
I see many emergent folks, then, as either a "first" and/or "third" generation in the paradigm above. I know from speaking directly with leaders in the emerging church movement that they see themselves as renewers and reformers, certainly not as smoldering reinterpreters or rejecters. That doesn't mean they are getting everything right, of course.
Anyway, heuristics like this are always too simple. In any culture there are always multiple overlapping, colliding, conflicting, streams. In the Church in particular, there is always somewhere the refining and reforming influence of the Holy Spirit. One of the interesting things about emergent these days is a fresh emphasis on what God is doing in the Church in the global South. Some are starting to refer to themselves as post-colonial rather than post-modern. In Africa, Asia and Latin America, there are many segments of the Church that are probably in the "fire" mode. Many emergent folks these days see the global South Church as a focus of renewal that will increasingly missionaly impact us here in the North.
Posted by: dopderbeck | February 13, 2007 at 09:38
David,
I'll venture in where angels fear to tread ... and offer a response to your response ;-)
I share your disdain for bullies who use truth as a weapon to beat down people with ... and essentially say I am right and you are wrong and stop disagreeing with me. That is not my gig ... nor is it Ed's gig (the guy who was drawing on the white board).
I am one who is passionate about truth. My grid is reformed. As you point out, my grid is that our noetic ability was most definitely affected by the fall -- in layman's terms, noetic means our ability to know things.
So ... I agree with your point about being humble about truth, but I think it needs to be a priority to pray and rely on the Holy Spirit to gain as much truth about his word as we can. Indeed, a major part of following Christ is to gain truth from God's word and conform our lives to it.
I think the Holy Spirit enables us to grasp more and more truth. That should make us humble ... not proud ... since we can't take the credit.
I am committed to the concept that there is truth ... that the scripture is my authority and the fullest expression of truth about the things it speaks about (outside of Christ himself) ... and that everything we do and say and think ought to align with scripture. I trust the Holy Spirit to grasp truth. I recognize that my filter (i.e. my grid) is affected by sin, and therefore I need to pray and rely upon the Holy Spirit as I study the scripture and live in light of the truth therein.
That is the kind of committment to truth that I am talking about. Part of that truth, btw, is a call to walk humbly ... for God opposes the proud.
That is how I reconcile the reformed part with a passion for truth.
Make sense?
Posted by: Mr. Dawntreader | February 13, 2007 at 12:51
Mea culpa!
I forgot an important qualifier in my initial post.
On the right side of the white board were the words ... "committment to objective propositional truth" . I originally posted "committment to objective truth" ... my bad.
That one qualifier could change the whole discussion we are having.
Posted by: Mr. Dawntreader | February 14, 2007 at 09:21